LA Splash liquid lipsticks review

LA Splash is an American brand I discovered through watching one of Hollie Wakehan's makeup YouTube videos. I now love them! Luckily you can buy them in the UK. 

They are the first liquid lippys I've tried and they are great. Both the colours I picked are gorgeous and they last for hours. I think they'd look great on any skin tone. They are also cruelty free and suitable for vegans. I have heard people compare them to Lime Crime, which I believe is quite the complement. 

The first is Nymphaea (AKA nymphodora). It is a pinky/red/mauve perfect for autumn/winter and it makes my teeth look so white. Also great for glamming up your makeup when going out in the evening.

The second shade is "Charmed" which is quite a cool toned nude. It's great for every day wear and with its staying power I still have it on at the end of my working day.

The daupher applicators make them easy to apply. You use the pointed part on the end to line the lips then the flat part to fill. I say pointed part, but it's a daupher, so not really THAT pointed - you need a steady hand. You also need to be careful not to over-apply as, the charmed in particular can end up looking quite cakey if you aren't careful. 

But overall, I am a fan and I will be purchasing some more colours in the near future. 

Beanie coffee

I was reading a Christmas gift guide on a blog the other day and they recommended the online coffee company Beanies - The flavour co. On Beanies' website they describe themselves as coffee 'nuts' that are all about adding flavour to improve coffee's natural taste. They do all sorts of flavours of instant coffee from the Christmas themed Mulled Wine, to Amaretto Almond. 

Even better, they do a £10 set of three coffees in a presentation box of your choice, free delivery included!

My other half loves his coffee and I thought it would be the perfect gift for him. But as it was the 22nd December I thought it was a bit late for a Christmas present, but I decided to order some anyway for his birthday in February. How wrong was I?! The following day the parcel was delivered by courier, perfectly packaged and smelling great when I opened it. I have never had such an amazingly fast service from a company like that so close to Christmas.

I picked Amaretto Almond, Cinder Toffee and Very Vanilla. It was a tough choice as I was equally tempted by Chocolate Orange, Double Chocolate and Irish Cream. But maybe next time eh?

I think I'll still keep these for his birthday as I've bought him enough for Christmas already. But by having a sneaky smell in the jars, I think they are going to go down a treat! 

How to get the "your lips but better" look

Long time, no post! Life got a bit hectic and I was lacking inspiration. Anyway, two products have just entered my life that have given me the inspiration to post and tell you about how amazing they are.

Rimmel exaggerate lip liner in Eastend Snob and Rimmel nude collection by Kate in 45 make the perfect 'your lips but better' look. (Also the blusher above is bloody lovely too).

To apply, I first line my lips with Eastend Snob accentuating my Cupid's bow and then use the liner to fill my lips too. With this method the colour pretty much lasts all day! Then I apply the nude lippy in 45 over the top and the look is complete. 

It is the perfect lip colour for autumn and makes your lips look lusciously full.

Have you tried the Rimmel nude collection? What are your favs? 

Emma

Denim skirt SS15

I love that denim never goes out of fashion and that it is so easy to wear and style. One of my favourite pieces for summer 2015 is the denim skirt. 

The skirt pictured came from New Look last week. I picked it up in their sale section for £11. It's a light acid wash pencil skirt. It's a stretchy material and sits on your hips.

As it's light, it helps accentuate a tan and you can pair it with either a dark or light top.

The pictures show how I've styled it on two occasions.

Both times I've worn it with my "moschino" belt (£10 from eBay shh). The first time with a black crop top from Miss Selfridge, Topshop necklace and black wedge sandals from Primark.

The second time I chose this white off the shoulder crop top from Topshop and some New Look wedges. If you look really carefully you can also see Alfie rolling around in the background. :)

I really want a denim shirt now, so that might be a purchase in the not so distant future as that will do well for autumn with some leggings.

How to create a template for Filofax personal size pages

I know that many of you in the planner community are very creative and love making your own pages, stickers, dividers, dashboards etc. as do I. So I thought I'd record a short video to show you how to set up a personal size template for Filofax or other planners of an equivalent size in Microsoft Word.

I hope you find it helpful. Would love to see what you make.

As a side note, I created the video using a great free online tool called screenr - I would definitely recommend it. 

Jillian Michael's 30 day shred review

Up until a couple of years ago, I used to go to the gym regularly. (If you are curious why I stopped going, see old blog post here). Lately I've been missing the gym, I feel like I have less stamina and even though I'm a size 8/10, I'm feeling some wobbly bits where I shouldn't. For reasons that I quit in the first place, going back to the gym right now isn't an option, but I wanted to start getting some exercise in. So I decided a fitness DVD or two could be the way to go. This way I can fit the exercise around my schedule, cut out the travelling time and the expense of going to the gym.
I bought the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred DVD based on a recommendation from a friend. This was backed up by glowing reviews on Amazon as I went to buy it too.

After working out you can definitely feel it. I spent days with aches in muscles I didn't know I had. That's a bit of a tip though, to maybe take it gently for the first couple of times you do this, otherwise you need to rest for a number of days and then can't keep up with the work outs.

There are 3 levels of works outs, each get increasingly harder and each only lasts 20 minutes. That's part of the reason why I went for this particular DVD as time is of the essence for me. Plus, why spend an hour working out when you can lose the same amount of calories in 20 minutes with the right work out? I must admit, I've only braved levels 1 and 2 and yet to reach 3. The thing is I don't workout regularly, I do it sporadically. So I always start with level 1 and then if I do it continuously for a week or so I build up to level 2. But I've never done that for a long enough period of time to build up to level 3 so far.

Last summer I did this for 3-4 weeks in the build up to my holiday in Egypt along with tracking my calories on My Fitness Pal (app) and trying to cut down on my favourite sweet things. I 100% noticed a difference. It definitely increased my body confidence on holiday knowing that I had a flatter stomach and less cellulite on my thighs.

I need to get back in the swing of things with it again right now as we are currently hunting for an August late deal, so I have limited time to get in a decent shape.

What fitness DVDs do you recommend and why?

Konjac sponge review

I read about the Konjac sponge on another blog and the review was so positive I ordered one straight away.

Picture from Amazon.co.uk

This is the one I got from Amazon. They do a number of different ones, but I went for the bamboo charcoal as it is for oily and spot prone skin (me!). After rushing into the purchase and spending about £7 on it, I later took to eBay to have a browse and found them much cheaper there. Although they were unbranded, they were only about £1. Still, I told myself you can't beat branded products for skincare.

When it arrived I really did enjoy using it. It makes your skin feel really soft, much more so than your average face wash or scrub. I didn't want to cut out my face wash products all together although I think you can with these, so I tend to use this after my face wash to clean off any dead skin cells. It doesn't banish my oily skin or spots, but it does seem to help any blemishes reduce that little bit quicker and not get so severe in the first place.

I left this hanging in my shower between uses and I think that is where it went wrong. After a couple of weeks it started to crumble and once it got too bad I had to throw it away. Looking back, when it arrived and I unpackaged it, it was wet. So I probably should have put it back in the packaging after using to keep in the moisture. 

Since then, I ordered one of the cheap unbranded ones from eBay (in case the crumbling happened again). This time, I've kept it in the bag it came in, not letting it dry out and it is still going strong. Also, there is little different between the branded and unbranded, certainly not something I can justify spending £7 on, when the £1 does the same job. 

The konjac sponge is definitely an addition to my skincare routine that I will be keeping. Also the branded ones make up a nice part of a gift or stocking filler.