Underrated: NARS Mekong

Tuesday, April 26, 2016
NARS is an extremely popular brand and for good reason; I don't think I've tried a single product that I've been disappointed by and, for a company as big as NARS, that's quite a feat. Their eyeshadows are often praised, but a particular colour that often seems to get left out is Mekong - a dark and sultry espresso brown with a barely noticeable golden shimmer running through it.  
Why is it so special, you may ask? It is probably the most pigmented eyeshadow that I've come across in the last decade, and that makes it oh-so-perfect for lining my lash line. Seriously, this bad boy rivals some of my pencil eyeliners and because this is already in powder form it wears incredibly well. Use an angled liner brush to give you a precise flick or a denser, thicker brush to smoke out the lash line, the choice is yours. Either way, you'll be seriously impressed. At a whopping £18 for 2.2g, this shadow might seem like quite the investment, but thanks to its impressive pigmentation I've yet to make a dent in mine despite owning it for close to five years (I posted about it here in 2012 and it still looks identical!) Well worth it my friends, well worth it.

Have you tried NARS Mekong? Would you consider trying it now? Let me know!  
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3 little things to help improve your wellbeing.

Monday, April 25, 2016



(1) Practice mindfulness
I'd never heard of mindfulness until I was introduced to it when dealing with a severe bout of anxiety and although it's not something I go to on a daily basis, I have witnessed just how effective it can be. Now before you scoff and scroll onto the next post on your blog feed like I would've done a few months ago, hear me out. Mindfulness is about bringing your mind back to the present moment by focusing on your breathing and your body, and it is supposed to help those with stress/anxiety/ any mental issues. If you'd like to give it a go, just to see how it works, I'd recommend downloading the app Headspace - it's offers paid content but there are 10 free 10-minute tracks to introduce you to the concept. This time last year I would have laughed at myself for suggesting this app, but if you give it a go you might find it to be a useful tool.

(2) Get enough sleep
Now this isn't a department that I need much help with, but when I do have trouble sleeping it is extremely evident how important a good night's kip is. I'm not here to give you 'twenty ways to fall to sleep in 5 seconds' copied straight from Google, but I will say what helps me nod off. Firstly, I can't give in and go to sleep too early. No matter how tired I am I pretty much always get a second wind between 11 pm and 3 am, so If I go to bed before 11pm, I will, without a doubt, wake up a few hours later and be up for an hour or so. The other thing that always helps me is to read. I know, groundbreaking right? Again, unless I practically fall into bed, I try to force myself to read at least a chapter before calling it a night. The difference it makes to my sleep is noticeable, so whenever I realise that I've got out of the habit of reading for some reason, I make sure to pick it back up again to help my sleep.

(3) Train your brain
When I was looking for a job and staying at home a lot of the time, I could literally feel my brain cells shrinking from lack of stimulation. Going from a full-time final year student to an unemployed graduate drifting through life definitely had a massive effect on the way my brain was working, and I couldn't stand the feeling that my intelligence was deteriorating before my very eyes. That's when I decided to look into finding a few apps to challenge myself and keep my mind working rather than letting it wander all day. One of the apps that I found the most useful was Peak, an overall mental performance game which tests and helps to strengthen areas like memory, language, reaction time, etc. As a language student, I also think that Duolingo has been a great help to keeping my mind active and sharp, especially as I don't always have time to practise anymore. Not only did these apps give me something to do every day, but I could definitely feel them working to restore what mental capability I felt I had lost in my unproductive eight months of unemployment. This, in turn, helped to boost my self-confidence and kept me from being so hard on myself, all of which has been essential for me when maintaining my mental health. Now that I'm back out in the real world working full-time, I like to use these apps during my morning commute to help me wake up and to give myself a productive start to the day.

What little things do you do to maintain a healthy life? Let me know!
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Introducing: Next Beauty

Wednesday, April 20, 2016



A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a beauty event hosted by Next to showcase their new beauty line. The event was great - we were treated to cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, a manicure + brow threading bar, as well as two great makeup demonstrations by the one and only Lydia Elise Millen. At the end of the night we were sent home with a bag of goodies to try from their new line, and today I'm going to be showing you some of the bits that I was treated to.

EYES: 

Two of the items that I received from the line for the eyes are the Make Me Beautiful Neutral Eye Quad* and the Make Me Beautiful Brown Liquid Eyeliner*, both of which are items that I would typically wear. Unfortunately, the quad fell a bit flat for me in terms of pigmentation (as you can see in the swatches above) but the shades are really nice overall and aren't too tricky to work with. The eyeliner is pretty standard but doesn't come close to beating my beloved Koji Dollywink liner, but it performed well the few times that I tested it out. 

LIPS:

Next, we have lips and both the Make Me Beautiful Cherry Red Lip Chubby* and the Make Me Beautiful Simply Peach Lipstick* are winners for me. They both perform extremely well in terms of pigmentation and texture, plus how gorgeous is that red shade? No complaints from me here.

NAILS:

Onto the nail polishes that I received, and I must say that the colour choices are... slightly odd. I'm not sure who came up with the Frozen inspired matte-yet-sparkly baby blue colour, but I can't see myself using it outside of December/January or as part of a costume. The other shade, a blackened gold/silver is pretty and is much more wearable in my opinion. At £4, you can't go that wrong, and I have seen some other gorgeous shades, so it might be worth popping into a store and taking a look. 

Thoughts:

The best of the bunch from the products that I sampled are definitely the lip products - I could definitely see myself picking up a few more lipsticks or lip chubbies in the future. The eye and nail products are good - especially for the money (everything I tried comes in under £10) but they aren't spectacular. Thanks to #NEXTBEAUTY for providing these goodies for me to try!


