MY FAVOURITE: Moisturisers

Happy Tuesday everyone! Today I thought I'd share my favourite moisturisers with you as we all know how important they are.

For the Face:  I use an aloe day and night cream by The Body Shop which work really well with my skin. For the record, I'm not really sure what kind of skin I have; it's probably combination but I go through cycles of being dry/oily rather than being patchy so it's really hard to find a moisturiser that suits me all of the time. This duo are the best I've tried, when I get out of the shower I notice that I have quite a blotchy face but as soon as I put on either of these, the aloe vera calms my skin down right away and it's really good for any red blemishes too (although nothing's ever perfect!). The day cream is really light but nourishing enough and a little goes a long way. It sinks in easily as it's not too thick. The night cream lasts me forever; I don't use it EVERY night but you hardly need any to do your whole face and a pot has lasted me for pretty much a year so its been good value for what I want it for! I also rub the night cream on any little really dry patches I have on my body as it's gentle enough for anything slightly sore unlike something scented which would sting. The only thing I really dislike (apart from the slightly high price tag) is that it doesn't have any SPF so I'm currently looking for a new "summer" moisturiser which I'm quite sad about really because I love this so much. Although, all is not lost as I've noticed that there is a  lotion version of this with SPF that I might have to try!

For the Body: I've been using Garnier Intensive 7 Days Body Lotion for well over a year now so it's something I know and love as much as a lot of other people do. I have the aloe vera one at the moment but the honey is actually my favourite! This is perfect to use when you don't have the time to wait for a thick body butter to dry and it does its job perfectly. The aloe one is particularly cooling and refreshing and it's a good "go-to" moisturiser if anywhere is feeling dry. It's also a great price. BUT I told you in my spring wish list post that I really wanted to try the Body Shop Coconut Milk Body Lotion which I did buy and after a few uses, I love it. I'll have to admit that the cost of this is double what you would pay for the Garnier so there's a down side but it really is lovely and light and leaves you feeling silky and smelling of coconut. Heaven.

If any one particularly recommends any moisturisers with SPF please let me know in a comment! x

FOOD: Graze Box Number 2 & 3

My Thai

Herby Bread Basket

Eton Mess

Hi everyone, hope Monday is being kind to you :)

I'm giving you another peek in to my graze box again this week as I didn't last week. This week, I received My Thai (a sweet chilli sauce dip and baked soy bites), Copacabana ( big milk & dark chocolate buttons and whole brazil nuts), Summer Berry Compote (berry compote dip with shortbread dippers) and Herby Bread Basket (mini garlic croutons, mini basil breadsticks and oregano rice crackers). My favourite things this week were the Thai dips and the bread basket selection. The soy dippers were a bit average on their own but with the chilli sauce they were delicious and there was just the right amount of them. The bread basket bits were really tasty and very moreish even though I thought they'd be a bit weird! I've also put a picture on of my favourite thing from last week - was Eton Mess; meringue pieces, black currants, almonds and cranberries - YUM!

If anyone want's to try a graze box for free (new accounts only) feel free to use my referral code ;) "96JGZ4KD"

What have you been snacking on? x

NOTD: French Riviera & Nail Constellation Pices

MUA Nail Constellations: Pices (available here and in Superdrug)

L'Oreal Paris Color Riche Nails.: French Riviera (available here)

I thought I'd paint my nails today for the first time in what feels like forever because now all of my essays are done I have nothing to do! I thought I'd try out my new MUA Nail Constellation beads and then decided on L'Oreal Paris Color Riche polish in 601 French Riviera. This is practically my most favourite nail colour of all time, I found it about a year a go but I've only used it a few times because the bottle is so small I want to savor it even though I could easily buy another. It's a shimmery pale blue which I thought would look good with the MUA beads. I've painted my nails with two coats of this today which has left the coverage a bit more transparent than I'd like but it gets hard to dry when I use more. I've talked about how much I love these polishes before (here) and I'll say again that I especially like the brush.

