Summer Spends

Although I'm supposed to be saving ready for my new house, there's a few spends I couldn't resist this summer. Here's my highlight summer spends for 2014.

1 - Jack Wills Fullford Tee - £14
I love Jack Wills clothing at the best of times, but even more so when they have a sale on. This tee comes in a wide range of colours and was down to £14 in their summer sale. The one I've got is a lovely lilac colour and is very loose fitting and comfortable. Great for summer! I love the style and comfort so much my Mum and Grandma are buying me two more in different colours for my birthday.

2 - Boots Cucumber 3 Minute Clay Mask - £1
My skin recently has been feeling very greasy and spotty so I decided to invest in a face mask to try and help my skin out. I didn't want to pay a lot of money so I did some research and found this Boots Cucumber 3 Minute Clay Mask which had some rather good reviews. I decided for £1 I couldn't really go wrong so bought it on my lunch break. After one use my skin was feeling much smoother and a horrible spot that had been developing on my chin disappeared straightaway. I was rather impressed. It's not a massive tube that you get, but if you use it twice a week as recommended it should definitely last more than a month. A purchase I will definitely be repeating.

3 - Dorothy Perkins High-Tops - £7
Another of my sale bargains. I wasn't particularly after a new pair of casual trainers but stumbled across these in the DP sale and they caught my eye. When I took a closer look I saw that the only size left in stock was my size, and decided it was fate! They're super comfy and will be great as the weather starts to get a bit cooler and wetter.

4 - Trudi Canavan Thief's Magic Ebook - £6.49
I love a good book and can't wait for my holidays to be able to do some serious non-college related reading. Trudi Canavan is one of my favourite authors, I've read every book she's published and loved them all. This is the first in her new trilogy and I'm really looking forward to getting into the story. It's a bit pricey for an Ebook in my opinion but since it's relatively new and still cheaper than the hard copy I'm not going to complain.

5 - Personal Planner - £17.95
This is by far my favourite summer spend. I love a good diary and this is definitely one of them. I won't write much here as I plan to write a blog post alone on the pros/cons of this purchase but I definitely will be buying another next summer.

6 - Sensationail Gel Glitter Nail Varnish - £15
I bought this to go with my outfit for the Christening I went to a few weeks ago. It's a gorgeous peachy colour with glitter, the only downside was it took quite a few coats to have a good coverage. You need a UV light for the gel to set, but once it is set it looks really good. For me I didn't quite get the two week coverage it claims to give but I'm not the best at applying nail varnish so I'm normally pretty pleased if they last more than a week.

Sarah x

My Everyday Makeup Routine

I really enjoying reading other people's blog posts on their everyday makeup routines, and since it's been a while since I posted something other than my weekly weight updates I thought I'd use my spare time to share my routine. I'll admit now I'm not the greatest at applying my makeup, and a lot of the stuff I do I've taught myself along the way. I'm an only child so I haven't had sisters to learn from and my Mum doesn't wear a lot of makeup, so it has just been trial and error over the years. So here goes, my before to after routine. Apologies in advance for the poor quality of some of the photos.

Before

Stage 1: Moisturise

I have two major problems with my skin, an oily T zone and the tendency to go very red very easily. To combat this I apply No7 Redness Relief Balm (you'll see from this post I'm a massive No7 fan) before I start to straighten my hair and leave it to soak in. Then whilst I go and brush my teeth and get dressed I apply No7 Beautiful Skin day cream for Normal/Oily skin. This is one of my more recent No7 purchases and I love how smooth my skin feels after wearing it, and how much better it makes my makeup last. Once this has sunk in I move onto my foundation.

Stage 2: Face

I've gone through a lot of foundations over the years but really found it hard to get a great colour match because my skin is so pale. The best match I found was from the Benefit Hello Flawless range and when I first switched to this I absolutely loved it (see my Benefit Product Review) and was convinced this was going to be the best for me. But after another week or two of wearing it I began to notice that the foundation just wouldn't stay on my skin and I'd regularly left with patches around my nose where it had rubbed off, even if I hadn't touched my face at all. It didn't matter what I did it just wouldn't stay, so I switched back to my good old faithful No7 and their Stay Perfect foundation. I apply with my foundation brush (which I think is a No7 one also) all over my face so I get an even coverage.

