Beauty Favorites

So the time has come for me to write a beauty favorites blog, I have never wrote anything as such before, so don't be too harsh on me! I was going to call this my August favorites, and typically it is, but some things listed below have been an on going favorite for a while now. 

Kicking things off is The Body Shop's All-In-One BB Cream. This is bloody fantastic, at first I had quite low expectations because I am yet to find a BB Cream that I LOVE, until now. This little gem is filled with pigment filled capsules that burst when applied to the skin, which means at first this cream appears to be white however when it's rubbed onto your face it changes colour. There is four shades to choose from 'Fair', 'Lighter', 'Medium' and 'Dark', I use Medium. I have found that this cream does everything it claims to do, I suffer from terrible skin and have extremely uneven skin tone with red patches and dark under eye circles. I have found that this BB Cream is able to cover those up whilst giving the light weightless feel that you would want in a cream. This retails in The Body Shop for £12.00 for 25 ml. 

BB Cream

Next up is L'Oréal Paris True Match Concealer, as mentioned I have really dark circles under my eyes, and although I have used other concelears to cover these in the past I feel that nothing covers and blends into my skin as good as what this does. When used with a good makeup brush there is nothing that this concealer cannot cover, it is amazing! It retails in Superdrug for £6.99.

Concealer

Another Body Shop fave of mine is their Tea Tree Pore Minimiser, this acts as a primer and is a really good makeup base. I find this is superb for me as not only to I suffer with spots I also get blemishes and blackheads, you name it I'll have it! This works really well with their other tea tree range, such as their face wash. If this is used after moisturiser it really can last all day and make pores visibly smaller. A bonus of this is the smell, it is amazing. Apply this first thing on a morning after your skin care routine and it really can make you feel wide awake. This retails in The Body Shop for £7.50 for 30 ml. 

Pore Minimiser

The next beauty (kind of) favorite I have is the perfume Alien Eau de Toilette by Thierry Mugler. I know I am a bit late to jump on the bandwagon, but I got this as a gift for my birthday two weeks ago and my god, it is the smell of heaven! I am no good at describing smells, except for saying it is amazing! This is what the product description says "a rich floral woody amber containing jasmine sambac, cashmeran wood and white amber". I'm not sure how much my friend paid for this with it being a gift, however, it retails at Boots for £49.50 for 30 ml. 

Alien

Lastly, not a beauty favourite but who cares?! Is Ed Sheeran's X (Multiply) album. I've never really gave Ed a chance, and have only ever listened to his released songs, but I've heard so many good reviews about this album that I had to give it a try. I compleltly agree, there is not one rubbish song, every song is amazing and they make me feel so relaxed, possibly too relaxed hah! Personally my favorite song is Thinking Out Loud. This album retails on Amazon for £8.61

Ed Sheeran - X

Until Next Time, 

Laura xx

Easy Peasy Beauty Tips!

It is very important that everyone is able to stick to a good skin care routine that is going to benefit our skin. I am aware that not everyone follows the set idea of toning, cleansing, moisturiser and whatever else! Whether step-by-step routines aren't for you, or maybe you don't have time one particular busy morning (lying in bed that extra 30 minutes can also be beneficial ;) ) hopefully if you follow some of these easy tips it will help your skin to remain beautiful.

I know it's a given and it's certainly not a new fact but I definitely believe that drinking more water helps us to have fabulous skin. However, I am fully aware that you can only drink so much water before you see it as dull and boring. Alas! Something I did not know is that eating fruit and vegetables are also a great way of hydrating our bodies and skin, whilst also detoxing us from those fatty foods we may have eaten. 

Also, always try to remove your make-up on a night and before you take a bath or shower! Going in a steamy bath that will cause your pores to open is just a nightmare if you have a face full of make-up. Just think of all that foundation seeping into the pores causing troublesome skin and blackheads! So remember to always remove this before hand for perfect skin!

I know there is only two tips there, but I believe that those are some of the biggest life (should i say skin) changing tips you could receive. If you would like to read more beauty or skin care tips let me know :) 

Adios, Laura 

x 

Trip to Scotland

So this bank holiday (Good Friday) me and James decided to visit Edinburgh zoo, this was a pulse decision decided the day before! Once we had booked the tickets we boarded the train the next day at 9am to make the two hour journey to the beautiful city. Please note, that on the train me and James were starstruck to be spending our journey with comedian Jack Whitehall, although we didn't dare speak to him we took a few sneaky photos. 

We spent the majority of the day at the zoo looking at the beautiful animals, many of which were hiding in their enclosures due to the extremely hot weather! (Scotland has declared summer, if only England had!) Please understand that I am a major animal freak and ensured that I saw every animal, and read each of the information boards thoroughly! 

