WHAT'S IN THE BAG?... CRYSTAL CLEAR

I LOVE FREE SAMPLES!

So I was very fortunate to be able to attend the MOBO Awards back on the 3rd November. I was working with the company I intern for and we participated in the gifting lounge. I was so lucky, I got to meet lots of celebs (a post will come for this) and everyone was so incredibly nice.

Whilst there, I got perusing the other stands which were gifting the celebrities, these included Mark Hill, Rare London and Superdry. We were next door to two lovely ladies from Crystal Clear, which is a skin care brand based in Liverpool. The ladies were incredibly knowledgeable about their products and of course I began questioning them for answers to my problematic skin.

I told them I really hated my black heads and they recommended I have microdermabrasion which is where the top layer of the skin is buffed away leaving fresh, clean and glowing skin. They have a wide range of professional treatments which are available in loads of salons, just check out their website and put in your postcode for your nearest one.

The ladies gave us a few samples to try which I cannot wait to do, about to book in for my facial soon too!


Check out Crystal Clear Skincare here

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

So, I am still alive.

It's taken me a really long time to write this, purely because I've been wanting needing to do it, to regain some order in my life and to give me something to focus and be passionate about.

So much has happened over the last couple of months, i felt like i had left it too late to return to this blog. This is not the case as i have a fresh new outlook on everything (this blog included) so some changes will appear and a better blogger i shall become.

So the last time i posted i had just moved for a year long internship. I lived on my own with no tv or internet for around 4 weeks before i moved again. Those four weeks were the worst and i never ever want to live on my own ever again.

I now live with 4 of my friends and I'm really happy here - yay finally!

I fell in and out of love with an ex, not a good move i know! Sometimes you have to take risks to understand it's not meant to be.

I've joined the gym and changed my diet/lifestyle. After a real palaver with a set of scales (3 different weights in one day!) I know I've lost 6lbs at least so I'm currently BUZZING! I'm taking it slow and steady but I would like to lose 1.5 stone.

My internship is going well, it's hard and some days are better than others but i am very fortunate to even have an internship, let alone it being where i go to university so i can still go out and have fun with my friends. My boss is a fantastic lady who has shown me so much already and who i know will go on to bigger and better things.

New blog, new me starts from this moment on.

MIA

Heres a geeky picture of me with my new keys, woohoo!

Sorry I've been completely off the radar for a while. The exciting news is that i have a new placement in Preston so I've just moved back up to a room near the town. The bad news is that i have no Internet or tv so I'm currently writing this in my uni library!

I'm so lonely without any tv, technology or housemates!

Please bare with me so that i can get back into blogger mode, more exciting news to come soon as well!

Hope you're all well

MAKING POSITIVE STEPS

Recently I've been making some changes to my life in the way of my health and so for the last few weeks I've been working really hard at my leisure centre, doing some classes and going to the gym. I used to really enjoy exercise but i got into bad habits and rarely did it but somehow I've managed to get this motivation to do it so I'm really pleased.

I currently do a whole range of classes which includes:

Pilate's: Stretching and toning, great for back and posture problems

Body Shock: A high intensity workout which really pushes your body

Bums, tums & thighs: You can kind of guess really, tones muscles i never knew i even had

X Biking: Probably the most uncomfortable thing I've ever done but i always feel good afterwards

Next week I'm trying body combat, body balance and I'm even going to give boot camp a go!

I really recommend seeing what your local gym do in the way of classes because i really enjoy them and i feel better every time i go!

Are there any classes you do, that you think i should check out? Let me know!

WHATS IN THE BAG? ... ZARA

Bag - £39.99 Zara, Perfume £9.99 Zara (only available in store) 

Ive had a pretty pants couple of weeks, every things going not so great and i decided to get myself a little treat to cheer myself up.  The bag is a pale pinky/cream colour. My photography skills are shocking i know! I also managed to pick up the 'fruity' fragrance for Zara. I have been after it for ages so I'm super pleased i have it.

Ive bought a couple of other things recently and made a few changes in my life so check back to find out more! 

A FEW TREATS

So it was my birthday last week and I just asked for money because i want to start having snowboarding lessons! Ive always wanted to learn but I've just never for round to it but i am determined  to give it a go at least! 

