A year in the blog

Over the last few days I've been procrastinating getting back to my dissertation with endless cups of tea and blogging research, and one particular session led me to researching my own archives. So here's a few blasts from the past from yours truly. If there's anything you'd like to see appearing more often on my blog in the new year, please let me know!

Beauty

MAC melba blush

Lush Ambrosio shaving cream

Clinique dramatically different moisturiser

Bobbi Brown bronzer

Stila one step correct

Benefit gimme brow

The Body Shop camomile cleanser

L'Oreal true match foundation

Life

Outfit: Sunday rambles

Student room 3.0

The holiday post: Sorrento, Italy

Harry Potter studio tour

Happy new year my little hedgehogs!

n xx

❅❅Happy Christmas❅❅

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 

Even if you don't celebrate christmas I hope you have a fabulous day all the same!

I'll be taking a few days off from blogging to spend time with my family but I'll be back soon ♥

n xx

My favourite Christmas lipstick

Catch up here:

My favourite Christmas scent

My favourite Christmas bath bomb
My favourite Christmas wrapping

I only picked this up recently, but oh. my. I've barely had a day where I've not worn it. This is MAC ruby woo matte lipstick, and I consider it one of the best things I've ever bought. If you follow me on instagram you might have seen this photo where I declared my love. It's everything I could ever want in a lipstick; the perfect shade of red for my pale skin, matte, long lasting and it applies like a dream. I went out for dinner wearing it, and it had barely shifted after eating. It still came off with the rest of my make up fine, and since I've been using it my lips aren't any drier than their normal winter-like state. I definitely have a new favourite, I can see me wearing this non-stop for a long time now!

What's your favourite winter lipstick?

n xx

My favourite Christmas wrapping

This year, the Christmas presents I'm giving are all getting the most uniformed wrapping you've ever seen. I've always wanted to make a real effort with making presents look amazing, but this is the first year I've remembered in time. I know some people see it as a bit of a waste, but after seeing them all packed and matching under the tree, I really don't care. Pass the ribbons and bow.

This year I've bought all of my wrapping and accessories from Paperchase (my personal favourite being this sprout roll) that all have red in them, and then I've decorated them with this red ribbon and bows set. I finished things up with these sparkly red tags, and I couldn't be happier with how they all look!

Do you go all out for wrapping at christmas? 

n xx

My favourite Christmas bath bomb

In case you missed the first post, I'm doing a mini series of 'my favourite christmas...' beauty products. Enjoy part 2!

I love Lush. But when it gets to christmas, I go into overdrive slightly and try to buy the entire shops. Mostly what I buy is presents for my mum and sister, but the Christmas Penguin has to be one of my all time favourites for this time of year. You can't really go wrong with a cute little penguin. It's a very citrus-y scent, with two of the main ingredients being orange and lemon, but I think it's a very subtle citrus.It's also a bubble bar, which is my favourite kind of bath in the winter. The water turns a greeny-blue colour, and if you've never tried this bath bomb I really recommend it. I might even have to buy another one when I'm out christmas shopping next! If you can find one with a. a nose and b. an un-wonky face, it's like finding fold dust. But I think that's just an endearing quality.

What's your favourite bath bomb?! 

n xx

The Graduate Plan

Hopefully come next April, I'll be submitting my last ever essays and will be done with 17 long years of education. Do I have any idea what I want to do next? Of course not. I went to university to study English in the hope that while I was there I would discover my reason for being in a career, but that's just not happened. I'm holding onto hope for my last 6 months but just in case here's my back up plan...

1. save money like your life depends on it, aka find a job that also doesn't mean working ridiculous hours.
2. travel. Mainly to family in Australia, and looking at getting a working visa to just spend quality time with my aunt. 
3. find graduate jobs, aka graduate programmes within big firms that might lead to a job that I'm interested in long term.
4. remember that moving home does not make you a failure. The landlords might be hard to adjust to after independent life, but at least the rent isn't thousands.
5. keep on blogging. It's possibly the only thing keeping you sane.
6. if it isn't right for you, don't do it. Unless there's some magical end product you're aiming for, you only have one life. Might as well make it a happy one.