My concealer again is a No7 one (beginning to see the trend here?) I bought it as it was supposed colour match to my foundation, however I do think it's slightly lighter. I only use a little of this under my eyes to try and hide my bags and to cover up any spots I have. Finally, I seal it all with some translucent powder (again No7) and apply a little bit of pink blusher on my cheeks to give me a little colour.

Stage 3: Eyes

You'll finally see some variation in products here. I start with my eyebrows, using Benefit Browzings to give some definition and shape to my face. I was a bit skeptical at first about this product because its seems a lot of money for such a little box, but despite using it every day it is lasting me a very long time. I use this with a Boots own make eyebrow brush to get my brows all going the right direction and the shape I want.

Next I apply eye shadow. I very rarely go for bright eye shadow because I never think it suits me. So out of the pallet in the picture, which is a Victoria Jackson pallet, I tend to go for the pink/white/gold colour on the left. I've had a few different Victoria Jackson products, particularly eyeshadows, and do like the colour variations but sometimes they don't show up very brightly unless you apply a lot. Majority of the time however, I don't find this an issue because I don't like my eyes to stand out loads.

After finishing my eyeshadow, I move onto eyeliner. The eyeliner I'm currently using is a Natural Collection one I bought for £1.99 from Boots. I'm not very good at applying eyeliner so I don't do anything fancy like wings, I just apply a line to my top and bottom lids to give my eyes a little bit of definition, and there's often some days where I don't apply any at all. Depends on how I'm feeling and if I'm running late.

Finally, I apply mascara. The one I'm currently using is my newest makeup purchase, No7 Lovely Lashes. I was, until this week, using Benefit They're Real mascara but I've now ran out and none of the Boots I can easily get to sell Benefit products. I have to make the effort to go into Town or the the Metro Centre to buy Benefit so I opted for something else. The No7 product is great, it doesn't make my lashes clumpy at all, but I do feel it looks better when I don't have eyeliner on. It seems to loose it's effect when I do. But it does make my lashes look rather natural, which I like.

Until I wrote this I didn't actually think I wore that much makeup, but maybe I do. Anyway, here it is my everyday makeup routine. And here is the final result. Hope you've all enjoyed and again sorry for the poor quality photos! Let me know any recommendations you have.

After

Weigh In - 9th June & 100 Happy Days...Day 94

Despite this week being another maintaining week, I actually had a great NSV today. Went to get change into my dance stuff for class tonight (which was such a great class) I found that my leggings where extremely comfortable today, my leotard didn't feel like it was confining me in places, and my tshirt hung nicely. I looked in the mirror at one point and thought, wow you have lost weight. The scales just didn't agree however.

Last week I got back to the gym and changed up my routine a little to do some interval training. I've read a lot about interval training in the past, and my boyfriend has tried to convince me to do some before but I've never considered doing it myself. Last week was my first try and I loved it. The time passed a lot quickly because I was only ever focusing on doing something for 2 minutes maximum.

I alternated between a leisurely walk to get my heart rate normal again, 1 minute sprints or 1 minute walking on a really high incline. I don't tend to do much incline work so I really struggled with this, I could feel my knee pulling slightly, but the whole workout was so much harder and more enjoyable than what I had been doing. I was still feeling the after-workout feeling when I got to bed that night too much was a great feeling. My best advice though if you're doing this on a treadmill is to not turn the speed up too high on your sprints, there's a chance you may fall off (I nearly did!).

I took a week out of logging my food last week as it was becoming more of a chore than something I enjoyed, I'm going to start back today and get back into the habit. I didn't go crazy on what I ate on my week off, I was pretty good, I just didn't want to write it down.

I've also started using an app called Water Balance which works out how much water you should drink on a daily basis and lets you log it. I used to think I was pretty good at meeting my limit but since I've started logging I've realised I'm not. According to the app I should be drinking 2.4litres a day...I'm lucky if I get half of that. I definitely need to cut back on the Diet Coke and Milk (I love milk so this will be hard) and get more water in my diet.

So, although the scale didn't show a loss I think this week's been pretty good. Here's to another good one.

100 Happy Days...Day 94

Presents from my Mum. My favourite moisturiser ran out the other week and when I went to get a replacement I was told that No7 had discontinued it. I was absolutely gutted and until I find something I really like I've been borrowing my Mum's. But to my amazement, she came home from work today with a bottle from the Boots near where she works. They didn't know anything about the product being discontinued and had some left in stock. So happy and can't wait to put this on in the morning. Thank you Mum!

