Spring green/pink blush

Since being back at work I haven't been able to paint my nails and it's been so horrible. I haven't gone a day without wearing nail polish since I last worked at Christmas so as you can probably imagine, it took a while to get used to seeing bare nailz on the end of my fingers! Although since I stopped wearing polish about three weeks ago, I think my nails have weakened because they keep splitting :(

Anyway, this week I've had three days off (but not missed out on a days pay thanks to the horrendous 15 hour shift I did on Tuesday/Wednesday) so decided to go mental and finally wore this amazing colour. Spring Green by Barry M is probably one of my faves and I absolutely adore it. It's such an amazing colour and I wish I could wear it forever, everybody should own a bottle of this. I put Models Own Pink Blush on my ring finger and I'm quite impressed with how they look together, simple yet effective.

What are your favourite nail polishes to wear together?

PS, today I won a Samsung Galaxy Tab thanks to Warehouse and their amazing #WareStyleTreats, they still have about a week or so left of giveaways so go and follow them to be in with a chance of winning :)

Skegvegas

Yesterday saw an impromptu trip to sunny Skegness with two friends, Craig and Luke. Craig's grandparents have recently bought a holiday home there and they kindly let us stay in it for the night. We had originally planned a night out but we decided against it and instead we had a failed BBQ that we tried EVERYTHING to relight, stupid British summer ruins everything, and so we ended up cooking the ridiculous amounts of food we bought in the oven whilst drinking cider, wine and vodka.

Skegness is nothing special at all but it was still nice to be somewhere other than Grimsby and it definitely has a lot more going for it than Cleethorpes (the seaside town next to Grimsby where I work) and it was lots of fun all the same. I'm also really pleased with how some of these photos turned out, that's why there is so many!

I also made the decision to give up my V Festival ticket for this year too which I am truly gutted about. Cosmopolitan have invited me back for another three weeks, starting Monday, and accomodation has cost me a bomb meaning I couldn't afford to do both unfortuately. I am so looking forward to going back though and having a couple of weeks away from work and home and to actually be staying in London! Sophie & I have already planned to go for a drink one night and I think I might be meeting Sarah at some point too - if anybody else wants to meet up while I'm around then hit me up!

Total Moisture

I'm not going to lie, my skincare routine has always been absolutely terrible and totally inconsistent. I've never had perfect skin and I've never found the perfect products that give me beautifully flawless and radiant skin. Not only have I got a hideously uneven skin tone (I'm blessed with bright red cheeks) but I also suffer from dry patches and breakouts quite often, although sometimes they're a lot worse than others.

That sad, I do like to smother my face in moisturiser before I go to bed - I honestly cannot sleep if I don't because most face washes leave my skin feeling really tight and I hate that. So, when I saw the girls at Cosmopolitan had given me Benefit's Total Moisture Facial Cream I was overjoyed, especially because it retails at £26.50 - quite expensive!

I've not noticed a massive difference in my skin since using it but it's definitely a lovely product. It's nice and thick so you don't need to use much at all and it smells amazing. It's similar to Benefit's B-Spot fragrance (I accidentally called it G Spot, good job I double checked on the website!) if anybody has smelt that.

Would I buy it when my pot runs out? Probably not. I have absolutely no complaints with it at all but I do think it's slightly expensive for what is, essentially, just a moisturiser. Perhaps if I used the full skincare range with it I might have better effects?

Does anybody use the cleanser and toner also available? What are your thoughts? If not, does anybody have any magical skincare regimes I could try?

*This post comes partly for Michelle who asked that I do a little review of it when I mentioned that I got this in my goody bag!

Graduation

Today marked the end of an era - I graduated from De Montfort University with a 2:1 BA Honours in Journalism. I think I'm probably the only person in the world who wasn't at all bothered about going to graduation, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went and everything but I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

That said, it was a nice ceremony, it was set in De Montfort Hall which is so lovely and one of the many places that was left undiscovered until it was time to move back home. Typical. The weather was really good too, there's been graduations all week and apparently it's been raining and horrible until today!

I'm so tired now though, we went to Leicester yesterday and stayed in a Premier Inn but we had to go via Leeds to pick up my sister and then do the same on the way home today - long! Tonight we were going to go out for a celebratory meal but instead we're going to get a takeaway and we bought Banoffee Pie for pudding and then I'm going to curl up on the sofa with my new book that arrived today - Mini Shopaholic. It's the latest installment in a Shopaholic series and I pre-ordered it back in April thinking it wasn't going to be released until now but apparently it's been out in hardback since September last year. Gutted that I waited all that time for nothing!

Wonderful life

I wanted to post this yesterday but after I'd got in from work I ended up going to my friend's house to watch The Apprentice final so I didn't get a chance. As if Tom ended up winning, what a dark horse! As much as I disliked her, I genuinely thought Susan was in with a chance.

On Friday I went to Lincoln for a meal with my family for my cousin's birthday and my camera made it's debut so all the above photos are what I took then. I love having it so much already and I'm so happy that I decided to spend my birthday money on it. I definitely need to learn how to edit the colours of photos in Photoshop though, I know how to use Paint Shop Pro but I think Photoshop will look more relevant on my CV so any hints or tips will be gratefully received.

