Valentines Day Makeup

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Or if you're anti-Valentines, happy Saturday! I hope you're all having a good day so far and have some exciting plans today to look forward to. Myself and my Valentine won't be celebrating until tomorrow when we'll be having a delicious home-cooked meal by candlelight.

That said, I had some time this afternoon and a few new products to try so I thought I'd do a makeup look for Valentines in case anyone is looking for last-minute inspiration. I've kept it fairly natural with some gold shimmer eyeshadows and highlighters that I think will look perfect by candlelight. I'll list all the products used below.

Base:

Laura Mercier - Foundation Primer

Rimmel - Match Perfection Foundation in 010 Light Porcelain

Collection - Lasting Perfection Concealer in Fair

Collection - Pressed Powder in 18 Ivory

Blush/Contour:

Sleek - Contour & Highlight Palette in 884 Light

Chit Chat - Blusher 

Sleek - Precious Metals Highlighter Palette in Royal Gold & Platinum

Seventeen - Instant Glow Shimmer Brick in Gold Broze

Eyes:

Soap & Glory - Trick & Treatment in Bright On

Sleek - iDivine Eye Shadow Palette in 141 Vintage Romance

L'Oreal - Brow Artist Plumper in Light/Medium

Revlon - ColourStay Liquid Eye Pen in 01 Blackest Black

Jane Iredale - PureLash Extender & Conditioner

Maybelline - Colossal Mascara in Go Extreme! Volume

Lips:

L'Oreal - Infallible Lip Liner in 701 Stay Ultraviolet 

Laqa & Co - Lil' Lip in Wolfman

I am loving the Sleek eyeshadow palettes so much! I had a bit of a Sleek Haul which I'll blog more about once I've had a chance to try all the products I got. The Vintage Romance palette in particular has gorgeous plum shades that I wore today:

It sits next to a couple of gold shimmery shades that are so pretty! I'm going to enjoy experimenting with these palettes in the near future. There's a huge range in my local Boots which is pretty big but they're also online here.

I hope you all have an amazing Valentines day, single or not! I'll see you all again soon with a new post <3

Tabitha 

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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.

2015 New Year Resolutions

It's that time of year again when people start to think of their New Year's resolutions and begin asking you what yours are. I made some pretty firm promises to myself at the start of 2014 and I'm pleased to say that I achieved everything on my resolution list in one way or another.

This could partly be due to the fact that my 2014 resolutions were so vague it would be nearly impossible to fail. But mostly I like to believe that I succeeded because they were resolutions that I really wanted to keep.

2014 New Year Resolutions

1. Read More - Vague, I know. But I did manage to achieve this one. I went from a tragic one novel read in 2013 to a much more respectful novel-a-fortnight in 2014. This slipped somewhat after I changed jobs and didn't have my daily commute anymore. But I'm pleased to say that I re-discovered my passion for reading and have continued to read on a semi-regular basis

2. Write More - Another vague statement. However, with a lack of brilliant novel ideas and no inspiration to even so much as spit out a poem, this one was difficult. I decided to focus more time on this blog and I'm pleased to say that I've succeeded. I still haven't written nearly as many posts as I had originally imagined but I have certainly made more of an effort with this blog and it's forming into something I can be quite proud of.

3. Get a Permanent Job - Achieved twice this year. After a couple of years as a temporary member of staff, holding a permanent job is a relief. I feel a lot more secure and I'm being paid far better.

4. Pay Off Overdraft - I failed to achieve this one. I just couldn't afford to for the first 8 months of the year on my low salary around trying to support myself too. However, in this new role, I finally have money to spare that I can use to start paying it off. I put a savings plan and a new budget in place and I'm on my way to paying it off by this time next year

5. Lose Weight - Deliberately vague, but I managed to achieve this. At my peak, I'd managed to lose 38lbs from this time last year and was well chuffed with myself. With the festive season and a miserable winter in general, I know some of this has come back. However, I know that I can lose weight now and I've had an education this last year on how to do it too. I''m going into 2015 with big plans to continue on the weight loss/fitness path and achieve my goals.

So, with a day and a half until the new year, I've been giving a lot of thought to what my goals will be for this next year. I know that I can achieve the goals that I set myself now. I have confidence in my ability to do so. However, this year I want to be stricter with myself and a lot less vague. I hope that by this time next year, I can proudly say that I've achieved these goals too.

2015 New Year Resolutions

1. Read 10 books
2. Update the blog 4 times a month
3. Fully pay off overdraft
4. Lose 6 stone
5. Have a dental check-up
6. Drink at least 2L water a day

Had you asked me at this time last year where I'd have ended up now, I probably couldn't have guessed. Even now, I can't predict what will happen across this next year but if the last one is anything to go by then I'm going to learn a lot of lessons.

I know that it's unlikely anyone cares about the post above and that it's kind of like someone telling you about the dream they had last night (f*cking dull) but writing my resolutions down and making a commitment to them really helped me last year so I'm doing the same this year.

Good Luck with any of your own resolutions and I hope 2015 will be an incredible year for all of us!

Tabitha
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My Little Box | December 2014

Christmas is coming and my favourite monthly gift of My Little Box arrived just in time. This month's theme is a box by YouTuber Fleur de Force and her stamp of style is all over it too :-)

The theme is very much around Christmas and gift wrapping but without being too in your face with ho-ho-ho and being much more....well...Fleur! A couple of beauty bits included of course as well as a headband I'll probably never wear out but that may come in handy around the house regardless.

This month's box contains:

- The magazine

- Cowshed Body Lotion

- Wrapping ribbon

- Wrapping tape stickers (at the front)

- Gift tags

- My Little Beauty lipstick

- A headband

- L'Occitane Immortalle Precious Cream

I'm never that bothered with skincare products but I love the lipstick colour and can't wait to try it out!

I also have some last minute gifts that the wrapping bits will come in handy for. 

All in all, another brilliant box that actually arrived on time to be useful (still waiting on my Birchbox which was dispatched two weeks ago....). 

I hope you're all enjoying the festive season as much as I am :-)

Tabitha

Xx

PS: Sorry if the photos are low quality! 

This post not sponsored by My Little Box. I just love the product and wanted to share

Loreal Glam Highlights Update

I haven't blogged in almost a month! I have lots of ideas for posts but it's been difficult to get the pictures that need to go with them because I spend the daylight hours at the office and all my house lights are dim yellow.

Anyway, enough with the excuses. I just wanted to share a couple of pictures from just over a week ago since I managed to capture my highlights in the sunshine while taking train selfies (standard). The sunlight doesn't do my skin any favours so they are edited to fuck but I promise I haven't edited my hair.

As you can see, the highlights are still bright blonde and seamlessly blending with my hair. I am so so so impressed with Loreál's Glam Highlights kits as always and can't wait for my next session.

I'm letting my hair rest until after Christmas and then I'm going to put even more highlights in! :-) I definitely couldn't have done it without the kit though so a massive hats off to Loreal and their impeccable hair dye ranges.

Tabitha

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Post not sponsored by Loreal - I just love their products and wanted to share :-)