December Beauty and TV Favourites

I know this is late up but I thought I'd share the beauty products I loved over December. I've been using The Body Shop Born Lippy lip balm in plum all the time which gives a nice sheer berry colour to the lips and is actually moisturising at the same time. Also I'm still in love with The Body Shop's Mango Body Butter, it smells like heaven and cheers me up during the winter months. As it was the festive and also new year I got out my Collection Glam Crystals in Glitz and was impressed by the staying power on my eyelids, it's also cheap and pigmented too- a real bargain.  I was given By Terry Baume de Rose's limited edition gold lip balm Jewel as a present. This is a holiday version of By Terry's famous baume de Rose lip balm/ gloss that is enriched with 24K gold, I kid you not. The gold micro-particles that give lips a shimmery look or glow it's actually fairly subtle if you don't plaster it on (then it looks a little milky with a white sheen.)  It also contains Shea Butter and cell-boosting Pastel Oil which is fairly mositurising and comfortable to wear and not sticky in the slightest. By Terry Baume de Rose tastes of rose water but no where near as strong as  L'Oreal lipstick. I also got a lot of use from Jeffree Star's Velour Liquid Lipstick in RedRum a lot as it's the perfect matte Hollywood red. I will be doing a longer review on it as well.

Downton Abbey

This post-Edwardian period drama is set in the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey and focuses on the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants downstairs. This critically acclaimed drama has been a worldwide success and is in it's final season which was aired in October- November and the last ever episode was filmed at Christmas. I watched this show from the beginning and was sad to see it go. I was glad Edith got her happy ever after as the sow concentrated a lot on Mary's love life and Edith was always side-lined and deserved some happiness. Although the show has finished it will be available on ITV's iplayer and iTunes.

November Beauty and TV Favourites

The Body Shop Body Butter in Mango and Olive
These body butters blew me away especially the Mango body butter. I wasn't expecting it to be as moisturising as it is, because I find the Body Shop's products a bit hiss and miss. But the dry skin on my elbows have vanished and now it feels baby soft. Although I knew The Body Shop's body butters were popular, I thought it was just because they smelled so nice, but what impressed me the most was that the Mango moisturiser kept my skin so soft even 48 hours later. It's formulated for very dry skins and although my skin is more on the normal/sensitive side this is perfect as an intensive winter moisturiser. It contains mango seed oil, sweet almond oil and cocoa seed butter. It smells fruity and I often catch myself opening the tub just to smell how gorgeous it is! The Olive body butter doesn't smell of olives, but of something fresh, like a cucumber, which reminds me of my tweens for some reason. It's formulated for dry skin and contains olive fruit oil, shea butter and cocoa seed butter. While it isn't as intensive as the mango one, it's still great to use as a winter body moisturiser.

Rimmel Provocolips in 730 Make Your Move
This is a perfect 90's nude brown that doesn't break the bank! This defied my expectations after trying one of the Kate Moss lipsticks which tasted of very cheap candy, but this liquid lipstick doesn't have a taste or smell and what's more is that it's long lasting!

Max Factor Crème Puff Blush in 30 Gorgeous Berries
These are touted as a dupe for Hourglass's Ambient Lighting Blushes and they share the same marbled/baked powder appearance and both give a soft focused colour and sheen while at the same time remaining pigmented and easy to blend. Gorgeous Berries is a plummy pink berry colour perfect for winter.

Once Upon A Time
Set in a small fictional town of Storybrooke, the inhabitants are characters from various fairy tales who have been transported to the "real world" American town and robbed of their real memories of their fairy tale lives by a powerful curse cast by Regina The Evil Queen who now resides as the town's mayor. Once upon a Time is a fantasy series that plays with timelines, parallel lives and inverts all the traditional fairy tale stories you thought you knew. Season 5 has been a real game changer with Storybrook's former saviour Emma turning dark leaving Regina the Evil Queen to take on the role of Saviour instead. The show still plays with time as the first two episodes showed Emma as dark and evil and all the inhabitants memories have been wiped. Just as the inhabitants are trying to fill the gaps so are we, as we follow Emma's journey into a darkness that threatens their world. Once Upon A Time is available on Netflix with new episodes on Wednesdays.