Now, on to the MUA beads that I got in my mini MUA haul the other day... they were surprisingly good! I have to admit that I've not tried any similar nail beads but I was shocked at how easy they were to apply; it took no effort at all, I expected much more fiddling. It said just to shake the beads over wet nail polish using the handy little funnel attached to the bottle, press any loser ones down and wait to dry. I also applied a top coat even though it didn't suggest it as my base nail polish didn't seem sticky enough to hold them on for long. They look fine but I probably wouldn't advise doing this unless you really have to because I did notice a bit of colour running from the turquoise beads. Other than that I was very impressed with them for the price and will be trying some other things with them soon! I was also pleased that it was easy to get any excess beads back in to the bottle by using the funnel the other way round to pour them back in. As you can see there are a few untidy bits in the picture but in real life it's barely noticeable and would hardly be worth trying to fix until a few more fall off!
Over all, YAY for easy nail art!

Friday's Five Fabulous Things

Ok, so this morning I realised I had a lot of blogging to catch up on as I have lots of stuff to share with you and I also missed my Five Fabulous Things post on the Sunday just gone because I was so busy... BUT I've now completely finished university now so I can do all of the catching up! I'm also changing Five Fabulous Things to Friday because, well, it's Friday today and I wanted to :)

Today I'm sharing an instagram of cocktails which I had yesterday at Las Iguanas, Yum!

On to the five things that have made me especially happy this week...

1. I'VE FINISHED UNIVERSITY: I can't believe it's finally over, I have many sad feelings as many happy ones. I'm mainly sad to be leaving my flat which has been a lovely home for three years. Once I've caught up on all of the tidying up I have to do I'll be taking some photos to remember it by and I think I'll share some on here so you all can see where I live :)
2. Pub Quiz: last night me and some of my friends went out for a quiet dinner which led to a pub quiz, which led to us WINNING! We won a £20 bar tab and so we ended up having quite a few drinks and a dance in the club upstairs to the pub even though we weren't really planning on that kind of night. It was quite a nice surprise, free drinks are always good!
3. Nando's Chicken Land: I went to Nando's for lunch yesterday with my friends (I needn't say more really, you can guess why this made me happy)... We saw a sign up in there about some kind of terms and conditions or something and the company was stated as "Nando's Chicken Land". We had no idea that it had ever been called that and found it quite amusing so it's no longer just "Nando's" to us haha
4. New Clothes: Also yesterday, I went celebratory shopping and bought myself a few new things and I have that new clothes feeling where I just want to wear them all!
5. Food: this one is about food, again. For the past four days, I've been so busy that I haven't had a home cooked meal and whilst I really enjoy cooking, eating junk for once has been SO good. There, I said it. I guess it's never too late to try being a "proper" student!

Hope you have all had a lovely week!

MUA Mini Haul

This weekend I did the usual impulse purchasing of stuff, you know what we all do when we're bored... Luckily for my bank balance I just ordered a few bits from Superdrug/MUA (some how the first time I've ever bought something from that range!) and they came today :) I'll probably review most of this stuff "properly" soon but here are  my first impressions...

As you can see from the pictures I picked up the Undress Me Too Eye Palette for £4  which everyone raves about (better late than never lol) as I'm trying to throw away an older palette which is a bit dated so I only use a couple of colours out of it but I needed a decent replacement first and this seems to fit the bill. I'm quite interested to try the colour combination it suggests on the back as I always try out the "instructions" on eye palettes so I might do a post on that if I like it rather than just doing swatches because there are tonnes of those online (or perhaps I just need to get a life and stop reading the instructions on eye shadow haha).

I also bought the Pro-Brow Ultimate Eye Brow Kit for £3.50 as one of the things I used in the old palette that I'm throwing away was a brown powder for my brows so I needed to replace that too. On first impressions the brown colour in this kit seems a bit lighter than what I usually use and they don't do other shades so I'll have to see how it goes after a few tries to see if I like it (or just finally convince myself to buy Benefit's Brow Zings)!

I also picked up another lip tint/balm to add to my collection and first impressions of the MUA Power Pout (in Crazy in Love) are "meh"; it's very slippery to apply, a bit like it's melting so probably won't last long on my lips but the colour is good and quite intense and it's only £3 so again, I'll probably just have to try it a few times before I decide if I like it enough to buy another.

And lastly, I bought the Nail Constellation Pisces for £3 (and a cheap and cheerful £1 MUA Top Coat). The colours of these beads are lovely (turquoise, silver and a very pale pink) so I can't wait to try them to find out which colour polish they look best with.

