New House, New Setup

The title of this post explains it all really. When I moved to my new house I had to find a new setup for my makeup. This was something I had very much been looking forward to for a long time.

This is my new dresser, of course there are hair grips all over it and my makeup and brushes take pride of place. Today I will focus on my makeup storage. 

This storage box is from ikea and cost around £15. I ended up getting two and keep one on my dresser and the second one as spare storage. It's not as aesthetically pleasing as some of the Muji products but it is incredibly practical and stores my masses of makeup. 

At the front are five compartments. In the one on the far left I keep lipsticks that I found whilst routing through my collection that I feel should get more of an outing. Recently there have been three lipsticks in here but two of them are currently in my travel makeup bag because I wore them to work this week. In the second from left compartment are my tools, so these are my tweezers and sharpeners.

In the middle compartments I keep liners, both eyeliners and lip liners. It's so nice to actually be able to see my liners because those are the things you lose track of in makeup bags. 

The fourth compartment holds larger pencils, so these are things such as my NARS lip pencils and my Revlon colour burst lip pencils as well as pencil eyeliners.

The final compartment holds mascaras, eyebrow gels and my touché éclat . 

At the left at the back are smaller sections for lipsticks, again there are ones missing where they're currently in my handbag... I also have a couple of MAC paint pots and eyshadow pots. 

To the right there are two large compartments. The one on the right I keep (most of) my large collection of foundations... In the left hand one I keep eyeshadow pallets, my Benefit High Beam and my ELF eyebrow kit. 

In a large section behind the front three compartments I keep most of my 'everyday face' which includes my regular bronzer blusher and highlighter as well as my powder, bronze universal, my MAC pallets and my black eyeshadow and liquid liner. 

Finally a footnote. I've had pretty crappy day to be perfectly honest and one thing I knew would help lift my spirits (as well as a bit of online shopping) was painting my nails in my favourite colour, the much mentioned Illamasqua Strike, it definitely has brightened my mood. The power of beauty eh.  

Office Outfit Of The Day Part 1

Today is going to be the first of many 'work outfit of the day' posts. I absolutely love office clothes and getting ready for work each morning. Although I am still struggling to adjust from lazy student life to getting up at 7 (some days 5.30) each morning, I do enjoy the process of glamming myself up for a day in the office.

Today I went for a mint green blouse from Topshop, this black and white patterned pencil skirt which I picked up last week in H&M and my smart black work shoes from Office that unfortunately I'm still breaking in, the worst part of buying new shoes. 

I generally keep it very simple on my face, but today I decided to brighten up the look with this bright pink lip stain. 

This one is the Revlon Colourburst in 120 vivacious exubérante and is very nourishing but still enough to make an impact on a Monday morning. 

Free Fun Day in the Capital

I may have been away for a month, but in that month I've been gathering plenty of ammo for lots of new and exciting posts. For those of you who have been following me until my recent absence, you will know that just before I disappeared I was preparing to move down to London. Well I'm here now and I finally have internet in my flat  after three very long hard weeks and so the posts can begin again.

For today's I have decided to just show you what I got up to today/what to do on a nice summer's day in London when your flatmate is away and you have no money. As it is Sunday and I knew I was heading down to a fairly posh part of London, I decided to dress nicely for the occasion.

My shirt is from M&S, my skirt is vintage and my sandals (which you can just about see) are from Office and my bag is my Mulberry Bayswater. It's not clear on the photo but on my lips I am wearing Hourglass matte lipstick in Rivera.

I decided to head to one of the parks in central London and just have a wander round and I feel I have compiled  a good list of things to do on a nice sunny day for absolutely free in one of the most expensive parts of the capital.

First of all I got the tube down to Hype Park Corner and wandered through Hyde Park where I saw the preparation for screening the World Cup final tonight (admittedly you would not see this any other day so I can't include this in my recommendation). I walked all the way through to Kensington Gardens.

Seeing an image like this is, it can be difficult to believe you're in the middle of  a city of 10 million people, though I did manage to catch a rare moment where there wasn't a Boris bike in front of me.

This is the statue of physical energy at the centre of Kensington Gardens. For me it has quite special memories attatched, but I also think it is a beautiful piece of art in a beautiful location.



This is the Peter Pan statue, again a beautiful piece of art in the middle of this wonderful park.



And finally the round pond.

Something I noticed as I was leaving the park was the view you get over two of the most famous sights of the London skyline, the Shard and the London Eye



Another absolutely stunning sight of Kensington Gardens is the Albert memorial, located at the south entrance to the park opposite the equally as beautiful Royal Albert Hall, it is simply incredible to behold. (I'm already beginning to sound like a tour guide, but this is something special.)

From the park I decided to wander down Kensington Road where my eyes lit up when I saw one of the few remaining original routemaster buses drive past me, I was beginning to feel like I had stepped back in time at this point. 

And as I walked further along the road I spotted this sign which brought an even bigger grin to my face as Hounslow is where I now work and it seems a very random place to have an old fashioned sign pointing towards from one of the most exclusive areas in London. 

Finally I turned down Exhibition Road and came across a free travel photography exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society. It was absolutely fascinating but I obviously wasn't allowed to take pictures inside. Also on Exhibition Road are the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, all free entry and all well worth a visit. All in all a beautiful day out in London for absolutely nothing (other than the price of the tube there and back). 