The Vampire Diaries
Initially I didn't think I'd like this show as I loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the 90's/00's and felt the second wave of vampire books/film/TV weren't nearly as good- yep I'm talking about Twilight.
The Vampire Diaries is set in Mystic Falls, a fictional small town which seems to have more than it's fair share of vampires, werewolves and witches. Elena and her brother Jeremy are orphaned when a car crash kills their parents. Elena later finds out that her classmate Stephan actually rescued her from the crash and decides to stay in her life, enrolling at her school. However Stephen is actually 150 year old vampire and Elena is the doppelganger of his ex girlfriend Katherine. I really got caught up in the love triangle between Elena, Stephen and his brother Damon. Things get complicated when Katherine and a family of Original Vampires are out to harm Elena and Mystic Falls. I think this show must be a great show for the actors involved as they each get to play different characters and different side to the characters as they get turned into supernatural beings. Series 1-6 is available on Netflix and the current season is on ITV 2 and iTunes.

August Favourites - Beauty and Netflix

My favourite beauty products during August included Makeup Revolution's sister brand I Heart Makeup I Heart Chocolate palette. It has a lot of neutral eye shadows which is great for summer so you don't look too over done in the bright summer sunlight (not that the U.K. got much of that this summer) and is also good for neutral work appropriate makeup for the rest of the year- there are 5 matte shadows and 10 shimmer but they're more subtle than Urban Decay Naked shimmer shadows and I will be doing a full review of it soon. I've also been using Too Faced Shadow Insurance in Candlelight, I'm happy that the formula isn't irritating to my sensitive skin and it does keep eye makeup in place all day. It's taken me a while to get used to a coloured eye primer, I'm so used to beige pink formation of the original ELF and the disastrous MUA eye primer that then get covered up by eye shadow. Candlelight gives a nice golden champagne highlight which is good to apply in the inner corner of the eye to look more awake. I love the packaging, there's an iridescent golden sheen to the white tube which invokes a Cinderella fairy tale magic to it. It's also the first eye primer I've used that comes in a tube with a narrow nib instead of a doe foot applicator, I actually like it as I think less product is wasted with the nib.

I also got a lot of use out of  the E.L.F blush in Glow which doubles up as a blush and highlighter in one since it's is a peach colour with a golden shimmer through it, sort of like a budget Nar's Orgasm blusher. I've also been loving New C.I.D's i-crayon in Plum Cordial, it's a bright blue based pink which was perfect for summer lips, the colour is pigmented but incredibly moisturising too. It's great to wear on the lips as my lips have been really dry to the point where wearing lip gloss is uncomfortable and Vaseline doesn't really hydrate them and to my surprise this fitted the bill. It's so comfortable I will probably keep wearing this in the autumn. It does transfer onto glasses but it does leaves a stain on the lips so you do retain some colour. It's a twist up crayon which means no mess or waste sharpening the nib, although the finish is really a satin look rather than glossy which New C.i.d describe it as. This also doubles up as a cheek tint as well which will be good for the Snow White autumn look where the cheeks look flushed from the cold. This lip and cheek crayon has a perfumed sweet candy smell, at first it can be a bit overpowering but once on the lips the smell disappears.  It's such a good multi tasking product I would be interested in buying more in other colours.

In other news I've really got into the TV show White Collar. The show is about Neal Caffrey a renowned art thief, con artist and slick counterfeiter. With only a few months left of his four year sentence, Neal escapes jail to look for his girlfriend Kate. Special Agent Peter Burke finds him again and sends him back to prison. So Neal makes a deal with the FBI to work as a FBI consultant as part of a work-release program. FBI Agent Burke agrees on the condition Neal wears an ankle monitor. Neal shares his expertise and helps Agent Burke to solve his white collar crime cases. Then there's also the mystery of what has actually happened to Neal's girlfriend Kate. Starring Matt Boner (who is pretty easy on the eye) Willie Garson as his friend Mozzie (who you may remember as Stanford from Sex and The City) and Tiffani Thiessen (Kelly from the Original Saved by The Bell.)

I hope you all had a lovely summer and will follow me into the autumn.

What I've been up to and June Favourites

It's a little late but here are my June favourites. I've been taking part in the Finish 4 by 4th July project and I chose these Clinique Chubby Sticks in Woppin' Watermelon and Super Strawberry to use up. I reviewed them last summer and although I found them comfortable to wear I did feel they were overpriced. However I stopped using Vaseline on my lips because I suspected they might be causing spots around my lips so I've been reaching for these and I absolutely love them! I also love Make Up Revolution The One Fluid Blusher in Desire it's a lovely Snow White natural blush it's just a little messy to use as I'm still experimenting with which brushes to use to apply it. I've been using Bourjois Volume 1 second mascara which took a little getting used to but it's a good all rounder. The full review will be up soon. I've also been wearing Ghost Eclipse which smells just like summer in a bottle-fresh sweet and fruity.



