Spring has sprung!

Hello loyal followers, whom I have abandoned for the past...wow, three years! Despite being busy busy at university since late 2014 I should not have left it this long, how many times have I said this in the past? Anyway, graduation is frighteningly near and I've been on a mission to get back to it in the blogging world.
So, to kick things off - today is the first day of spring, yay! I've always been an autumn girl, convincing myself it's my favourite season when actually, I'm happiest when it's sunny. While I still adore the crisp autumn air, pretty colours and the fashion (jeans, jackets and boots) of the almost-not-quite-winter season, there really is something about spring that lifts my spirits. 
I've been hoarding daffodils since they came on sale (seriously, hoarding) and I've well and truly had enough of dark, dreary mornings and 5pm pitch blackness. Bring on the sun, lamb spotting on drives through the country and gradually brighter evenings. I've also had enough of wearing boots now, so bring on cute pumps and peep-toes while we're at it!  

Current favourites

I guess this post is a little late, as these are a handful of products that have been on my 'favourites' list for quite some time, namely the Bourjois Cream Blush and Avon's Ultra Colour Lipstick. Some of these products were there to see me into 2014, others I've only had a few months, but I love all of them and I'd definitely consider repurchasing the lot when they run out (or break).

I've really got to begin with my absolute favourite two, Bourjois Cream Blush in Nude Velvet (surprise surprise, I swear every blogger and her mum have picked out this shade) and Avon Ultra Colour Lipstick in Blush Nude, oh how I love them both.

You can see I've 'hit pan' on the blush, I sort of can't wait to run out of this just so that I can go and buy another; just me that feels this way about make up? Probably, ah well. I bought this last year (chill out, last year was only just 8 months ago...) when I was in Superdrug with the intention of picking up one of the Bourjois Little Round Pot blushes. I'd heard of this cream blush and saw it on the aisle staring at me while I browsed it's powdery counterpart and, well, it won, as you can see. I winced as I handed over my card to relieve myself of the £8 this blush cost, it physically hurt me to spend almost a tenner on blush after having been an MUA £1 blush fan for quite some time, but I'm really glad I did because it's lasted well and it's just so gorgeous. The texture is wonderful, it blends perfectly and the colour is the perfect natural flush of colour, I've only really fallen in love with this over the past few months because it's a wonderful blush for Summer. 

According to a book I'm currently reading and loving (Air Kisses by Zoe Foster, in case you're wondering) hailing a particular lipstick as your 'perfect nude' is a very bold claim indeed but I'm gonna go right ahead and claim this one anyway, this is my perfect nude, hands down. I haven't even tried enough nude lipsticks to know for sure that this is actually my perfect nude, but I don't need to because I've fallen head over heels for this one and that's enough for me. It's not just a perfect nude, but it's my go-to lippie when I can't decide which one to wear; the amount of times I've found myself browsing through my lipstick bag (yes, I do own so many lipsticks that I have dedicated a whole bag to them...) asking myself "which lipstick would go with this outfit?" and then thought "screw it, I'll just wear my Avon one" just proves how versatile and loved this lipstick is. It goes on like a dream, doesn't accentuate dry patches, feels very moisturising and gives the perfect wash of pinky-nude colour to my lips, Holy Grail? I think so. 

A product that I bought on a whim was Maybelline Browdrama Sculpting Brow Mascara, after reading about it constantly online. I really like this product because it's so easy to use, it adds colour to my brows, sets them in place and is super quick to apply. 

You can probably tell that I'm loving nudes at the moment, the H&M Soft Nudes eye shadow palette was another on-a-whim purchase and it's got a good selection of colours for a decent everyday smokey eye, the gold tone is really nice layered on top of darker colours for a Summery bronze look. Natural Collection is a brand that I've been exploring a lot of recently, I picked this eye shadow up in the shade Milk Chocolate while on the hunt for a good brown eye shadow to replace one that I was running low on from a now discontinued Boots palette. What I really like about this shadow is that it's quite a creamy powder, if that's possible and it blends so easily, the colour definitely fits the name as it's a very milky brown, again, great coupled with my H&M Nudes palette. 

My Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse foundation hasn't had a look in since I rediscovered my love for L'Oreal True Match, in the shade Rose Ivory, I was wearing this foundation here along with the Bourjois Cream Blush. It blends seamlessly and to apply I like using my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush, another product that has since replaced an old favourite (Cosmo Foundation Brush). 

Finally, I've been keeping a bottle of Shea Body Mist from The Body Shop out and easily accessible in my room for the past few weeks to spritz on before leaving the house. My mum bought me this for Christmas and, at first, I wasn't a huge fan because it reminded me a lot of male aftershave, but it's grown on me and the musky 'pour homme' scent is something that I've grown to love. 

I wonder what'll make it onto my favourites list next...

Festival prepin'

Oh, how time flies! It was almost 3 months ago that I bought my ticket and impatiently waited for August to come around, yet now I'm only 7 days away from being at Bloodstock, I'm 100% not prepared...at all! (Despite having written 4 lists...)  I get all nervous, excited, panicky when it comes to big plans such as festivals; I worry about travel and packing and forgetting my ticket and argh, I just turn into a complete mess of worry. But, I am so, so excited, I really can't wait. 
I'm a camping-festival virgin, so this is gonna be a totally new experience for me - I've been camping and I've been to festivals, I've just never camped at a festival. Eek. I've been to Ghostfest on more than one occasion, which was easy as pie because it was a 2 day, indoor festival so you had to book a hotel, but alas, no such home comforts await me at Bloodstock. My biggest concern is how I'm gonna deal with tent hair, because when you have hair as short as mine waking up in the morning ain't pretty!

I'm not taking any valuables, no digital camera, just disposable cameras and my cheap £5 spare phone that only has the faculties to phone and text people - I'll be leaving my actual mobile at home. 

Most important supplies are food and booze, because I don't much fancy the rip off festival prices once I'm there. And, of course, because I have the desire to be clean and presentable hard wired in me, I'll be bringing hand sanitiser, wet wipes, make up, dry shampoo and a bandana (to cover my second-day tent hair). A first aid kit is also essential (in my opinion) plasters for when my Docs rub, pills for a hangover headache and antiseptic cream (my boyfriend pierced his ear with a safety pin when he went to Sonisphere, so best be prepared for a similar recurrence...)

Apparently this heat wave we've been having in the UK is set to last in Derbyshire until mid August, so sun lotion and sun glasses are an absolute must, but any lack of cloud cover in the day always equals a chilly night - so a sleeping bag and a hoody have also made it on the list. 

I don't know what I'm worrying about, if anything I think I'm over prepared...  

I woke up like this.

No, really, I actually did wake up like this. Yesterdays look was a result of rolling out of bed, pulling on my jeans from off the floor and wandering downstairs to spend the whole day (well, at least 6 hours) sprawled on the sofa with my boyfriend watching Fresh Meat. I hadn't even brushed my hair when these pictures were taken, and they were taken a good 8 hours after I'd woken up, keeping it classy...

The night before I'd been at The Fleece in Bristol to join my boyfriend and his friends for a gig, as it was my boyfriends 21st this week. This get up isn't particularly exciting as it's pretty much my everyday attire, I'd worn this (almost) exact outfit when I filmed my last music video for college and it's only recently that I've listened to my mums desperate pleas for me to dress more 'Summer appropriate' i.e. ditch the black. But for a metal gig black is best, so I was more than just a little bit pleased to forgo bright colours and go back to black for the evening. 

I love black jeans and boots and, while I'm enjoying the Summer, I just can't wait for the Autumn when I can wear nothing but black, nothing but jeans and nothing but boots without the rents constantly telling me to put on a nice dress, wear a brighter colour or wear sandals.