Anyway i bought myself a couple of things when i went for lunch last week, the Zara perfume isn't the one i wanted but they didn't have the fruity one out so that's next on my list! I'm quite lucky in the sense that i don't particularly like the designer fragrances out at the moment and I've always liked the cheaper 'celebrity' fragrances like Britney Spears (don't judge! the purple bottled one smells SO good). For £9.99 you get a pretty good sized bottle of perfume and Zara do have quite a few to choose from. Unfortunately they can't be bought online.

I also walk through Debenhams to get picked up so i naturally circled the beauty hall on my way. Ive wanted to try macs mineral skin finish for ages and i had gone really with the intention of a new lipstick but i just decided to get this instead, it was quite expensive for a face powder £20.50! But it was my birthday and i wanted to treat myself! 

If you have a Zara near you with the 'fruity' fragrance let me know!!!! I'm DESPERATE to get my hands on it!

MEET MY NEW BEST FRIEND

Ted Baker case buy here  

Vans case buy here

eeeeeeeeee! I am finally bang up to date with technology! I used to have a blackberry which i was quite happy with but it broke (nothing to do with me) and orange were useless as per. So i bit the bullet so to speak and waltzed out of phones4u with this bad boy. The guy in P4U was hilarious, Leyroy was just like the character Jerwayne from Phoneshop (channel 4). I had to wait over 2 hours to actually be given the iPhone so as a compensation gift i was offered a phone case for free. I being quite shocked by the offer went over and just picked up whatever was cheapest but Leyroy convinced me to go for the Ted Baker (worth £29.99!) 

Needless to say I left very happy that day. But being the tomboy that I am at times i needed this case in my life. I don't think its actually a legit vans case but I wasn't going to pay £30 for a case, I'd rather just buy more shoes!

         

How odd, that I write a post about iPhone cases and so does one of my favourite bloggers, check out the range she's found on ebay here!

So I'm now on the hunt for some good apps, Ive already got Monopoly and the sims 3 because they're my favourite games ever and I also have instagram which you can follow: sw_1992! Please feel free to recommend me some in a comment below.

ANOTHER YEAR OLDER...

Can't believe i turned 20 yesterday, I'm starting to feel super old!!!

I'm really lucky as i had a lovely birthday starting with a cake made for me by my best friend Aidan, it says Eliza because apparently i look like Eliza Doolittle? hmmmm we'll see. I also went for lunch at TGI Fridays which is always good and then afternoon tea with a few of the girls. I had lots of cake which you can see, cake is the way to my heart!

Finally is a picture of what i wore on Sunday, the sun actually shined (which hasn't happened in 20 years) so i was completely shocked and wore a dress teamed with my trusty top man necklace and my topshop allegra lookalikes from asos.

Today i got a bit wet n wild at Thorpe park. Its kind of a tradition now for my birthday for us all to head down and spend the day. It ALWAYS rains and today was no exception but we did get to go on everything with barely any queue so it was great as I'm so impatient and literally turn into such a child at any theme parks. FYI 2 for 1 vouchers for Thorpe park and Alton towers etc can be found on loads of tescos own brand food like pizza and crisps. So now you have no excuse not to visit!

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

PEARL COLLAR

I blame my dad for my ridiculous dimples!

This is my new old top. Its a charity shop find but the label says Debenhams. I think it was £3 and i am in love with the collar! The shirt itself isn't a nice material, the kind that goes very see through when wet (thanks rain!) and it has shoulder pads, how retro!

The second picture is pretty much my facial expression all the time, i struggle with 'serious' poses so what you see is way you get with me, plus i thought my hair looked crazy/voluminous which I'm loving.

Today i hoped i was going to get a nice new jumper from topshop but the only one in my size had a huge hole in it, so i wasn't going to pay £26 for something which couldn't be repaired. However i did waltz out of phones4u with a shiny new iPhone! whoop! and i got a case for free because i had to wait over an hour for the actual phone to be delivered. Obviously i picked out the most expensive but I'll probably write about that next week once I've got it all up and running.

Tonight I'm going to try and get all my contacts down somewhere to transfer over to my new phone which will take hours no doubt and then I'm going to my best friends for a few drinks and a general hang out.

