Sunday

'We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

But given the state of the world, is it wise?' 

            -Iris Murdoch

          

Hello everyone!

Sorry it has been so long.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have exams all this month (May, I know we're not there yet but yano). My German exam happened on Friday and I have to say I didn't love it. It was ridiculously more difficult than last years exam, to be expected, I know, but I swear half the things we were asked, we never learnt. For example, we were asked to translate 'I have spent 26 years in prison. People protested about my imprisonment' in to German. I have never learnt the words 'prison' and 'imprisonment'! Can anyone guess who the questions were referring to though? I'll put the answer in a P.s in my next post. Hopefully I'll remember!

So anyway, I hope I did enough to pass that test, if not i'll be resitting in August for a further £90 -_-

On to other news, I went shopping on Saturday and bought a few things for my holiday. I should have been revising but I just didn't. Tom and I went to Frankie and Benny's and I had steak for the first time! With chips. But in all my excitement and hunger I forgot to take a pic :(

Then, I ended up going out last night (Saturday night) to 42s in Manchester. Has anyone ever been there? it's so good. I vowed before I went out though that I wouldn't drink too much as I needed to revise today and I was quite good I only had 4 vodka lemonades and a tropical VS. At that point I really just wanted a Tango but how much of a knob would I have looked hahaha. It was a pretty good night, didn't get in till gone 4am though so my sleep took a huge hit!

Plus, as I wasn't absolutely razmatazzed, I had the weirdest experience of being the only sober person in a club full of drunk people. I saw some sights i'll tell you now. haha.

Tom und ich. It's blurry I know the club was smokey :( And I look like I'm wearing a nightie haha! I only had 20 minutes to get ready! Found out I was going out at half 9 and got picked up before 10! Didn't do too bad really.

Today (Sunday) I have been revising all day and I have another 2 days ahead of me of revision. Boo. My exams on Wednesday morning and it's on 'Postwar to the Present' literature. 

The books i'm mostly focusing on are:

'The Unicorn' by Iris Murdoch 

The Gathering' by Anne Enright

These two are going to be compared so hopefully theres a good question I can apply them to. i.e. gothic lit! Pleaseeee.

Also, I am focusing on,

'The Adoption Papers' by Jackie Kay

This is the book I'm planning on doing the single book question on. Not revising this book till Tuesday though so this may change.

Anyway, thanks for reading this post :) Have any of you got upcoming exams? I hate them! :(

Monday

Today has been consumed by revision. As if Mondays aren't bad enough without trying to get your head around German past participles! Due to my lack of attendance to my classes this year I've only made the task more difficult for myself. It's such a chore. But it has to be done, my exam is on Friday then I have an English exam next Wednesday and then I have about a ten day break until my next one. That will be greatly needed!

I've read about a new beauty box subscription service which is launching soon and I'm debating whether to sign up. I've never subscribed to a service like this before but you can actually choose your box each month with this one so that's quite appealing to me. I think they're called Beauteco. You can sign up here.

An update on the Model's Own Ibiza Mix nail varnish. It's starting to chip at the end of my nails, I've had it on for a good 4 days now so it's done quite well for such a thick nail varnish and I haven't been inclined to pick it off either! Winner winner. Definitely excelled my expectations. 

My biggest and most exciting news is that I have booked a holidayyy!! Tom and I are going away on the 7th of June (only a month away!) for a week to Corfu, Greece. We're going to just kick a chill for a week, not to go clubbing night after night. Been there, done that in Magaluf when I was 18. Don't think I'd do it again any time soon!

I am so looking forward to it. I haven't been abroad for 2 years and on that holiday I hardly saw any sun due to the amount of drinking we did at night!

So, this means there should be some upcoming haul posts and holiday blogs. May actually venture out to vlog whilst we're away. Not too sure yet though. I just can't contain my excitement! It gives me something to work towards while I'm revising for all my exams and it's not even too far away. Lovely.

Also, I'm on my 6th day of the 30 Day Shred I think and I have been doing it every day despite my hatred for it on the first day haha. My body has been aching for a few days, especially in my arms and legs so it must be doing something. I'm going to continue to do the shred and I'll keep you posted on my experience. Working towards a nice toned tummy for my jollies!

Anyway, thanks for reading this jumbled post! hope it was slightly interesting. I have a busy 10 days a head of me with two exams being so close together so my posts may be few and far between, sorry about that!

P.s. Hector says 'Helloooo'.

Models Own Ibiza Mix Nail Varnish Review!

Hi everyone!

