Lifestyle | July Favourites 2017

Well I haven't done these posts in a while but July was a good month for good things so I thought I would share a few!

September Favourites

Happy Saturday everyone! I'm back today with September Favourites which as always are a bit of mixed bag! However, it was mostly beauty favourites in September which never really happens!

Real Techniques Bold Metals Collection 

My sister and I stumbled across a fabulous eBay bargain where we found these beauties for around half the original price! We had both admired these brushes for quite a long time but I really thought £20 + was far too expensive for one brush. All the makeup brushes I own are by Real Techniques and they are excellent value for money but the hike in price was just a little too much for me. We got a bit carried away buying them between us and spent just short of £100... I was dubious of them being genuine considering they were from eBay but I honestly cannot fault them. They look and feel lovely,  they are a lovely treat to buy for yourself. They are a bit misleading as the tip of the brush is the only part that feels solid metal but they two of them are rose gold so what's not to love?

Summer Favourites: Part 2!

Here is Part 2 of my Summer Favourites! If you missed the first part where I shared my general lifestyle and entertainment,  you can find it here. This time I'm going to share my Fashion and Beauty favourites of the Summer!

NARS Blush - Orgasm

I got a discount voucher for ASOS last month so decided to have a little splurge on my second high end face product... This to me is one of those cult beauty products that you always admire from a far but never actually buy so I decided to use the voucher wisely and get this a little bit cheaper!  It is a stunning colour if it is applied lightly as I feel it gets very pink very quickly!! It lasts throughout the day and I love the subtle shimmer to it. The only thing I hate is the name, do they really need to be that rude? 

Summer Favourites: Part 1!

So this post was a long time coming... I ended up missing June's Favourites post, no idea how! Therefore, I decided mid July that I would wait until the end of August so I could compile my overall Summer Favourites for a change! As this post will cover my favourite things for three months instead of one, I have split it into two parts. This part will feature my Entertainment favourites so TV, Film and General Lifestyle type things. The second part will be my Fashion and Beauty favourites. The next part will be up next week so check back if you want to see more!  A lot of my Summer Favourites in this post have been  previously featured in someway on my blog before so I have added links back to them incase you want to read more about it!

Amazon Fire Stick - (Previous Post)

This little gadget is absolutely the best thing you will ever buy. I must say though that you are not subscribed to Amazon Video you will not get the full use out of the product as it's very geared towards Amazon's facilities. However, you do get all your other apps including Netflix and such things. I LOVE the portability of this product as I can move it from room to room and it is far easier than plugging your laptop into your TV to watch Netflix on the big screen. I went on a few trips this summer so I took this with me and it was ace getting access to tonnes of entertainment in hotels! (Obviously only works if you have wifi though, I wouldn't recommend paying £5 to watch Pretty Little Liars because you have no patience...)

May Favourites

It seems like this month has gone in so fast as I have not long posted my April Favourites! This favourites post however, is actually going up on schedule. I actually have a lot of new favourites this month that are mix of TV/Film as usual with some new beauty products that I have tried! 

Bourjous Volume 1 Seconde Retro Summer Mascara

I had my eye on this product as I absolutely loved the packaging. It's so bright and eye catching! I did not buy it initially as it was slightly on the expensive side and I have plenty of half used mascaras kicking about in my makeup drawer. A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to the city to meet a friend from university that I had not seen in a few years and as I was doing my makeup on the train there, I realise I had forgotten my mascara. I contemplated whether I was being ridiculous going to buy another mascara but I felt my make up just looked incomplete without it. So I picked up this product as it felt like less of a pointless spend as I would of bought it eventually anyway! I think mascara is mascara in all honesty but this applies easy and it makes my lashes look really big too!

Ted Baker Pink Body Spray 150ml

This fragrance was literally love at first smell, it's so good! I picked this up in Boots for £7 which I thought was incredibly cheap for a designer fragrance. I have bought a few products from Ted Baker's  range and I really like the scent as it's really feminine and fresh. This product is fruity with floral notes too and comes in a lovely plastic bottle which is lightweight for travelling! I feel like the scent does not linger on your skin for long though so it needs reapplied frequently.

Khroma Beauty Palette

I picked up this absolute gem in TK Maxx a few weeks ago. This palette consists of six eyeshadow shadows, a blusher and a bronzer so it is also ideal for travelling. Each Kardashian sister has their own palette with different shades and this is Kourtney's one. She is my favourite on the show so I was really happy about that! I really wanted to try the Kardashian Beauty range so I was really happy to find this so cheap. 

