Top 6: Easy to care for houseplants!

If you follow me on instagram or just know me at all in person, you may well be aware that I LOVE plants (ps I have also recently created a new account dedicated to this love, please go and follow me: @thegardeningrose). Since moving out I have acquired quite a number of house plants and I thought I would do a quick post on some of the easier to care for plants that are in my collection and how I actually do look after them. I Hopefully you will find this post useful and if you could all bombard Tom to let me pick up some more plants, I’d be forever grateful.

Tillandsia (Air Plant)

Air plants are honestly one of the craziest things ever, they don’t have a root system, require no soil and generally get their nutrients and water…from the air! They are incredibly low maintenance and you can either spritz them with water or soak them in water for a short period of time every couple of weeks and that is it. They generally like to be attached to a small piece of bark like the one in this picture, but you can also buy a special glue to attached them to shells, pots or anything else you can think of. I also have another air plant in a tiny cement pot on my fridge because they are just so easy to keep! The plant pictured above came as a gift from my mum from M&S, I want to say it was only about £6 and you can just give it a quick spritz with a water mister (I use an old setting spray bottle) every two weeks. 

Dieffenbachia (Dumb Cane Plant)

 I picked this plant up for about £3 from Sainsbury’s on a whim and I knew absolutely nothing about the plant. Since I have had it it’s grown a tonne of new leaves and I really feel like it’s going from strength to strength. I think the thing I like the most is the variegation in the leaves and the fact it’s pretty low maintenance.  This doesn’t take much watering at all actually, perhaps once a week at a maximum and I will be feeding this throughout the summer months. The indoor plant food I use is Baby Bio and I find a few drops every time I water is sufficient. One thing to note about the dieffenbachia is that it’s poisonous to both humans and pets so if you have small children or pets that would be inclined to nibble at the leaves then either give this one a miss or put it somewhere far out of reach. I’ve not yet tried to propagate or split this plant so I will have to feed back on how I get on as I think I will need to soon before it gets too big for it’s pot!

Chlorophytum Vittatum (Spider Plant)

My spider plant was the first house plant I picked up and I actually had it before I had the keys to the house! I’m pretty sure this cost me £9.99 including the pot and I have propagated 13 other people out of this one plant! I have found this to be a particularly easy plant to care for and I love the way it looks. Spider plants are infamous for their ‘babies’ which they grow from a long stem that will sprout from the centre of the plant. The babies are effectively tiny little spider plants that are perfectly formed and survive off the mother plant but for us house plant lovers, they are an ideal way to get more plants. To propagate a spider plant from a baby, simply place a pot of soil underneath one of the babies so that the baby is resting on the surface of the soil. The baby will grow roots within a week or two and once the baby is firmly rooted, you can cut it from the mother plant. It’s honestly that simple.

Another way to propagate spider plants is to split up the mother plant. The roots of spider plants are tuberous so they are much easier to separate and it is often quite clear to see where the plant is made up of multiple plants and where the natural separation point is. In terms of watering, on average I will water my spider plant once a week but I tend to work on the basis of if the soil feels dry, I’ll give it a water. Make sure the plant isn’t sitting in water that hasn’t drained away and feed with a houseplant food during the summer. Many people choose to leave the spider plant babies untouched and the plant takes on more of a trailing vibe. If the babies weren’t in such demand I would definitely do this!

Ceropegia Woodii (String of Hearts)

I feel like over the last few years, trailing plants have become more and more popular with Pinterest sporting pages of hanging planters and macrame pot holders to display them in. I picked up this string of hearts for £10 late last year and I honestly cannot believe how much it has grown in that time. I only water it when it feels dry and feed it occasionally throughout spring and summer and the ‘strings’ are now around 4 feet in length. Tom won’t let me buy any hanging planters so I keep this on the highest window sill I have and it is doing really well. It’s almost touching the floor now though so i’m going to have to think of a different place to keep this soon but it is a really easy plant to keep!

Dracaena

A Dracaena is like a super low maintenance mini indoor tree. I have two different sizes of Dracaena but this mini one is the latest edition to the house and only cost me a couple of pounds. I don’t find that they grow in height very quickly but they fill out in terms of their leaves pretty quickly and really make an impact in any room. The best thing about them is that they need almost no care. They’re not overly demanding in terms of light or water and they don’t need much pruning either. Occasionally, if a leaf turns yellow I will just remove it but otherwise, I leave it to its own devices. This new edition has an ever so slight pink tinge to the edge of it’s leaves but my original Dracaena (which I picked up from Sainsbury’s for £7.50!) has much darker foliage as can be seen below! 

Haworthia

Finally, I’ve probably saved the easiest plant until last. My lovely friend Alena gifted me this gorgeous Haworthia when she came to a BBQ at mine earlier this year and she demanded that I don’t over water it! I did some research and this plant seriously does thrive on intentional neglect! It needs watering once every two months.. yes you heard right, every two months! It looks effortlessly beautiful and what’s even better is that you can buy it already planted up like this from The Little Botanical! This really is a must have in any house as it is so easy to care for.

I hope you’ve liked this round up of my recommendations on easy houseplants to care for! Let me know which one is your favourite and also if you’d like to see more plant related posts in the future!

Much love

xoxo

The Worlds Biggest Empties Post

I’ve been on a real mission to finish up some products recently and without really realising, I’ve got a huge empties box on my hands. I’m going to keep introductions short and reviews brief because there’s a hell of a lot to get through and this post has taken me an absolute age to write!

Skincare

• The Body Shop Camomile Gentle Eye Make Up Remover – Nice product but to say it’s for eyes, it did sting them slightly. Got rid of my makeup well though, but not as good as a bi-phase eye makeup remover. 3/5, probably wouldn’t buy again.
• Drunk Elephant LaLa Retro Whipped Cream – Full review of this here, but I’ve definitely used nicer moisturisers with a smaller price tag e.g the Clarins Hydraessential range. 3/5, wouldn’t buy again.
• The Body Shop Camomile Cleansing Butter – This is my absolute holy grail makeup remover that I keep going back to. Only thing I would change about it is the packaging as I managed to get my lid jammed on one of the tins and Tom had to break into it with pliers. Still would give a 5/5 and i’ve already repurchased.
• Glam Glow DreamDuo – This is a two part night mask that incorporates a serum and a moisturiser in a split tub. It smells amazing and definitely feels nice on the skin but isn’t anything special to justify the £42 price tag. I wouldn’t buy it again but I also wouldn’t say no if someone gifted me a tub if that makes sense? 3/5
• Drunk Elephant C-Tango Multivitamin Eye Cream – Probably one of my favourite items in the Drunk Elephant set, but it also comes with a pretty hefty price tag of £54. I did notice a different though when I used this but the price definitely puts me off repurchasing at the moment. 4/5
• Glam Glow Power Mud – Alongside the hydrating glam glow mask, I think this one is my favourite. It has a really nice scent and texture and lasted a very long time! I’m not in the market for another face mask at the moment but I wouldn’t turn down another tub in the future. 4/5
• Clarins Toning Lotion with Iris – A really nice gentle toning lotion that doesn’t leave your skin feeling stripped or dry. It also has a lovely subtle scent, I’d definitely repurchase this. 4/5
• Clinique Liquid Facial Soap Mild – A nice foaming face wash that has no scent and doesn’t make your skin dry. There are definitely cheaper alternatives to this though which means I probably wouldn’t repurchase. 3/5
• Lacura Hot Cloth Cleanser – Very good dupe for the Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish at a fraction of the price. Not as good as my Body Shop cleansing balm but if I was on a real budget (it only costs like £3.99 for a huge tube) , I’d have no problems buying it again. 4/5.
• Sunday Riley Blue Moon Cleansing Balm – Made my skin feel lovely but is very over priced and it has weird little gritty bits in that got everywhere. Also no good for eye makeup because of those gritty bits (I learnt this the hard way). 2/5, would not repurchase.
• Clarins Lotus Facial Treatment Oil – This is quite a heavy oil with a strong scent, however you only needed to use a couple of drops each time which meant that the 30ml lasted a very very long time. It’s a nice product but I don’t think it did enough to my skin to warrant me repurchasing. 3/5
• Clinique Pep-Start Eye Cream – I found this to be a pretty average product, the applicator felt a bit child like and I didn’t really notice any effects from using it. It was okay but I wouldn’t buy it again. 2/5
• The Body Shop Oils of Life Sleeping Cream – This is quite a rich face cream but it didn’t leave my skin greasy at all. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how nice it was to use and I got a weeks worth of uses out of this tiny tub so a little does go a long way. 3/5.
• Dr Botanicals Moroccan Rose Superfood Facial Oil – One of the nicest and lightest facial oils i’ve tried. The scent is lovely and subtle and a little goes a long way so this lasts a good length of time. Left my skin hydrated but not at all greasy! 4/5
• Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum – I definitely don’t get the hype around this product. The formula consistency is nice but it soaked in so quickly that you could barely spread it over your skin. I didn’t notice it making my skin any more hydrated either. 2/5
• Lancome Advanced Genifique Youth Activating Concentrate – This small sample lasted me a really long time as a small amount went a really long way. However, there was no noticeable effects from using this and I believe the full size is quite a lot of money so I wouldn’t purchase the full size. 2/5
• Clarins Rebalancing Clay Mask – Really really nice clay mask that does not dry down, which stops your skin getting that horrible tight feeling. It definitely tingles on the skin but didn’t irritate my skin in the slightest. I would definitely repurchase in the future once I’ve narrowed down my mask supplies! 5/5
• Nude Progenius Rescue Oil – I actually ended up really enjoying this oil. You only needed a couple of drops each evening and it was a dry oil rather than super greasy, which worked really well for my skin. I would definitely consider using this again. 4/5
• Drunk Elephant Beste No 9 Jelly Cleanser – Another foaming cleanser and the final thing to be used up from the Drunk Elephant set I bought last year. Again, this was very similar to other, significantly cheaper foaming cleansers so I’ve got to be honest and say I wouldn’t buy it at the full price of £27 as it’s just so expensive for what it is. 2/5
• Nip & Fab Glycolic Fix Scrub – This is definitely my favourite physical exfoliator and it’s a product I have repurchased a lot over the last few years. It’s really reasonably priced, coming in at just under £10 and I will definitely be repurchasing this again soon. 5/5

