It Happened Again...

Walked past Lush the other day. I think we all know where this is going...

Yes, I ended up spending even more money that I don't have, it's always worth it though! So of course I'm going to share my lovely purchases with you. The first is something that I've wanted to try for a while, and it's the Mask Of Magnaminty face mask.

This smells INCREDIBLE!! I do love my minty smelling products. My skin can never make up it's mind, one day it's super oily and the next it will be as dry as the Sahara desert, and this product is great for that. The peppermint in it stimulates your blood cells so you look a little bit more alive on these cold winter days! It also has honey in it which is an anti-inflammatory and ground aduki beans (which are also in the Buffy body butter), these absorb all of the horrible dirt and excess oils and give your pores a good old clean out. I really like face products that make my skin feel fresh, so the peppermint is great for that. After leaving it on for about 10 minutes I like to wet my fingers and massage it all into my face like a scrub, just to get some exfoliation from the aduki beans. For £5.25 for a 125g pot I think it's definitely worth the money. I'm loving this mask at the moment, so a big thank you to the lovely lady at Lush who pointed it out to me! (I feel bad for not knowing her name, I was with her for at least half an hour.)

Staying on the minty side of things, the next item is the Dirty Springwash shower gel. This smells so good, and kinda reminds me of brushing my teeth in my Nan's bathroom (it's a good thing, trust me).  

I picked up the 100g bottle which was only £4.50. I really like the 100g bottles, their perfect for travelling. It contains spearmint and menthol, so it makes you feel all cool and fresh on a hot day. Perfect for summer!

Next is the Porridge soap. I know I say that everything smells amazing, but this really does. (It's Lush, what do you expect?)

This is packed with fresh orange juice and oatmeal which is brilliant for dry and sensitive skin, but its also great for irritation and is a natural exfoliant. It's really good for oily skin and is lovely and creamy. It has a kind of coffee like smell to it (even though it doesn't contain an coffee) so it's great for mornings to wake you up gently. I think £3.10 for 100g is a pretty good price and I'll definitely be going back for more.

The last is H'suan Wen Hua. This is a hair treatment that goes onto dry hair for about 20 minutes or so and is then washed and conditioned out as normal.

This has so much in it I don't even know where to begin. It repairs your hair and makes it the best it can be! I was a bit worried at first because it contains eggs, but coming from Lush I knew that they would have come from a really good place. the free range eggs are of course packed with protein to repair your hair, whilst the fresh avocados and bananas lock moisture in. The cinnamon is really good for stimulating your scalp, and the combination of balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and bay leaf infusion give your hair an amazing shine. It's recommended that you use H'suan Wen Hua once a week for 6 weeks if you have really dry and damaged hair. I can already see and feel a difference in my hair, so for £8.95 for a 225g pot I think it's such a good price for what you're getting.

I also picked up some lovely new bath things, so I'll be putting them up soon!

Sea Peaches

Bonjour! I've been meaning to do a review on these little lovelies for a few weeks, but I've only just got round to it (if I'm honest, I've only just remembered!). So as always I popped into Lush with my sister just to have a look around, but you know how it is, you just can't say no! Luckily I didn't spend as much money as I usually do

I picked up the Seanik solid shampoo which I've been wanting to buy for quite some time. It always looked like something I'd enjoy whenever I was in my local Lush shop buying everything else. Especially with all that lovely slag and seaweed.

It smells like their Sea Vegetable soap and the Big Blue bath bomb, which we all know are my favourites! This shampoo is for getting some volume and life back into your hair, so it's kind of like a solid version of Big but with seaweed. There are 2 different types of seaweed used in this shampoo; Irish moss, which is a red seaweed, and Japanese nori (which is the stuff you get on the outside of your sushi rolls). These are really rich in protein and make your hair all beautiful and soft. Lush have also put lemon oil into it which gives you super shiny locks, and of course the sea salt for lots and lots of volume! I haven't got round to using this yet but I'm pretty excited to.

I also bought the Each Peach massage bar. I hadn't tried any of them before so it seemed like a good place to start.

It does smell quite peachy although I think it smells more like sherbet lemons, and I do love a good sherbet lemon or 2, or 10...

