Hair BFF’s  After my ombre experiment (still a work in progress) my poor tresses have been in a permanent state of code red. Damaged ends look much more damaged when your hair is very light. It also doesn’t help that ombre looks best when styled. So I’ve been subjecting my parched ends to heat styling. I’ve been very bad.  To counter act all this evil I have turned to L’oreal’s Extraordinary Oil. I leave it in my hair for 10-15 minutes before I wash it and sometimes over-night for some serious conditioning. It also works wonders on fly-aways and isn’t greasy at all. I love the stuff.  Also being awesome is the L’oreal Elnett hair spray. After being a cheapskate and only buying drugstore branded hairspray, I feel like an idiot for not investing a few pounds extra on this classic. Good hold, and brushing it out is easy peasy.  Well, here ends my love letter to L’oreal’s hair styling products. Cheeky wink. 
Pop-upView Separately

Hair BFF’s 

After my ombre experiment (still a work in progress) my poor tresses have been in a permanent state of code red. Damaged ends look much more damaged when your hair is very light. It also doesn’t help that ombre looks best when styled. So I’ve been subjecting my parched ends to heat styling. I’ve been very bad. 

To counter act all this evil I have turned to L’oreal’s Extraordinary Oil. I leave it in my hair for 10-15 minutes before I wash it and sometimes over-night for some serious conditioning. It also works wonders on fly-aways and isn’t greasy at all. I love the stuff. 

Also being awesome is the L’oreal Elnett hair spray. After being a cheapskate and only buying drugstore branded hairspray, I feel like an idiot for not investing a few pounds extra on this classic. Good hold, and brushing it out is easy peasy. 

Well, here ends my love letter to L’oreal’s hair styling products. Cheeky wink. 

My very first Chanel

There comes a time in a girl’s life, when she has some sort of disposable income and the desire for expensive makeup cannot be curved. I don’t have a disposable income but I spent £25 on a Chanel lipstick anyway. Whilst on work experience at More magazine, whose offices are conveniently located just 5 minutes away from a Chanel pop-up shop, a fierce internal battle took place and I succumbed to the double C’s. It’s black, gold, sleek, and oh so grown up. The moment I slick some on I become a WOMAN. No more awkward mid-twenties, woman-child. It’s powerful stuff. Its proper name is Rouge Allure Velvet in La Sensuelle. It really feels like velvet when its on. High street makeup is fun and cheap, but oh wow, Chanel just feels amazing. It has also cemented my love for dark, vampy reds as my lipstick of choice. 

Bring on adulthood, I am in good company. And am planning on expanding the collection.

My nail art skills have failed me for the last couple of weeks, so instead of Mani Monday, here is what is sure to become my autumn nail shade of choice. I popped my Essie cherry with Decadent Dish, a deep, shimmery burgundy. Love. There is a bit of chipping less that 24 hours after applying it, but I always get chipped nails very quickly. I’m either using the wrong top coat, or am just generally clumsy. Probably the latter. 

Hair Misadventures

I’m quite adventurous when it comes to hair. The stuff does grow back. But I remain wary of bleach because, well, one should be wary. However the ombre hair effect is something that I’ve wanted to do for years now but couldn’t really afford to pay salon prices. Then along came L’oreal with their little kit and, voila, Sunday night fun. I chose shade number 2 and…well…it came out ginger. I knew this was a possibility, I’ve dyed my hair so much the bleach had to eat through ALOT of colour. I doesn’t offend me. I’m starting to grow fond of it as a matter of fact. But it’s not what I wanted so this is merely step one to fulfilling my dip-dye dreams. What’s next? Another bout with the kit after my hair recovers a bit (a week tops). After that? Once the ends of my hair are light enough to play with, the rainbow is the limit!  

The last photo is what my hair looked like pre-bleach. Quite dark at the ends. 

Mani Monday

Stupid name but it sounds catchy. I’m a tad (massively) obsessed with nail polish and am never without it. My nails hate me for it but I can’t stand the sight of them bare. Every monday I will be sharing my amateur creations. These are inspired by the awesome Orion Nebula and it’s simply hot pink polish and buckets of glitter. 

