Birchbox

Goooooooooood morning!

I've got a quick review for you today. I'm sure you've all probably seen these Birchbox reviews by now as they have been out for a little while, but I've decided to take a few snaps of them to share what i think.

I'm lucky that my aunty (who has recently turned 50!) was bought a 6 month subscription to Birchbox and although she loves products and in theory it was a great present for her she just won't use them.....cue me being the very happy recipient of every Birchbox for the next 6 months!

The first one I received was the Lulu Guinness box. I love the outer cardboard cover of this box, stripes and monochrome are a particular favourite of mine and the dress on the front of the box is a stunner as well, cannot complain one bit!

Generally I love these boxes as they're so handy for storing just about anything and they can stack up in display on your desk or shelving or be stored away  for safe keeping. I also really like the drawstring bags, they're so handy for travelling with and are actually really good quality and last very well.

As always these boxes come with a 'menu' and this one was no different. It contained a Korres body milk, Molton Brown hand cream, Pores No More pore perfector, Benefit Stay Don't Stray, a perfume sample and a Lulu Guinness stick of rock in the same black and white design.

I cannot wait to try the citrus body milk from Korres, I've heard so much about them and citrus is my favourite scent.
Molton Brown hand cream looks the perfect size for your hand bag and I'm looking forward to using this.
The sound of the pore perfector is ideal, but on lifting up the tube i can see straight through it and can see already that there is only a tiny bit of product in the tube which is quite disappointing and I doubt I will be able to get more than 1 or 2 uses out of it.

I can't say that perfume samples excite me in the slightest. I'm hoping my cousins appreciate these as I've just filled a huge bag of samples and products I won't use for them and this has definitely gone into it!
Benefit's Stay Don't Stray has been on my list for a long time and i'm very excited to try it out, it's probably the highlight of this box for me!

So marks out of 10 for the first box....probably 6/10. I like the variety and there's a few products i will enjoy but the pointless tester of pore perfector and yet another perfume samples was pretty boring for me.

The second box has exactly the same set up with a drawstring bag and a menu card. Some people might consider the brown box to be boring but i really like it's simplicity. Brown paper is something that I love and it can be so effective at making things and it reminds me of this.

This box contained:
Benefit's Porefessional - I'm already a fan and have lots of tester sizes for 'emergency purposes'
Non Aerosol Hair Spray - this will be great for my gym bag or handbag on a night out! Fingers crossed it's an effective one.
Skin Life - I love skincare samples so I'm sure this will be put to the test soon.
Eyeshadow - gorgeous colour but I have many in the same shade so this pot has again gone to my cousins.
Perfume -  Again not a fan of these, I'm yet to find one that i actually like so they've gone to my younger cousins, I'm sure they'll love them!

So marks out of 10 for this box? Probably 7/10 for variety, the perfume still lets it down though.

I love receiving tester size samples and I'm so grateful to my aunty for sending me her boxes, it's so much fun to go through them all even though I get them late and could know beforehand what I'm getting by reading others blog posts. However I think if I was paying the full amount for each of these boxes plus P&P I'd be disappointed when I could be spending the £13 on something that I chose myself.

Maybe the next few boxes will change my mind! What do you think of beauty boxes in general? Do you think they're worth it?

L xxx

Fitness Friday: New Training Program

Hey there! Happy Friday afternoon!

I've been anjoying posting a lot more fitness related posts every Friday afternoon in between my usual fashion, beauty and life posts. If you've enjoyed any of them in particular and want to see more of them let me know. So far I've reviewed some products such as coconut oil and protein pancakes; shared my latest training programs; listed some of my favourite motivational blogs and fitness gurus and lastly showed you some of the recipes I've been loving lately.

Today's post is dedicated to my latest training program. I've been working hard the last few months without much in the way of change in the scales. So I've changed my routine around a bit and have started to lose some fat! I was so pleased i cannot wait to continue and lose a few more pounds of it.

My latest weigh in showed that I'd lost 4lbs which I was happy with but 1lb was of muscle which is not the way to go. Nevertheless I'm trying to stay positive, eat lots of protein, consume more protein shakes as I have slacked off on them for a bit and keep working out.

So my new program! It's very similar to the last which I absolutely loved. The last one was a full body workout with moves that incorporated multiple muscle groups at a time and it was great. This one is similar in that way. It's full of supersets where I have box step ups, squats and lunges all with heavy weights followed by the rowing machine. I repeat this circuit 4 times before getting on the cross trainer for 10 minutes for some active recovery.