Bodycare

• Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb – I featured this perfume in my project pan post earlier this year and I finally managed to finish it off. I think the more I wore this perfume, the more I found it just a bit too strong for me. I love the basic scent but overall it’s a little too heavy for me personally. 3/5
• Commodity Mimosa (x2) – I received one bottle of this perfume as a Space NK birthday gift and liked it so much I went on eBay and bought another. It’s so fresh and zesty and I can smell it on myself but it’s not overpowering. The full size is about £100 so I will have to have a think about whether i’m going to buy the full size but other than the price, I love it! 4/5
• Zoella Snow Silky Body Lotion – As someone who actually doesn’t really like Zoella, I was pleasantly surprised by this body lotion! It smelt nice and fresh and soaked into the skin well leaving it nice and soft and hydrated. I wouldn’t say no to using it again to be honest but the packaging was a bit rubbish and the print came off the bottle super easily. 3/5
• Clarins Relax Bath & Shower Concentrate (x2) – This is by far my favourite bath product and it will be something I keep repurchasing over and over again. The smell is very herbal and relaxing and it has a really lovely calming effect when used before bed. I will be picking another bottle of this up again when the cooler weather is back. 5/5
• L’Occitane Almond Hand Cream – This has always been my favourite hand cream and I have not found another one that matches this yet. The scent is gorgeous and the cream soaks in nice and quickly so it can be used throughout the day too. I will 100% repurchase. 5/5
• The Body Shop Spiced Apple Hand Cream – I think this was a limited edition scent and to be honest it was a little bit sickly for me. The product itself was nice enough but not a patch on my beloved L’Occitane. 2.5/5
• Drunk Elephant Lippe Balm – My favourite product from Drunk Elephant that I have tried so far. I’m not usually a lip balm girl but this one was really really good. At £15 it’s not cheap but it lasted a long time and was really convenient to use. 5/5
• Nivea Rich Moisture Shower Cream – This was a god send when my skin was really dry during the colder months but last year I found a particular scent of this on holiday and i’ve never been able to find it since! The hunt continues! 4/5
• Diva Mango Vera Hand & Body Lotion – Every Christmas my nail salon always give us a little hand cream and a gift voucher as a thank you for being a regular throughout the year. This year they gifted this hand cream and honestly it was really really nice. It was a bit thicker than I would normally go for but I also used this at work on dry spots on my elbows and legs throughout the day which was really handy.
• Clarins Hand & Nail Treatment Cream – I would say this is my second favourite hand cream after the L’Occitane. I have a friend who works as a Clarins counter manager and she always tries to get my favourite products in my gift with purchase! This did not hang around long and it reminded me that it is such a good product. 4/5

Haircare

• John Frieda Frizz Ease Deep Conditioner – I bought this on a bit of a whim in Morrisons and honestly I was pretty impressed. It worked pretty well for my hair and was available on a 3 for 2 so it was reasonably priced too. I would pick it up again if I needed a hair product on a budget. 4/5
• Function of Beauty Shampoo – I picked this up as part of my Instagram Made Me Buy It post and by the time I’d got to the end of the shampoo, I realised that these weren’t really working for my hair. They were not hydrating enough and actually left my hair a bit dry. I’m currently using the last of the conditioner to shave my legs with, safe to say I won’t be forking out for these again. 2/5
• Tresemme Heat Defence Spray – I never really use heat to style my hair so this has been hanging around for a long time. It wasn’t sticky or heavy in my hair so to be honest I can’t really fault it. I don’t know enough to say whether it’s stopped my hair getting sizzled but otherwise, not a bad product. 3/5
• Moroccan Oil Treatment Oil – Oils are an absolute necessity for my hair and this one was great. It’s expensive but a little does go a long way and we even used it to tame Tom’s beard and it worked wonders for that too! Would definitely recommend! 5/5