Age of Adaline 

I was so looking forward to seeing this film as I am a massive fan of Blake Lively and I was really excited to see Michiel Huisman from Orphan Black in another role as I love his character Cal. Age of Adaline follows the story of a young woman played by Lively who finds herself in a car accident  before being struck by lightening causing her to stop aging. We follow Adaline through decades of her life when she outgrows everyone and interestingly her daughter now looks like her grandmother. Adeline meets Michiel Huisman's character on New Year's Eve and he persistently pursues her yet she struggles with commitment due to her immortality. The film frequently flashes back to Adaline's memories which adds a really interesting dynamic to the story. If you love romance films, this really is worth watching. It is slightly predictable in parts but it is a really feel good film and is one of my favourites so far this year.

Pitch Perfect 2

I have already done a separate post on this so I won't go into too much detail as you can read my thoughts here if you wish too! I thought this sequel was really funny but the plot lacked a little. The first film was better in terms of the story but this was one was packed full of laughs so that definitely made up for it me. Rebel Wilson was as funny as ever as Fat Amy and my favourite part of the film had to be her crossing the lake singing to Bumper, it was fabulous!

Wicked

I also did a separate post on this last week, you can see this here if you wish to read it! I saw the touring production of Wicked and it really was fantastic. I am so glad I decided to get tickets at the last minute rather than missing out as it was such a high quality production to be outside of London! Emily Tierney was brilliantly annoying as the Good Witch Glinda or Ga-linda as she kept correcting everyone! However, Jacqueline Hughes excelled as the Wicked Witch Elphaba with her incredible stage presence and phenomenal vocal. I did not realise until after the performance that she was the standby Elphaba and I honestly do not know how the principal could be any better! 

I hope you enjoyed this post, what were your favourite things in May?

April Favourites

Another month another favourites post! I think these are probably one of my personally most anticipated posts of the month and then I struggle to actually think what my favourites were! I'm a bit late posting this sorry, it was just the way my posting schedule worked out and it was further pushed back by a busy week!

To say that Dance Moms has been a favourite of mine this month is a slight understatement... My sister wanted me to watch it a good while ago but I was a little put off by it's run time of 40 mins as shorter shows are better for binge watching. I watched one episode with her and I am HOOKED. It's honestly such addictive television. If you haven't heard of Dance Moms before it follows the Abby Lee Dance Company in Pittsburgh who take an elite team to competitions every episode. It's one of those shows that I feel that you're gonna love it or you'll think it is complete rubbish. I think it is a little put on for the cameras at times but the drama that happens in that little dance studio is something else. I absolutely love some of the things Abby Lee comes out with and the Mom's themselves are pretty funny too! If you watch any new show this week, I would definitely recommend this one!

I've got a homeware favourite this month and that's mason jars! I barely use an actual glass anymore as I've began to use these so much. I love being able to drink water/juice while holding a handle so I think that's why mason jars appeal to me. Every so often I'll drink juice out of a mug, maybe that's a little bit weird I don't know? The jars look super pretty with the proper lids and paper straws. These particular jars are by Kilner.

A snap of my own sims! 

I go through phases of being totally obsessed with the Sims then I won't play it for ages. Since buying my Macbook Pro, I was able to purchase The Sims 4 when it was released for Mac a few months  ago. It was hard to tell whether it would run on my old laptop so it wasn't worth the risk or the expense. I got two new add ons to the game last month, Get To Work and Outdoor Retreat. Get To Work is the first fully fledged expansion pack for The Sims 4 that allows you to take your sims to work with a much better gameplay experience The Sims 3 Ambitions expansion. For someone who has a ridiculous fear of all things medical, I rather enjoy playing as a doctor! On the flip side, the Outdoor Retreat pack allows you to take your sims camping out in the wilderness. I would say that it wasn't quite as good as I thought it would be but it's an interesting add on to the game.

I rather fancied a new foundation (not exactly needed) but I felt some days the foundations I was currently using could make me look a little orange as my skin is very pale. I considering investing into my first Mac product but the reviews were a bit inconsistent in how good their foundations were for dry/pale skin. After an awful lot of googling, I learned that Revlon's Colorstay foundation was just as good as Mac and lasts very well throughout the day. I also liked that they specifically catered for Normal/Dry Skin so I picked up this product in Ivory. I can honestly say I have never owned a foundation that matched my skin tone as perfectly as this does. It does make me look pale but I am pale anyway and least I don't have any foundation lines! It's not the cheapest at £12.49 and still shows up dry skin but I don't regret my purchase. It would be the perfect product if it came with a pump and I didn't need to pour it out of the bottle!

Finally my movie favourite in April was Home! I really wanted to see this film as I am a massive fan of The Big Bang Theory and Jim Parsons voiced the character of Oh. He did a phenomenal job voicing the film's main character and was exceptionally funny. It was very strange as Oh's voice sounded exactly like Sheldon's and it was quite hard to take seriously for that reason! For an animated feature it was very entertaining.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I'll be back very soon with my May Favourites!

