My day in pictures

I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. My head is bunged up, as is my nose and I feel as though I am underwater. Does anyone get that with their hearing? My boyfriend coaxed me out of the little den I've made at home and we went for a coffee and a meal. I thought I wasn't hungry but I had other thoughts when I saw a cookie cake in front of me.

I usually never read magazines, but when I'm ill there's nothing I like more than to snuggle up on the sofa with a hot drink and a good book or magazine. What do you like to do when you're ill?

Cute 'n' Vintage

I visited the most gorgeous cafe the other day. You know the one, with tea served on a cup and saucer, scones arranged in a birdcage like hanging basket and candles carefully placed onto the vintage desks fashioned into coffee tables. The cafe itself was tiny, but the atmosphere was friendly and buzzing. I managed to take a few pictures, of course.

Typically I ordered a coffee but then got severe tea envy when I saw what cups the tea was served in. I spent most of my time there eyeing up the mug/cup every drink was served in so I can choose the nicest one next time. I didn't manage to get a picture of the birdcage. It was hanging right next to the  people who were working there and I was too shy to go up and get a proper picture. 

I also have some quick news as to what you can expect on my blog during the next couple of weeks. I will be reviewing the hair Elasticizer and the Illamasqua Freak perfume that I received in my November's Glossy Box (you can see the first impressions review here). I will also be posting some Christmas inspired recipes as I know a lot of you have expressed an interest in them. Expect to be using lots of cinnamon and cranberry, those are my all time 'Christmas flavours'. I also added a Formspring box to my left sidebar. Feel free to ask me any questions personal (obviously I wont answer any question, but I will try my best to answer most), and also any questions blog or blogging related. I was thinking of maybe making a video and answering the questions that way, what do you think? At the moment I have been 'testing' the box and sending questions to myself, how embarrassing haha! If you have any other questions and want a quicker or more personal response, feel free to send me an e-mail. 

Hope you're all having a nice monday. 

xo

A bit of this & that

Just a post on everything and nothing today. I've not been feeling too well so I've just been in the house getting my boyfriend to make me tea and go to the shops to get me chocolate, haha! As I've been in, I've been able to do more beauty stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise done, you know, painting my nails, taking care of my skin etc. I'm so bad as I never usually do more with my skin other than slap a bit of moisturiser on in the mornings and evenings and take my make up off before bed. I have to be in a certain mood to paint my nails too, otherwise I don't. 

Elf Mineral Infused Face Primer - £6

Do any of you get really bad skin during the winter? My skin goes slightly flakey in areas and I use this facial primer and it's one of the best I've ever used. People have compared it to a smashbox primer but it's a lot cheaper. It makes my skin smoother and a lot easier to apply foundation to. I'd definitely recommend it if you've not used it. You can find the product on the ELF website here. It's also meant to help with excess oil and enlarged pores.

I also decided to try the Gold Rush Model's Own nail polish which you can see here. It doesn't look as bad on as what I thought it would, and it's definitely appropriate for the festive season. I'll probably end up wearing Juicy Jules on Christmas day though as I'm more of a silver gal than a gold gal. 

I also received the most lovely card from the lovely Chloe from Chloe Likes To Talk yesterday. As some of you know she was the winner of my recent giveaway. The card was just to say thank you for the gifts, which was a welcome surprise. So thank you Chloe for the card, it's sitting next to me right now (and how did you know I was so fond of cupcakes?)

What do you think of the Gold Rush nail polish? Would you wear it during the festive season? 

xo

November's Glossy Box

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, no doubt you've already seen hundreds of posts on last month's Glossy Box. Most of the ones I've read have been full of disappointment. I'm going to take a more positive stance. I didn't pay for my glossy box as it was gifted to me for attending the Motel Rocks event, and I am not subscribed to Glossy Box. On the whole this box doesn't convince me to subscribe, but that's generally because if I want to spend £10 a month (plus postage and packaging) on beauty products I want to know I like them, or at least know I want to try them out, instead of being pleasantly surprised every month or disappointed because of the items I received. I feel as though if you subscribe, you accept the nature of the Glossy Box and that sometimes you will receive things you don't necessarily want to receive. I don't understand how people can expect to be pleased all the time. To me, that isn't what Glossy Box is about. 

Anyway, back to the review. Some of the items I've not used yet and some I've only used a few times. This review will mainly be on first impressions, but if I'm impressed with an item I will post about it. If you are interested in any of the products I received and want me to review them on my blog just let me know in a comment. 

L-R Philip Kingsley Elasticizer 40ml. Nail Rock Designer Nail Wraps (Full size). Dead Sea Spa Magik Cleansing Facial Wash 25ml. Illamasqua Freak Eau De Parfum 1.5ml. Arbonne FC5 Cooling Foot Creme 15ml. 