I hope this was useful for you if you're a future graduate who's struggling too!

n xx

My favourite Christmas scent

So here's the deal. I'm a big Christmas fan. I love the decorations, the films, the snow (fingers crossed) and the absolute best bit is family time. Me and my sister don't live at home anymore, so time where all of us get to be together is so important to me.

I've decided to do a mini series of posts about some of my favourite Christmas beauty things, and I'm starting with perfume. I picked up The Body Shop's glazed apple eau de toilette just because I love the whole glazed apple range (looking from how quickly it's selling out, I'm guessing the Glazed Apple is a best seller). I'm not very up on my scent descriptions, but this smells really apple-y; it's quite a sweet scent, but the base notes are so like a real life apple and stay on my skin all day. If you like fruity scents, this is definitely worth a sniff. It just smells like Christmas, but not in the standard mulled-wine gingerbread-man kind of way, which I am a big fan of.

What's your Christmas scent this year?

n xx

Life lately #14

So I went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London with my boyfriend this week, and it was absolutely amazing. My parents bought us tickets to go for his 21st birthday, and I decided to wait to book tickets to see Hogwarts in the Snow (which is around until February if you're interested). I honestly can't put into words how amazing it was to see everything and how much work went into the films. I'd show you millions of photos (I definitely took over 200), but photos really just don't do it all justice.

If you've ever considered going, just do it! It's breathtaking.

n xx

Dry hair saviors

As I mentioned in yesterdays post, dry skin is a real problem for me, but so is dry hair as soon as it becomes the season for heating. Something about radiators just brings out a passionate frizz in my hair, so here's how I deal with it...

Hair

I reviewed the Dove Oxygen moisture spray back here, and I'm still loving it. I use it 90% of the time when I get out of the shower on wet hair, and if there's days in between I also spray it onto dry hair to help with frizz (like the day after I got a bit spray happy with the sea salt spray). The other thing I love to put in my hair post-wash is this Aussie Dual Personality serum, which I now use instead of using any heat on my hair. It definitely leaves my hair feeling a lot softer, and the no-heat is doing it wonders too.

Check out yesterdays post if dry skin is a problem for you too!

What do you use on problem hair?!

n xx

Dry skin saviors

Any one else's skin and hair hating winter? Mine seems to have a mind of its own recently, and lets not mention the dry patches. These are my go to products for when things are getting a little ropey in the skin department...

Skin

I mentioned both of these in my current morning cleanse post but I really can't get enough of the Clinique dramatically different moisturiser. It leaves my skin looking so hydrated and instantly gets rid of dry patches, not to mention it sinks in to my skin like a dream. The Balance Me wonder eye cream is another old favourite, and it instantly evens out any dry patches I get under my eyes.

Tomorrows post is my hair saviors if you're interested 

What are your dry skin favourites?

Loving lately #9

Or, perhaps more aptly, what I'm going to be loving over the next few weeks. If you're a bit of a scrooge, please look away now...

December is all about marathoning Christmas films, right? My mum normally spends the whole month recording films for us to watch once we all get home, and even when we're sitting through the trashy ones (there's so many) it's one of my favourite things about Christmas. So here's some that I'd really recommend, even if you've seen them before. Yes, some are awful and tacky, but sometimes it's okay to just embrace it.

White Christmas

Elf

The Santa Clause

Arthur Christmas

Nightmare before Christmas

Santa Claus

Jingle all the Way

What's your favourite Christmas film?

n xx

Clinique take the day off makeup remover

I'm the kind of girl who 90% of the time just cannot be bothered to take my make up off, but I always do so I'm forever looking for easy ways to get everything off.

My mum actually picked this up for me, and one thing I like is that it's for 'lids, lashes and lips', which I find perfect for traveling. It's a split consistency so you have to shake it to combine it. I love the packaging, as being able to see how much product is left is a real winner. 

Although I wasn't originally a fan, I'm actually on to my second bottle now. It's a really good cleanser, although I wasn't a fan because of how oily it leaves my skin feeling, so if you're not a fan of that feeling then this isn't for you. I find it's fine as long as I follow it up with a toner, especially because of how easily and quickly it takes my make up off. Waterproof mascara? No problem for this gem.

Have you ever tried this?

n xx