I recently picked up the Models Own Hed Kandi nail varnish in Ibiza Mix. It was £5 from Boots and I'll link it below. 

I was so attracted to all the multi-coloured glitter in it that I had to buy it even though I didn't think lots of glitter would come out on the brush.

I actually planned to put on one coat of nail varnish, dip in it glitter then add another coat but that didn't work because the glitter pieces were too big and it looked a little silly.

I was determined to make this nail varnish work though because it's so pretty, so I just kept adding more layers.

Plain nail, One coat, Two coats.

After three coats my nails are pretty much smothered in glitter.

My advise when applying this is to be patient. Don't brush away the glitter from the brush as you take it out of the pot and just try to evenly distribute it around the nail.

Warning! This will take quite a long time to dry so do all housework etc. before and give it plenty of time to set.

So this is the result I've ended up with. Bear in mind on this picture it hasn't dried:

This is how they look after they dried:

The nail varnish is very pretty and the brush is nice and thick to apply it with. You get a lot of product in the bottle, 14ml, so if it's well looked after it will last a long time.

With regards to staying power I don't think this nail varnish will last very long. I think it will chip easily and as it's so think on the nail, if you apply a lot like me, you'll probably be more inclined to pick it off.

Overall, I think this nail varnish looks beautiful on the nails, it's very very glittery with a few coats also, I think it would make a very nice top coat if you have a coloured nail varnish underneath which maybe is it's intended purpose?

Would I buy more in this range? Maybe yes, if it lasts longer than I think it will so it's worth sitting there painting them over and over again and waiting for them to dry, then I might do. If it starts to chip tomorrow, probably not. I'll let you know how it goes!

Thanks for reading! 

Hope this was helpful.

Links!

Despite all my best efforts, for some reason I can't find the nail varnish on Boots or Superdrug. However, I have found it on the Models Own website, you can see that here.

If you went in to a Boots or Superdrug I'm sure you'd be able to find it though :)

My cheese scone disaster.

Hey everyone!

You know when it's coming up to exam season and you have like 4 exams to revise for but there are so many, much more important things to do your life instead, like bake scones? 

I'm there right now. Procrastination. 

Anyway I was browsing MissBudgetBeauty's blog, not because I'm a stalker or anything, I just decided that seeing as though I'd only just discovered I could subscribe to the blog even though it's not on Blogger I definitely had to read every single post to familiarise myself with it ......... procrastination at it's finest!

Anyway, I came across a food post for making cheese scones and I love cheese and I love scones so my brain was like 'challenge accepted'. 

I'll link the post below so you can attempt this yourself and hopefully yours will turn out better than mine!

For a kick off, I could NOT get the mixture to a doughy consistency, it was refusing, it was just like a cake mixture and my arm was falling off with all the mixing so I kept adding more self raising flour to try and make it doughy. You can see the disaster in the picture below: 

After adding approx half a bag of flour I managed to get it kiiiind of doughy enough to actually roll it out.

I cut out circles with a cup because I don't have a pastry cutter affair. This worked smashingly I might add. However, I think I rolled the dough far too thickly to allow them to rise because I basically ended up with cheese-ish biscuits:

If you want my honest opinion they were not nice which was disappointing because as they were cooking they smelt delicious. They weren't horrible in taste it was just that they tasted of nothing! And I used all the right measurements that were written in the post. I don't know what happened. Maybe the vast amounts of flour just took away the taste. 

The only way they were edible was to coat them in butter and Philadelphia cheese which defeats the object slightly doesn't it?

Then, as I was walking through the cake and pastry section in ASDA yesterday I saw a packet of cheesy scones looking at me. It was as if they were mocking me. Never seen them before yet there they were. 

ANYWAY! I thought I'd just share with you my baking disaster. I am going to try this again with much much more cheese and maybe some bicarbonate of soda or something to make them rise.

Have you attempted this recipe? Or have you had any baking disasters recently?

Thanks for reading!

  

Links!

Cheesy scone recipe post!

P.s. Just thought I'd tell you a comment Tom came out with yesterday that cracked me up, 'I think one day you should put every eyeshadow colour you have on your eyes at once' ... is he trolling? hahah:D

30 Day Shred - My First Experience.

Hi everyone!

I don't think I'm ever going to recover from this workout. 

Okay a little dramatic there but seriously, I am hurting! I did the full workout (level 1) without any breaks and it was painful.

Obviously the work out takes 30 minutes but it took me another 30 minutes to stop feeling sick afterwards! (Tmi?) haha. It is a very full-on work out especially for those like me whose work out was genuinely walking up the stairs to my uni classroom rather than taking the lift.