Makeup

• L’Oreal True Match Foundation – Unfortunately I was colour matched incorrectly with this foundation and that just set me off badly. I constantly had to mix it with other products to balance out the pink tones and it has just put me off using it again. 2/5
• MAC Fix + – who can really fault Fix +?! I absolutely love it and I think it’s ideal for using as a setting spray but I also use it with foiled shadows to really make them pop. I’ve already repurchased (both the matte and the regular versions) and will most likely continue to do so! My only gripe is that the spritzer can sometimes be a bit full on and in true MAC fashion, you can’t always get every last drop out of the bottle! 4/5
• Glam Glow Glowsetter Setting Spray – Glam Glow seriously hit the nail on the head with the spritzer on this bottle. It produces the finest mist I’ve ever seen with a setting spray and couple that with the gorgeous scent and the way it makes your makeup look, it’s a winner! 5/5
• Rimmel Lasting Finish Breathable Foundation – I’ve always liked the Rimmel foundations, especially for every day. The only thing I didn’t like about this one was the applicator, but I’ve written a whole post here so I won’t go on too much! 3.5/5
• Fenty Pro Filt’r Foundation – this is the most flawless foundation I have ever tried. If you have a long day or an event to go to, this is the foundation to choose. I have repurchased this already and quite simply I bloody love it. 5/5
• Benefit Goof Proof Brow Pencil – I’ve always loved this as it is such an easy product to use, especially when you’re in a rush! However, since using the Shavata products I find this to be quite warm toned and now I’m not sure if I would buy it again. Still to be decided! 3.5/5
• MAC Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder – This is actually such a good powder and it lasted an absolute age too! It’s so finely milled and doesn’t leave a white cast on the skin. I have a couple of powders to use up but I would buy this again. 4/5
• Bare Minerals SPF 20 Correcting Concealer – right, I basically bought this as I made the mistake of getting my brows threaded before a night out and I needed the redness covering. So I was like “oh can I try this on” and I have such a guilty conscious that I bought it. I liked it but didn’t love it enough to buy again. 3/5
• MAC Pro Longwear Concealer (x2 1 in shade NC20 and one in shade NC15) – This is by far my favourite concealer and I am also about half way through another one! I tend to flit between the shades NC15, NC20 and NC25 dependent on my tan. This does come up a lot lighter than the foundation so if you are a NC15 in the foundation for example I’d recommend the NC20 in the concealer. I have already repurchased. 4/5 (not 5/5 based on the shitty design of the pump as you have to pretty much break into the packaging to get the last week or so of concealer out of it!)
• MAC Strobe Cream – I always used to think this was a bit of a gimmick but as I used this up I really fell in love with it! I think I prefer the peach/pink shade to the original silver but it really is a gorgeous product! Would probably repurchase! 4/5
• The Estee Edit Contour Lip Liner in ‘The Barest’ – I actually really loved this lip liner, it was a nice twist up pencil that had a gorgeous neutral brown shade to it. It lasted really well and was very easy to get a nice accurate line. I believe this is discontinued which is a real shame as I got it in a Sephora lip kit a while back but I would have repurchased. 4/5
• Jeffree Star Liquid Lipstick in ‘Celebrity Skin’ – I picked up the Nudes collections from Jeffree Star and this is the first one I have finished. It was a perfect everyday colour for me and it had a nice subtle brown tone to it which I liked too. These liquid lipsticks are one of the only ones that work for me and they last all day even after a full meal. If I didn’t have so many lip products I would 100% pick up the full size. 5/5
• Clinique Chubby Lash Mascara – I found the brush on this to be a bit too big and it made it easy to smudge this on your lids by accident. Once it was on it wasn’t a bad mascara but I would buy the full size. 3/5
• Urban Decay Perversion Mascara – This is one of my favourite mascaras and I have repurchased it so many times. The brush is great for evenly coating your lashes and doesn’t leave them clumpy or spidery. Probably best for every day wear but you could layer it for more impact on a night out. 4/5
• Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes Mascara – I’ve been through a few of these now and like the Urban Decay mascara, it is great for every day wear. It coats the lashes nicely and doesn’t flake or smudge throughout the day. It’s not exceptional but I would use it again if I had another tube. 3.5/5
• Benefit They’re Real! Mascara – quite simply this is my least favourite mascara, probably ever. The brush is so scratchy it actually hurts to use and and the formula transfers after about an hour! I thought about 0 out of 5 but decided that isn’t really a thing so it gets 1/5
• Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara – this is probably one of my favourite mascaras however it dries out so fast! I do also think the L’Oreal paradise mascara is almost identical for half the price. 3.5/5
• Clinique High Impact Mascara – I do actually remember liking this mascara and finding it perfect for every day. Mascara is actually one of my least favourite steps in my makeup routine and this one was pretty quick to get the job done. 4/5
• Marc Jacobs Lipstick in ‘Slow Burn’ – the formula of the Marc Jacobs lipsticks is one of the nicest I have tried. It is so creamy and so pigmented! These minis last a really long time and the colour was perfect for every day. If I didn’t have a mountain of lip products I would probably repurchase! 4/5
• Sleek Full Fat Lash Mascara – this was an incredibly average mascara with a really weird ball shaped brush. Not a fan at all. 2/5
• Arbonne It’s A Long Story Mascara – such a small sample that I honestly can’t remember anything about the mascara. Can’t of been that good if it left no lasting impressions! 3/5
• MAC Brow Set in Clear – a very over priced clear mascara but it has lasted ages and I do like how it sets my brows for the entire day! I have just repurchased as I didn’t want to be without it which is a pretty good sign! 4/5
• Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution Lipstick in Very Victoria – so I really wasn’t sure about this as I found the colour to really wash me out despite me wanting to love it. In order to use it up I started using it with MAC Whirl lipliner and I like it a hell of a lot more! It’s not the most long lasting but it’s very comfortable. I wouldn’t repurchase but it has been a nice lipstick for work. 3/5
• Fenty Pro Filt’r Primer – Another Fenty product that has really worked for me. I don’t tend to wear it with the Fenty Pro Filt’r foundation but its a really nice mix of hydrating but also keeping your makeup in one place. The packaging is of course, beautiful! However, the heavy glass makes it hard to get the product out and there was an awful lot of product left in there after the pump had stopped pumping product out. I think I would pick this up again though! 4/5

I hope I’ve mentioned everything that’s in the photographs but the list has been accumulating for so long I’ve honestly lost count. I’m just about ready to do a back to MAC with my MAC empties and i’ve already gather a few more bits in the empties box for next time. I seem to just go through products so quickly! Let me know if you’ve tried any of the products mentioned and what you think of them!

Much Love

xoxo

New Home| Bedroom Makeover!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now you’ll know that last year Tom and I bought our first house together. You might also know that I had a lot going on in my life around the same sort of time which meant that sitting down to write up posts on how the home renovations were going was not at the top of my to-do list! However, I’ve had such an amazing response from my home decor instagram posts and stories and a few requests to write up posts so I thought it was about time I got started.

When we bought our house it was not in need of major repair, but in our opinion it needed a decent bit of work to get it how we wanted it to look. The previous owners were a young family and as a young couple with no intentions for kids any time soon, we were looking for a very different style of decor and wanting something that really reflected us and was pretty modern. One of the key rooms that was stopping us moving in was our bedroom. It was a generously sized room with a gorgeous bay window and wood cladding on one wall but there was artex on the wall, a textured ceiling; carpet that the previous owners admitted had been down since the owners before them (a full 9 years earlier) and certainly smelt like it had been down that long and some pretty vile wall paper. It felt like a pretty big task but we set off with pretty vague ideas of what we wanted to do with the space, apart from knowing that we wanted it to be light, bright and contain the fewest items of furniture we could get away with.

I had taken such a strong disliking to the wallpaper when we visited the house before we put an offer in that 7 weeks later when we got the keys, I walked straight in the front door, up to the bedroom and ripped it straight off the wall then and there. This sadly also revealed that the whole room needed plastering. Joyous. We were also planning to leave the carpets down as dust sheets whilst painting, however my dad came over one day to help and exclaimed that he couldn’t stand the smell any more, ripped it up off the floor, chopped it up with a stanley knife and threw it out of the bedroom window. Tom went off to B&Q that day to buy some more real dust sheets.

It turns out that finding decent plasterers, or pretty much any tradesmen, is actually quite a challenge but the guys we ended up with did a pretty good job. The ceiling in particular is so amazingly smooth, well worth the £500 or so it set us back. We had also discovered that there were old tiles from a fire place that needed taking out and filling with wood and some weird contraption that had been used in the bay window to block some of it off to hang an oversized radiator that needed removing. We therefore needed a new (correctly sized) radiator, (odour-free) flooring, lighting and every single thing in the room needed painting. It was quite a task.

After

For flooring, we went with a light grey laminate from B&Q which was roughly £10 per metre square and we ended up using the same for our living room, hall and conservatory too. Having a dog that sheds hair 24 hours a day means that laminate is pretty much the only sane option for flooring in the majority of your house and it is much easier to keep clean. It definitely freshened up the room after the old beige carpet had been removed! On three of the walls we wanted a really light grey/white, which is honestly one of the hardest shades to find. We had shades that kicked up purple, blue, you name it, we probably tried it! When I started talking to people about the ‘grey paint struggle’ numerous people suggested ‘Polished Pebble’ by Dulux which is one of the colours that you can buy off the shelf and because it’s mass produced, it’s also a lot cheaper too. To every single one of those people who suggested this shade, seriously, I salute you! It’s perfect!

After

I also knew I wanted one contrasting wall in the room and after stamping my foot a few times at Tom’s request for a different shade of grey, he caved and we used Crystal Grey from Valspar, which, despite the name, is a very subtle dusky pink toned shade, on the wooden cladding. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever been happier with a colour combination before and we have received so many compliments from people when they’ve come round to visit too! We are lucky enough to have a nice picture rail in our bedroom so we used this to keep the ceiling white which really makes the room feel fresh and light.

For lighting, we brought over the bedside lights from Tom’s bedroom at his parents as he’d only recently purchased them. They are actually run from a ceiling rose via thick black cabling and then the lamps themselves are industrial style, white metal pendants. I’m pretty sure he got everything from eBay but he bought all the components separately so they were custom to what he was looking for. They definitely make a really cool feature and since they are all linked up with Philips Hue light bulbs, they are dimmable too! We were also left with cables poking out for some wall lights too and we have only just been able to agree on some lights that we liked for these! We knew we wanted some sort of concrete lighting but the shape, size and exact colour of the concrete was definitely a topic of discussion for a while. I ended up finding these ones from Lights.co.uk but we mounted them the other way around to provide up lighting rather than more down lighting. They were so much cheaper than any other we’d found, even on eBay, however I was so impressed with the quality and the appearance of them when they arrived! They were also really efficient in terms of delivery too!