However, it doesn't actually contain any lemons. It has lime and grapefruit oils which contain lemonene. Lemonene is a colourless liquid which occours in certain essential oils and has a lemon-like odour. It also contains shea butter and cocoa butter which leave you feeling really soft as well as fresh. There may be a slight problem though... Once you put it on it can make you feel a little greasy because of all the oils it holds. That's why I like to use mine at the end of the day when I'm just sitting down and posting on here or editing videos, it somehow makes me forget that I'm a little bit greasy and sticky. Nevertheless, I really like this product, when you use it it releases all the amazing fragrances and makes the whole room smell sweet!

Carrying on to the non-Lush related items (it's a rare sight), I picked up some Barry M Nail Paints.

(Left-right: Barry M Nail Paint in Black, Barry M Confetti Nail Paint in Liquorice, Barry M Confetti Nail Paint in Bubblegum)

The first is the Barry M Nail Paint in Black. I was looking for the Gelly Nail Paint by Barry M but they didn't seem to have it in black, so I thought I'd give this a try anyway. I can't say I'm a massive fan of though. I needed at least 3 coats because it's so thin and I like my nail varnishes to be thick, hence why I was looking for the Gelly Nail Paint. It seemed to chip really quickly and easily as well, so I think I'll stick with the Gelly from now on.

The other two are the Barry M Confetti Nail Paints in Liqourice and Bubblegum. I love these! They work really well as a top coat and on their own. I like to layer the two on top of each other.

I think I have a picture somewhere...

So I nicked it from my instagram but you can kind of see what's going on. 

So I think I'll leave the regular Nail Paint from now on, but I have seen that Barry M are doing matte nail varnish now so I might give that a cheeky go.

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Some New Favourites - L'Oreal Miss Manga Mascara

Yesterday was the most wet and windy day in a good while, but my sister decided it that it was a good idea to drag me into town for a bit of shopping. So I thought I'd show you some of the lovely little bits I picked up.

The first is the L'Oreal Miss Manga mascara. It looked far too good to leave in the shop, and I've heard good things about this product. For years I've been faithful to the Maybelline Colossal mascara as I've never really found anything that I liked better. However, I think it's safe to say that I have found my new favourite mascara. My eyelashes are kinda long anyway and I often find it hard to find a mascara which actually makes a lot of difference, so this is definitely a winner. It's got a flexible brush which makes application really easy, especially on the bottom lashes. I'm not a massive fan of the packaging, but after using this I think I can let that pass.

I got this from Boots for around £7.99. Usually I moan about the price of mascara but I would gladly pay £7.99 for this again. Big thumbs up for you, L'Oreal.

Another little thing I picked up was the Big Blue bath bomb from Lush which costs £3.25. I know some people may think that spending £3.25 on a bath bomb is a waste of money, but seriously, you will not regret it. My favourite soap from Lush is Sea Vegetable which is basically a soap version of Big Blue, so I thought that I would give it a go. Usually my favourite bath bomb from Lush is Honey Bee which smells like Honey I Washed The Kids, but I'm a big fan of salt based products from Lush, although I wasn't prepared to love it as much as I did. It's definitely another new favourite for me!

It fizzes really fast and releases hundreds of little bits of Arame seaweed which is a type of kelp full of vitamins and softens in the bath. This bath bomb turns the water into the most incredible shad of blue and smells amazingly clean and fresh. It also contains lavender oil which add to the fragrance and helps you relax after a hard day. The salt is a natural exfoliant so it removes all your dead skin cells and leaves you feeling really soft.

The last bits I want to show you are some pieces of jewelry from New Look and Topshop. 

I'm really loving earrings like this at the moment, so I thought I would go and look for some little bargains. The gold earrings are from New Look and cost £3.99, and the silver earrings are £10 from Topshop. I didn't really want to spend £10 on earrings but I couldn't leave them behind. The rings are also from Topshop and they're a pack of 3 for £10, so I couldn't say no to them.

I definitely recommend going out and getting the Miss Manga mascara and the Big Blue bath bomb. Trust me, you'll love them.

x

The People Who Saved My Life

Just to start off with, I never planned on telling many people about this, let alone putting it on the internet for the whole world to see. However, I've learned that hearing other people's stories can sometimes really help you. So even if I can maybe help one person in some way by telling my story then I'm considering that as a bonus. (Or it could just backfire and go terribly wrong.)