                                      

It is currently the time of year for penguins to start laying their eggs.
 Here is a male penguin incubating the egg. 

                                      

Look at this little cutie fast asleep.
Sun Bear.

Such a poser! 

 I honestly find it amazing how close we can get to animals, allowing us to view their beauty for ourselves. Edinburgh zoo also has two amazing 'walk-through' sections where visitors can walk through the animals environment whilst the animals are roaming freely. The first of these is an exotic birds sections, and the second being a monkey walk through.  

Following this we got back on the bus and travelled back to Edinburgh town centre to have a nice walk around the beautiful Princes Street. 

This is where things got a little (or a lot) crazy!! With me being a massive McFly fan I found out that they were playing at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow that night! Therefore we decided at 6pm we wanted to go, baring in mind it's an hour away on the train, we didn't have a hotel booked as we were planning on travelling home the same day, nor did we have any tickets for the actual gig! Therefore, it's easy to say that these few hours were very very stressful and there was a few tears on my behalf. However, we got there in the end and it was AMAZING! 

Until next time! 

x

Stress

Lately I have been struggling a lot with stress, not in the terms of blood pressure, but more like I haven't got time to turn around before something else needs to be done. At the moment I feel as though my life is full steam ahead and I haven't got a minute to just chill. It's crazy how this time last year I was enjoying my last few months at sixth form with some of my best friends, and now I'm at university on my own with practically a full time job. It is safe to say that I do find myself struggling, on a regular basis. 

My typical day routine is now; 

• Wake up at 7am 
• Get the Bus to Uni
• Go to Lectures/ Seminars
• Get the Bus home (obviously whilst trying to shove a sandwich down my throat, a girl has gotta eat!)
• Go to work- usually 1pm-ish 
• Finish work at 6pm
• Have dinner
• Cram in assignment work
• Bed
• REPLAY! 

And to be honest, I find it very difficult to find time for Friends, Family and my Boyfriend lately. Even when I'm with them I'm constantly stressing about what assignment I should be completing. 

Hopefully, in the next few weeks/months things will settle down until I start it all again in my second year of uni in September. 

Until Next Time x 

The Time Has Come...

Alas, time for me to write a new blog. It is soo cringeworthy how I swore that I would write frequent blogs on my last post, and when was that... September 2013! Please note it is now March 2014.

Initially I had no idea where this blog was heading, then I thought I may as well give a brief up date on what I've been up to since my last post. Okay, where do I sta
rt (?!) Since September I have started Uni, and have been going now for six month and it's slowly drawing closer to the end of my first year! I have been so shocked at how different life is at university in comparison to college, or in my case sixth form. I feel that I should have been prepared for this. You often hear people say that uni is the 'best days of their life' or 'a walk in the park', and I couldn't disagree more, either that or I would like to study what they did! I constantly have a heap load of work, I'm up early each morning to make sure I get there and to be frank you have to figure everything out for yourself, information is certainly not given to you on a plate . Nevertheless, uni is definitely worth while, maybe not at the moment but after four years hopefully things will work out for the best and I'll be Prime Minister (just kidding, I'm only studying a BA hons in Childhood Studies).

In January, I got myself a job! That's right, Laura Bowes finally in the world of work. This meant that as of January 2014 I am now classed as a "Nursery Development Officer", at this point you're probably thinking a what!? But in all fairness, it's just a fancy lardy-dah name for a nursery nurse/practitioner whatever you'd like to call it. So yes, now not only do I have to manage uni but also a job! In reality I honestly don't know how I do it, and I thought I would have died from exhaustion by now. I probably would have if the job wasn't as rewarding as it is, seeing young children grow and develop in front of you, seeing them learning and becoming more knowledgable every day is one of the best feelings in the world.

Me and James on New Years Eve :)

Finally, it was James' (my boyfriend) 21st birthday this month, we were in London at the time but I surprised him big time, and it's the most I've ever spent on anyone's present, ever! (so think yourself lucky!) Firstly, I bought him a super car experience day, this is where he gets to drive a car, such as a Lamborghini or Ferrari, then following this he sits in the passenger seat and basically gets to sh*t himself at how fast he is going around the track. In addition to this I bought him a holiday to Lanzarote. This will be our first holiday together alone and to be honest I'm nervous already, there is all sorts of thoughts running through my mind! I'm sure we will be fine and will both return in one piece safe and well, but until then I will continue to worry!

That's all I have to say for now, hopefully I'll get on here more often. Not only is it good for cyber slacking but it's also a brilliant stress relief and I feel that it helps to calm my anxiety.

'til next time!