Quite a few of the actual pieces of furniture in the room are from IKEA, including the three roller blinds at the windows, my dressing table and chair, the storage cabinet and the two bedside tables. We only intended for the blinds to be a temporary measure as they only cost us £10 a blind, but apart from being pretty unpredictable in terms of whether they ratchet or not, I quite like how they look, they really block out a lot of the light and they will roll completely away allowing us to get maximum light into the room during the day. They are also adjustable to different window sizes so I’d definitely recommend them, regardless of whether you’re looking for a quick fix of a more long term solution. My dressing table is the Malm dresser and I brought this with me from my parents along with the chair and one of the bedside tables (which is also from the Malm range) and we purchased a second one to match. I am planning on changing the chair to a blush pink velvet chair instead at some point but it’s been knocked down the ‘to-purchase’ list by other more urgent items in the meantime! The mirror on my dressing table was a gift from Tom when I graduated and is from Illuminated-Mirrors.co.uk, it is absolutely amazing and was honestly one of the most thoughtful gifts Tom has ever bought me. The customer service from the website was pretty shocking though so be warned if you decide to make a purchase!

Our bed was brought over from Tom’s room at his parents and was another one of Tom’s many eBay bargains. It’s like a textured dark grey fabric and although we love it, we will be replacing it for a super king size bed at some point this year, due to a very small dog taking up a very large amount of space. This will also mean that the bed side tables will need to be changed to smaller ones but both the bed and the tables will be kept in storage until we renovate our loft into a spare bedroom. You might remember the bedspread and cushions from my ‘Instagram made me buy it‘ style post and they are from Dusk.com. I would 100% recommend buying from Dusk as the quality is absolutely brilliant for the price! I will be purchasing a nice new set of bedding from them too when we get the bigger bed!

Finally, after months of staring at blank walls, Tom and I agreed on some prints to create a gallery wall. I was kindly given a gift card from Desenio which enabled us to pick up pretty much all the prints we needed to get the effect we wanted. The only prints not from Desenio are the ‘M’ and the ‘T’ which Tom created himself. All the frames are varying sizes of the IKEA Ribba frame in black and we are so happy with the overall look.  We tried to pick prints that would first of all work well together and secondly reflect our personalities and interests. I’m so pleased I convinced Tom to have one pop of colour in the form of the Dahlia print although Mr Boring insists he’d have preferred it to be all black and white. *Yawn*

Apart from a few random extras, that’s it! We are so so happy with how it has turned out and i’ll be sure to keep you posted about the new bed over on instagram when we finally decide to get a new one.  I hope you liked this new style of post and I’m hoping to eventually get round to writing more of these on the other rooms in the house! Please let me know what you think.

Much Love

xoxo

P.s You may have noticed that there are no wardrobes in our room, in the spirit of proving that we are young and carefree, we turned what was a nursery into a walk-in wardrobe. Post to follow!

Project Pan| Five things in my makeup bag

We’re only in February but 2019 seems to be the year of decluttering and getting all ‘Marie Kondo’ with your home and can I really call myself a blogger if I don’t jump on the bandwagon?! Since we knew we were buying the house in about March last year, I have been so good and not really bought any makeup or beauty products unless i’d completely run out however there is still a mountain of products to wade my way through. With this in mind I’ve decided to do my first project pan to try and motivate myself to use up five items from my dressing table. Here’s a little round up of what i’m aiming to finish off:

1. Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb – I’ve had this perfume lying around for at least two years now and I initially found it a bit heavy and 100% an evening only, spray once or twice maximum kind of perfume. However, before Christmas I’d used up all my perfumes and with two weeks to go till Christmas Day, this was the only fragrance I had left. I think using it every day has made me more accustomed to the scent and I actually really enjoying wearing it. I would say it’s still more of an evening scent but it really is lovely and lasts so well on the skin! I currently have around 1/5 of a 30ml bottle left so there’s not too long to go with this one!
2. Rimmel Lasting Finish Breathable Foundation *Gifted* – I received this in an influenster box a while ago (post here) and I actually really like it. I’m not a massive fan of the applicator but that aside, this is a really nice every day foundation that is great in the winter now my skin is a bit drier. I did find that it was separating a little in my T-zone though but the Fenty Pro Filt’r Primer does a fab job of keeping it firmly in place. A great bargain foundation but it’s probably better for drier skin types. There is around 1/3 of this bottle left to go!
3. Marc Jacobs Le Marc Lip Creme in Slow Burn – I’m pretty sure this came in one of those amazing Sephora lip sets a couple of years ago whilst I was in the States and it has honestly been one of my favourite lipsticks to wear. It is so creamy and pigmented and lasts so well on the lips. I’d say it’s a satin finish but has the comfortable feel of a cream lipstick. I would highly recommend the formula and shade to anyone! I’m only trying to finish this off as there’s such a small amount left that the tube is just lingering. I can’t see this one being too difficult to finish.
4. Fenty Beauty Killawatt Freestyle Highlighter Duo in Mean Money/ Hu$tla Baby – When Rihanna created Fenty Beauty it’s like she made the ideal make up brand for my skin. I’ve got a whole post in the works but this highlighter, alongside all the other products I’ve tried, is amazing. One side is a more subtle ‘day’ highlighter in a lovely pinky tone and the other is an in-your-face, intense highlight more suitable for nighttime of if you’re like me, anytime of the day! I have well and truly hit pan on both sides of this and I’m dying to have the satisfaction of completing another highlighter. Although, I made the fatal error of picking up my Becca highlight to use as a one off and I’ve not put it down since so this one could be more difficult to use up than I first thought!
5. NARS Laguna Bronzer *Gifted* – What feels like many moons ago now, a lovely PR girl from NARS invited me for a drink in Nottingham and gave me a bag full of NARS goodies that gave me that “i’ve made it” feeling that I have yet to ever recreate. Inside the bag was a huge compact of the infamous Laguna Bronzer which I have used every single day since. It’s such a perfect shade for my skin, even in the winter, and has been my go-to bronzer for months and months. The pan is absolutely massive though so i’m not sure how long this will actually take. I feel this would be perfect on light to medium skin tones but would possibly be too dark for very fair complexions and too light for deeper skin tones! In general though, a really good bronzer and if the shade is good for you then i’d 100% recommend!

Make sure you’re following me on instagram as I will keep you updated on the progress of these products over the next few weeks/months. Have you tried any of the five items i’ve mentioned? Would you like to see another mini project pan once these are finished?

Much Love

xoxo

An updated Empties for 2019!

I’ve been pretty poor with my empties posts over the last few months, particularly with moving house, I didn’t want mountains of clutter hanging over me. However, I managed to finish a few larger products off over the last few weeks and decided it was time to clear out the empties box and start a fresh for the new year.

Perfumes

J’adore Dior Eau De Parfum

This is possibly my all time favourite fragrance, its a good one for everyday but also feels special enough to wear to events or on a night out. I sometimes find that I personally can’t smell it on myself after a few hours but other people can so it is quite long lasting. Notes include Rose and Jasmine, however I personally wouldn’t use the word ‘floral’ to describe it! It’s not cheap at roughly £100 for 100ml but in my opinion it’s totally worth it and a bottle will last me the best part of 8 months to a year. I have repurchased a full 100ml bottle over Christmas.

Juicy Couture Couture LaLa

I have had this sat on my dressing table for so so long and it’s nice to finally have it finished off. It’s a nice light, fresh and fruity perfume that is perfect for days round the house or just general casual days. I did enjoy wearing it and Tom said he liked it too but probably not enough for me to buy it again. I feel like it’s been hanging around so long I’m ready to see the back of it for a while.

Les Infusions De Prada sample

I’m going to keep this one quick and simple. It smells like powdery soap and not at all like a fragrance I would expect from Prada. It’s a no from me.

Skincare

Glam Glow Galacticleanse

I absolutely loved the smell of this cleanser, it had that chocolate orange style scent that a lot of Glam Glow products seem to have and it’s gorgeous. The product itself was nice, it worked well at removing makeup but it wasn’t particularly something to write home about. Would I use it again? Yes I would, however I feel like there are better cleansers that cost less money so I wouldn’t instantly rush out and repurchase as a tube will set you back £26.

Pixi Hydrating Milky Mist

If there’s one thing that Pixi have absolutely nailed is the spritzer on their mists. It distributes the finest, most even layer of product onto the skin and I think that was what made me enjoy using this product so much. I can’t honestly say that I noticed my skin getting any more hydrated from using this but I did find it a nice step in my routine. I wouldn’t say no to another bottle but I won’t rush out to buy it!

L’Oreal Blemish Rescue Mask

This is my favourite of the L’Oreal masks and I really found that it helped to calm my skin down without drying it out beyond belief. If I didn’t have a stack of about 7 masks to use up I would definitely be repurchasing this one. I’ve written a full review here.