Which MUA products would you recommend?  I imagine that I might be buying more!

FOOD: My First Graze Box

I have been excited all weekend about getting my first Graze box (for free!) and it has finally come! I'm a HUGE snacker so I really don't know why I hadn't signed up to this sooner as it was all so easy and I've really enjoyed it so far.

After you sign up, you go through all of the foods available saying what you want to bin or try and you can even ask for something to be sent "soon" if you're really hoping for it. I don't usually enjoy nuts/seeds/dried fruit so admittedly, I binned quite a lot of things which looked really healthy but weren't for me although, I kept a couple of dried fruit things. I was really glad that I could get rid of all the stuff I didn't like as I'd have hated to end up with a box full of pumpkin seeds! I also like that the little box they come in is so handy as it fits through your letter box so you don't even need to be in when they arrive; hooray for not having to go to the post office for something!

You can look at what you're going to get in your box the night before it's due to arrive and initially, when I saw mine, I was quite disappointed because I got mostly sweet things (my box = summer berry flapjack, jaffa cake, billionaires shortbread and salsa fresca) where as my boyfriend got mostly savory stuff which I'd have preferred. That disappointment soon left me when I opened my box. Everything was delicious and I was especially impressed by the orange raisins in the jaffa cake inspired snack as when I read the description online I thought they sounded a bit too good to be true and would just be normal raisins; in actual fact, they are really pleasantly orangey and smell a bit like Christmas! The dippers were also great (I LOVE dips); there was just enough salsa for each cracker. The only thing I think could be improved about what I got today is the size of the chocolate pieces in jaffa cake. I'd have preferred more little pieces of chocolate that a few big pieces but it was still really nice.

I've also added some pictures from my boyfriend's box - he really enjoyed the shortbread which smells excellent before you even taste it and the Korean Rice Chilli Crackers were also lovely, quite spicy and very moreish; considering they were so moreish we were shocked at how many were in the packet, quite a big handful.

I'm definitely going to have one of these a week until I leave uni now because at £3.89, I think I can afford to treat myself a little and it's very convenient. Now I just need to work out how to make it last a little while instead of opening everything in a frenzy!

 Have you ever tried Graze boxes? What should I look out for in them?

If any one would like to get a free Graze box (new accounts only) I'd love it if you helped me out and used my referral code! You can easily cancel straight after your free box so it won't cost you a penny even though they ask for your card details. Use the code "96JGZ4K" to get your free box at www.graze.com/uk :)

Sunday's Five Fabulous Things

My favourite Sunday Secret this week.

I'm a little down at the moment since I'm really struggling to get motivated with my dissertation. I've had a bit of an uplift this evening after talking it over with my friend and boyfriend which is good really considering I only have just over a week to get it done! In spite of this I've decided to do a happy little post about five fabulous things from this week which I think I'll try and do every Sunday to remind myself to cheer up a bit! I also thought I'd share my favourite secret from this week's Post Secret as I didn't have any photos for this post - I'm so paranoid that I always think things are about me but hopefully not vain!

On to my Five Fabulous Things...

1. Old Friends - Over Easter I stayed in my home town at my boyfriend's house to get a change of scene from uni and a bit of a break (even though I didn't really deserve one!)... I managed to meet up with most of my good school friends during the first week which was lovely but the best night was on Tuesday when me and my boyfriend spent a rather fun evening with one of said friends, hanging out in his bedroom like old times. We played a The Dark Knight Rises drinking game and probably kept his family up for half the night, perfect lol
2.  Making Fudge - Whilst at "home" I also visited my Nan and little cousins, we spent an afternoon in her kitchen making some delicious chocolate fudge. This tried and tested recipe never fails to delight us all.
3. Moving House - My Mom has been packing up our house in Gutersloh, Germany this week to move to Sennelager and whilst I have not seen the house or even any photos of it I feel very excited that I will have somewhere new to explore soon.
4. Food Shopping - One thing I really enjoy about coming back to uni after a holiday is doing a huge food shop. This time (the last ever time!) my nan took us. I love it when she takes us shopping as she encourages us to pick up all kind of treats. Hello, peanut M&Ms - certainly not essential but much appreciated!
5. Baby Oil Baths - When I'm procastinating at uni I have lots of baths and whilst I don't REALLY enjoy them, I do miss them when I stay at my boyfriend's house as his bathroom is far too busy to accommodate me spending an hour in the bath most evenings. So, today when I got back I had a really indulgent bath full of baby oil. The bath needs cleaning now but I feel LUSH.