Benefit Cosmetics Makeup Review

Having been using a No7 foundation for quite a while now and finding it didn't quite match my skin colour that well, last weekend I paid a visit to the Benefit beauty bar in John Lewis, Newcastle upon Tyne, to try out their foundation range and see if I could find a better match. After talking with the very helpful Benebabe and trying out a lot of the Benefit products on offer I came home with the Hello Flawless foundation and powder which I've been using daily since purchase.

I have a very pale skin tone so ending up with the lightest colours in Benefit's range didn't surprise me. The "I'm pure 4 sure" ivory foundation and "I love me" ivory powder are a great match to my natural skin colour, and surprised my Mum when I actually said I had makeup on it's such a great match.

The foundation gives a good coverage from a very small amount of liquid. It's very smooth and creamy to apply, and blends in well. When I first tried it, I did feel this foundation was slightly heavier than some others on the market I've tried, but it's not so heavy to make you aware of the fact you're wearing makeup. I've worn the foundation every day this week from 7am till 6pm ish with issues around the product wearing off, so I'd definitely say this is good for those who don't like to keep reapplying makeup whilst they're out and about.

Benefit also do a Stay Flawless 15 hour primer to extend the length of coverage and provide a little sample in their foundation bottles to try. Knowing I was going straight to my boyfriend's house after work I thought I'd give the sample a go yesterday morning. As soon as I applied the primer, my skin began to feel very dry and the coverage I'd been getting from the foundation prior to this just didn't seem to work with the primer.

By 11 o'clock yesterday I ended up with a huge patch across my nose/cheek where my makeup had just rubbed off, meaning I had to spend 10 mins in the toilets at work removing the rest of my makeup so I didn't spend the rest of the day looking patchy. Not ideal as I don't carry spare makeup around with me.

For the rest of the day I felt that my skin was very dry and for ages was very hot and red. I do have sensitive skin so whether this was a reaction to something in the primer or just a result of me scrubbing the makeup off at work, I'm not sure. So unfortunately this is one Benefit product I wasn't impressed with, but I'm glad I'd had the opportunity to try the tester before I ran out to buy it.

The powder also gives a good coverage from very little product and is very light on the skin. With previous powders I've found that if you touch your skin after applying powder you can feel it on your skin, with this you can't. It also doesn't seem to leave a residue of powder in the room you've been applying it, something I found with my previous powder which seemed to leave product all over my dressing table/floor/mirror no matter how careful I was with my power brush.

Overall, a good purchase in the foundation and powder. Good coverage, and good colour match. Perfect for every day use or for special occasions. I used to be a No7 girl through and through but I'm slowly find myself becoming more attracted to Benefit products. Next on my whishlist to try is their blusher, mascara and brow products.

Price: £25.50 for the foundation, £25.50 for the powder. (If you're a student Benefit's website offer 10%)

Purchase from: Benefit Cosmetics Online, Boots, John Lewis, Debenhams, Fenwicks

Rating: Foundation 8/10, Powder 8/10, Primer, 2/10

100 Happy Days - Day 26

Day 26 - Having freshly painted nails

Although I'm not a wiz at this, I do love having my nails painted. As with a lot of women at the moment, I love having gel polish put on....I just can't afford to pay someone to do it for me all the time, so therefore I'm trying out different home techniques.

Today's paint is from a gift set my mum got me for Christmas called Nails inc. Capsule Colours (click on the name to see where you can buy it). The set came with 8 different mini nail polishes and a full size gel effect top coat. It's a bit pricey (£52 in Boots..it was on offer at Christmas) but it does seem to give a really good effect. It doesn't give the same feel as when I go to the salon, but it's a good colour, lasts longer than normal nail polish and gives a good glossy look.

I've tried 3 out of the 8 colours and all give a really nice effect. Last week I had a really bright blue on (picked out by my boyfriend) but as I have some important meetings this week with senior people at work I've gone for a more subtle purple colour. The copper colour is also really nice, very subtle and goes with everything.

Not sure how long these mini polishes will last but I'd definitely consider buying a Nails Inc. product again in the future.

My rating: 8/10. A little pricey and not quite the same as gels, but a good product nevertheless.

Nails Inc. Capsule Colours