After I finished my brain was saying 'don't ever do that again!' However now I've recovered (kind of, legs and arms are still like jelly) I think I might try it again. It can only get easier? I hope.

My advise would be to go easy on yourself for the first few days. I think my mistake was trying to do just as much as they were and it's so difficult, especially if you're like me and you've never done a real work out before. Don't jump in at the deep end. Also, have a glass of water at hand, I found that after 10 minutes I was very dehydrated. 

Hopefully if I try again tomorrow I won't feel as horrible afterwards :|

Have you tried the 30 day shred? How did it go for you?

Thanks for reading!

Links!

I used this YouTube video!

Good Luck :)

120 Eyeshadow palette review.

Hey everyone!

If you read my 120 Eyeshadow unboxing post, you'll know that I had a few issues with some shadows being broken when I received it and I said I'd let you all know how I went on with getting a replacement etc. After contacting the seller, I was sent a replacement palette free of charge which I received today.

I'm so grateful that I was sent a replacement as I really didn't think that was going to happen. However despite the additional packaging, some shadows were still broken. More infact than in the previous one.

I'm not going to make a big deal about it, I did email the seller again informing her that some were broken but I said that it doesn't matter as between the two palettes I now have plenty colours :)

So here are some pictures of the damage in the new palette:

The New Palette:

As you can see, there are more broken shades in the new palette than in the first one. Unfortunately the same shade of blue is broken however the yellow and green are okay in this palette.

The First Palette I received:

Overall, the colour pay off is pretty good for such a cheap palette. Generally, if the colour looks bright in the pan, it will be bright when you swatch it. Some of the paler shades don't show up as well but you can definitely still see them and work with them.

Here are a few examples of the colour pay off:

Even though both of the palettes didn't come in perfect condition, I would still recommend them as the colours are very pigmented and you get such a vast amount of shades to work with. Having said that, if you look carefully I do think some of the colours are duplicated. But, really, you can't complain for £6.49. You'd probably spend that on a quad or trio in the drugstore.

Additionally, the seller I used (there really are many, many other to chose from) expressed very good communication and generosity for sending out a new palette as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had this problem. 

Thanks for reading and I hope this has been some help to anyone considering buying one of these palettes!

Links!

120 eyeshadow palette.

Jewellery clear out and organisation!

Hello everyone!

I've been looking at my jewellery stand for sometime now thinking 'woah you really need sorting out'.

Today was the day!

It was really messy and I just used to wear whatever was on top so that I didn't have to risk it falling over. One time I came in after a night out reaaaaly drunk and knocked it all over. Not a great thing to have to organise when you're hungover the next day.

I've thrown away quite a few necklaces and things because I just never wear them and the metal's starting to go a funny colour. Why keep them?

Anyway, here are a few pictures I've taken:

Before taking all the jewellery off and the pretty mannequin! 

Mess.

After.

It looks just as messy on this picture! It is a lot more organised and stable though, not in fear it's going to fall over at any time. I decided to hang some earrings on some drawing pin things I have which just makes it that little bit less cluttered. 

I have tonnes more jewellery but some of them are more valuable as opposed to this bunch of costume jewellery. The good stuff chills in boxes. I think the mannequin looks a lot better now though. I doubt it will remain like this for very long though.

I've had my eye on another mannequin stand in Debenhams which I think I might buy when I have some spare cash and I will do another, better organisation thing!

Hope you enjoyed reading this!

OOTD - 13/04/13

Hey everyone!

My first ever outfit of the day!

I'm of out tonight with some friends as one of them is retuning to their university tomorrow for the final term.

I'm wearing a jumper from Missguided.co.uk , my trousers are from Primark and my shoes are the fig coloured authentic vans!

Everyday Makeup Routine!

Hello everyone!

I see a lot of videos on YouTube of people talking about their daily makeup routines and products they wear everyday so I thought I'd like to share my everyday makeup too.

My daily makeup routine is pretty basic to be honest, I stick to it, it works, I've got it down to a T and it only takes me about 10 minutes to whip on! I rarely try anything new which is a bit boring I know. But why try to fix something that isn't broken?

Things I absolutely never ever do, mostly out of pure laziness is wear any kind of primers / moisturisers, curl my eyelashes and wear any kind of setting powder. I just don't have time or patience for these things! Kind of the same problem I have with painting my nails.

