Ollie & Nic Spencer Retro Bag

Evening all!

A late post from me tonight. I've enjoyed an evening with L tonight pigging out on sushi! We definitely ate more than we should, but at least it's reasonably healthy!

Next week it's my mum's birthday so we decided to get her a nice handbag, Ollie and Nic has an amazing sale and we managed to pick her up a real leather bag reduced from £169 to a bargain £50!!

The problem was there was a lot of temptation in the for me. The sale is amazing and is still currently on. I've needed a new decent sized bag for a while. My current one is really tatty with a broken lining etc.

I couldn't resist the bargain Spencer Retro across body bag. Reduced from £60 to an absolute bargain of £18!! I'm a massive ostrich print fan and the love the effect on bags so this on appealed to me straight away!

The burgundy colour is gorgeous and perfect for the winter months. I also love all the attention to detail on the bag such as the Ollie & Nic metal buttons on the handle and the studs on the bottom of the bag.

It feel quite a stiff material and like it will be durable and good quality. It's a really practical bag that's a decent size with lots of pockets. I like the two on the outside which will be perfect for keys and my phone when I'm listening to music. The zip pocket on the front is really handy for bus pass etc so I can easily grab them.

Inside is a large section with a zip pocket in the middle. I'm going to try and be organised and use this for make up! It also has zip pocket on the inside of the bag and separate pockets for phone and keys if I don't feel safe enough using outer pockets! Plus it has a gorgeous lining.

It's such a practical bag and for the bargain price I had to share with you all! If you are on the hunt for a new bag I'd suggest Ollie & Nic. The purses I've had I really like so I'm hoping the bag is as good!

Love M

xxx

Recipe: Easy Oreo Cake Pops

Hey all

Hope you've not got the Monday blues! I thought I'd share an easy recipe, I've been struggling to resist cake lately. One of my work colleagues gave me it but I'm not sure where it is from originally.

It's an easy one, all you need is 

• Two packs of oreos
• Nutella
• White Chocolate (I used one pack of white cooking chocolate, think it's about 200g)
• Lollipop sticks (ebay is great for these)

These are really easy to make and taste amazing! Firstly you need to separate the oreo's and remove the cream bit and put them in a food processor (I don't have one so my blender did the job). Apologies for some of the photos, my camera wouldn't focus due to the silver and my hands were dirty!

Whizz them up till they are a smooth crumb. I found I need to keep scraping the sides and freeing the mixture up, as when it got smoother it got stuck a bit.

Once it's too a fine breadcrumb mixture add the nutella. I find it works best to add it a teaspoon at a time and stir well after each addition. Too much nutella made the soft. You want the mixture to just bind.

When the mixture is bound, roll into balls. I placed mine onto a tin foil tray to save them sticking. This part gets you very messy!! Lots of hand washing is needed as your hands will get very sticky.

When you've made it into balls pop in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up. While they are in the freezer melt the chocolate. 

Pull out of the freezer and dip the lolly sticks into the chocolate, then press into the balls. The chocolate will work as glue for the sticks. Again freeze for 10 minutes so the chocolate sets.

Pull out of the freezer and dip each of the cake pops in chocolate. As it's white chocolate and dark mixture, I double dipped the cake pops so they looked white. It also makes a firmer shell. 

They can be decorated in a variety of ways. For my niece I made them into cookie monsters by colouring dessicated coconut and adding the features with icing. With these while the second coat of chocolate is still wet sprinkle with coconut. I also used fondant icing cut into shapes for a grown up version.

They are sooo tasty and super easy to whip up! Will you be trying these?

Love M

xxx  

Tangle Teezer

Hi all!

I don't know about you, but as well as healthy shiny hair I also want long hair. Mine is pretty long and I'm lucky to have it so long naturally but it does break easily after it gets to a certain length and with exercising and washing it so much I do get worried it will make it worse.

My hairdresser suggested I purchase a Tangle Teezer. I have to admit I've heard of them for a while and thought they were a fad but I have heard lots of rave reviews.

My brother told me he needed an idea for an extra present for Christmas so I asked him to get me one of these to try!

He got me the original one, obviously in bright pink! It was the obvious choice, but there are also aqua blue/pink, navy/pink, black, and orange/yellow.

To look at it, quite honestly I'd describe it as a female alien hedgehog. You heard.

I wondered how something like this could brush through my knotted and tangled long hair as easily as I've seen it go through others.