What fabulous things have you done this week?

REVIEW: Bourjois Intuitive Liner

Perhaps slightly oddly, I did the swatch for this on a magazine ad, it wouldn't work anywhere on my skin as it kept going
all blotchy (luckily it doesn't do that on your eyes)! You can get the drift from this any way I'm sure.

Bourjois Intuitive Liner £6.99

I bought this eyeliner on a whim some time last year and after trying and failing to correctly use it a few times I thought I'd review it as it's quite an interesting product although not new any more.

I'll admit now that for various reasons, after trying khol, liquid and gel versions, I'm terrible at applying eyeliner. When I saw it, I thought that this "intuitive" felt tip effort from Bourjois might some how make me miraculously good at it. Wrong. It really doesn't work with the shape of my eye or the placement/spacing of my lashes (is placement a good way to decribe lashes? Probably not lol). You're supposed to dot along your lash line in order to define eyes and make lashes look longer which I have not found as easy as it sounds.

I imagine that some people would get great results with this if they are better at applying eyeliner as it's a strong black colour and it stays on for ages, you just need a bit of practice. The nibs are quite firm but not pokey and you can use them to create the dots to join up or use the side to create more of a traditional line if you need to. 

I personally wouldn't buy it again as now I only use this to give my bottom lash line a bit of definition in the outer corners and it's a bit expensive just for that. I really like the idea of it though, maybe I'll get the hang of it one day!

Perfume Post: FCUK 3 her

Sorry for the crappy photo -  it turns out that my boyfriend's house is awful for taking pictures...

I thought I'd make up for the previous poor photo by adding this photo of my boyfriend's cat, Mr Smudge.
His little pink nose and snugglyness will hopefully improve the situation.
I'm aware that now, I may as well have not bothered reviewing the perfume but that's the risk you taking when posting a photo of a kitty hehe

It's been a while since I said I'd start working through some of my perfumes so I thought I'd post about another one today.

FCUK 3 her is the kind of perfume that you can just spritz all over yourself as you run out of the door and know that you don't smell too bad at all. It has a generally floral scent that isn't overpowering so it's good for day time; it seems quite a summery smell which cheers me up a bit :). I also have the body lotion so I usually rub a bit on before I spray to lock in the scent if I want it to be a bit more noticeable as it does tend to disappear a bit sometimes. The bottle of this is quite cool looking and I usually take it with me when I travel as I get paranoid about glass breaking with my other bottles where as this seems a bit more "protected" by all of the plastic (not sure how logical I'm actually being but it works for me lol). It's available all over the internet at rather cheap prices (around £10 for 100ml) so it's an easy addition to any collection! This is definitely my favourite bargain perfume - what's yours?

SHOW OFF: ASOS Chain Necklaces

Hello! Today my body is still fighting my every wish that is to write my dissertation. SO time to write a blog about these necklaces! They come as a pack of four and can be found under the name of "Pack of Four Chain Necklaces" on ASOS. I needed a new bit of "bling" and when I saw these I thought they'd be perfect because you can mix and match or wear individually if you want to. I had 25% off at the time and at first still thought they were a bit pricy but I soon remembered that I was getting four chains and not just one so I went and ordered them!

Over all, we've been getting on pretty well! Each necklace hangs at a slightly different length and is adjustable so you can graduate the length of them when you wear them all together so they don't just hang on top of each other which keeps things a little bit neater. They're pretty heavy compared to necklaces I'm used to but there are no loose links anywhere which I'm pleased about - can't tell you how many times I've come to put on a necklace and something has come apart! The only thing I dislike is that the snake chain (on the left in my photo) does catch on some clothes such as the lace/knit dress that I've photographed them on but it doesn't seem to have caused any damage so this is only a tiny issue!

I thought I'd also post this (slightly drunk and unfortunate) picture of myself wearing them in order to show you what they're "capable of" as you will see that they hang slightly lower than how they are shown on the model on the ASOS website :)

What do you think? Do you like a big chain or something more dainty? x