Instagram Favourites

I've seen this kind of a post on a few blogs now and I think it's such an interesting and different idea! Therefore for today's post, I am going to share my celebrity Instagram favourites. They are pretty much a mixed bag and I could of picked so many more but I like when I see these people pop up on my timeline.

March Favourites

Another month has passed already! I can't believe it's already April and time for another favourites post. I love reading these and have done even since before I started blogging so this is a post I like to feature every month on my own blog. A bit of a mixed bag of favourites this month (like most months really!) so here it goes:

Pretty Little Liars Season 5

If you aren't a Pretty Little Liars fan, I'd be extremely surprised if you haven't seen anything about it online these past few weeks. Season 5 concluded last week with viewers finally sort of finding out the identity of the show's super villain 'A'. I was slightly disappointed with the finale but I never expected to see the true identity of A  and was prepared for that. I did think it would be a character that we would at least recognise! This show was a favourite of mine this month though as I was very excited about it during the build up to the season finale. Everyone was talking about it and there was generally just a lot of hype surrounding it. We even had a bet going on at home to see who could correctly guess who A was. I actually read the correct theory a few weeks ago so I was extremely annoyed at myself that I didn't think of it as I would of won the money!


Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

I have already done a whole blog post on this show but it was definitely one of my favourite new TV finds last month. If you aren't familiar with it, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is the a new 13 episode Netflix Original starring Ellie Kemper. Kemper plays the lead role as a a young woman who has was held captive in a underground bunker by a man who believed that the apocalypse had happened. She is released 15 years later and decides to embark on a new adventure in New York rather than returning to Ohio. At roughly 20 minutes per episode, this series is truly binge worthy and is so easy to watch one episode after the other. I loved Kimmy's unintentional ignorance in this show from everything from selfies to iPhones. Kemper played her lack of awareness to the current world brilliantly. I wouldn't say it was the best comedy I had ever seen but it's a great little binge watch if you are looking for something new to try.


Bobble Bottle

This was a bit of an impulse purchase after knowing about these for a while. They are a bit on the expensive side as far as water bottles go but I was extremely impressed when I first tried it out. The Bobble Bottle basically filters your regular tap water. I grew up never really liking to drink plain water but I've began to enjoy it more as I've gotten older. I still wouldn't drink tap water really but the Bobble Bottle makes it taste just like bottled water does. I've been taking the bottle with me to work and to my pilates/yoga classes so I've probably made the money I would have spent on drinks back already!


Sia

I've liked Sia's music for a long time now but I've somehow become totally obsessed with her latest hits this month. I absolutely love Chandelier and appreciated so much more when I realised what it was about. I've also watched a bunch of live performances of Sia and Maddie Ziegler performing together and they are so brilliant. Another favourite track of hers this month has been Elastic Heart and Salted Wound which actually featured on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack!


Porridge

I've upped my breakfast game this month by eating porridge most days! I remember eating plain porridge with jam when I was little but it was something I never really tried since then. We had a lot of the Special K porridge pots at home so I decided to give it a try. I don't like Almonds or Honey but I actually really enjoyed it! I went out and bought the packet version that you make with milk as just adding hot water to the porridge probably wasn't the healthiest variety I could be eating. I've still been eating the Almond and Honey kind but with Almond Milk now and it is amazing. I thought it may have been too much Almonds but it tasted even better than I hoped!

I hope you enjoyed this post, what have been your favourites in March?

Four Favourites in February

Hello I'm back this week with my four favourites things from last month! February seemed like such quick month for me, I can't believe we are into March already!

Arizona Tea

I found this gem in Home Bargains for 89p!! I was so excited about this as I remembered seeing it a few years ago in an American sweet shop for something like £5 so the price difference is huge. They had three different varieties available in Home Bargains which were Blueberry White Tea, Pomegranate Green Tea  and Green Tea with Honey. The Blueberry White Tea was my favourite by far and I actually went back to buy a few more of these. I wasn't overly keen on the Green Tea with Honey if I'm honest. It tasted ok but didn't smell very nice at all!

Fifty Shades of Grey

Valentines weekend brought the release of the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey and I will admit I was one of the people who were at the cinema to see it the day it was released. This was actually due to the fact I couldn't go any other day that weekend (not that I was overly keen ha) but I was really looking forward to seeing it. I had a lovely afternoon out with my friend followed by dinner at one of my favourite restaurants T.G.I Friday's.  I thought the film was really good and it was much better than I expected. I won't go into my thoughts on it again as I have already done a review post here!

