Q&A Tag

So this morning I woke up, checked my comments and was delighted to see that the lovely Keighly Kerr from her blog Keighly had tagged me to do this post! If I'm honest I'm a little too excited about this since in the blogging world I feel a little bit like the new girl with no friends and this is like someone asking me to have lunch with them! Totally thinking about Mean Girls now...

Anyway after that rather random start lets start on the questions!

What is your current fashion obsession?
I kind of covered this question off in my June favourites my current fashion obsession has got to be my sunglasses from Topshop, even if since I've come home I haven't had much opportunity to wear them (damn you Northern summer!!)

What is your current makeup obsession?

Since I saw the poster for the Mac collaboration collection with Lorde I so so so want to try out a purple lip it just looks gorgeous so I guess that's what I'm obsessed with right now!

What are you wearing today?

Well (this is embarrassing) I don't know exactly what I will be wearing today because I'm not out my pjs yet, I was just so excited to write this post I had to do it straight away (but don't worry I will be all ready by the time this post goes out!)

Hair?

Well at the minute it is a dishevelled mess but I'll wash and straighten it when I'm finished writing this so it'll be all good...maybe...

Do you nap a lot?

Is it just me who thinks this is the most bizarre question??? Anyway no I do not I'm quite a heavy sleeper so if I was to try and nap I'd be there for hours and not sleep of a night time.

Why is today special?

I want to say because I got tagged to do this but that is just a whole new level of sadness so instead I will say because it is one of my friends 20th birthday (aren't I cute!)

What would you like to learn to do?

I would love to learn to actually play an instrument! In my life I've had lessons to learn; the violin, the keyboard, the guitar and I attempted to teach myself the recorder (which I think was just painful for everyone involved). Despite all this however I can't actually play anything so there you go. On a more practical note I would like to learn website design because since my last foray that I mentioned briefly in this post I've been too afraid to attempt it again in case I have a similarly nightmarish experience.

What's for tea?

Chicken and chorizo (mmmm). If you'd like to see more of what I have for tea (I mean who wouldn't) my mum writes an amazing food blog that I steal recipes off all the time so you could always go check that out! :-)

I love my mum's soba noodles!

What are you listening to right now?

Well right this second nothing because I find it difficult to concentrate and listen to music. However the music I'm listening to at the minute (and please bear in mind I have quite a varied music taste) is:

- Going to Hell by the Pretty Reckless (my favourite song is House On A Hill)

- Young the Giant's new album Mind Over Matter (my favourite song is It's About Time)

- Electra Heart by Marina And The Diamonds (just a favourite album of mine I love all the songs!)

So there you go.

What is your favourite weather?

I'm a summer baby so I love it when its warm and the sun is shining and I can crack out my summer dresses!

What was the last thing you bought?

So super excited for this but I bought the Naked 3 palette and I can't wait to use it today! Of course a review will be up on here at some point in the near future.

So pretty!

What are your essentials when traveling?

Err, this one is actually quite hard now I think about it...I would say my iPad and iPhone for definite, makeup wipes because I am even more lazy on holiday and good people because no one likes to travel on their own (sorry for the slightly cheesy end there folks).

What's your style?

I would say I just wear the stuff I think is nice and goes together so I don't know if I fit into a particular style category...I realise this does not help.

What is your most challenging goal at the minute?

I realise this isn't a very profound goal but its the truth: trying to book holidays for the summer (and yes I know how last minute it is).

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished, anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I'd love to say somewhere warm by the sea but in actuality if I could have such an amazing house I'd have it in the same town as my uni so I could live there with my flatmates and actually enjoy it a lot of the time!

Favourite vacation (holiday for us English folk) spot?

Florida! 100%. We used to go there every year when I was younger and I am desperate to go back (yes I am still a little kid).

Name the things you cannot live without...

Food, water...but seriously probably friends, family, my grumpy cat Sooty; those kinds of things.

How was your childhood?

Seriously what kind of question is this? But it was good thanks for asking.

What would you like to have in your hands right now?

Totally have to agree with Keighly's answer and say a winning lottery ticket!

What would you like to get rid of?

Sprouts.

What are you most excited for?

Going away with my friends!

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour where would you go?

Well since an hour isn't really long enough to enjoy a gorgeous part of the world I'd go visit my uni flatmates Anna and Josie because I miss them (sorry to be cheesy again guys what is wrong with me?)

What countries have you visited?

France (so, so, so many times), Holland, USA, Spain, Scotland, Croatia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Italy and Belgium.

So that's the end of the questions! I hope you liked hearing a little bit more about me 

A Tip, A Chat and A Cupcake

Well today is Wednesday otherwise known as 'hump day' (a little fact I learnt when I was younger from playing Animal Crossing) and before your minds start working it is called 'hump day' because you're halfway through the metaphorical hill that is the week and after this you're speeding towards the weekend.

I've never been a huge fan of Wednesdays personally because when I was in school I always seemed to have my worst lessons on a Wednesday and that feeling of dread waking up on a Wednesday morning knowing its non stop maths, P.E and physics till the end of the day has never really left me. However as far as Wednesdays go today hasn't been too bad! Plus I've tried out quite a few things today I'd recommend for you to try...