Also when writing this i heard some very sad news, some of you in the UK may of heard about the 15 year old girl being stabbed by her boyfriend and sadly dyeing. That was in fact one of my good friends sister so our entire town is in mourning over such a great loss. Its so sad to hear about these things but you don't really realise how real these situations are until you're affected by one. All my thoughts go to Megans family.

THE END OF AN ERA...

...Well not quite. I've been off the radar recently, sorry but I've been moving, visiting family and all sorts!

My empty bedroom, I hate packing and moving out. Its one of the most stressful things ever and i have to do it every year! It took 3 trips to actually move all my stuff home, such a trek.
New purchases, I am completely broke (more broke than usual, trust me) so my new purchases are cheap things like nail varnishes. They still make me very happy though! Im currently rocking 17 Lasting fix in Fairy Cake which is a baby pink colour but not opaque quite bold. Ive included an out of focus shot because my acrylics look horrible right now and if i try and wedge one off, I'll have to get the rest off NIGHTMARE!
Early birthday/late christmas presents from my mum! Im hopefully going for a snowboarding lesson and a drive in a super car! All thats left to decide is Ferarri or Lambo... either will be a step up from my fiat!
Shelf is looking good, my life ambition is to have one of those super full bookcases down one whole wall. This is my start, which I'm quite pleased with. They do weigh a tonne though... the only downside really.

This weeks bad news: My beloved phone has died. My blackberry apparently has a broken screen which i had nothing to do with! (for once) and I'm totally hacked off because I'm stuck with my VERY old blackberry until christmas :( This blackberry doesn't even have the internet , i am SO gutted.

And lastly how I've been spending my evenings and tonight right now actually. Currently on What Happens In Vegas which i love, partly because of Ashton Kutcher and partly because of Cameron Diaz. I think they should get it on, they'd make a great couple!

I hope you've had a great bank holiday! I should be back with some more outfit posts next week as I've only ever done one! (Bad blogger i know!)

GIMME GIMME GIMME...

a man after midnight. nope? Just me who remembers that tv program? Anyway, its the weekend WHOOP! Ive never really experienced the 'friday feeling' before until yesterday, adjusting to the 9-5 working lifestyle is hard and I'm really no good at it.

I hope and I'm sure everyone is enjoying the current sunshine we have, my mums seen a few fainters today but i think its because northerners just aren't used to the heat whilst us southerners can take it in our stride. I was up at 7 to head back to uni to collect more stuff, in jeans! What a wally, i instantly regretted it as soon as we got on the motorway.

Its nearly my birthday so I've been scouting around for a couple of things i wouldn't mind having in my wardrobe and i saw these and instantly died inside. Remind you anything? A very popular Topshop instant sell out maybe? But at half the price. I loved the Allegra boots when they first dropped but i never bought a pair and now i feel like its meant to be. I'm ordering them next week so i have something to open on my actual birthday. I know i can't wear them in this current weather but its too good an opportunity to miss. I'm sharing these with you in good faith, do not let the 7's sell out now!

Im also a bit of a trainer fiend, which i haven't really shared on here before (sorry!) but I'm a huge street/sports wear fan, always have always will be. Anyway I've been lusting over Nike Blazers for agesss and look why else has been added to asos! They're beautiful!

eeeeee asks you really are pushing me to the edge!

MORE AND MORE

Ive just started my internship at a local branding company and its going quite well, first days are never good anyway so hopefully it will improve as time goes on.

I bought some more new makeup recently on 3 for 2 in super drug, still managed to spend £20 though!

The first thing i want to tell you about is my Loreal rouge caresse lipstick in aphrodite scarlet. The formula is really different to the revlon lip butter, more opaque almost balm like and the colours lovely, more of a subtle berry pink. I'll also add because this is quite important to me that the packaging for this product is really nice, very 'high end' for a high street branded product and much easier to open that the lip butter swell. I don't know if anyone else has a similar issue with them?

The next addition may be the best thing I've bought in ages! I was literally just browsing around and this blush caught my eye straight away, its a gorgeous pinky, peachy, shimmery blusher by accessorize, the actual shade is called bronzing block 3 or rockstar. I can't find it online but they may have it on display instore, i bought mine from a small super drug anyway.  The product is lovely, really easy to build up and not too full on and very similar to benefits coralista. You can even tell by the packaging!

