Life Lately

Hey All

It's been a while since I've done a life update. I'm lucky everything seems to  be working out at the moment. Life seems to be rushing past me at the moment and I feel slightly like the last few months have passed in a blur.

This last Monday I spent the day being a hair model for my lovely hair dresser. I'm so in love with my hair now. It's grey and pink colour melt technique.






Behind the scenes, complete with a beautiful hair net. I love this dress!

As tough mudder is on Saturday I've given up alcohol for the past few weeks. Before that L and I enjoyed a night of cocktails and she gave me an amazing present. A book if Glastonbury memories (I love scrap books!) And Urban Decay Perversion liner. I've also had a few nights out with friends. Being sober on a night out is a little weird. Even weirder was not drinking at a gig in Welsh Club! I think I'm getting more used to it now. Maybe I'll cut back on drinking.









My present from L!

The gym as always has focused heavily in my life over the past few weeks. It's so time consuming but something I really enjoy. I've also now taken up kickboxing. I love having a hobby I can progress with.



I could not resist shopping last weekend when I saw this beautiful miss selfridge dress I'd been eyeing up for ages was reduced down to £35! It's such a beautiful fit!.



I've also been spending as much time with the dude as possible. Next week he goes away again. The last six weeks of having him here has gone so quickly. It's been lush to spend time with him the last six weeks and I think him being away the first time actually helped us. I think I've finally found the easy happy relationship! He'd probably kill me for this picture but it makes me laugh. A night out with him is always finished with a shared box of 20 chicken nuggets! Nom haha!



I''ve also been quite crafty lately but I'll do a full post on that. I loved having time to lose myself in projects!



love M

xxx

Asos Sale Haul

Hey All

My brother is a total sales bargain hunter so is always sending me bargains. The latest whatsapp bargain contained these two belts that ring in at a to cheap to resist £2! I was in need of new belts so couldn't resist a browse. As he's premier he also let me use his account for free delivery as I was heading back to my parents that weeks!

At £2 it seemed silly not to order them! (link here) I couldn't resist browsing the rest of ASOS sale which did prove dangerous. Here's the other bits I grabbed. I could have bought so much more. I tried to have some self restraint (says the girl that bought 4 belts and wanted 5!)

I'm a huge fan of waist belts and bottle green so there was no way this wasn't going to end up in my bag. I love belts like this with dresses as they just add a little something more to a plain dress and make my waist look smaller. This one was more expensive at £5 (link here)

Lastly on belts the colour of this caught my eye! The blue is an amazing matte pastle shade and I loved the rubberised finish of it. I think this colour will be amazing with tea dresses! At only £3 it was being ordered! I think I'd have personally preferred a silver buckle with the colour of blue! (link here)

Next up is loads of jewellery. I'm loving the delicate jewellery that seems to be everywhere but I seem to be lacking it. Also weirdly lately my ears have finally accepted being pierced and are happy to wear cheap earrings after 18 years of only wearing gold or plastic ones!

For £2 these had to be mine. I love the simple delicate design of these. They are also a brushed gold so don't look tacky. I'm definitely usually more of a silver person. I find a lot of my belts have gold buckles though so I am trying to buy more! (link here)

I was drawn to the gem stone bullet setting on this necklace and loved the light blue shade of it! The worn silver holding it looks great! It is a little annoying to wear as it does tend to choke me after a while and the second bit becomes super long! It was the most expensive buy at £5.50 (link here)

I think this is my favourite purchase. I love the layering of dainty necklaces but don't own enough to do it. The contrast of the white against gold I love and the fact one of the chains has squares on. It's so simple but I can see my getting tonnes of wear from it! This one was £4 (link here)

These disappointed me! Mainly my fault as I can't be bothered to complain. The middle bracelet was missing from my set and one of the beaded one's broke the second I put it on so I do only have 3 of this set! I do love little dainty bracelets and have already been wearing these a lot but I do think I need the gold one to break it up. I probably have one n my collection. These were £4. But to be honest I don't think they are worth it. (link here).

Have you been shopping the sales? Have you grabbed any bargains?

Love M

xxx

10 Tips to Live a Happier Life

Hi there pals!

I recently wrote about my choice of 'happiness' by quitting my job which was essentially taking over my life without any benefit to myself whatsoever. (see here for more info!)

I've been reading a lot about happiness recently and have seen lots of articles and debates about it. What is true happiness? How can you achieve it?

Happiness is different for everyone, but there are a few key things everyone should try to add a little but more happiness to your day and your life. There's no point living a miserable existence for the sake of it!

In fact even the Pope has recently released his own top 10 tips for happiness, although in my opinion a lot of his are very similar and a little too, shall we say boring?

Here's my top ten tips for being happier:

1) Take care of yourself, have some 'me' time. Sleep, pamper, curl up in bed. Stuff your face with chocolate and don't speak to anyone for a whole 24 hours if you don't want to. It's important to be alone with your own thoughts, it gives you chance to know what you really want. If not, go and get your nails done as a treat, spend an hour in the bath until you're wrinkly and if all else fails, life is always better with a tan! Just make sure you save some time for yourself.

2) Connect with others and do something to help them, particularly those who are already important in your life. Always make time for your family and friends, they are the people who are and will be there for you when you really need them. Even a text, phone call or a snapchat can be an easy way of communicating with them and brightening their day and it will make you happier too. It can be great to have a bitch fest too, just to get your bad day, nightmare colleague, irritating partner etc all off your chest! Catching up in any way possible will always make you feel better.