*This post contains press samples. For more information about how I work with companies, read my disclaimer here.
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Shit you actually need in your handbag

Monday, April 18, 2016

Besides the obvious that is...

Some quality earphones like my beloved Bose QuietComfort® 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Earphones, because sometimes you want to listen to your music/a podcast without all the jibber-jabber in the background. Plus, if you get noise cancelling earphones, you can just turn them on but not actually plug them in if you just fancy some peace and quiet or you want to read your book.A book (or a book-reading device) because our generation doesn’t read enough - and no, your Twitter feed doesn’t count. As soon as I got back into reading, I managed to read 7 books in a month and a half, and that was only by reading a few chapters a night. Seriously, do your brain a favour and ingest something that isn’t Kardashian-Jenner related (guilty!!)A way to top up your phone’s battery. Yes, this is a total contradiction to my previous point, but who are we kidding? You’re going to refresh your Instagram feed until your finger goes numb, and then you’ll run out of battery when you actually need your phone for things that a phone is actually made for, like calling for a ride or texting a friend/SO/family member to let them know you got somewhere safely. Whether you have a cool battery pack or a nifty little keyring like mine so you can plug into any USB device, make sure you’re covered, girl.A pen, because you don’t want to be that girl who always has to borrow one, which can cause you to develop an unorganised reputation (well to me, anyway) Preferably stuff two or three in there for good measure.A decent emergency pouch - and by decent, I mean something more useful than an empty pack of Nurofen and a crumpled tampon wrapper. This is something that should be totally customised to your particular needs (suffer from allergies? Put a handful of antihistamines in there etc.) but some essentials would include some Nurofen, a plaster or two (as well as the blister variety) a spare hair tie, some sanitary pads/tampons, a safety pin, and maybe a mini pack of wet wipes. Trust me, as soon as you pop this in your bag, you’ll feel much more equipped to face whatever the world decides to throw at you that day.
What do you consider to be a must in your handbag? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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REAL TALK #4: Mental health & the media

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Although mental health is being spoken about more publicly in the last few years, many still see it as a major stigma, with conditions such as anxiety or depression still, unfortunately, being seen as a weakness in the eyes of many. As a young adult who has dealt with such issues for the majority of my living memory, I am lucky enough to be present at a time when our society starts to turn a corner and acknowledge mental illnesses for what they are - illnesses. The world health organisation now reports that 1 in 4 people will experience some degree of mental disorder at some point in their lives, and these can include conditions such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, eating disorders, addiction, and OCD - amongst numerous others. Whether it’s an increase in awareness or a growth in courage to step forward and acknowledge when something’s not right, more and more of us are beginning to tell our stories, and with this, we have started a very important discussion. Despite this surge in recognition, one of our biggest sources of information and entertainment, the media, still seems to lack a great representation of the issue, but there are a few key players that are starting to weave their personal experiences into their chosen art form, and today I'm going to talk about two of the most prominent - in my eyes at least.
"1 in 4 people will experience some degree of mental disorder at some point in their lives" - WHO
Someone that has been really key in the representation of mental illnesses in the media, love her or hate her, is Lena Dunham. No joke, every time I watch the season two finale of her hit show ‘Girls’, I break down and become a blubbering mess; I feel so incredibly vulnerable because what Lena’s character, Hannah, goes through hits home so, so hard. Hannah finds herself relapsing into a state of heightened OCD similar to what she dealt with when she was younger, and the vulnerability and despair that she expresses through the screen is all too familiar.. Although I have never experienced any degree of OCD before and have instead dealt with varying degrees of anxiety and depression, Hannah’s regression into old habits and dangerous emotions feels hauntingly familiar. Seriously, if you haven’t seen that episode I implore you to watch it - it gives such a real and rare insight into the tortured mind of someone battling against an intense bout of any variation of mental illness. It’s certainly some raw stuff, so warning to those who may feel a bit fragile at the moment.
Image sources: 1, 2

“But I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down, won't open my eyes. Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight” - Sia, 'Chandelier'

You know who else really toys with my emotions and is willing to talk (or sing) about her troubles? Sia. I’m a huge fan of pretty any music that that talented woman plays any part in creating, but a few of her recent songs have the ability to transport me to places I’d rather forget; they stir up emotions that years of repression have buried. This may sound rather dangerous, but isn’t that what music’s all about? Evoking emotions and transporting us to distant times and places? Listening to her carefully scripted lyrics makes me feel that I’m not alone, despite how isolating mental illnesses can be. Take perhaps my one of my favourite lines from Sia’s song Alive - “I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go, where the wind don’t change, and nothing in the ground can ever grow” - I can’t even describe just how real this is, how deeply it resonates with me. Do you know why Sia’s lyrics can be so powerful? She has spoken briefly in the past about her struggles with both alcohol and drugs, as well as her bipolar disease, so her authentic words are exactly how so many of us are feeling or have felt, but have never been able to put into words. Another example of Sia’s personal struggles can be found in her hit song Chandelier, where she sings “But I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down, won't open my eyes. Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight”. If any of you out there have ever struggled with an addiction at any point in your life, then I’m sure that these lyrics seem eerily appropriate. For me, the entire song embodies my addiction with self-harm, and even to this day can stir up some of those repressed emotions that like to creep out in the middle of the night. Despite the powerful effect that these topics can have, I am so grateful to Sia for using her painful past experiences to make such captivating art - it helps to remove the big no-no around the topic of mental illness and addiction, and allows the ever-growing number of us that are struggling or have struggled at some point to realise that we are far from being alone and that not only is speaking about it fine, but it truly should be encouraged.

Who do you consider to be important spokespeople for mental health in the media? Do you find it helpful that more people are starting to speak out about their struggles? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below :)

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