I hope to start posting regularly again now that I have finally been reunited with wifi and I have lots to share from my first month in London, including being at a pub Friday night with a certain Geordie Britain's Got Talent Presenter. Stay tuned. 

Morning Skincare Routine

As most of you will know my recent absence is due to the fact that I have been sorting out things for my move to London this weekend. I actually moved out of my house in Cardiff on Tuesday (sob) and am at home for a few days sorting things out.

Anyway enough of my boring life, this morning whilst washing my face I realised I had one, two days at most left in my morning toner so I decided to pop up to my closest local shopping centre as well as heading to the bank (because shock horror moving to London is expensive) and anyway I repurchased my favourite toner. 

My complete morning routine now looks like this. 

Broken down it is Super Facialist by Una Brennan, Clinique clarifying lotion, and Number 7 beautiful skin day cream. 

Starting off with my cleanser and it is the tea flower deep clean purifying cleansing wash. It comes out as a liquid and you massage onto dry skin and wash it off with warm water or a damp muslin cloth. I love morning cleansers that require splashing the face with lots of water as I find it really helps wake me up on those early mornings. I particularly like this one as it is nice and cheap, I can't re meme the exact price but I know it was under £10, it is easily available from Boots, and it doesn't break me out. Winner! 

Next is toner and I've been using this toner for about 18 months apart from pjs small break where I tried out the Clarins exfoliating toner. The main reason I went back to this Clinique one is simply price, I felt that £28 was a lot to pay for not seeing that many results. I prefer exfoliating toners in the morning to help strip my skin of all of the nasty stuff that has gotten into it over night. 

Today in Boots I picked up 200ml for £16.50 and the lovely lady on the counter gave me a free travel size version! 

Lastly is moisturiser. I've never been particularly fussy about moisturiser, so long as it moisturises my skin and isn't too oily then it makes me happy. I will have bought this beause I had a voucher or there was some sort of offer in Boots (it's no wonder I was on first name terms with some of the shop assistants in Cardiff Queen Street Boots).

I start my placement in London on Monday and I plan to keep you all updated on any changes in my skincare routine now that I'm going to have a little more cash to burn than my student self. 

Relocating and Matching Nails

I can only apologise for my recent absence. The reason for this is as of next week I will no longer be a Cardiff girl, I'm relocating to the capital! Do you have any idea how difficult it is trying to find a flat in London when you don't even live in the same country as the city? Anyway as my mind and time has been consumed by house hunting I have been unable to post, but I thought I'd do a quick update for you and also share something I noticed this morning that made me chuckle. 

As I was filling in some forms this morning I noticed that my nails that I had painted multicoloured a few days ago actually match one of my favourite scarves! 

 I'm not sure if subconsciously while I was doing my manicure I was trying to replicate this colour combination or if it is simply a coincidence, but it is further proof that my mind is constantly obsessed by beauty. 

Work Haul

I start my new job in London in just over 2 weeks! Naturally I'm really excited and nervous as well as terrified that I still don't have anywhere to live. Enough of that though, yesterday I decided that there is something I can sort out even if it isn't where I'll be living, my new wardrobe. 

I thought I'd share what I picked up because what I discovered is work shopping is just as fun as regular shopping! 

The first is possibly my favourite, it's this cute little grey skirt from Next. It cost £35 and it is so versatile and I just can't stop looking at it I find it that adorable. 

Also from Next are these grey and black trousers also from Next which came with a little black belt. They were £30 and also very versatile. 

Next is this little black skirt in the same shape as the grey one, a little plainer than the Next one but a bargain at £10 from the M&S sale. 

These shoes I found in the office sale for £27. They're lovely chocolate brown brogues and I got them at a bargain price. When I took them to the till I asked the girl if they did student discount on top of sale prices, she told me she was unsure and went to ask her mama get. When she returned she said she couldn't find him but that she'd take the discount off anyway, happy enough I thanked her and was taken back when she only charged me £19.50 as the shop was also offering 20% off that day. All in all I got shoes that originally retailed at £55 in the sale with an extra 30% off, thank you Office in House of Fraiser Cardiff! 

Finally is this bag from TK Maxx. I've been after an alternative spring bag to my Mulberry for a while now, and although o think this does look a little like a cheap version of the Michael Kors tote, yew colour is gorgeous and at £25  certainly not complaining. 

Battle of the Moisturisers

So over the past few weeks I've been experimenting with a few different mousturisation techniques and products and I thought I'd post by opinions on what I feel works best on which occasion.

The first is this in shower moisturiser from Nivea. It's definitely has the convenience factor in terms of you put it on after soap of shower gel in the shower, wash it off and then dry off and your moisturised for the day ahead. I'm not a massive fan of the smell but like I say this definitely has the convenience factor and is good for mornings when you're in a rush. 

The next I have mentioned before so I won't go into too much detail and are the Vaseline spray and go moisturisers. Though this is my preferred method of choice for moisturising, I recently added the pure oats extract to my collection but I plan on completeing it with with the cocoa butter one very soon. 

Finally is the most moisturising of the three options Body Shop Body Butters. They're the most luxurious, most buttery and smell the nicest out of all the options but I save these for nights out as they take so long to sink in and do smell throughout the day. I have the strawberry, pink grapefruit and mango flavours here.