Life for me is pretty dull to be fair, I'm working five shifts a week to try and sort my dire finances out and to try and save some money for Australia, October seems so long away but this year is going so fast already, I can't believe we're more than half way through July already! I've got a couple of reviews lined up, one that Michelle asked for in a previous post and a couple others so I'll post them when I get a chance.

Oh, dad took me to see Harry Potter on Saturday and I loved it, I definitely cried more than once. Although, what did everyone think of it in 3D? I have to say, I was quite disappointed and I think I need to see it again in 2D to appreciate it more somehow...

Ultrabland

Last week whilst in London I met with my lovely, lovely friend, Letty, for lunch and she introduced me to three new things: chunky humous wraps from Pret, Ben's Cookies (if you're in London, try these. Promise you won't be disappointed) and Ultrabland, a cleanser from Lush. Despite being an employee of Lush but not actually working at the time of our lunch date, Letty still managed to sell this stuff to me so well that I insisted we walked down Regent Street so we could pick some up straight away (Letty, if you're reading this, I STILL OWE YOU THE MONEY FOR IT).

So, I've been using Ultrabland for about a week now and thus far, I am impressed. I've got extremely spot-prone skin, it doesn't take much for my face to break out and it's usually my luck that when I switch to a new cleanser I end up with a load of spots but this hasn't happened with Ultrabland. It's so gentle on my skin, I can even open my eyes whilst washing my face without them stinging which I like! It is quite greasy but it doesn't leave my skin feeling horrible afterwards which is always good so that kind of counteracts the grease factor for me.

I've been using Ultrabland each night and I only use it to remove my make-up, I don't bother with it in the morning (I use Alpha-H Skin Clearing Cleanser instead) but when I do use it, you don't need much at all and Letty says her little pot has lasted her six weeks so far - not bad for the price! It doesn't work well when you try to remove by just splashing water on your face - as I found out - instead it's a lot easier to use damp cotton wool pads. After a week of constant use, I'd definitely recommend this if you have sensitive or problem skin.

Have any of you used Ultrabland before or any other Lush cleansers? How do you get on with them?

Put a ring on it

Ever since Beyonce was snapped with her 'ring finger manicure' at Glastonbury, lots of people have been coveting the idea and I too have jumped straight on the bandwagon. The thing I love about these manicures is that they're so, so easy to do but they look really effective and impressive. I mean, what's not to love about just decorating one nail on each hand?!

Even though Beyonce only painted her ring finger a different colour, I've seen people just having crackle effect polish on that finger which I think looks SO MUCH BETTER than a whole hand of it. I think the whole crackle polish trend needs to do us all a favour and fizzle out completely - yes it was impressive at first but now brands are just revelling in it and releasing too many versions. Slight tangent, but does anybody agree or am I on my own?

Anyway, while I was watching Harry Potter in bed last night I decided to just leopardize my ring finger. I painted my nails with Models Own Jade Stone and then the alternate colour I used was OPI's Mod About You, with the leopard spots being Jade Stone. I actually think it looks really good and I'll definitely be doing this more often and I might even be more imaginative with the nail art I choose. SHOCK HORROR!

Cosmopolitan

I'm back! My week at Cosmopolitan was amazing, I loved every single second of it. I met some of the lovliest people and I didn't ever want it to end. I wish I could just sack life off, move to London and just work there forever even if I don't get paid for it! I should hopefully be going back at some point later in the year to do a full 4-week stint and I'm already looking forward to it. This is definitely what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I got a lovely 'generic' goody bag (Cassie's words, not mine!) too so now I have even more lovely things to add to my already ridiculous make-up and skincare collection. I think I'll have to have a mass clearout soon because I really don't need everything I have!

I should be back to blogging regularly now seeing as though it's back to reality! I'll probably be reviewing some of the products, is there any reviews anybody particularly see from the above stuff? Just let me know!

Oh, I got my university grades confirmed earlier in the week so on July 22nd I'll be graduating with a 2:1 in Journalism :)

Random acts of kindness

Last week, I had to take my Pandora bracelet in for repair because I had a charm that was stuck on it and I'd asked my dad to fix it, so in typical Dad style he took the pliers to it but said charm was just not going to move and instead the end of the bracelet ended up being snapped off.

We took it to our nearest Pandora stockist, In The Pink, and they said they would send it away to get it repaired, although Dad had said to me that he'd happily replace my bracelet if it couldn't be repaired. Anyway, the shop called up this morning and said that my bracelet had been returned but unfortunately it was irreparable and Pandora wouldn't replace it because it had gone past the warranty (I got it at Christmas 2009) but the lady in the shop said that they would happily replace both my bracelet and charm free of charge from their own stock! How lovely is that? So now I have a brand spanking new bracelet to house all my other charms! My faith in humanity was well and truly restored :)

Has anyone else been on the receiving end of such generous and random acts of kindness?

Ps, I probably won't be blogging much, if at all, over the next week or so because I'm working at Cosmopolitan from Monday and won't be taking my laptop with me to my friend's house, I'll be around on Twitter as per usual though if anybody cares!