My final buy, it was 3 for 2 after all is the illegal lengths mascara by maybeline. I wanted to try it because i needed a new one and i have really short practically none existent eyelashes. Ive never had a 'fibre fixed' mascara before but i find the formula really light and its not too bad, nothing magical I'm afraid. 

Do you own any of these products? If so let me know how you're getting on with them!

ELF HAUL

Im a sucker for a good deal and its very easy to spend £30 on eyeslipsface.co.uk in order to get the free delivery! This is another present to myself for finishing uni but everything was essential anyway. As you can see below i bought a lot of brushes and a brush holder (DESPERATELY NEEDED) which are really nice and soft and i needed some new powdery type brushes. I also picked up a blusher, high lighter and eye brow kit. The highlighters great and super bright but I'm not so happy with the blusher, there wasn't much colour pay off. The final item was a purple nail varnish which does require 3/4 coats but its still really nice colour and at £1.50 you can't argue! 

Brushes: all over face brush, defining eye brush, powder brush, brow comb,smudge brush and complexion brush. All £1.50 (white handles) or £3.50 (black handles). The brush holder was £5

Blush in gotta glow, blush in tickled pink, eyebrow kit in medium all £3.50, nail polish in lilac £1.50.

All eyes lips face products can be found here.

Do you own any elf products? What are your must haves?

THE DAY HAS COME

Today i finished my second year of university and i honestly wanted to cry, i love my course and everyone on it so the thought of not seeing them for 17 months (a long break but were all taking a placement year) is really scary!

In a previous post i said about something special coming from asks and i can proudly present Nars Wicked attraction. OH MY GOD IVE WANTED THIS FOR SO LONG. Its £35 but i got 10% off for being a student and features a blush/bronzer duo in orgasm and laguna ( which I'm dying to try) an eye shadow in fathom ( a pale pink shimmer) an eyeshadow primer and a lipgloss.

I honestly can't wait to try them, i waited ages to buy it because i wasn't sure if it was worth it but oh my god the packaging is just so cute and fair enough they're not full size products but i personally hate buying expensive things to find they don't suit me or work well with me. Hopefully i'll get a lot of use out of it.

Asos have a few bars gift sets, have you bought any Nars products? Any recommendations?

DO I? DONT I?

Ive been so bad at blogging recently and I'm really sorry but I've had a ton of uni work. I officially finish wednesday (whoop!) so hopefully i'll get back into some kind of routine after then. Im currently waiting for an asks order which is very exciting because I've been umming and arring over the 2 items since the start of april and I've finally taken the plunge and spent £70 (which is a lot for a student like me who can barely afford prim ark at times). So keep your eyes peeled for a blog update.

The do i? don't i? title of the blog suggests I'm in two minds over something and at the moment its creepers. I can't decide whether they're cool and i can get away with wearing them or not. Obviously i can't shell out the money for real underground ones, i used to be an 'emo kid' with 'goth' friends so i know all about underground creepers and how much they cost! Im loving the pastel coloured ones but I'm not sure whether to risk it? What are your thoughts? Do you own any? please let me know!

The top row are all £25-30 from here

The bottom row are all £89+ from here

BEAUTY IN THE MAKING

Sorry I've been off the radar this week, a very very heavy workload with a random day trip to London thrown in the mix! After a 7 hour journey (don't even get me started) we finally arrived in the capital city to visit the 'beauty in the making' exhibition. None of us actually knew what the exhibition was about so we were surprised to find that its all about paper and the paper making process! 

The exhibition itself was really interesting and we were given a lovely notebook/colour chart and other information abut GF Smith (which is the paper company that created the event). My favourite and most inspiring part were the stacks of paper with stencil cut outs that acted as sign posts, even for the toilets! The event unfortunately finished on Friday but i can keep anyone posted on the next one they stage.

I'm sure you can understand that paper itself is actually fairly boring so we only stayed for a few hours and then headed out to the capital for some retail therapy. Unfortunately i have £0 in my bank account so there was no shopping for me but it didn't stop me browsing. I found that Zara sell perfume which smelt lovely but they don't sell it online so if anyone knows if their local Zara sells the perfume please let me know because it was super cheap and too good to miss!