One thing that has made today quite nice is that last night I saw a video by Tati (aka Glam Life Guru on YouTube) who was saying in one of her Tip Tuesday videos that if you switch around the order you shampoo and condition your hair in the shower (i.e. condition your hair, wash your body, rinse out the conditioner, THEN shampoo) it leaves your hair silkier, more volumised etc. Now in my hair tutorial post I told you how my hair just doesn't do anything in particular or hold a style so when I heard this I thought I should try it out just to see (plus Tati's hair in the video looked so gorgeous I just had to!).

Me with my (largely) frizz free hair - I have been out in the
wind a bit today!

I've got to say my hair has been feeling amazingly silky smooth all day (I was wandering around combing it with my fingers all morning) and it was quite easy to style this morning which I was impressed with as my hair desperately needs the TLC of the hairdressers at the minute and so I've been getting a lot of frizz and flyaways which just won't go away no matter how much I straighten my hair! Today zilch; one going over with the straighteners and not a flyaway in sight! Admittedly I don't have any extra volume but if you have more style-able hair than mine you might just, plus I was slightly scared to shampoo my scalp too much for fear of washing out all the conditioner so that could also have been a factor.

Also today I have been baking cupcakes with my mum for her food blog (a bit of mother/daughter bonding never hurt right??) and they are delicious!! The cupcakes were chocolate and chilli and vanilla and lavender and they were both so so so nice! My mum's food blog is The Crispy Crouton and she'll be posting a recipe soon so be sure to have a look because they were gorgeous! 

Vanilla and lavender cupcake (L) and chocolate and
chilli cupcake (R)

I realise this is becoming the most random post I've written yet (well maybe not quite but still) so I just thought I'd throw another random thing that I would recommend. I was watching the music channel the other day and it was a 90's show and this song was playing and I really loved it it was just super chilled and summery feeling so I downloaded it and I've been listening to it on repeat ever since (listening to it now and singing along). The song is Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry and I just can't get enough!

Let me know if you try any of these out! 

How Much Is Too Much?

So as I said in my last post I've been home for the easter holidays this week and its been pretty hectic to say the least. But now all the running from place to place has died down a little and the "Oh my God I haven't seen you in ages! What have you been up to?"s are becoming fewer and fewer I can finally sit down and give my little blog a bit of much needed TLC.

In my very first post I told you how much I love lipstick and how it is one of my favourite makeup items. I also said how I tend to choose which lipstick to wear based upon how I'm feeling. This made packing my makeup for coming home quite difficult since I don't happen to have psychic powers (despite my childhood idolisation of 'That's So Raven') and so I don't know how I'll be feeling and therefore what lipsticks I shall be reaching for at the end of my month at home (yes I know 'bloody uni students do no work').

Therefore when I was packing lipsticks I took the same tact as I did with my clothes; if you think you might want it, take it (which is why I needed to bring two suitcases home...no packing light is not one of my strengths). However today when I was finally sorting out all of my bags out I realised I'd brought quite a lot of lipstick and when I counted I had 10! 10!

That seemed like quite a lot but then when I went through them I figured I'd probably covered all of my bases with what I had and all of them would get used. It was at this point I began to wonder how many is too many?? At what point do I stop being a girl with a lot of lipsticks and become a lipstick addict?? Will I need to go to LAA??? (Lipstick Addicts Anonymous, not as exciting as going to LA unfortunately).

It didn't help that today I went with my mum to Boots to help her choose a new lipstick and lipgloss and found out that she only ever needs the combination of the two to get by. Just two! For every occasion!

However now thinking about it more rationally I have begun to reach the conclusion that maybe everyone has their right amount of lipsticks. It's a bit like if you were to climb a mountain my mum would be there with a small rucksack and a thick coat while I would be there with all the materials to build a house and live quite comfortably for many years to come. Carrying on with this metaphor my mum may occasionally have to borrow a pick axe or a glove when some unforeseen circumstance comes along (no I don't know anything about climbing mountains how did you guess??) but generally she'll be fine.

Hopefully you stuck with me through that rather random and slightly too elaborate metaphor! Now for the good bit; the break down of what I brought with me...

- Maybelline Colour Sensational in Shocking Coral (and Neon Red), Revlon Lip Butter in Candy Apple and Rimmel Apocalips Lip Laquer in Big Bang my three favourite summery lipsticks at the minute (I mentioned them in my first post in more detail) 

- Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey and the Revlon Colourburst Matte Balm in Standout both of these feel very smooth and lovely on the lips, Honey is for when I want just a little bit of colour and Standout is for when I want a red that is not going to budge no matter how much I eat/drink

- M&S Limited Lipstick in Plum Shine I'm not sure if this was just out for Christmas or not but if it isn't you should definitely try it! Just applied it doesn't have great staying power but blotted down it becomes a lovely purpley pink with slightly blue tinged glitter which catches the light and makes a statement (sounds awful but I promise is really nice and I'm always getting complimented on it!)

- Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Hibiscus great for righting chapped lips and provides just a little colour...nuff said really

- Sleek Matte True Colour Lipstick in Mystic not the most hydrating of lipsticks but the colour is so gorgeous it makes up for it (you can see me wearing it in this post)

- Topshop Lipstick in Beguiled a dark red this is my go to night out lipstick since it goes with pretty much anything and always makes a statement!

Let's Take A Moment To Obsess About Frozen...

I know in some of my previous posts I've been harping on about how ready for summer I am but that doesn't stop me from being obsessed with Disney's wintery film Frozen. I'm not going to lie when I fist saw it advertised I wasn't impressed. I even remember saying how I thought it was gunna be another rubbishy film, with a tired script we've all seen before that was lying at the back of some cupboard somewhere that they changed slightly to have a wintery theme so they could knock it out quickly in time for Christmas.

I started getting annoyed and ranting about how cinema has become too monetised and no one thinks about the art of movies anymore. This is why great stand alone films become increasingly degraded by a series of sub-standard sequels which continue to be churned out until no body is interested in even the original anymore. However how jaded and wrong was I...

I love it. That's the first thing I thought when I saw the film (thanks to some friends of mine who insisted it was amazing). One question I do have though, having been on a cinema binge over the holidays in order to try and watch as many of the Oscar nominated films as possible (and therefore seeing the Frozen trailer 200 million times); why didn't I know it was a musical? I swear in not one advert did they show a clip of someone singing? Maybe they did and I was too busy slagging it off to notice?

Musicals are my weakness and I think everyone living in my building has heard me singing 'Let It Go' (Frozen's main song) at the top of my voice in the shower in the morning. I just loved the film too because it seemed to hark back to the Disney of my childhood with films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Also I think the snowman, Olaf, is so sweet and cute!

Frozen nails (not literally obviously)

If any of you follow me on Instagram you might have seen the drawing of Elsa that I did a couple of weeks ago (if not you can see my Instagram here). I wouldn't say Elsa is my favourite character in the film but I would say she has the best outfit! It's blue and silver and sparkly which are like all of my favourite things! So, taking my Frozen obsession to the next level I decided to do some Elsa inspired nail art...

Miss Den nail varnish in Blue Star

I used about 3 coats of my Miss Den nail varnish in Blue Star as the base because I thought it was the colour that matched Elsa's dress the most.

Essie nail varnish in Hors D'Oeuvres

Then I used my Essie nail varnish in Hors D'Oeuvres (with not much on the brush because it is quite a thick glitter) and randomly dragged the brush down my nail to create icicle effects with the glitter. You could use a blue glitter if you wanted (which I nearly did) to make it more like Elsa's dress. Or, of course, you could use different colours entirely...if you aren't as obsessed with Frozen as me....

When I'm Old(er) I Shall Wear Purple

When I was in first school there was a big thing about reading poems to us in assemblies. As a result there are loads of very random poems I seem to be able to quote due to the fact that there was a very limited store of poetry and about every moth each poem was re-read to us on rotation. The three I can remember most vividly were a nonsensical poem about the oojamaflip, a (frankly disturbing) poem which used the lifecycle of the blackberry plant as some weird metaphor for death (that one was particularly popular around harvest time) and 'When I'm Old I Shall Wear Purple' by Jenny Joseph. The last was probably my favourite. It's about a woman who decides that when she's old she can get away with anything and she goes around in bright purple clothes doing all the things we secretly want to and living life to the full (i.e a premonition of my own behaviour when I reach that age).

I guess the reason why I've thought of this poem when writing this post is because of:
1. The colour connection
2. That 'why not?' attitude.

Rimmel Scandeleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal
eyeliner in purple

Over the Christmas holidays I went on a mad make-up binge (which I mentioned in my previous post) and one of the things I bought was a Rimmel Scandleyes  purple eyeliner. I had just read somewhere that purple on the eyes really brings out the colour of green eyes and (although I have strange eyes which in various lights appear to be various different colours to different people) I am considered by at least half the people I meet to have green eyes. So I thought I'd mix it up and give purple liner a try. The only thing is I used it twice, got distracted by other stuff I'd bought and forgot about it...that is until this morning.

Slightly scary eyes but the eyeliner looks nice!

Don't ask me why but this morning I just felt like doing something a bit different. A bit (as one of my flatmates would say) 'snazzy'. So I was rummaging through my makeup drawers and found the purple eyeliner and decided to go for it.

Very subtly purple

The other times when I'd used this eyeliner I felt a bit strange, I don't really wear much colour on my eyes, and I felt like someone in a syfy movie where they think its a good idea to stick random bright colours just on their face to make them look 'futuristic'. If I'm honest I can't exactly remember how I used it over Christmas (I think at one point I tried it with green eyeshadow...not wise) but today I decided to do a really neutral eyeshadow look and then use the pop of purple as the main thing and I think it really worked.

My face

I paired it with my Sleek Matte True Colour Lipstick in Mystic, which is another product I bought ages ago on a whim and then quickly forgot about and I like the purple with blue/pink effect. I just got quite excited about this this morning and thought I'd share it with you...after all why not right???