After this I then use the chest press and superset it with tricep extensions, followed by the low row superset with bicep curls. This is then followed by a further 10 minutes on the cross trainer before my core work. This involves the pilates 100 and then 5 roll downs which I repeat twice.


I've only done this a few times so far as its so new to me but I really enjoyed the feeling that I could increase my weights so much from what my trainer had written down. She'd been far too lenient with me and was laughing that I'd increased them so much on what she thought. 

It's such a great feeling to know that I've improved so much on what I used to be able to do. I just wish that my running was going as well as the strength is!

I read something the other day which has stuck with me so I'll leave you with it too:

'Don't concentrate on your weight going down; concentrate on your weights going up'

L xxx

Life Update

Hi!

I haven't been up to much recently but I have had a good bank holiday weekend so I thought I'd share some photos with you. I went with my family to our caravan for the day so we could take out my dads new boat. It was a lot of fun and it was great to finally get the boat out on the water!



The beach was lovely and empty and for once the sun was out. My dog absolutely loves the beach and cannot wait to get on the sand.

As you can probably tell from my selfie below, I was a little bit excited to get out onto the boat! My dad bought it a few months ago but the weather was pretty bad every chance we had so this weekend was the first chance. It was still pretty cold and after being stood holding the boat in the water whilst my dad took the trailer back to the car park I was FREEZING! Luckily for me I could just sit back and watch after we got started.








The views from the sea were lush and all I was missing was a cocktail! It's not a luxurious boat nor is it very big but I'm sure a few cans of cider wouldn't go amiss next time ;)

My dog was shattered after running around the beach with me and looks lush and fluffy after getting soaked!



I came back on the Sunday night then to get ready for my personal training session on the Monday morning which went really well and I'm writing about my new program for this weeks Fitness Friday.

After that I felt I deserved to completely pig out so me and M met up in Barker Tea House in Cardiff which I'd never been to before but had heard of and been recommended so many times. I'd heard lots about the cake so we tucked in!

I fully recommend the lemon and poppy seed and also the brownies, unbelievably gooey! The peppermint tea was also amazing, the tea pots are so heavy though it was a bit misleading every time I picked it up.

After this we finally got to see Divergent which I really enjoyed. I recently finished reading the last book in the series and couldn't wait to see it portrayed in the cinema too. It didn't disappoint and you should all get your hands on the books too! The books are always better I think.



Lastly I also had my hair done this month and decided to go a bit lighter again. I've had an ombre look for a while, not the dip dye that everyone else has but the true ombre where your hair on the lower parts of your head are all a lighter colour. As my hair is so dark it can sometimes look like it's 'blocked out' when I tie it up so I decided to have highlights all the way through my hair instead. I don't use bleach on my hair my hairdresser uses something called high lift so it isn't as damaging on my hair but it doesn't get as light as quick either. Over time the highlights will lighten by themselves and I'm hoping it will look more natural.


I'm kidding myself that my hair is anything like the fabulous Kate Beckinsale's above; her hair is amazing and I so badly want the all over blonde highlighted look. If someone could style it like for me every day too that would be even better!

What have you lovelies been up to lately? What have you seen in the cinema?

L xxx

Dune Handbag

Morning lovelies!

I've got a beautiful bag to show you today. Me and my mum are bargain hunters, and on a shopping trip a few weeks ago I found this beautiful bag that my mum bought for me for my birthday.

Let's just take a look at it first:

Rosey blush coloured, a good medium sized bag with some beautiful golden studs. It's like the absolute perfect bag for summer. I love bags this size, big enough to fit enough items in without breaking your back like other larger bags that let's face it, you are just guaranteed to fill.

There are even studs on the base of the bag which is a nice touch and makes the bag look so much more expensive and help to stop the bottom getting scratched and covered in crap from the floor.

I also love the zip, its nice and chunky and matches the gold studs. The zip goes all the way down the sides of the bag and their are two handles also made with the same rose gold. 

This bag is absolutely perfect and replaces my other older black bag from Warehouse with gold studs for the next summer months. The only problem i have found so far is that it is susceptible to stains from darker clothing. Wearing this with my new Levi's has resulted in a few dark blue stains on the rose pink material but luckily this can be cleaned off.

Even the inside is lined! I do love the inside material of a bag, you can always tell if you've got a good quality bag when you've seen the lining.

So what's my secret? Obviously its from TK maxx! There's nothing like a bargain when you're casually wandering around the shops and find a beauty like this. I don't remember the price of this but I do remember it was discounted quite a bit and was worth every penny!

Do you like rummaging in TK Maxx? Are bags your thing or are you a shoe girl?

Trips to TK Maxx are always a danger for me, especially in the bag section!

L xxx