The first thing I do is washhh ma face. Then I slap my foundation on rub it in and put a matt powder on top. Then I fill in my eyebrows, put on some liquid eyeliner, mascara and blush. Lastly I put on lipstick, recently I've been choosing reallyy bright and vibrant red and pink lipsticks just jazz up my face a bit. Even ventured to wear purple the other day! Oo getting crazy.

On my face, I use MaxFactor's Weightless Foundation in Light Ivory (40), Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in Fair, Rimmel Stay Matte Powder in Transparent (001), to apply the powder I use a large powder brush from Avon. I have no idea how this came to be in my possession and I doubt they still make the exact same one but they will have similar ones I'm sure. I use a blush from MUA in shade 2 which I apply with a tapered brush also from Avon.

On my eyes, I use a standard eyebrow brush I think I bought mine from Boots a few years ago. Then I use an ILAH 'semi-permanent' eyebrow powder to fill in my brows. I've just realised that I stupidly didn't take the product out of the box to photograph it. It's just a standard brown shade. I use an eyebrow brush which came with the product to do this. I received the eyebrow powder and brush for Christmas off my Mum and I think she bought it off Groupon. It's supposed to be semi-permanent but it isn't, it washes off. I use L'Oreal's Superliner in black. Pretty standard really. Finally, I use MaxFactor's Xperience Volumising Mascara in black.

Finally, recently I've been loving really bright colours like reds and pinks because I think it just adds a pop of colour to my pretty standard makeup! Two of my favourites are NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in San Paulo and a TopShop lipstick in All About Me.

That it literally what I use. On a day-to-day basis I wear a grand total of 8 things on my face. Is this boring? I don't know.

Anyway, hope this has been enjoyable to read. I'm trying not to waffle on in my posts but I think I'm failing haha. Leave your comments and thoughts below, I'd love to hear from you!

MUA Nail Varnish Review!

Hey everyone!

Yesterday, I was shopping and whilst browsing the shelves of Superdrug I decided to treat myself to a few new nail varnishes.

I don't particularly enjoy painting my nails, I think it's tedious and I hate waiting for them to dry but I thought that if I had some nice new colours I might be more inclined to paint them. 

I was looking at MUA as I really wanted to buy their pressed powder highlighter however they only had one left and it had been opened so I didn't get one. I was tres disappointed. 

But, I did pick up a few of their nail varnishes!

I chose Pistachio Ice Cream, Lush Lilac and Bright Coral.

I have just painted my nails with Pistachio Ice Cream and I absolutely love the colour. It's a mint green colour and with a few coats it dries very opaque and smoothly. 10/10 for £1. What else can you ask for, for a pound?

I think they have a good range of colours, I hope they bring out more though and I think the coral colour will look lovely on toes during the summer. I think maybe they're aiming to be a very cheaper alternative to the Essie nail varnishes with the likeness of packaging etc. The MUA version is still very good quality!

What do you think of MUA nail varnishes? 

Thanks for reading!

P.s. If you read my 120 Palette Review yesterday, I received an email this morning telling me a replacement palette has been sent! Yay! 

120 Eyeshadow Palette Unboxing!

Hi everyone!

As I mentioned in my Urban Decay Ammo 2 post, I said that I was interested in dabbling with some colourful eyeshadow this Spring / Summer. I have been using the shades in the Ammo pallet and have been really enjoying them so I decided it was time to get some more variety in my life!

As I know that colourful eyeshadows are not something I will get loads of use out of I was kind of on a little bargain hunt for some nice eyeshadows. Ebay. I've been eyeing up these 120, 88 etc. eyeshadow pallets for some time as it seems that every woman and her dog has one. Therefore, I ordered one for myself after watching a few reviews they seemed to come with a vast variety of colours at an excellent price. I paid £6.49 for my 120 colour palette with free shipping. (Links will be below).

The shipping was very fast, I ordered it on Friday and received it on Wednesday. Pretty nifty for a free shipping service in my opinion. 

The palette came packaged really well with bubble wrap and everything your might expect. 

However.

Despite the good packaging, when I opened the palette I noticed that three of the eyeshadows had shattered during the transit process. This disappointed me greatly. I was so excited to receive the item and some of them are completely not useable.

On the positive side, two of the eyeshadows that were affected I probably wouldn't ever have used anyway. One was an extremely bright blue which, as my eyes are blue, I probably wouldn't have used anyway. Additionally, there was a yellow colour that was damaged which isn't really a colour I'd use either. The only one I would have used is a dark olive green which makes me sad because green's my favourite colour. Having said that, there are plenty of other colours to choose from.

