Murad Balance and Protect Travel Kit*

Hey All

It's been a while since we've posted on Sunday. It's fair to say life is pretty busy for L and I at the moment. We've got lots of stuff we are both loving and want to share with you.

We went to Glastonbury this year and we both had an amazing time at our first festival. Dancing, drinking and generally having an amazing 5 days! We had heat waves, rain and thunder and lightening but it didn't make any difference what the weather was!

Something we were both concerned about was skincare. We are both careful to properly care for our skin and have full skincare routines in place which just wouldn't have been possible to keep up at Glastonbury where a shower was exchanged for baby wipes in the tent.

When Murad offered us these kits to try we jumped at the chance. Mini's that are perfect to test out and great to take to such events. We were definitely excited to try the clarifying wipes to our faces were getting more of a proper clean.

The kit comes with 5 clarifying wipes, Oil control Mattifier and Skin perfecting Primer for £10.

I'm oily skinned and couldn't wait to try out the mattifier. I decided to skip on foundation. I took it with me but didn't wear it when I was there. I've been embracing foundation free skin spots and all at the moment so a mattifying cream is brilliant. Foundation free skin is good, shiny greaseball skin is not something I like. You apply the mattifier after moisturiser. What I love about this is texture. It's creamy and silky on the skin and mattifies in a natural way. I find some creams like this feel dry on the skin. This leaves my skin still feeling moisturised and has become a part of my everyday routine. The bottle is still going strong too. A little goes a long way! The SPF is always welcome in a cream too!



I did find the wipes have a strong chemical smell to them. I'm not sure if with prolonged use they would dry my skin out. For short term they leave my skin feeling super clean and fresh and helped control breakouts. I think these are perfect for holidays where skin is probably more oily then normal due to extra oil use.

The primer was another product I loved. It is a skin tone product but blends into the skin invisibly. It leaves skin feeling smooth but not silicone coated for make up. My make up applies more smoothly using this and it doesn't block my pores. At Glastonbury I used a combination of all three of these and no foundation. My skin looked clear and healthy.

I'm totally sold on the mattifier and will definitely be repurchasing. I'm pretty tempted by the primer too and for holidays I think the wipes would be a great investment. I think more companies should do the travel sized kits as it's a great way to try out products without having to by full size.

Love M
xxx

Hi all!

Hope you've had a fabulous weekend! This Murad kit was a lovely surprise for us to recieve, we absolutely love Murad products and kits like this allow you to try so many different products for a reduced price so you can tell easily what you really love. There are also 2 other kits available for the £10 price tag; Age Reform Travel Kit and Resurgence Travel Kit. I've found these on the M&S website so you should snap them up asap! 

The three products could not have been more perfectly selected for us. Although were getting older now and god forbid the wrinkles might be coming through already but we do still get an oily t-zone. Combined with Glastonbury and festival life meaning that there wasn't any proper running water meant it was definitely going to turn into an oil slick!

The combination of the Oil Mattifier, Skin Perfecting Primer and the Clarifying Wipes meant that my skin was nowhere near as bad as it should have got!

The wipes did smell strongly of alcohol, I almost felt like I was getting drunk off the smell! But this definitely helped to keep any breakouts at bay by cleansing my skin as thoroughly as possible. Long term use may strip your skin of natural oils but for the 5 day festival or a long weekend you will be perfectly fine.

The oil mattifier was great and as M has mentioned there is still loads left even though I've been using mine most days since the festival too.

The skin perfecting primer was a lovely product that really helped to even out skin tone and sort of blur any imperfections. You can see the colours of the products on my hand in the image above, the white oil mattifier blended out to a clear product on application.

The kit is a perfect opportunity to try out some new products that you are unsure will work for your skin and also perfect to take away with you on holidays and long weekends. I also took mine on a hen weekend to Edinburgh as we only had hand luggage and had to take all products in the clear plastic bags with us!

Using these products I was also confident enough to only wear concealer to cover my under eye bags during the festival which is a pretty big deal for me, I never go without a full on face of foundation! Whilst i do choose a light base currently (UD's Naked Skin) I can't quite go make up free so this was a big plus for me! (the under eye bags courtesy of festival drinking and late nights could not be avoided though!)

Have you tried these fab little kits from Murad? Which one would you try out?

