Wednesday 24 April 2013

Disco Dupes


So I have FINALLY finished my dissertation, after about six months and 20,000 words overall, such a relief! To celebrate we headed out for a meal of amazing Nepalese Tapas (no, I hadn't heard of it either!), then for cocktails. I can't remember the last time I went out for a spontaneous night and we ended up having such a good time!

This was the outfit I chose, loose enough to hide my food baby, but still a bit more dressed up than usual. My top was a total bargain from the H&M sale, reduced to £7, I'm really liking the stuff in there at the moment. My boots are Primark, £15 and I'm wearing a Model's Own Golden Peach nail polish.



But...my favourite part of the outfit is my new purchase...disco pants! (or disco pants dupes, I don't have a spare £60 for the real thing!) I got these from the Dance Direct website when I was stocking up on leotards and tights, they were only £12. Ok so they are just shiny lycra leggings, don't have the high waist or pocket detailing, and maybe don't 'suck you in' as much, but come on, they're so cheap! And I think they look pretty similar in this outfit!


Has anyone else found any good disco pant dupes? Leave a comment letting us know where you found them so we can all get on it!

Saturday 20 April 2013

Mini Barry M Haul


Woops! Was walking past Superdrug after a particularly pants day of writing my dissertation and decided to cheer myself up in the best way I know, buying MORE nail varnishes!
Although I don't think Barry M are the best nail varnishes in the world (I love love love Models Own, and I've just got two Essie polishes which seem really nice), I do think they have a great colour selection, get on the latest trends pretty quickly and most importantly don't break the bank!
At either £2.99 for a 'normal' polish or £3.99 for a 'gelly', you can't really complain!

Looking forward to pairing these shades with pastel spring looks, and also think they would work well with monochrome outfits, just to give them a pop of colour. I'm also really looking forward to trying the glitter topcoat, maybe over my new pale pink Essie?

Has anyone got any good nail art or colour combo ideas for my new purchases???

xx

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Origins Never a Dull Moment cleanser

My new holy grail cleanser!


With a wedding next year I want my skin to look its very very best, and have noticed over the past few weeks that my face seems to be getting drier and drier (to the point where my cheeks are flaking off, not sexy!), as well as breaking out in spots!

Now I think it might have something to do with the stressiness of my last year of Uni, but I figured it was a good excuse to start a better skincare routine!

I keep hearing Origins' name mentioned on a few different blogs and decided to have a look at their website. They had some pretty good deals on, where if you spent over a certain amount you got free samples (woops!).
I know that everyone seems to have their favourite cleanser (usually Liz Earle or Emma Hardy!), but I've just not found one yet that I absolutely love, and can get excited about (yes, I want to get excited about a cleanser!).

Until now...

My naughty purchases!
I picked out the 'Never a Dull Moment' cleanser, which you can get here for £17, a little pricey, but this seems to be the norm with nice cleansers at the moment!

The first thing I noticed when using this is the smell, THE SMELL! It's really fruity, and smells just like Spring, which I find helps to wake me up a little in the mornings. I think its the Papaya extract coming through, but either way, it's yummy!

When I started to rub this in it foams into a lovely rich, creamy consistency, which I didn't really expect, but really liked. It honestly feels like you are doing your skin some good as you use it!

I've often found that I need to double cleanse to get off the last remnants of my make-up (I'm looking at you They're Real mascara!), but this melted my eye make-up away without having to pull and tough the area.

All in all I found it a lovely cleanser to use and think I'll be sticking with this for the moment! I can't say whether it has brightened my skin as yet, but I'll let you know if I notice a difference. After trying a few of their products I'm so impressed with Origins, and would fully recommend them if you suffer with sensitive skin like I do. Rather worringly I can see that I might be spending a few more pennies on their website in the future!

Do any of you have any good recommendations?

Karen xx

Tuesday 16 April 2013

We'll always have Paris...

A pretty picture heavy post today, as promised all about my trip to Paris.
I had an amazing time, it's such a beautiful city and the weather was brilliant, oh and obviously we got engaged, so that was pretty good!
We saw all the usual sights, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, The Lovers Bridge, and my favourite (see if you can guess why!) Jardins des Luxembourg.
In the evening we strolled around the river, ate Chinese and Indian food and drank in cocktail bars. It was a perfect getaway!







Not sure why all my pics are so small, oops!
Hope you enjoyed having a little look at my holiday album. Has anyone else had a trip away recently?

Karen xx

Monday 15 April 2013

Guess who's back...

So I'm back! With a new blog title and some very exciting news!
Can't believe it has been almost a year since I last posted, a few things got in the way, like third year of flippin Uni!

So we'll take things one at a time-

1. New blog title. I've recently started a new sideline, making custom and glitter nail polishes under the name Northern Sky Nails (named after my favourite ever ever song!) so figured it's easier just to have everything under the same name. Bit of a new design too, felt like a wanted something a bit more minimalist rather than bright, seeing as I'm getting older!

2. Hopefully a bit of a new direction, with more structured posts and maybe even some videos if I'm feeling brave! Have gotten a lot more comfortable with my style over the past year and am also a lot more into beauty, make-up and skincare than I once was, so you can expect lots of reviews, favourites and recommendations!

3. Guess who's engaged! That's right! I'm more surprised than you are! My ridiculously lovely boyfriend (or fiancé now, crazy!) proposed whilst we were on a holiday in Paris, and after asking him if he was joking for twenty minutes I obviously said yes!!! We are now in wedding planning mode (or we will be after I hand in my dissertation!) It still hasn't sunk in, but to wet your appetite here's a quick picky of the ring, which I LOVE!

Eek! So sparkly!
It's a Tanzanite stone, which is only mined in one mine in Tanzania, making it incredibly rare, surrounded by twelve diamonds on a white gold band. I'm always drawn to coloured stones when looking at jewellery and this is PERFECT! In different lights it looks both blue and purple, I think the boy did pretty good!

Will post a bit of Paris summary soon with some more pictures of our trip!

Karen xx