On first use I was actually amazed, whoever came up with this design is a GENIUS.

You can read the blurb on the insert from the product above; basically the teeth are the clever little things that help the brush glide through your hair and deliver 'speedy and gentle results'.

I took a few close up photos below where you can see how the sizes differ, some are longer and some are shorter. I don't quite understand how this has such a massive impact on how it moves through your hair but trust me, this glided through each strand without getting tangled on a knot....not even once.

It was really a revolutionary thing for me!

I've wanted to help my hair stop from breaking and getting knotted together for a while as I just want it to grow a little bit more and felt it was stopping it. However this will definitely help my hair and fingers crossed over time it will grow that extra 2 inches I was hoping for!

In the range there are also Aqua Splash for use in the shower, Salon Elite which is curved for a more professional brushstroke (is this even real?), a Compact Styler in a smaller size for your handbag which can be pushed in/pulled out when needed and comes in a range of colours including chrome and funky leopard print patterns.

They also have a childs range which is really cute and perfect for those who hate having knots in their hair!

I'm super impressed with the Tangle Teezer and would definitely consider another purchase of one for my gym bag and a miniature for my handbag. Everyone should have one! I would fully recommend this for anyone who wants to help the condition of their hair, full thumbs up for me!

L xxx

Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette

Hi all!

I've got a palette review today which you've probably seen before on plenty of other blogs but lets be honest; Urban Decay do such beautiful palettes I needed to photograph its beauty and share with you my thoughts on another limited edition sold out blogger 'must have'.

Urban Decay Vice 2 is the most beautiful palette I've ever seen, and I know I say this often about UD palettes but it is gorgeous. It's also unlike any other palette that I own so I don't feel that it was too much of an unruly purchase....

The box itself is gorgeous, I do like swirly mystical patterns and this is no exception. It was handy as well to see all of the colours on the back with matching names...lush.

The outside of the palette is unique to each individual one; the technique used to create the swirling pattern enables them to ensure that no two will be the same...nice touch!

The button to open the case (shown above) is also inlaid with Urban Decay text, as if you'd ever forget the brand!
This then opens the palette lid slowly to reveal the most beautiful collection of pigmented shadows in existence.

I've taken the following photos both with and without flash so that you can see them in both lights. Unfortunately some have blurred slightly but you can still see the colours and names for each one.

There is a fabulous selection of both metallic, glitter and matte shadows and basically in any colour you could ever need. There are neutrals for day time, blues, greens, blacks and purples all for any kind of occasion you can imagine.

I have swatched the shadows on my fingertips below, they follow the palette in a downwards motion except the last picture which is the last column on the right (hopefully that makes sense!)

It also comes with one of their infamous double ended brushes. Their brushes are always made of very good quality bristles and in the future i hope to buy more of them, especially the face make up brush as I've heard so much about it!

I have so far created two separate looks with this palette, both at 6am before work so it was a little hard to take photos in such bad light.

However I took them anyway!

The above photos show me wearing Derailed, Poison and Smokeout, and the below photo shows the nudes; Dope, Ambush and Derailed.



The shadows are very pigmented and easy to use and the colours are very much true to the colour they appear. The only colour i found wasn't true was Dope which appeared to be a beautiful light shimmery beige colour (very much like MAC's Shroom) but turned out pink toned on my skin and didn't look good on me at all!

I'm not quite sure why this is but at least it's only one shadow that i will be unlikely to use out of the entire palette. My only other problem with it is that because this colour comes out darker and pinker than you first thought, there is no light shade to create a base. This is rather annoying at 6am when you're trying to apply your face before work and can't find a base colour! I obviously have others to use and this means I have to get another palette out....time I don't usually have in the mornings.

Aside from that I love the other colours and I'm sure I'll be using them a lot over the coming months/years.

As my first purchase from Beauty Bay in their Christmas sale I was impressed with the price (it was £33 instead of £42). However after it being dispatched on one day and supposedly being on their 2 days Tracked service I was VERY disappointed that this came 7 days later. After emailing to ask the whereabouts of my order as my tracking number didn't even work, I was pretty much fobbed off each time and after tweeting them they weren't much help either.

Can't say I'll be in a rush to order from them next time, or if I do I won't be expecting my 'tracked 2 day' postage to be turning up on time which in this day and age is pretty pathetic.


Have you ordered anything from Beauty Bay before?

What do you think of the Vice 2 palette? Should I have ordered Naked 3 instead or are you a colour fan?

L xxx