Bedroom Beauty Challenge || February

Hi everyone!
Just a small post as I decided to participate in Sprinkle of Glitter's 'Bedroom Beauty Challenge'. This is the look I have created having been given the word 'love' to inspire us. Hope you enjoy it! :)

Leanne x

My Eye Look:

To achieve this look I used:

Face - Max Factor, Colour Adapt foundation
           Rimmel, Stay Matte powder
           Rimmel, Hide the Blemish Concealer (not 100% sure whether they still sell this :/)

Eyebrows - ILAH, Semi-Permenant Mineral Brows and Brush
                    Random tweezers from Superdrug

Eyes - MUA, Starry Night Eyeshadow Palette (I used the pink and the purple in the top left corner)
            L'Oreal, Super Liner (Black vinyl)
            MAC, Eye Kohl (Smolder)
            Avon, Glimmerstick Chromes Eye Liner (Ultra Violet)
            Max Factor, Xperience Volumising Mascara (Black)
            Urban Decay, Shadow Brush (from Naked Palette)

Cheeks - Accessorise, Merged Baked Blush (I think! In shade 6)
                Collection 2000 (Yes, that is how old this lipstick is.), True Moisturise Lipstick (Shade 3)

Most used iPhone apps!

Hi everyone!

Today's post is going to be on my most used and loved iPhone apps.

The apps I use are pretty much standard, I don't really go crazy with them but I find these ones useful and entertaining for everyday life :)

So, my favourite thing to do is chill on Instagram. Hardly a day goes by when I don't upload at least one photo to Instagram! I love looking back through all my photos it's such a happy app :D if you're interested in following me my username is 'leanneismyname' and ill follow you back :) I'd like to make a photo album of all my Instagram photos sometime this year.

I also love to edit photos, make them look swish and fancy :) my favourite app for this is called Picfx. You have to pay for the app but it's not very expensive and it really is worth it. It has lots of different effects and what-not to make you pictures look yummy!


























Another app I've been paying vast amounts of attention to recently is the O2 priority moments app. If you're not on O2 or in the UK this probably won't interest you at all but if you are on the O2 network you should definitely have a look if you haven't already! They have various vouchers for shops and restaurants. Frequently they have discounts on Odeon cinema tickets which is pretty cool :D not too long ago I got a £15 Debenhams voucher!































Apps which I like to use to ease my boredom haha, mostly when I'm travelling to and from uni, include YouTube, BBC iPlayer (no adverts! yay), Pinterest and recently a game called 4 pics one word has been raved about but I've completed that one now. I used to love a game called Fairway Solitaire that was soooo addictive! I also like the Blogger app to access my blog which is good for quickly uploading photos from your phone to your posts but you can't organise them, they all just chill at the bottom after all the writing.

Lastly, the Ebay app is pretty swift. If you want to list any items on Ebay it's soooo much easier to do it via the app than on a computer. It's so easily laid out and straight forward. So much better.

Anyway, hope this has been enjoyable to read and not too boring, I try to incorporate plenty of pictures to make my posts interesting... hope it works! If you're still here thanks for reading and feel free to leave your comments and recommendations for new apps!

Leanne x

York

Hi everyone!

Got a little chatty bloggy for you here :) Recently, Tom and I visited York for a kind of long weekendy, Valentines day trip (although we went Wednesday-Friday). It was really lovely, we got the train there on Wednesday morning and it was snowing really badly but it cleared up over night thankfully because Thursday was shopping day mm :D

We arrived and checked in, all that fun stuff, and we'd already seen a few things we wanted to visit so we decided to go to an apparently haunted house on Stonegate. The tour lasted about half an hour and we got to walk around the house and listen to stories about the people who lived there. It was really interesting and the house is actually behind a shop, the coolest shop ever. It's probably quite a controversial shop, selling ouija boards and books on how to perform seances etc but it was really cool. Didn't see any ghosts though haha.

The creepy shop on Stonegate

After this, we needed to kill some time before going for dinner so we went on the York wheel. Maybe this wasn't the best idea as it was snowing quite badly and going dark, it was also really windy at the top :| We still could see across the city though and it was pretty fun. We had also planned on going on 'The Original Ghost Walk' but after sliding about on the snow all day and the weather being freezing we decided it wasn't the best idea. So we had to miss that :(

York Wheel

Tom on the city wall.

Me on the city wall.

On Thursday, we visited the Jovik centre which was pretty cool. It's a ride which takes you around a reconstructed viking village. It really smelt funny though, it was like oxo cubes and the smells changed as you went around the village it was so unusual.

Then the shopping commenced! We pottered about the small touristy shops which were so cute and lovely. The street with all the little shops on really reminded me of Diagon Ally in Harry Potter. I decided I needed a bit of luxury in my life so I treated myself to a new foundation and a lipstick from Mac and Tom bought me some lovely perfumes from Soap & Glory :) Also bought a neclace from Topshop which i thought was going to be £10 but it was actually £1.50! Winner.

Later that night, as it was Valentines day, we went to Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant and Tom ordered vast amounts of food hmm. It was sooo nice. My favourites were the 'posh chips' they are the business. Also throughly enjoyed the mango sorbet and the latte was lavish!

Anyway, Friday was home time :( But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and York is such a cute little place :))

Leanne x

Student problems!

Hello everyone!

So this is just a little blog post that'll hopefully make life a LOT easier when it comes to writing essays, particularly regarding citation.