3) Learn new things, be curious, read, ask and question everything. There's nothing worse (and I'm talking from experience) than having a bored mind with nothing intellectually stimulating to occupy yourself with.
I'm someone who loves to read, loves to learn and I'm generally quite a fast learner, having that taken away from me made me so unbelievably unhappy that I couldn't even see a way out. Since I've taken back control of things I've been reading so much more and finding everything interesting again. It's good to relax but it's also good to keep your mind busy too.

4)  Revisit old things. I've had a huge clear out recently which is something that I try to do regularly as I just have far too much stuff and seem to be a bit of a hoarder! It's great to declutter and make more space in your room/house. But aside from that, look at old photos, make a scrapbook of some of your favourite memories, reminisce with friends over coffee or cocktails about your school days or holidays you've been on. Memories are all you have that nobody can take away from you!

5) Get active, get outside. I'm a firm believer that exercise is a massive factor in happiness. I would never have said this years ago but it truly is the main thing that keeps my stress and food intolerances at bay. I now think that there really is no excuse for you not to get some exercise in a few times a week; whether it be walking, dancing, running, swimming or any kind of exercise class or gym that you can find. I find that mixing it up and doing different things is the best way to go about it, hiking up a hill getting tonnes of fresh air, seeing new scenes and following it up on the way back with fish and chips is one of my all time favourites things to do! Fresh air literally works wonders, get out in it.

6) Move on, live and let live, there's so many sayings I could list but sometimes there's just nothing you can do but walk away from something. Whether it's your job like in my case, your relationship, a friendship or any number of things, sometimes it's best just to move on and leave it all behind. The negativity can drag you down and it's not worth it when you could be having such a better life. Surround yourself with happy people who support your choices.

7) Cut down on the social media. I'm a firm believer in taking pictures on a night out and sharing them with my friends; but constant photos, tweets and statuses can't truly mean you're having a good night? I almost always tweet a picture on the night, it's lovely to be able to share your new dress, hair etc with your friends but for day to day life sharing every meal and constantly comparing yourself to other people's feeds isn't healthy. Social media is a portrayal of someone's life as they wish you to see it not how their life really is. Take a break from it for a few days, and you'll see that really, you're not missing anything.

8) Set yourself goals, make plans for the future, be organised. It can be great to just live each day as it comes but if, like me, you want to get loads done in your life it' a good idea to make a loose plan. 

9) Don't take life seriously. Throw those shapes on the dancefloor, have an eating competition, pull faces in photos. I haven't done any of these things in a long time, it's high time I had a little more fun with life and wore something crazy and danced like a loony!

10) Choose your own path; never give a fuck what anyone says you should or shouldn't be doing. They don't know you, they don't know what you want and you should never do something to please somebody else who wouldn't do the same for you.

If in doubt; refer to Harry Potter:




L xxx

Nivea 3 in 1 Micellar Water

Happy Friday lovely readers!

I hope you've got some great things planned. I have work for the final time on a Saturday but only til 11am so I'm planning on getting some gym action and then having another quiet weekend to conserve my energy for Tough Mudder the weekend after!

Today I have a review for you on another micellar water. There are quite a few on the market now and it's about time seeing as before there was only offers from Bioderma and Etat Pur which were a little difficult to get shipped all the way over from France.

I've since tried the L'Oreal and the Garnier before picking up the Nivea version for Glastonbury. I still had the Garnier one in my stash but as the bottle was so big I didn't want to carry it all the way to the festival with me nor did I want to run out, so I picked up this one for a change.

I mainly chose this one as it was a smaller size (200ml) which was perfect for 5 days of festival antics and it was one that I hadn't tried. It was also tailored for sensitive skin which I knew i would experience after a few days of being unable to wash my face properly.

It claims to be a 3 in 1 micellar water which aims to cleanse deeply, remove make up and moisturise whilst also being free of parabens, colours and perfume which all sounds like a pretty perfect package to me!

I used this morning and night at glastonbury, I was hoping it would help keep a break out at bay by keeping my skin as clean as possible without stripping it. I also, as expected wore a lot of eye make up and copious amounts of glitter which needed quite a lot of help to remove.

It contains dexpanthenol and grape seed oil to help combat the main signs of sensitive skin; redness, tightness and dryness.

Using this every day had absolutely no negative effects on my skin whatsoever, it was a massive pain that i could only use face wipes and this to cleanse my face as I missed my hot water and wash cloth terribly! My skin did get a bit greyer, blotchy and definitely not as smooth but that's to be expected.

I didn't suffer too many breakouts, nor did my skin feel tight, sore or experience any redness other than what I would normally experience if I hadn't washed my face properly.

I thought this cleansing water was another great micellar water at a reasonable price from the high street. I do think it is a more expensive version though. This bottle normally clocks in at £4.07 for 200ml (but is currently on offer for £2.03 on the Boots website!) and so is £1.02 for 100ml.

The Garnier micellar water that I've previously posted about (here) is £3.33 for 400ml and so 83p per 100ml. I personally prefer the bigger bottle, I use a cleanser of this type regularly so a bigger bottle is much better value for me. But that aside all of the micellar waters I have tried have been on par with each other in performance which is great for the high street brands to be doing such a good job.

What do you think of high street cleansing waters such as this one? Which is your favourite?

L xxx