Top - New Look

Jeans - Dorothy Perkins, ripped by me

Boots - London Rebel

What I Wore - Birthday meal

It was my boyfriends mums birthday yesterday, so I joined the family for a meal at a local restaurant to celebrate the occasion. I didn't know which restaurant we'd be going to until I met them all for drinks beforehand, so I decided to go for the smart-casual look as I didn't want to be over dressed or under dressed. 

I bought these trousers last Summer but had been yet to wear them, I'd only wear them in the warm weather and with heels, as I think they look a bit naff with flats. Last night was warm and sunny, so they fitted the bill perfectly. 

That's Archie next to me by the way, he's been really poorly recently and has only just been released from a 2 week stay in intensive care, so when he wandered into my shot and made himself comfortable I didn't have the heart to move him, the poor fella's exhausted. 

Grey cotton jacket - Secondhand

Black bodysuit - H&M

Silver rings - H&M

Black and white joggers - Matalan

Heels - Secondhand, originally from Next

Water Marble - first attempt...

So I finally got around to trying my hand at water marbling, I had a whole evening free last night and deemed it the perfect opportunity to give this fun (but time consuming) trick a go.

I've watched countless Youtube videos on this technique and, to be honest, when I first heard of it I wasn't at all into it, but it's definitely grown on me as you can probably tell!

For this water marble I went for a simple two colour look, using OPI's Charged Up Cherry and Barry M's Black. It's much easier to achieve a decent water marble if you use watery polishes so this was another reason that I chose these two colours - Black by Barry M is so watery that I don't bother painting my nails with it usually, it's just far too sheer, but for a water marble it worked really well.

 If you're not in-the-know about the water marbling technique, then I really recommend hitting up Youtube and finding some tutorials, you won't have any trouble finding them because there are enough tutorials on Youtube to last you a whole week.

The basic principle though is that you get a glass of room temperature water, add drops of polish to the water to get rings of colour, make a pattern in the water rings and then dip your nail in to the water - simple but oh so effective!

For a first attempt I must say that I'm really pleased with how these turned out, as you can see they're all very different, so if you're into consistency then this look probably isn't for you.  The only thing I will say is this - these are super fun, creative and they look cool, but there's no way in hell they are worth the painstaking clean-up process; even using tape around my nails to minimize polish stains on my hand didn't save me from a session with the nail polish remover. Maybe I just need to get better at taping my nails...

Au Naturel

This morning I had to pay a visit to the eye hospital to have something removed from my eye; turned out there was nothing in there at all and I was told I had allergic conjunctivitis - nice, thanks Summer. 

Because of this I thought it wise to lay off the eye make up so used it as the perfect excuse to tone down the rest of my make up too. 

I've never been one for wearing heavy make up anyway, but considering the beautiful sunshine I decided that I could totally get away with an even lighter base than usual, so I took a quick snap before work of today's make up look for which I used the following: 

L'Oreal True Match foundation in Rose Ivory mixed with a pump of Simple Kind To Skin Illuminating Radiance Cream, I blended this over my face as I would a usual moisturiser/BB cream, adding a little more coverage under my eyes and around my nose using my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush. 

I kept my blush minimal with a quick swipe of Bourjois Cream Blush in Nude Velvet to add a subtle wash of colour on my cheeks. I set this all in place with a slight dusting of my usual face powder (Collection Sheer Loose Powder in Translucent in case you were wondering), as a side note, this is the best powder I've used and I go through tons of the stuff, it's perfect for a sweet price too. 

I added some bronzer on top of the blusher, and highlighter along my jaw, for this I used Collection Mosaic Bronzer in Radiant and MUA Undress Your Skin Highlighter. 

Finally I tamed my brows with Maybelline Brow Drama Sculpting Mascara in Dark Brown and applied a tiny bit of mascara to the ends of my lashes so as not to aggravate my eyes too much, L'Oreal Lash Architect Mascara is my go-to mascara at the moment.

I really like how this turned out, L'Oreal True Match foundation mixed in with a moisturiser gives enough coverage to feel like more than a BB cream, but without entirely masking my skin, perfect for a good-skin-day!