If you have an iPhone, in the App Store you can download an app called 'easybib' and, basically, it scans the barcode of the book you're writing your essay on and it'll create the citation for you! Woo! Then you can email the citation to yourself and just copy and paste it to your bibliography, pips squeak! AND it's freeee!

I wish I'd been told about this little gem before I'd written all this year's essays.


Leanne x


A quick example:

My hair care routine!

Hi everyone!

Sorry it has been so long. I started this blog with the intention if becoming an avid blogger, blogging this that and the other. In almost a year I have published a grand total of two posts. Woo. I'm not gonna lie, things just cropped up and blogging did not become a priority. I also forgot how to actually log on to Blogspot, I didn't know which email address I used or my password and I couldn't even find the Blogspot website because I kept trying to access it through my Google account. Basically it all became a bit of a shenanigan, however, I've managed to find my blog and log in successfully so let's get cracking!

What I wanted to talk about in this post is my hair care routine because although it's become the norm to me it differs from what may be considered 'normal' hair care. I would have actually prefered to create a video on this so I could physically show and talk about my hair but I'm not a YouTuber, I've never uploaded anything of me actually talking to the camera and I think it'd all be a bit weird for me. I would like to make videos but I just haven't got there yet. Anyway:

Hair background:

My straight hair, this was taken in about June 2012 so it's a lot longer now but still the same colour, cut etc.

Firstly, I do not wash my hair very often. For a long time I was washing it once a week which was fine but recently it's become more like once every 9/10 days. There are reasons for this, I'm not just a tramp walking around with greasy hair for days on end, my hair is naturally curly so you can get away with a little more grease without it being noticed unlike very very straight hair (also, the natural oils in your hair are good for it!). Secondly, I don't brush my hair everyday, when you have curly hair brushing it everyday isn't really adequate; it just goes frizzy. Therefore, my hair doesn't have the added grease from brushing it all the time.

Washing my hair:

Now, when I'm going to wash my hair I always decide what I plan to do with it after I've washed it. For example, am I going to just leave it curly, am I going to straighten it, will I have enough time to straighten it in the morning or am I just going to put it in a platt or something? For this example let's just say it's going to be curly:

• I start off by brushing my hair when it's dry (sounds painful and time consuming, sometimes it is but it works for me).
• Then, I wash it using a specific shampoo for curly hair. Usually 'Umberto Giannini' shampoo, I've found it to be very good and have used it for about four years now. You can get it at Boots and the majority of the time the range has offers on such as two for £7.50, three for £10 etc.
• Next, I don't use conditioner. I just never use it. I find that it adds to the greasy hair problem and it just makes my hair feel heavy. My hair only gets conditioned when I go to the hairdressers, my hair's little treat :D I have never noticed anything bad happen to my hair due to lack of conditioner. Only less grease. What's to complain about? 
• I leave the shampoo on for a while, kind of use it like a conditioner, leave it to soak in for a few minutes then thoroughly wash it off. Make absolutely sure it's all out. No half-hearted hair washing here, thank you. 
• After all the shampoo's out, I towel dry it (make sure i'm not walking about with my hair ringing wet). and just leave it. I do not brush it again, I do not blow dry it, I just leave it to dry. This is a lengthy process as my hair's so thick and long but in the morning it looks shiny and healthy. 

The curly hair shampoo I use

Just a glimpse into my obsession with this brand. I also LOVE their dry shampoo, it's amazing and smells gorgeous I just didn't have a bottle at hand because I've ran out :( Boo.

Straightening my hair:

There's only one thing I do differently when I plan to straighten my hair after washing it and it absolutely determines what I'm going to do with it. Once I do this, there's no going back...

• After I've towel dried my hair, I brush it again whilst it's still wet. I usually use my Tangle Teezer this time because although it takes a little more time I feel as if it leaves my hair feeling extra sleek and shiny for straightening the next day. I then platt it and sleep on it then it's ready for straightening the next day.

My Tangle Teezer (sorry it's a bit hairy, yom) and the Tresemme hair masque I use if my hair's in serious need of a pick-me-up.

I never blow dry it and straighten it. If I'm going to straighten it, I wait until it has dried naturally just to save myself time really and protect it from heat damage and things like that. I feel like this really does help, it doesn't feel as brittle and dry when it's finished. I don't know... my hair just looks happy with this regime and it's worked for a long time.

I appreciate that this won't work for everyone and some people may be horrified that I leave my hair so long between washes but if you can get your hair in to a routine of being washed only once/twice a week you will see changes in the way it looks and feels. Especially if you're putting a lot on heat on your hair too. I think with hair you have to determine what type of hair you have, long, short, curly, straight etc and work with it, don't try and make it something it isn't; a mistake I have made many times in the past. I used to be obsessed when I was in school with straightening my hair, I would not leave the house without it being perfectly straight and it took me a long time to discover it wasn't working. It was time consuming and damaging for my hair and it didn't even stay straight a little bit of damp in the air and it would frizz. It was just horrendous. 

Anyway, I know this has been a long post and I know I haven't been posting regularly but I will try to get more in to this blogging malarkey because I really do enjoy it when I actually write something. It's amazing, when I have to write 3,000 words for an essay it takes me all week but i've just written about 1,000 words in half an hour. Fun, fun, fun! 

Thanks for reading! hope this has helped at least one person :)

Leave your thoughts and questions in the comments if you'd like and I will reply if you're not mean haha.

See you next time, Leanne x

Links to things:

Umberto Giannini Shampoo

Tangle Teezer

(bought mine on Amazon because, at the time, they were A LOT cheaper than buying them from Boots)