I used my Nails Inc. Caviar top and base coat which are glorious, a Ciate polish in Jelly Bean and my Louise Gray for Topshop glitter polish in Pinch Punch. x

August Favourites

It’s a bit late, nearly mid-September now but I wanted to get this blog properly working. These are some of the products I used constantly during August and am still using now. First is the Louise Gray for Topshop nail polishes “Junk Yard” and “Pinch Punch”. I am in love with these polishes, I’ve even used them on their own and loved the effect. They are insanely hard to remove though, so be prepared for a solid 10 minutes of scrubbing. I also bought the face glitter which sounds like a pointless purchase but I used them in a shoot already and will probably use them in several more. 

I splashed out on Dr. Jart’s BB cream in Water Fusion. I really like using BB creams, the sheer coverage is perfect for warm weather and god-send during this weird British heat-wave. I’d already used the Maybelline BB cream and loved it, so I figured it was time to invest in the original. At 18 quid it’s a bit steep but I’v been using it nearly everyday. 

Two of my favourites were magazine freebies: the NEOM Moroccan Blush Rose hand cream and Balance Me eye cream. I can’t remember which magazine was which, might have been Glamour and Marie Claire. The NEOM cream is crazy luxurious, very rich, and it’s rose so it’s an automatic favourite. I’ve heard quite a bit about NEOM in the blog-o-sphere and was really excited to try it out. The eye cream is also lovely, it’s brightens and tightens up my very bad bags. Insomnia is a cruel mistress. 

Dissertation deadlines meant spots. I rarely break-out (thank you genes) but the stress of getting all my work done had me rather spotty. The Tea Tree & Witch Hazel spot wand has two different ends, a clear one for daytime and a thicker one for nighttime. It does what it says on the tin and it’s been helping me banish the after shocks of deadlines. The Vaseline is pretty self explanatory. I’ve also been using it as a highlighter on my cheeks as per the suggestion of the great Kate Moss.

This Boots Botanics Hot Cloth cleanser comes with a small wash cloth for some deep cleansing action. It’s super moisturizing and leaves skin super clean and soft.

Well, that is all for August, will be blogging again soon, have some very special treats lined up. X

June Joliebox


I had unsubscribed from the crack that is monthly beauty boxes but was drawn back into it by the lure of an anniversary box. Joliebox went back to it’s French roots and filled the special edition boxes with French goodies. There were problems with shipping for some reason so I received my box over a week late, which just make me want it more. Unfortunately it meant that I didn’t get products tailored to my skin type. Like the Yon Ka pamplemousse. I have no idea what pamplemousse is. Google claims it is french for grapefruit. Fair enough. It’s a protective and vitalizing cream with botanical essential oils (their words, not mine). I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. It’s meant for normal to oily skin and my skin isn’t oily at all, curse you Royal Mail for screwing up this order. Thankfully the box included another moisturizer, a L’Occitance hydration creme with Angelica water. Angelica is apparently some kind of miracle plant and so far I am inclined to agree, yet, I’m still mourning the end of my SK-II sample. No other box sample will ever compare to it’s glory. Or it’s nearly £200 price tag.

Another product I probably won’t be using much if at all, is the Esthederm Bronz Repair. I don’t tan. Ever. Fake bake or real thing. So this product is pointless. It’s supposed to repair sun damage whilst giving a healthy glow. Cool.

I was quite looking forward to trying out the Leonor Greyl volumizing Shampoo, made with loads of good, natural stuffs. After one use, not sure how I feel about it. My hair was a bit fuller but it was also a bit brittle. It didn’t lather up at all, which I suppose is a side-effect of having no sulfates but still feels odd. I might give it another go.

The box also included an Elysambre organic mascara. It has some of the strangest packaging I’ve ever seen for a mascara, it looks like a test tube. It’s lovely, a dark brown and I’ll probably be using it on my no-makeup days. It’s subtle but it’s lasted on my lashes for hours. The last goodie in the box was a pink Joliebox nail file. Tiny and very cute, it’s already stored in my bag for nail emergencies. 

It’s always hit or miss with beauty boxes but I liked the Anniversary edition for the most part. There’s always one or two gems that make the boxes worthwhile and of course I love getting post (with the exception of bills).