In the beginning of November 2013 I took an overdose. Even now I can't explain exactly why or how it happened. Ever since I was a young teenager I've always had horrible ways of dealing with stress, but back then I developed an eating disorder because of it, so it has definitely escalated since then. I'm yet to find out exactly what's going on and be diagnosed, but that's just due to me going back and forward between Lincoln and Cardiff all of the time.

As it was happening I felt as if something else was controlling me. Even looking back on it now it feels like I'm watching someone else. I had to let my best friends and housemates know what had happened, because there's no way that I wanted to die. It still breaks my heart to know what I've put them through, but if it wasn't for them taking me to hospital and sticking by me through all of this then who knows what I would be like now. After I got out of hospital I went back to Cardiff with a few days to be with my family and everything seemed fine. Even when I went back to uni everything seemed fine. After a few days things started to go wrong again. For about a week I would just sit on the same spot of my bed and drink. Once I got out of hospital it felt like everyone seemed to think that I was okay, but the truth is coming out of hospital was my lowest point. I felt so guilty for what I had put my friends and family through. People started to pick up that I wasn't right, so the week after I got sent to Cardiff again for 2 months.

Again after I got back to uni things seemed fine. I know now that I wasn't ready to go back, but I missed everyone so much that I just wanted to power through and make everything normal again. I had already found out that quite a lot of people knew what had happened. Two of my friends told me that they saw me going downhill since September/October, this is when I would drink every day and do things that I would never do if I was feeling alright. This made me incredibly paranoid. I had been struggling to even go outside by myself since September, so knowing that people knew what had happened made everything so much worse, but still I tried to power through. After about a week I started drinking a lot again. The uni work was stressing me out and I had been having serious thoughts about dropping out. Some people seemed to understand why I needed to drop out, others weren't so pleased by the news. I tried so hard to stay on top of my work and get better at the same time, but in the end it was too much. On Saturday 25th of January 2014 I ended up in hospital again. We then all realised that I had a serious problem that would not be solved too quickly.

So now it's February 1st, I'm a university drop out with no job, no plans for the future, and something in my mind that I can't explain. Yes it feels like I've lost so much, but I know that in order for me to get better this is where I have to be, and this is what I have to do. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have all these amazing friends and family that literally saved my life. Twice. 

This post is not here for people to feel sorry for me, that's the last thing I want. It's here to help, and I'm here to help. If you have any questions or you just need someone to listen to you then please don't hesitate to contact me, I'm not that scary.

I shall update you on this story whenever I get more information about everything and a diagnosis. Let's all keep looking forward.

x

The 3 Lush Products My Hair Wouldn't Survive Without

This time last year my hair was at risk of being chopped off because it was in such bad condition. I'm one of those people that look totally ridiculous with short hair, but after discovering these 3 products my hair is well on the road to recovery. 

 The first is 'Big' a sea salt shampoo which in my books is the best volume shampoo going. My hair was so flat, thin, and lifeless that it would look like it was just stuck to my head. I've always loved having big hair, ever since my teenage years when I would backcomb it so much it looked like a birds nest (you can probably find some very embarrassing photos somewhere). I knew by using this product I could get the volume that I wanted without damaging my hair any more than I already had. The sea salt is also really good for my scalp as I sometimes get a bit of eczema there. Its recommended that you wash your hair twice with this to give you more volume, and I've found that it doesn't lather properly with the first wash so I like to use the first wash to focus getting all of the salt into my scalp, and the second to really focus on my hair.

The second product is the Jungle conditioner bar. It works wonders on frizzy, dry hair, and as we all know, my hair was a massive frizz ball. It's packed with vitamin C which leaves your hair so soft and shiny, it also smells incredible. Before I found this I would be using like half a bottle of conditioner at a time just to calm my hair down a bit, but now all I need to do is rub a little bit of this on and it does so much more than the conditioners that I was using before. 

The last product has to be one of my favourite Lush products ever. This is the R & B hair moisturiser. Originally I thought this was just made for Afro and really curly hair types, but after using this after conditioning my hair I found that it was just incredible. My hair would definitely get chopped off it it wasn't for this. As it's a leave in moisturiser it continues to work and keeps your hair feeling fresh and basically alive. Also as its so concentrated you only need to use a little bit each time, so a little pot of R & B lasted me about 4 months.

So well done, Lush, and thank you for saving my hair!

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