That 70s Show

Another favourite of the month that I have posted about in detail already (here) but I had to include as I embarrassingly watched the last two seasons in probably less than a week as I was enjoying it so much. I didn't enjoy the last season as much as the others but I really enjoyed watching so many consecutive episodes. I am rather gutted there is no new episodes now though, lets hope there is some kind of reunion soon!


Imperial Leather Skin Kind Enriching Body Wash

I picked this up in my local supermarket simply because it was on offer and I thought the bottle looked pretty. I'm actually quite bad for impulse buying toiletries simply because I like the look of them... I really need to learn to use up what I've got first! Imperial Leather is not a brand I would usually purchase if I was looking for a shower gel but I'm really impressed with this product! It smells nice and lathers up really well if you like to use a loofah like I do. It is a really big bottle too so it lasts quite a while! I will definitely repurchase this product again when it runs out.

I hope you enjoyed this post, I will be back on Thursday with my review on the new Netflix original series 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'. What were your favourites in February?

Tanya Burr's Triple Chocolate Cookies!

On Tuesday I baked some Triple Chocolate Cookies from Tanya Burr's new book Love Tanya! If you saw my guest post with Scot Blogger here, I included this book in my favourite things in January. I couldn't wait to try out some of the recipes as they look amazing. I'm more of a cake decorator than a baker by far so I was extremely pleased with myself that they turned out good! They taste amazing too. Here are some snaps I took as I was baking:

Baking Ingredients

Gotta have some tunes! One of my favourites right now.

Cookie Dough

My baking trays are quite small so I put 4 or 5 cookies on a tray to be avoid them merging

First batch out of the oven!

Baking is complete and most importantly a success!

Have you got a copy of Love Tanya? If so I highly recommend trying these out! They are extremely chocolatey but still very tasty. I'll be back again on Sunday with a new post which will probably be a review on season 2 of The Fall as I'm currently half way through the last episode! So. Good.

BLOGMAS DAY 2 - November Favourites!

I'm back! Today I am going to share my November favourites for Blogmas Day 2. It's a mix bag of favourites so here is a selection of my favourite things last month!

I had two beauty favourites which were the Elemis Hydra - Boost Day Cream and Tanya Burr's 'Champagne Toast' lipgloss from her beauty range. I'm not big into moisturising and to be honest, I wish I was better at it. I did however try out this Elemis cream and I absolutely loved it! I have quite dry skin on my forehead in between my eyebrows and I felt this cleared up really well after applying the cream. I typically used the product every other day and did not have to use it a lot before I started to notice any result. I also noticed I had far less spots appearing from using this cream. I usually only get the occasional spot on my face though so it's not a big problem for me. I did get the product in a travel size and I'm having to squeeze the last remaining cream out of the tube so I'm pretty disappointed it is now all used up! I looked into purchasing the full size product but at £39, it's maybe just slightly out of my budget... If anyone knows of it any cheaper please let me know ha!

As for Tanya Burr's lipgloss, I have had this for a few months now and it has been my go to lip product for everyday makeup. It applies really well and lasts for a reasonable amount of time during the day. It's a lovely colour with a slight shimmer leaving your lips looking natural but still nice. I'm personally not a fan of bold lips so it is perfect for me. I own a fair bit of  the products fromTanya's beauty range so I may post a full review soon!

My fashion favourite of this month is without a doubt my tartan scarf. I searched for this for a long time and ended up purchasing from Primark for the little cost of £5. It was not the colour I had my eye on but I grew to love it more once I began wearing it. I wear it draped over my jacket as it is quite long. I usually pair it with my navy quilted jacket from Jack Wills.

I have two entertainment favourites this month, the first being Lilo and Stitch. I had never seen this movie before and after seeing it was available on Amazon Instant Video, I decided to watch it one afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed it and don't know where I have been all these years! The running time was not too long and it kept my interest right the way through. I love Disney movies and I would definitely watch this one again! My TV favourite this month is Pointless. If you don't live in the UK, it is a quiz show where contestants have to find the lowest scoring answer to stay in the game.  I watch it most nights with my Dad and we like to play along against each other. I'm proud to say, I usually do pretty well!! It's maybe a little bit of a nerdy favourite but we love it.

My last favourite for November is the Kim Kardashian game. To be quite honest, this has been my favourite game every month since it was released... I love having days off where I can get stuck in completing the quests to progress further in the game! I particularly liked it this month as they held a Black Friday sale where premium items were half price and I could spend my hard earned K stars on pretty things! I am currently #3 in the list of top stars with 105.3 million fans. I think it's safe to say I have achieved something ha!

Finally, my advent calendar today I recieved a peachy coloured nail polish! I love the colour and I'm looking forward to trying it out soon. I also got a chocolate snowman but I ate that before I thought to take a picture oops...

What were you favourites this month?