Lancôme Bi Facil Eye Make Up Remover

I always end up with a few of these lying around after buying the mascara sets in the sales at Christmas. It was finally time to use this up and I did actually really enjoy using it, to the point where i’m debating buying a bottle. It’s less oily than Clarins’s offering and I found it took my eye make up off with very minimal effort. Perhaps on pay day I might splash the cash on a bottle.

Balance Me Moisture Rich Face Cream 

I’ve got to be honest and say that this really wasn’t for me. It felt like a medicated eczema cream you’d get from the Doctors and just didn’t feel luxurious in the slightest. I didn’t really notice any improvement in my skin and I was quite glad to finish this tube.

Makeup

Cover FX Illuminating Primer

I got this as part of a set in the Space NK sales last year and I really enjoyed using it. It sat nicely under my foundation and gave a nice subtle glow that was not at all glittery. The one thing I didn’t like was the smell; I couldn’t put my finger on what it reminded me off but I didn’t really like it. Not a bad product but the smell would put me off purchasing a full tube.

MAC Studio Fix Powder

I really like this powder as it provides some additional coverage without being cakey and gives the skin a nice satin finish. I’m pretty sure I had the shade NC15 but I would consider NC20 in the future as this was very pale, even in comparison to the matching liquid foundation. This will be saved for back to MAC and I would definitely like to pick up another compact of this in the future.

MAC Strobe Cream sample

I am actually a big fan of MAC’s strobe cream and I love these little samples as they last you quite a long time. I’m currently wading through a few more samples and i’ve also got a travel size tube as I find they last better than the full sized tubes. It’s a great product if you want some glow to your skin and a bit of hydration all at the same time.

Everything Else

Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo

I received this through Influenster and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. The scent was nice, it made my hair feel clean but I just found that the product felt very cakey in my hair. Perhaps if your hair was thinner or lacked volume then this would be perfect for you; however I have a lot of thick hair and I found it to be a bit too much. Again, not a bad product, I just don’t think this suited me as much as the Batiste dry shampoo.

L’Occitane Verbena Shower Gel

I love how fresh this smells and a little goes a very long way. I would definitely recommend this range if you like lemony scents however the full size is not particularly cheap and we are tending to buy shower gels as part of our weekly shop rather so I can’t see us picking up a full size of this any time soon.

Bath & Body Works Hand Sanitiser

The one thing I hate about these is that the packaging rubs off and you can’t tell which scent you bought. It’s a shame as I remember liking whichever one this was but seeing as they don’t ship to the UK, I won’t be repurchasing any time soon unless Tom treats me to a trip to the States which is about as likely as me winning the lottery!

I hope you enjoyed this quick round up of my latest empty product stash. Have you finished off anything recently? Do you have any good product recommendations for me? Let me know if you’ve tried any of the products i’ve mentioned!

Much Love

xoxo

Drunk Elephant Skincare| Should you splash the cash?

I often think that with skincare you usually get what you pay for. More money means better ingredients which in turn means it’s better for your skin which in turn equals value for money, right? Well when Drunk Elephant launched in the UK late last year I was definitely intrigued by the hype that surrounded it. Having been out of the blogosphere for the best part of 6 months I’d genuinely never heard of the brand and quickly headed off to do some research. I was honestly shocked at the pricing of the products with sets of miniatures easily setting you back upwards of £60 I couldn’t see the appeal. That was until I was kindly gifted a £40 Space NK voucher for my birthday from the work girls and I decided to put it towards a set all in the name of ‘the blog’.

I picked up the Rescue Party Kit for the grand total of £63 from Space NK which includes:

• A full size of the Lala Retro Whipped Cream which contains 50ml of product and retails for £50.
• A full size of the Lippe Balm which contains 3.6g of product and retails for £15
• A deluxe sample of the C-Tango Eye Cream which contains 5ml of product (1/3 of the full size) and is worth £18 (full sized price is £54)
• A deluxe sample of the B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum which contains 8ml of product (only 16% of the full sized product) and is worth approximately £7 (full sized price is £44)
• A deluxe sample of the Beste No 9 Jelly Cleanser which contains 30ml of product (1/5 of the full size) and is worth approximately £6 (full sized price is £29)

Total approximate value: £96

Total saving: £33

Lala Retro Whipped Cream

The Lala Retro Whipped Cream is a moisturiser suitable for ‘all skin types’ and can be used on both the face and the body. It is encased in a fun pump packaging meaning that you dispense the perfect amount every time. It contains 6 African oils and has a specific pH of 5.5 which is said to be suitable for sensitive skin types.

I have pretty much exclusively been using this cream for the last few months in the evening and ,where I remember, in the morning too. The texture is quite thick and luxurious feeling but does not leave the skin greasy to the touch. Due to the cream having no real scent whatsoever, I can’t help but feel that this is akin to a very over-priced tub of E45 in fancier packaging. My other peeve with this product is that I can’t see any long term benefits. Hear me out, usually when I regularly use a high end moisturiser, I can notice that it takes longer for my skin to go back to being dry in places when I stop using the product, however with LaLa Retro, if I miss one use, my skin is right back to being dry and dehydrated – not quite what I’d expect for £50 a tub.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy using it and I will continue to use it until it is finished, however I have definitely had better results from cheaper moisturisers or if I were to splurge on a moisturiser, brands like Clarins and Chanel have significantly better offerings on the table!

Lippe Balm

This was probably the one product in the set that I was least excited to try as, like every other female on the planet, I have about 7,000 lip balms floating around my house and handbags. At £15 I also thought this was a bit on the expensive side when you compare to the likes of Burts Bees and Carmex but I was so wrong! This is honestly one of the best lip balms i’ve used and in my opinion has similar effects to the Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream but without the heavy scent. The effects of one use of this balm last for days on me and my lips have been soft and not sore in the slightest ever since I’ve started using this at night. As a hater of Vaseline, this is non-greasy and the twist up applicator is so much more hygienic and I would 100% recommend this to anyone if you are in the market for a new lip balm!

C-Tango Multivitamin Eye Cream 

This one was another real win for me! It’s a lightweight formula that soaks into the skin quite quickly and I personally noticed some effects within a couple of days. My eyes looked brighter, less puffy and the dark circles has somewhat diminished. The only thing that would put me off repurchasing this product is the hefty price tag as £54 really isn’t in my price range right now. However, I will say that the tiny 5ml sample is still going strong roughly 3 months later and I have been using this every single night! One pump is enough for both eyes so I’m convinced that the full size would last you the best part of 6 months if you’re using it day and night, which means it’s not that bad in terms of value for money!

B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum

I absolutely adore hydrating serums, with Clarins’ Hydraquench (now Hydra Essentiel) serum being one of my all-time favourites. I was obviously pretty keen to give this a go when I saw that it was included in the set as it sounded right up my street! The serum is more of a watery gel-like consistency and the packaging suggests adding it to moisturisers for a burst of hydration rather than using it on it’s own. I have tried the moisturiser both with and without this serum and I honestly could not tell even a tiny difference sadly. I’ve also tried using the serum before the moisturiser but you need so much to cover your face, as it does not spread very far, that it felt incredibly wasteful. It’s worth noting that when it is used on it’s own, it sunk into my skin so fast that I didn’t notice any benefits.

For me this one is a miss and I would highly recommend the Clarins serum over this one, especially as it’s the same price and a little goes a very long way or, if you are on a budget, the Body Shop’s hydrating serum is a really good alternative too!

Beste No 9 Jelly Cleanser

I feel like this product has been hyped up on social media over the last months and the word ‘Jelly’ made me quite intrigued to try it. I’m sorry to end on a bit of a sour note but I really do not think that this cleanser is worth the money at all. Quite simply, it is a fragrance free gel-to-foam cleanser that I found left my skin feeling a little stripped, tight and in need of a huge moisture boost! I don’t think I would personally use this as a product to remove makeup, rather a second cleanse to ensure the skin is clean, however I have plenty of products like that in my cupboard that come in significantly under the £29 mark!

In summary, there are a lot of things I like about the Drunk Elephant brand with the packaging and the lack of ‘nasties’ being up there at the top of the list. However, I feel like the pricing is very high and on some products, quite unjustified to be blunt. Sets like these are a great way to try out a brand and unlike some brands I have to give credit and say that the deluxe sample sizes are absolutely packed full of product and have lasted so much longer than I had anticipated.

Do I think you should part with your cash? Yes and no. What I would say is do your research on what products you are lacking in your routine and what you actually want from a product. The eye cream and the lip balm, for me, are real stand outs and the moisturiser is nice to use but not something I would personally shell out £50 for again.

