Busy Busy Busy!

It feels like it's been a long and hectic month with lots of social occasions and more overtime hours at work than I can shake a stick at.

Keeping busy is good for me, especially in a long and grey month like January. That said, I am promising myself a full weekend of lazing about next weekend and just doing all the things I like to do best: sleeping, watching Netflix and drinking tea :-)

Life Update:

- Closing the month with 12.6lbs lost so far. Hoping for the last 1.4lb by Saturday the 31st so that I've lost a stone in a month!

- Reading The Help and trying to make time for it though I can definitely improve!

- Acheived my goal of four posts this month with this last post

- Working lots of overtime this month to put towards paying off my overdraft 

Oh, and I bought myself a very fancy new scale:

So shiny!

I hope you had a lovely January :-)

Tabitha

Xx

Favourites | Teapigs Tea

Anyone that knows me knows that I have a love for tea. There's a cupboard full of it at home, and a drawer full of it at work. From your standard English Breakfast right through to the Lotus tea leaves my friend brought back from Thailand for me. I'm not afraid to be adventurous with it.

As with anything else, I do have a favourite tea. It's been my top tea since I first tried it a couple of years ago and to this day it's still a deliciously surprising treat every time. It's the Liquorice & Peppermint flavour from the Teapigs range.

Ewww, liquorice is gross - right? Wrong. In this tea it is brilliant.

It's like magic. You take a sip and at first you don't really taste anything. It's almost like warm water until you swallow it and the flavours explode around your mouth like a tidal wave of delicious symphony. The first time I tried this tea I had to keep taking sip after sip and the effect was just the same. I'd never had a tea that had an animation to it's flavour. Impressed, I got through a whole box pretty rapidly and ended up on the Teapigs site looking for more.

I've since expanded my collection massively with Liquorice & Peppermint remaining my firm favourite but I have a spot in my heart for each of the flavours above. Apologies for the state of some of the boxes in the pictures above - they're well worn and well loved.

If you find yourself spending £3 on a Chai Tea Latte at Cafe Nero fairly regularly, then I'd definitely recommend the chai tea bags which will set you back £3.99 for 15 bags. Get yourself a little milk frother too and you've got delicious chai tea latte's at a fraction of the price.

You can find some of the Teapigs flavours in most larger supermarkets but I prefer access to the full range online, myself. The company is also a champion for ethical trading and being green too, which is an added bonus to a damn good cup of tea.

Let me know if you've got a favourite flavour or if there's any you think I should try!

Tabitha
Xx

PS: This post not sponsored by Teapigs or affiliates. I just love their products and wanted to share. Seriously, though. Try the Liquorice and Peppermint flavour. It will change your life - trust.

Birchbox | January 2015

It's 2015! Hooray! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and have spent the first full week of it in a fairly pleasant way...even if some of it was miserable because that early alarm for work is just as screeching as it was in 2014.

Beyond anything else, the start of a new month means two things: bills and beauty boxes. I got an email to say that my Birchbox had dispatched on Thursday and had received it by Friday which totally makes up for the massive delay last month in my mind. 

Birchbox and Women's Health have teamed up this month and we were on the same page. My theme for this month has been to hit refresh on everything and I was delighted to find out that their January theme was just that - Hit Refresh. 

Alongside a booklet with 12 little challenges to help you Hit Refresh this month (including keep up a journal and a sit-up-straight challenge) there was the usual array of samples. Not being a fan of the skin care sample side of things, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed to have not one but three skin related items in this month's box. 

This month's box contained:

- stila lip glaze (£15) in the shade Glamour (E0)

- Green People Intense Repair Shampoo (£11.95)

- HealGel Face (£48)

- Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum  (£45)

- activbod Cooling Finish Lotion (£12)

- Embrace Matcha Green Tea

- Birchbox Pilates Band

I'm not going to go into any depth on the skincare product front because they usually stack up gathering dust somewhere before I ever try them 

I am excited about the Macha tea though! I've wanted to try it for a while now since I first saw an article about it on the Teapigs website long ago. I might try and find a matcha latte recipe somewhere and give it a go!

I'll also be giving the shampoo a go. Apparently a little will go a long way and it's going to strengthen/repair my hair without any 'chemical nasties'. I also can't wait to try out the pilates band though I have to admit that I'm terrified it will snap.

Lastly, I am loving the lip glaze! It's a gorgeous colour with a very deep pigment which will always make me happy with a lip product. For any lipgloss haters like me, it is just a touch sticky. BUT it's not an unpleasant sticky, more of a reassuringly stubborn non-budge lip colour. I took a swatch on my hand and hopefully captured the colour in as natural a light I can achieve this time of year in my dark little basement flat.

It was a sweet scent that is akin to passion fruit or perhaps even mango. I've been wearing it a couple of hours now and the pigment is still going strong despite multiple cups of tea. I can't wait to try it out on a daytime look. It's the perfect pop of colour without being too much for a typical day at the office.

All in all, I'm happy to have some tools to help towards my hitting refresh this month so thank you, Birchbox!

I hope you all enjoy your weekend! I'll be back with another post on Tuesday so I'll see you again then :-)

Tabitha 

Xx

This post was not sponsored by Birchbox, if it was they probably would have sent me less skincare :-P I just like their product and wanted to share.