I've never met a product I didn't like from Murad but I'm going to be picking up the other 2 kits to try out things I haven't tried before and keep them for future trips away!

L xxx

Happiness

Evening lovelies!

I'm having an impromptu chill out evening at home tonight and am trying to get my posts in some kind of order again. I'm normally an organised person and have my posts ready and the photos edited and uploaded so I always have a variety of things I can write about but recently I have completely lost my time and mojo.

Although I've been super busy with hen weekends and glastonbury festival I've also made the really MASSIVE decision to quit my job. This was something that I worked so hard to get and spent 5 years at uni for, which is a position that I imagine a lot of people are in nowadays.

After a few long months of being totally bored out of my mind with nothing intellectually stimulating to keep me going I told my boss I was considering leaving and he attempted to stall me by saying they would sort it out but unfortunately nothing materialised. I've spent too long trying to get them to teach me things and give me a chance to do something more than the basics.

It was making me so unhappy and I hadn't realised how much I'd changed my life for a job.

I'd had to buy a car when I started the job as it was an hour commute either way to get there, which put me in a difficult position financially as I didn't have enough money for one by myself and had to borrow from my parents. The journey time plus the extra hour of my new shifts added 3 hours onto my day compared to before.

I hadn't realised the impact this would have on me long term, and slowly but surely my cinema and food trips after work dwindled and let's not even go there with the cocktail evenings! I couldn't ever attend blogger events as they almost always started at 6 and I could never make it back to Cardiff and park up in the shopping centre before 6.30 so I had to miss them.

With training for Tough Mudder i couldn't even get to the gym as regularly and my life basically became that of what I thought was an older persons; essentially my job was ruining my life and it wasn't even worth it. Not for the rubbish salary, the poor amount of training and definitely not for the amount that it was changing my life.

I'm 26, broke, living at home with my parents and totally hating it all. I realised there wasn't much I could change about it all apart from my job so I decided to hand my notice in and just be done with it. I am now a few weeks away from potential unemployment with a few thousand pounds worth of debt to my parents and then the usual student debt and the potential of a mortgage being some way off in the distance (20 years at this rate!) which I can tell you now is A LITTLE BIT SCARY.

But like the above picture, I need to wake up and live.

I have a lot of plans that I would like to fulfil such as travelling and I honestly cannot describe how much I want to go everywhere and see everything. Money is of course something that will put a serious halt to these plans but I'm hopeful that I will get a job soon and be able to start saving some money again.

My attitude to life has completely changed since I've handed my notice in and I'm already so much happier. Maybe its just the prospect of leaving and the excitement for possible future prospects or maybe it's just the relief of having finally made the decision but I can only hope that I can find a job soon that interests me and help get me out of my horrible hole of debt!

It makes me wonder how many other people are in the same position as me. Did you get your dream job only to find out it wasn't what you were hoping for? Have you had a job that promised you so much more than you were actually given?

Did you find out much later that the promises they made weren't likely to turn up at any point?

I have no idea what's in store for me now, but I know that I've made the right choice and that choice was happiness. So I'm sat here in bed snuggled up with my windows open, watching Bad Neighbours and eating chocolate shoes and I have to say, I'm feeling pretty happy with that.

Everyone needs a bit more happiness in their lives don't you think?

L xxx

Cardiff's New Primark Store (and haul...!)

Hello there!

Happy weekend lovelies!

I hope you've got some fun things planned. I'm at a close friends wedding today and have been looking forward to it for months! It's a small wedding but a rather large party so I imagine it will be a lot of fun.

I've had a few shopping trips recently, although I'm pretty poor it has been such a long time since I've bought clothes properly that all of them seem to be falling apart. I mean I'm at the stage where some clothes are too big where I've lost weight, some have holes in where I've worn them so much and some just are NOT in fashion any more.

So when Primark opened their brand new absolutely fabulously big store on Queen Street in Cardiff it would have been a travesty for me not to go and check it out wouldn't it?

This was my first purchase and it was a steal at £12. I cannot believe that this BEAUTY of a top was ONLY £12!!!

Look at the beautiful details and stunning patterns.

This top might not be silk and it might not be hand sewn but let's face it, with this much elegance who on earth cares?!