Have you tried any Drunk Elephant products yet? If so what did you think?

Much Love

xoxo

So long 2018!

It’s safe to say that 2018 hasn’t really been my year and it’s been a pretty shocking one on the blog front too. The lack of posts and social media updates has left people asking me whether i’ve decided to call it a day on The Rose Beauty Files and I’m pleased to say that that is not the case. I was looking through my Instagram stories the other day for things to use in my 2018 highlights and I gave up. Don’t get me wrong there’s been some great things happen this year but sadly they’ve been overshadowed by a hell of a lot of sadness.

Lets start on a high shall we, on 4th May 2018 Tom and I officially got the keys to our first ever house. After 6 years together and tireless amounts of saving, we did it. We embarked on weeks of renovation and decorating on a two bed Victorian house in our ideal location. We learnt a lot along the way and in early July, long overdue our parents may say, we moved out. I have loved spending time in our own house and the pride I feel saying that we managed to do that at 23 and 24 is huge. Don’t get me wrong, discovering how much effort it takes to actually run a household has been a pretty steep learning curve and one that I am planning to make into a blog post for the sole purpose of making my mum and dad cry with laughter. I’m sure they’ve got a bunch of ‘I told you so’s’ lying in wait for me when they read that!

But the high was sadly not to last for long. June 2nd 2018 was one of the worst days of my life. It was the day that I found out my friend, partner in crime and Grandad has passed away. Having just turned 80 he was larger than life and his death was both sudden and a complete shock to us all. It has left a hole that we have been unable to fill and the last seven months have been more difficult than I can put into words. Over the months I have struggled to think of how to and more importantly, whether to, address his death here on my blog but I came to the conclusion that you cannot look back on a year without addressing the parts that have impacted you the most. In my 23 years with him, he played a huge part in making me who I am today and had more confidence and belief in me than I do myself. It’s safe to say that losing him will impact me forever.

There is not a day that goes by where I do not think about him and wish that he was still here and all the emotions have meant that I have really lost my blogging mojo under the depth of sadness his death has left us in. He was however, my biggest blog supporter, despite not really knowing what a blog was, and I felt that it would be an injustice to him to let all the hard work i’ve put in over the last almost 4 years slip away.

So Daddad, this ones for you and I’m going to make sure that The Rose Beauty Files is back with a bang in 2019 with new content that I’m sure will make you proud, but also, will make me proud of myself.

Happy New Year and thank you for sticking with me through the last 12 months!

Much Love

xoxo

I Tried Marks & Spencer’s Personal Styling Service | Part 1

For someone who loves fashion, I actually find it pretty damn hard to put outfits together. Whether it’s my lack of creativity; lack of time or lack of something else, i’m not sure but I decided I really wanted to start putting together more interesting outfits to become the fashionista I know is hiding somewhere inside me (wishful thinking perhaps). I was scrolling through Instagram the other day when I saw an outfit that was so well suited to me I stopped in my tracks to go and purchase every single item. That was when I noticed that it was in fact an advert for Marks & Spencer’s new personal styling service Try Tuesday. Just like that, my prayers had been answered and I saw hope of well thought out outfits on the horizon.

When you create an account on Try Tuesday, they ask you a series of questions which I’m going to include below alongside my answers if you’re interested!

1. Which part of your wardrobe would you like to focus on? – I think the choices were work or day-to-day. I went for day-to-day as I’m allowed to dress a little more casual at my office and I wanted items that were going to be suitable 7 days a week.
2. From here I was asked which look best described my day-to-day style. – Sadly there wasn’t simply a ‘I wear a blouse, jeans and heels at least 6 days of the week’ option.  There were 9 different choices though and I opted for Glamorous & Feminine because we’ve all gotta aim high right?!
3. Next they asked me what age bracket I fit into. I’ve still got a year or so of clinging onto the under 25 category, but the categories went all the way up to 75+ which gave me doubts as to whether I was really the target market for this M&S initiative.
4. How smart would I like my choices? Casual, Smart/Casual, Smart. I very rarely wear ‘casual’ clothes unless I’m moping round the house so I went for smart/casual to cover all occasions.
5. What colour palettes am I comfortable in? Bright, Neutral, Understated, Cool, Warm or I like all colours? – Apart from bright pinks and purples I would say I’m pretty much open to suggestions so I selected ‘I like all colours’ and waited for the barrage of fluorescent coloured suggestions to land in my inbox.
6. How far do I like to step out of my comfort zone? A lot, a little bit, i’d rather not leave it? I’m pretty sure my comfort zone is my go to outfit that I mentioned above, although I love dresses and skirts too so I went for ‘a little bit’. Is that the playing it safe option or what?!
7. At this step you could say what areas of your body you would prefer to conceal. I’m not going to lie, it’s quite a controversial question in my opinion but I guess if you really hated showing your arms, it would cut down the short sleeve/sleeveless options you got sent. Personally I don’t like items that are really tight around the tops of my legs but as this was a) getting into the realms of getting very specific and b) not an option on the list, I selected ‘i’m happy with everything at the moment’.
8. This step involved selecting your body shape, the little diagrams definitely helped and there is also an ‘I don’t know’ option in case you’re really stuck. I chose hour glass.
9. How tall are you? – A really great step in my opinion as the brackets are clearly to differentiate between the petite, regular and tall clothing ranges. I’m 5″4, the lowest end of the ‘regular’ bracket it seems!
10. The clothing sizes you usually wear. These are split into 6-10, 12-16, 18-22 and 24 and over. They ask this simply so that they recommend items that are in stock!
11. The final set of questions is actually a fantastic idea and enables inclusivity for all! It asks if you have any mobility issues; if there are any fastenings you struggle with; bust size; heel height that you like and heels that you may struggle walking in if you have mobility issues and finally whether you have pierced ears or not.

There are a few other trivial questions but i’m going to leave this out in an attempt to keep this post a readable length! Once i’d submitted my information, I got an email from my stylist Jodie, introducing herself and saying that my first edit would be with me in a few days. I’ve got to be honest and say my expectations were low, like really low, as other than bras I haven’t bought anything from Marks & Spencer’s clothing for YEARS. Perhaps even right back to school uniform days!

Two days later though, my edit arrived and it had three full outfit suggestions, including shoes and accessories and images that had been the inspiration behind the outfits. I’m not entirely sure how they did it or what software they used but I would say 80% of the ideas were bang on what I like to wear or what I would like to purchase. There is a detailed description of each item, why it was chosen and how else you could wear it (genius!).

Outfit 1: Monochromatic with Leopard Print Heels inspired by Rosie Huntington-Whitely

Pros:

• The style is very me
• Adding earrings was a great touch as I NEVER buy snazzy earrings
• Those shoes *Insert heart eyes emoji here*
• Work appropriate and social event appropriate

Cons:

• Slightly annoying about the addition of a red lipstick as one of the suggestions but maybe thats because I have approximately 99,000 similar at home
• The trousers were a) leather so not fab for those who are cruelty free (this wasn’t an  option in the questions) and b) they’re £199. Don’t get me wrong they’re gorgeous but oh my god, £200 trousers. Clearly they haven’t seen my disposable income each month!
• Similar to above, the shirt is silk and £69 but unlike the trousers, I think if I tried it on and liked it I could be swayed to purchase a silk shirt so I guess this ones a bit of a neutral point.

Items I have already purchased from this outfit:

• Glitz Drop Earrings

Items I may purchase from this outfit:

• Pure Silk Long Sleeve Shirt
• Suede Stiletto Heel Court Shoes

Items I won’t be purchasing from this outfit:

• Leather Straight Leg Trousers – Sadly out of my price range, I plan to use my Missguided coated leather jeans as a substitute – straight leg is not really my thing anyway!
• Faux Leather Ring Detail Cross Body Bag – There’s nothing wrong with this I just feel like its no different to every other black cross body bag out there.
• Diego Della Palma Lipstick – 31 Deep Red – I have way too many similar colours in my collection. I 100% agree that this outfit should have a red lip though!

Outfit 2: Khaki Midi Skirt With a Black Turtle Neck & Accessories

Pros:

• This is VERY me.
• Khaki is pretty much my favourite colour this season.
• I have nothing similar
• I have been after one of those belts for months

Cons:

• I don’t like flat shoes very much and mules are definitely not my kinda thing.
• The belt didn’t actually come in a small enough size so I had to return it.
• When the selection came through, the khaki skirt was already out of stock in all smaller sizes.