The Glossy Box came nicely wrapped in black tissue paper secured with a pink ribbon. The box itself is pale pink with a simple black logo in the middle. These are the products that I received in my box. I have to say the only product I wasn't sure of was the Arbonne FC5 cooling foot creme, mainly because I'm quite bad with caring for my feet and barely use any products on my feet. I also never use many products on my hair apart from shampoos and conditioners, so I wasn't sure how I'd get on with the Elasticizer. To use the Elasticizer you have to wet your hair and apply it in sections, cover your hair with a cap and then wait for 10-20 minutes, so you may not want to use it if you're just having a quick shower because it'll make the process more drawn out!

I did have some absolute favourites in the box though. The first was the Dead Sea Spa Magik facial wash. I have so many bottles of different facial cleansers, exfoliators and toners in my bathroom it's insane. I am already pleasantly surprised with it being included in the box because of my like for facial washes, but it's actually really great too. It leaves my face feeling clean and smooth without being too abrasive.

The second was the Illamasqua Eau De Parfum in Freak. I know a lot of people were dissatisfied with a perfume being included in the box because apparently perfume was included a few months ago or something. Personally I don't think that's something to get too annoyed at because again, it's the nature of the box to give you high end cosmetic and beauty products, which this is. I don't think people would get annoyed if Glossy Box included a different lipstick two months in a row, so what's the difference with perfume. Anyway, I'm not claiming to love this perfume because others do not, but generally because I think it smells gorgeous. It's not as unique or 'freakish' as some people would have thought it to be, but it does smell nice to me. The perfume is unisex but I feel as though it caters more towards women because of the floral scent. I couldn't imagine my boyfriend wearing it! Samples of this perfume are really difficult to get hold of because Illamasqua do not give out samples of anything (damn buying foundation and realising it's not light enough in natural light).

I feel as though I've rambled throughout this review! Generally, I'm quite happy with the box but I wouldn't be subscribing because I'm a scrooge with money and I wouldn't want to part with it for a box where I may not like the products every month. I think though, that if you've subscribed then that's the risk you take. If you want me to review any of the other products, just let me know! Thanks for listening to my rambles.

xo

Beige or Jules

I'm back from my blogging hiatus. I just didn't have much to say, and I had a post idea stuck in my head but I needed to sort of 'prepare' (well, not really) for it first and I lacked the motivation to do so. A few days ago I was in Boots looking for glittery nail polishes, and I of course went to the models own stand first because a) I like their nail polishes more than other brands and b) most beauty bloggers have been wearing the sparkly nail polish from models own and I liked it. Unfortunately the models own stand in my Boots is teeny and only had like two nail polishes to choose from.

L-R Gold Rush, Nude Beige, Juicy Jules

There was a 'special deal' on (aka spend too much money on polish you don't need and we'll throw in an ugly one that's not selling well.) So I picked up the colours Nude Beige and dithered between Juicy Jules and Proper Copper (Lol who comes up with the names?!) In the end I chose Juicy Jules, the free one on offer was Gold Rush. I'm not quite sure whether Gold Rush is quite a nice colour or not? I'm leaning towards not as it has quite a lot of yellow in it but I'm quite critical when it comes to nail colours. 

Which one is your favourite by the way? Would you wear the Gold Rush one? I might try it and then post what it actually looks like on the nails. I've got the nude beige polish on at the moment which is pretty subtle and I was thinking of maybe jazzing it up with the Juicy Jules because it looks as though it would take a few coats to become opaque, so I might add it over the top of the nude beige for a hint of glitter.

If anyone is interested this is what Nude Beige looks like after one coat. You could add more coats but I like the way it looks. My fingers are pink because it's freezing in the house and the only things heating me up are the continuous cups of tea I am drinking.

In other news I received my first Glossy Box today. It was actually delivered on Friday but I was out so I had to pick it up from the delivery place. I'm actually not as disappointed as what most people seem to be with it. But I'll review it in another post if you want to hear my thoughts on it? 

Have a lovely day 

xo

Giveaway winner

Just a quick post to announce the winner of my giveaway! Thank you so much to all that have entered, it was quite heart warming that people took the effort to tweet about the giveaway and post about it. I wish I had gifts for all of you. I'm going to host another giveaway just after Christmas, so hopefully it will be a nice little pick me up during those January blues, I'm also thinking of automatically entering everyone who has entered this giveaway, because I was so touched that people took the extra effort to tweet/post etc.

Anyway, enough of my rambling! I entered all of those who took part's names into a spreadsheet, entering them once more for every extra step they took, and then I used random.org to pick a random number. The number it chose was: 

 Which on my spreadsheet was Chloe from Chloe Likes To Talk. So congratulations Chloe, you'll be contacted by e-mail!

Thank you so much to everyone else who took part, it meant a lot. Congratulations Chloe! 

xo