I've also been enjoying BBC's The Syndicate, a drama about a group of people who win the lottery and how it affects them. In this series the staff at a crumbling Hazelwood Manor estate win the lottery and suddenly end up with more money than the family who own the estate. Lady Hazelwood wants to sell the estate and live elsewhere but Lord Hazelwood sees it as his heritage and loves the place and refuses to move. Then he finds out some the paintings in the house have been replaced with forgeries and that the originals have been sold secretly behind his back. He suspects his son in law Spencer. Add to that one of the staff, a girl called Amy has gone missing and is presumed dead. The Syndicate always has a great cast and is consistently a high quality British drama. I'm impressed with Lenny Henry's performance , I haven't seen him playing a straight role before and he plays Godfrey who has Asperger's syndrome, obsessed with numbers, hates change and not socially aware, very sensitively. If you're not in the UK look it up on iTunes.

I've also been watching Channel 4's Amazing Spaces Shed of The Year, where people enter the shed that they've built. It doesn't sound exciting but it's amazing to see what people have built- an owl shaped hut on the beach, a shed-boat that sails down the river and a posh tree house among others.

I'm so happy that Pretty Little Liars is back, especially at the same time as it airs in the U.S. Hopefully we will finally get some answers over who exactly A or Charles Dilaurentis actually is and why they are targeting high school friends Aria, Hanna, Emily, Spencer and Alison. The time jump of 3-4 years in the future will also be interesting to watch! I think all the actors will be happy to be playing characters nearer their own age as well as they have been playing high school teenagers for the last 6 years!

I also went to see The London Russian Ballet School perform locally which was fantastic. I'm currently enjoying the heat wave here in the UK- Summer's here yay!

What I've been up to this Month: March Favourites

I thought I'd write about what I have been up to lately so that you guys could get to know me a bit better. This month I've been loving the show Drop Dead Diva. The show starts with model Deb who is engaged to lawyer Greyson, but gets killed in a car crash. When she arrives in the holding area in heaven she decides to press the return button on the computer. This sends her soul back to earth but in someone else's body. In the body of Jane a smart lawyer, who happens to be plus size. Her guardian angel Fred is sent after her so that Deb maintains Jane's life. Jane also has to work alongside Greyson who is mourning his fiancé Deb. While the show has been criticised for implying Deb's old life as model was better than her current life as the plus size smart lawyer, I feel like that Deb just pines after her old life and in particular her family, and that it takes her a long time to adjust and appreciate her new one. The show tackles the issues of weight in the court cases, wanting to sue a store for not stocking clothes for larger women and when she defends a women who was fired from her job for putting on weight. The lead is played by Natalie Hall who has a wonderful singing voice with cameos from Kim Kardashian and Paula Abdul. Some of the show's crazy court cases remind me a little of Ally Mcbeal, but what I love about this show is it's heart. I also like the fact that there's generally two court cases in each episode so you don't get bored or so many you're confused. It's currently on Amazon instant Video.

This month also saw the Season 5 finale of Pretty Little Liars which I've been hooked on since the get go. This series hyped the big reveal of the identity of A, the person who has been torturing a group of five high school girls and murdering a few other people along the way. However while we found out the name of A, we weren't quite sure of their true identity. I guess the show couldn't give us all the answers to this mystery as there's still another two series left. It's still gripping as always so if you haven't seen it I'd recommend watching it! It's available on Netflix & itunes.

I've also been listening to Sia's latest album 1000 Forms of Fear, she is an amazing talent and so is Maddie Ziegler who features in some of her videos. I never caught Dance Moms, the TV show that made Maddie famous, but she is incredibly talented. I also picked up an Anastacia's self titled album (2004) and been really impressed, my favourite tracks are Sick and Tired and Left Outside Alone.

I've almost completed a course on Cyber Security, a free course with the Open University. It's an 8 week online course and if you're interested and have the time I really recommend it. The course is run by Cory Doctorow, and involves learning how the hacks in Playstation and Target security breach happened as well as practical ways to protect your computer from viruses and trojans and yourself from identity theft. I might write a post covering some of the main points.

This month I've also discovered Fig and Hazelnut bread from Marks and Spencer (in store) which is absolutely delicious, if you're interested you can also find a recipe for it here (though it's not the same as M&S's version.) I've also be wanting to try out Cupcake toothpaste from Flamingo, which I found out about through Fee from Make up Savvy when she tweeted that she was trying it out- you can see her review here of it here.

Let me know your favourites this month in the comments below.