Items I have already purchased from this outfit:

• Satin Pleated Midi Skirt – so this was out of stock in the khaki when the selection came through but I managed to purchase it in the berry shade instead. A week or so later, Rachael managed to locate a khaki one in the store near her so now I have two different colours!
• Ring & Bar Buckle Hip Belt – This was not advertised well as the picture appears to show a waist belt but the one suggested is a hip belt. Even the smallest size was naturally way way too big on the waist so this has had to be returned. I managed to pick an alternative up from New Look but I have a small waist so when I got home, again I have ended up with a belt that’s too big. I’ve since made two separate orders from ASOS getting a very similar belt in two other sizes. The one I’ve ended up with is not too far off being perfect *finally* but if I properly want to wear it as a waist belt it’s going to require Tom to put another hole in to make it the perfect fit. I honestly had no idea how hard it was to buy a belt! This is clearly why I never end up wearing them!

Items I may purchase from this outfit:

• Twist Metal Hoop Earrings – I’m definitely tempted to pick these up as I think they could become quite a staple
• Pure Cotton Embellished Cross Body Bag – I absolutely loved this bag as part of the look, although I’m not sure when else I would wear it and that’s the only reason I didn’t pick it up as it’s a bargain at only £11.99. *This is now out of stock and i’m pretty damn sad*

Items I don’t plan to purchase from this outfit:

• Velvet & Satin Flat Mules – nothing wrong with these at all I just really don’t like mules on me, nor do I like walking in them. The design is actually quite cute though!
• Pure Cashmere Roll Neck Jumper – I would love to buy this as I bet it’s so soft but I already have a cheaper black turtle neck and I know I’d probably shrink a pure cashmere one!!

Outfit 3: Floral Dress

Pros:

• Very different to the other outfits
• I love the colours
• The dress is both work and social life appropriate
• That bag is exceptional

Cons:

• Seems like items have just been included to make up the 6 items
• I don’t like really long coats
• I also really don’t like sock boot style shoes
• A thin chain necklace is very generic and I guarantee nearly everyone has a substitute at home.

Items I have already purchased from this outfit:

• Velvet Barrel Cross Body Bag – the colour is divine and the style is so different. It’s a smaller bag than I would normally go for but I love it and I don’t have anything like it! *Now out of stock in burgundy but still available in pink*
• Spotted Long Sleeve Wrap Dress – at first I was not sure about how this was going to look but it fits great, is really comfortable and it’s both polka dots and floral, what’s not to like? I would say that like 99% of wrap dresses, this does not accommodate for anyone with a bra size above a B so I will need to wear a vest top underneath to stop it being quite frankly indecent.

Items I will not be purchasing from this outfit:

• Wool Blend Belted Wrap Coat – There was something about this that I really just didn’t like. It wasn’t really my style and a wool coat isn’t overly practical when it’s so rainy in England!
• Stone Pendant Necklace – I don’t really wear this style of necklace and it doesn’t really excite me into buying it!
• Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet Lipstick – I have too many lipsticks already so I definitely can’t warrant another one!
• Kitten Heel Knee Boots – I already have some knee high black boots so I didn’t need another pair but I’m not a kitten heel or sock boot fan anyway so these would have been a pass regardless.

Part two of this post will be my interpretations of the three outfits, including items I have bought and items I have got at home or found elsewhere. I didn’t want to make this one too long! Which outfit is your favourite? I have got to say I think this is a pretty good first selection. I’ve just received my second selection so let me know if you’d like to see a post on that too.

Much Love

Xoxo

Buying 5 Things That Instagram Ads Recommended to Me!

If you don’t know who Safiya Nygaard is then a) what on earth have you been doing and b) you need to find her YouTube account now and you can thank me for it later. Safiya is the queen of random challenges and putting social media to the test and her ‘I Bought The First 5 Things That Instagram Recommended to Me’ video is one of my favourites so I thought i’d try and recreate it myself! Unlike Safiya, I don’t have a very large budget for blog posts so I only bought things that I would have clicked on anyway as the ad grabbed my attention and were also in a reasonable price range that I could justify.

In this post i’m going to include:

• a screen shot of each of the ads as evidence that I’m not just buying any old thing
• a review of each item and the ordering process
• where applicable, whether I would buy the item again or recommend it

As with most social media related ads, many offer the chance for your own referral code so these will also be included. If you want to use them then that’s fab, if not then I will also include a non-referral link for you to check out the individual websites!

Simply Cook*

Simply Cook are recipe boxes that include the spice/key flavour components for a meal, meaning you only have to add a few fresh ingredients to make a tasty and usually pretty healthy meal. Instagram offered me the chance to grab a discounted first box to try and coming in at a mere £1, I thought it was too good of a chance to pass by.

Tom and I enjoy cooking and now we are in our own home, we are looking for quick, easy and tasty meals more than ever. For me, an ideal meal takes minimal ingredients and is completed in about half an hour. I’m also vegetarian, but Tom isn’t so coming up with meals we both want to eat can often be a bit tricky!

The box we ordered, wasn’t customisable, beyond the fact I stated I wanted a Vegetarian box so I knew there would probably be at least one meal that wasn’t quite to my taste, but as I say it was £1, so there was no sleep lost!

The boxes are small enough to fit through a standard letter box and each meal is individually packaged with a recipe card telling you what you need to buy from the supermarket. The meal that caught our eye the most was the Wild Mushroom Penne so off we trundled to pick up all the ingredients (which FYI only came to a few pounds!).

It was so quick and easy to make and took very minimal effort which is something I was very pleased about! I’ve got to say, I was genuinely surprised at how full of flavour the food was and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. This one has been an absolute staple for us ever since and our boxes nearly always include this as a meal!

There was a bit of a spoiler there, we have in fact bought full priced boxes since, as we found the concept really fit into our lifestyle. We’ve had delicious curries and varying veggie dishes and honestly, we’ve enjoyed every one. We don’t really have a running subscription, rather we buy ad hoc boxes when we know we’re going to be in for a few weeks so we just buy the ingredients for a meal at a time. The boxes keep really well as the ingredients inside have really long shelf lives meaning you’re not committing to have those meals within the next five days unless you want to cook them!

To sum up, we really like the concept of Simply Cook and we’ll continue to purchase boxes as and when we fancy them. To get your own trial box for £1, simply enter the code MA6683 or use the link above. If you don’t want to use a referral link then head to www.simplycook.com to find out more.

Tails*

If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know that there’s one thing Tom and I love more than pretty much anything else in the world… our dog JJ. In fact, I would go as far as to say we’re are obsessed with him! We usually buy his dog food from Pets At Home and feed him a mixture of both wet and dry foods as dry is better for his teeth but he will flat out refuse to simply eat dry food.

I saw an advert for Tails, an online subscription service that tailor makes your dogs food to suit their individual needs and delivers it to your door every month so you never run out. This sounded ideal for us! JJ doesn’t have many dietary requirements, although he cannot eat chicken and his stomach is a little sensitive. So we popped in all this information into the website and they conjured up his ‘unique blend’ of biscuits that we could try for about a month and all we had to do was pay £1 for delivery.

The food arrived in a personalised bag with a scoop to ensure we measured out the right amount of food. We also got a couple of free goodies, including a roll of poo bags and a holder (glamorous I know!) and a little collapsable water bowl for when we are out and about. 

We had absolutely no issues with switching J over to the food as we did it slowly, mixing it in with his previous food brand. Without getting into too many details that I’m sure you don’t want to know, we noticed a massive improvement in JJ’s tummy during the trial of the food and decided to make the switch for good. Another win for the Instagram adverts! We now get the food delivered for just under £10 a month (the price varies with dog size and JJ is a pretty small dog!!) and if we ever need the food earlier or want to postpone the delivery a few days, we can do this easily with a simple click of a button.

Again, this is something that completely suits our lifestyle and has made things a hell of a lot easier. We are actually thinking of switching his wet food over too and getting everything in one order now to make things even easier! To get tailor made dog food for your own pooch for just £1 then just enter the code MOLLYEMT or use the link above. For a non-referral link then just head to www.tails.com.

Dusk

Anyone would think Instagram knew we were moving home as only a few days after having our offer approved, an advert for Dusk appeared on my feed. Dusk are a company that produces luxury bedding at affordable prices and as we were changing the colour scheme of our bedroom, we needed some new bedding. I actually was completely sold by the Twilight Bedspread in the picture, along with the matching cushions so rather than getting what we actually needed, I bought those.