Even the bottom hem of the top is edged with the same gorgeous iridescent coral sequins, and I love a bit of coral (read obsessed).

When I saw this gorgeous jersey maxi skirt next to it for a bargain £10 it was in the basket before I blinked. Even my mum was impressed that as of yet, i hadn't picked up a tshirt nor a black item of clothing.

A bit further into this new stores 5 floors (FIVE!) and I found this super cool navy and white maxi skirt with huge polka dots and thigh splits. This was the first maxi skirt I ever tried on and the polka dots with the thigh splits just sold it for me.
Spots are my favourite pattern and the splits allow me to move freely with a lovely breeze to cool me down.

Look at those splits! There's one on either side too so it helps to keep my modesty during a particularly sudden gust of wind.

So eventually the black tshirt related item did make it into the basket! But it must be acceptable when it's this cute right?!

I love American sports style clothing and this is so comfy and goes with leggings and jeans for a slouchy weekend.

This floral tshirt dress is also a comfy purchase, its very short on me as I'm taller than your average but its a very pretty print and I love the colours.

Who on earth doesn't love tshirts like these? Paired with jeans, denim shorts or just as a beach cover up I love a tshirt especially when they're as cheap as these.

I'm a huge super hero fan and this Wonder Woman tshirt is a new favourite of mine. It's a lovely baggy tshirt and is great for dress down days at work.

The Coco Cola tshirt is another great one, plain white tee with a simple logo. Simple is always best I think!

Who doesn't love a pair of sunglasses as happy and summery as these? They remind me of the frames that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum wear on 22 Jump Street, loads of people had these on at Glastonbury in a myriad of colours. They just seem to go with everything due to the dual colours.

Lastly, at £3 a pair it would have been REALLY rude not to pick up at least a few of the colours of these pumps. The grey and white are staples every year for me but the floral and pink are new additions. £12 for four pairs of the pumps means that they can be worn to death and thrown out at the end of every summer. Let's face it, they always stink after a few months of wear and although you can put them in the washing machine they never turn out the same!

So what do you think of my buys?

I think the new store has a much better lay out that the previous store and a much wider variety of stock. They have allegedly taken on a total of 600 employees for this store so it's not surprising that it so much better organised.

I am almost certain I will be making many returns and have been on a bit of a shoe haul recently, a new post will be sure to make it onto the blog soon!

L xxx

Sense Cosmetics Lip Sense Blu-Red *

Hey All

Feels like it's been ages since I wrote a post. Where is this year going, I can't believe it's almost August. Last week saw me give up alcohol for four weeks. It's one of the things on my 101 things and I figured now was the time to give it up pre tough mudder.

So now it's time to get used to nights out spent on water. I'm already missing the social aspects of it but have been out twice and not drink.

On Sunday I met up with Jenny to go to a Lower than Atlantis gig in Clwb ifor Bach. I've not heard much of LTA but love a gig so jumped at the chance to go.

I decided to go for classic make up so my current favourite red for a night out came. It's the lipsense lip colour in blu - red. These are absolutely amazing for staying all night and this is the perfect classic pillar box red.

I love a red lip but do hate the maintenance of it and seeing it transferred on glasses and things.  I have tried other lipstains that claim to last 24 hours but found they wore really badly to the lip liner effect which is never a good look.

It's a great colour for making the teeth look pearly white!

The lipstains are a little sticky when first applied but when topped with the lipgloss have a long lastig non sticky finish. Once the lipgloss wears off the lipstain stays unfaded and non sticky and doesn't dry out or flake on the lips. They come with a classic doe foot applicator which is the perfect size for precise application. The lip colour itself feels light and liquid on the lips. The dude approves though as it saves me covering him in lippie!

The lipstain has been on for over 5 hours here and still looks perfect!

These seriously have amazing lasting power and I always reach for them on a night out. The only place they seem to fade is the corner of the lips. The downside of these. Getting them off!! They usually need a good oil cleanser or lip scrub to budge them properly but they do sell a special remover I think I need to try. You can get a set of the colour, gloss and remover for £45 or the colours themselves are £22. Though they seem expensive they do last all night so you don't need to worry about touch ups and won't use as much product.

have you found any long lasting lip products. I can't wait to try more colours!

Love M

xxx