I haven't opened the palette yet, it comes with a protective film around the colours, as I have emailed the seller and she asked me to send her pictures of the damage. I'm currently waiting for a reply. If she offers to send another one that's cool but if she asks me to return this one to get a new one I'll probably just leave it because considering the price I paid for it it's not worth the postage sending it back. 

Considering this, I would recommend the palette up to now. I haven't tried any of the colours because as I said before the film is still on it. Despite the three broken shadows, I still have 117 to work with and where else can you find 117 shadows for £6.49? 

I intend to write another post soon letting you know what came of the broken shadows. If I'm honest, I don't think it's damaged enough to receive a free replacement and I think i'll just have to deal with it but I will let you know and talk about the colour pay off etc on my next post.

Hope this is useful for anyone who is thinking of buying eyeshadow off Ebay. I think there's always a risk of receiving damaged products when you're ordering things online. It can't really be prevented can it? 

Anyway, Thanks for reading!

Links

120 Colour Eyeshadow Palette

'Sleep Time' app review and The Dream Tag!

Hello everyone!

I have another tag post for your today, it's called the 'Dream Tag'.

This post was actually provoked by a really interesting iPhone App I've been using recently called 'Sleep Time'. You can download it for free from the App store and, basically, it is an alarm clock which aims to wake you up during your lightest sleep so that you wakeup happier than when your normal alarm clock wakes you up.

You put it under your pillow at night and it analyses your sleep patterns by how much deep/REM sleep and light sleep you get and how long you're awake for during the night. I believe that this is done by it monitoring your movements during the night. This is the main reason I downloaded the app, I was interested in my sleeping pattern and I've found out that I don't get very much deep sleep.

I definitely recommend this app if you're interested in seeing how much quality sleep you're getting or if you'd just like to be woken up by an alarm clock that sensors when you're most awake. It's very interesting.

As you can see, I don't really get that much deep sleep.

The Dream Tag

So, I found this tag online and thought it was pretty cool and would fit in well with this post, I hope you enjoy reading it.

1. Do you dream?
Yes, I dream pretty much every night.

2. What did you dream about last night?
Last night I vividly remember dreaming about spiders. I was, weirdly, in my nana's front room and there were two clear boxes, one had two big tarantulas in it and loads of baby tarantulas and the other box just had one huge tarantula in it. Then I remember my mum emptying the one with lots of spiders out on the floor and they all just ran in every direction. It was horrendous. I frequently dream about spiders though. Usually they're crawling up the walls of my room.

This actually made me believe in the accuracy of the Sleep Time app because after the dream I woke up and couldn't sleep for a while after and the graph on the app shows that I was awake in the middle of the night for a while.

3. How many dreams do you usually remember?
Usually I only remember one dream, and most of the time I can remember it for 10 minutes when I wake up then it disappears. I wish we could record our dreams and watch them back. How cool would that be?

4. Do you have a dream journal?
Nope, I would like to keep one actually, I think a lot of good ideas come to mind through dreams but I know that if I woke up in the night I'd never start writing anything down. I'm too lazy :D

5. How often do you have nightmares?
I have nightmares quite a lot actually. Well I don't know how any nightmares people have on average, but I do have quite a few. Like last night's spider episode for example. Usually I have dreams that someone's coming to get me too. It's so weird.

6. Do you lucid dream?
Just had to Google what 'lucid' means and it says 'expressed clearly / easy to understand'.

My dreams are usually quite clear, yes. But in terms of do they reflect my life, as in are they easy to understand in terms of what happens in my life, not really. My dreams are completely random. Sometimes I'll think of something during the day and it will crop up in my dream but with relation to the story of my dreams I don't really understand them. I understand the spider ones, I hate spiders, maybe my brains trying to do that 'flooding' thing they use to cure phobias. It's not working.

7. Do you dream in colour?
As far as I'm aware, yes. I've never thought 'that was a weird black and white dream'.

8. Do you dream in 1st person?
Yes, I don't think, or I can't remember, ever seeing myself in a dream. I'm always seeing out of my own eyes.

9. Do you have reoccurring dreams?
I have certain aspects which sometimes reoccur in my dreams. I've dreamt a few times of a tunnel as in a train tunnel and every time I've seen it in my dream I always think I've seen it before. But I don't think I've ever had the exact same dream more than once.

10. Have you ever had deja vu?
Yes I have. I don't get it frequently, I probably experience it once a year, if that. It is a very weird feeling though, isn't it?

Feel free to do the tag yourself and comment with your blog so I can read it! :)