The bedspread is made of 100% cotton and is two toned with one side being a very pale dusky pink and the other a lovely light grey. I some how managed to convince Tom that we should paint our bedroom these colours (I bought the bedspread first so I’ll leave you to decide what influenced the decision) so I couldn’t wait to get it all in situ and see how it looked.

One key thing I wished I’d done was read the measurements! Both the cushions and the bedspread are quite simply, massive. The bedspread is actually more suitable for a king or a super king bed when in fact we only have a double bed. Oops. They do have the same product as a throw which is aimed at double or king sized beds so in hindsight this would have been better for us. Although, I do like how we don’t have to fight for the fabric in our sleep and it pools on the floor in a bit of a ‘pinterest’ style which I quite like.

The cushions were no different and in fact these are over half a metre square. It’s safe to say that I bought these off the picture alone not the descriptions! The cushion covers were only £10 and they were advertising cushion pads for another £10 each. I managed to actually find cushion pads cheaper on Amazon so I gave these a miss but all in the bedspread and cushion covers set me back £55, which I didn’t think was too bad!

When these arrived I was genuinely so surprised at how high quality they were and they 100% cotton material was so soft! In fact, I’m sure even Tom would say how happy he was that I decided to buy these as with the hot weather we’ve had this summer, we’ve ditched our duvet all together and we’ve only been sleeping under this bedspread as it’s warm enough that we don’t get cold in the night but cool enough that we don’t overheat! I think it will be brilliant in the winter too when the nights are extra cold and we need another layer! We’ve also put the bedspread through the wash and it washed brilliantly and dried really quickly (probably due to said heatwave) which is always a real bonus with bedding!

Would I recommend buying from Dusk? Absolutely! The delivery and ordering process was incredibly efficient and the products are such high quality. I’m actually planning to buy the bedding that I intended to buy the first time around soon so that we have another set! There’s no discount codes for Dusk I’m afraid as they always seem to have a sale on so feel free to head to www.dusk.com to have a little nosy! I’ve not included any pictures of the bedspread actually in my room as I want to keep that for a separate home decor blog post that will be coming soon!

Function of Beauty*

So the second I run out of shampoo and conditioner, what should appear on my Instagram feed? I’m sure there’s some spy cameras out there helping the Instagram ad generators out! If you haven’t heard of function of beauty, they are a custom haircare brand that originates in the US that are also available as a subscription service so you never need run out of haircare again!

I’m not going to lie, I got completely swept up in the whole custom element of it, picking my own colour, scent and haircare needs. It really was quite a quick but fun thing to do! I picked a eucalyptus-mint scent (the mint is definitely more overpowering) with a matching minty green colour scheme. For my hairs ‘needs’ I selected:

• Curly, coarse hair
• Dry scalp
• Deep conditioning
• Fix split ends
• Anti-frizz
• Curl definition
• Scalp soothe

The website is initially in US Dollars but changes to GBP when you get towards the end of the checkout. One thing that did really irritate me was that rather than use a more accurate exchange rate to change between USD to GBP, they just used a $1=£1 method, meaning that I ended up spending just shy of £40, which was definitely the very very very most I was prepared to spend.

However, the package arrive and it was incredibly cute, with my name on the box and the bottles and both fixed lids and pump lids for both the shampoo and conditioner. I’m quite fortunate in that my hair doesn’t get greasy that quickly so I don’t have to wash my hair that often and so this will last me a very long time. I bought these 8oz bottles at the start of May and I’m not even close to being half way through them yet. 

I have tested them a few times though and they are really nice products. Do I think they warrant the price tag? Probably not, but then I don’t know if you would notice more of a difference if you washed your hair more frequently. I would say my hair feels soft, shiny and very clean and I do think that perhaps the frizziness has improved slightly! The pump dispensers are very handy when you’re in the shower and the bottles definitely look pretty in the bathroom.

For me personally, I don’t think the expenditure is worth repeat orders, especially as I couldn’t warrant the subscription service, which offers you free delivery, as I don’t run out quickly enough to make the most of it. All in all, a nice product that i’m glad I’ve tried, but possibly won’t be one i’m making a repurchase of in the near future, but I will enjoy using it until it runs out! If you want $5 off your own formula then just use the link above! If not, head to www.functionofbeauty.com.

TOTM*

With everyone starting to get a bit more conscious of what is inside ‘feminine’ products, I was intrigued when I saw an advert for TOTM (Time Of The Month) on my feed. They are a small UK based brand that are 100% organic, cruelty-free and biodegradable whilst being marketed at an affordable price. They also offer a subscription service so you need never run out again and provide free delivery when you buy two or more items.

I decided to try two items out to make the most of the free delivery offer. I picked up the Cotton Liners and their Medium Applicator Tampons to try out initially with the view to trying more products in the future when my current supplies of other brands are running out.  When they arrived, I initially noticed that the packaging was slimmer and made of a plain non-laminated cardboard unlike other mainstream brands. The box was definitely a better shape for fitting in drawers and was less bulky all round which was great.

Both products are made with organic cotton and are fragrance free – something that I really liked as so many other brands are incredibly artificially scented. There is no rayon,  chlorine or synthetic fibres, meaning that they are simply much more natural products to use. They also donate 10p from every single box of products you buy to Endometriosis UK – a very worthwhile cause which helps so many women across the country.

I have only had chance to try out the liners since the order arrived but i’ve been pleasantly surprised. They are much thinner than normal liners so it doesn’t even feel like you are wearing them and the cotton material is much more comfortable day to day. The one negative is that they are slightly less adhesive than other brands i’ve tried and do have a tendency to move towards the end of the day. This being said, I don’t think it would put me off buying them again as the positives have seriously outweighed the small negative! At £3.25 for 28 liners, they are of a similar price to other well known brands, if only very slightly more expensive.

Personally, I have enjoyed knowing that the ‘ingredients’ involved in making the products i’m wearing daily are much more natural and there are less chemicals involved and I do plan to keep using them and purchasing more from TOTM. The link above is a referral code or head to www.totm.com otherwise.

So I’ve got to say I think Instagram did pretty well with these adverts! I have been pleasantly surprised with everything I purchased and there are lots of things that I will continue to be repurchasing in the future. I’ve also discovered some new and different brands that I probably wouldn’t have come across otherwise. It’s been quite an interesting little experiment and i’d love to do some more of these ‘challenges’ in the future. If you’ve enjoyed this post and would like to see more then please leave me a recommendation for another one that you would like to see! Have you tried any of these brands or products before? If so I’d love to know what you think!

Much Love

xoxo

Festival Fashion with Boohoo

Festival fashion is always one of the biggest trends each summer, with it getting brighter and more bedazzled every year. I love seeing all the glitter and the bold colours, but I often think that those outfits will wind up back in the wardrobe at the end of the weekend, not to be seen until festival season the following year. Surely there should be a way to make festival fashion include pieces that can be worn all year round? I’ve picked a few items from Boohoo.com to show you my spin on the trend and what I would be wearing if I had been heading off to a festival this year.

With the weather being so warm this year, a festival outfit would surely not be suitable without a good pair of shorts. I always opt for a high waisted pair as I feel like they are more flattering for me. I’ve seen so many people wearing distressed black shorts this summer and I found these Hetty High Rise Distressed Denim Mom Shorts* which are absolutely perfect. They fit well and flatter my figure, yet they don’t make me feel like my blood circulation is being cut off at my thighs. They are also every so slightly longer than every other pair of shorts i’ve tried on and I find them much more comfortable to wear! Sadly they seem to be out of stock now but Boohoo’s Festival category has plenty of other pairs to see you through the hot weather!

To pair with the shorts, I wanted to go for a slightly different style top to those i’ve seen at festivals. I wanted to incorporate the floral trend into the outfit along with including some flared sleeves as they make any outfit feel instantly more summery. The Printed Lace Up Flare Sleeve Blouse* ticked all the boxes for me with the peplum style trim and the lace up detailing on the bust and the bright red floral print kept it feeling bold and festival appropriate. 

I loved how the two items paired together and for simplicity, I completed the outfit with my Havaianas and some round French Connection sunglasses. If I was to dress it up a bit more, i’d probably wear some heeled black sandals as during the summer months I only have flip flops or heeled sandals as footwear options as I like to keep my feet cool!

Let me know what you think of the outfit and whether or not you are going to a festival this year. If you are, what kind of outfits are you planning?

Much love

xoxo

*Items received as PR