Anthropologie is the kind of store where I really enjoy having a good snoop in. The smell of it & all the pretty products, so many lovely things to take in!
One of the areas I especially love to make a beeline for is the hair & jewellery section. In particular I love these gorgeous hair clips. I have a few of them now, all of them bought when they have been on sale mind you. They normally retail for £12 each which as much as I love them, is quite steep for a hair clip, if admittedly it is a very pretty one at that.
I picked this beautiful navy & mustard one up on sale for just over £4 at the Kings Road branch. It is just a very simple & effective way of adding a bit of glitz to your hairstyle, or in my case a bit of a birds nest!

I love them. Super pretty & super cute.

Next time you pass an Anthropologie I would definitely keep a beady little eye out for these

Visit the website for more info

Hello!

Have taken a break from the pin curls to experiment with my new GHDs!
These bright & cheerful straighteners are part of the new Candy Collection limited edition which features the GHD IV styler in three pretty colours; mint, lemon and violet.

Now you’d think with naturally straight hair I’d have no real need for hair straighteners but if you’ve ever had a fringe you will know they can be pretty pesky to maintain. A quick run through the straighteners is all that’s needed to ensure it keeps it’s shape.

I also find straighteners FAB for curling my hair & the GHDs do a particularly great job at this & look at the volume I achieved! All this without any volumising product, just some heat protecting spray (I used the Tresemme one) & my lemon coloured GHDs.

To start off with I roughly sectioned off my hair, pining half of it on top of my head, allowing me to get to the bottom row as such.
To achieve a curl I begin my clamping my hair in the straighteners & immediately twist the GHDs away from my head, making a half turn motion with my wrist.

See:

That little flicking motion I make at the end is me twisting the curl around my finger to encourage it to fall into shape
Carry one taking small 1 – 1.5 inch sections & curl your way round!
Once you’ve finished curling your hair it should look something like the image below (left hand side). As you can see the curls are quite defined & tight. I wanted softer Kate Middleton-esque curls so I took a natural round bristle brush to them to give a softer more natural finish:

Here is the end result!

The whole process took me about 10 minutes from start to finish…super quick & super easy

One of the great things about using hair straighteners to curl your hair is that you reduce the chances of burning your fingers. As someone who has incurred many a burn from conical wands & curling wands, this is one of my preferred method for curling hair! It is worth noting though that the ends of the GHDs do get quite hot, something I wasn’t expecting so do watch out.

Here are a few close up shots of my straighteners:

The ceramic plates on these are super slick! Hair literally will glide through these like silk which I found very impressive as I own a few straighteners by other brands that have ceramic plates but they are no where near as smooth as these.They heat up incredibly fast & beep when they are ready too.

Would have been great to have seen a protective heat guard included with these & a carry bag too, but overall am very impressed with these GHDs & how quickly they can achieve a style in next to no time!

The GHD Candy Collection is out now. Visit the website for more info

(disclosure: PR sample)

This My Funny Valentine post is all about nails, glitter, and cats!

Phyrra asks: do you know the Fitzpatrick Scale? Find out why it matters!

If you’re looking for the perfect, long-wearing summer gloss, then don’t miss Rae’s review of a gorgeous, peachy pink with six hour wear over at theNotice!

In this edition of BBLL, MM puts the much-hyped Rodin Olio Lusso to the test. Will it pass with flying colors or leave her wanting more?

Love new makeup brands? Sophie from Makeup Wonderland does too! See what she thought about FM Cosmetics!

Want Ciate’s Chalkboard Manicure look but don’t have the set? Musicalhouses shows you how to DIY your own chalkboard manicure!

polish insomniac may suck at nail art, but even she can handle these nail tattoos!

Want soft lips? Check out Jenn from spiced beauty’s secret weapon.

Prime Beauty gets the perfect bronze goddess look with the new Buxom Hot Escapes Bronzers — they even smell like the beach!

What products are you loving lately? Pammy Blogs Beauty shares her Spring Favorite Beauty Products!

Jude reviews collagen shots at Love, Lust, and Fairy Dust — a nightly drink from the fountain of youth!

Gouldylox Reviews thinks the new Moxie Lip Collection from bareMinerals is pretty gorgeous and packed with pigment. Which is your favorite?

What’s not to love about a sheer lipstick, especially when it’s by Bobbi Brown? Come admire Beauty Crazed’s Bobbi Brown Sheer Lip Color swatches and fall in sheer love!

Did you find the new Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Glove disappointing? Hop over to Handmade Reviews to read her Cleaning Glove review and dupes post.

Today’s ‘Look of the Day’ is a bit of a tongue in cheek one
The bf & I visited the V&A which is one of my favourite museums over the weekend. It is such a beautiful building & love viewing the fashion & jewellery on display.
It is very easy to get lost once inside & we stumbled across a room which showcased lots of stage costumes with the opportunity to play dress up too!
I love a good fancy dress & needless to say took full advantage of the costumes to hand plus the fact that the room was pretty much empty of visitors…think I may need a swishy cape now

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a lovely weekend

With the weather getting ever so slightly warmer here in London, my skin has been playing havoc! It’s been annoyingly oily in recent months & I’ve found myself reaching for products that are long lasting & hard wearing.

Introducing the Hourglass Aura Cheek Stain.

I love a good cheek stain I do. Not only do they last longer than my usual cream & powder blushers, they give a more natural glow to the cheeks.
As one who confesses to applying my makeup on the bus, the handy twist & click applicator is perfect for makeup on the go! Only downside is it tends to get a bit mucky quite easily, picking up my foundation as I dab it on.
As you can see from the swatch above, the colour (shade Flush) is quite bright & vibrant, but once blended in gives a lovely subtle hint of colour that is buildable, allowing you to achieve your desired look with ease.

A water based formula, the product is enriched with vitamin e to help improved skin hydration levels.

Am really happy with this product & would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes long lasting fuss free products (no need to carry a giant blusher brush!).

The Hourglass Aura Cheek Stain is available in three shades from Space NK & Liberty, priced £34.

Vintage shopping requires a lot of patience at best. You can’t go with a shopping list or have something in mind because you never know what you will find. It’s something that can be equally frustrating (like last week when I lost out on two beautiful 40s early 50s dress for £5 each!) but it can also be incredibly rewarding…like this post will soon unveil!

This is what I wore last Saturday. Weather was warm but grey & wet which gave me the perfect opportunity to debut my recently acquired vintage umbrella…or perhaps its a parasol? Hmmm!

Top: vintage Chanel
Chinos: Zara
Wedge Espadrilles: TK Maxx
Bag: vintage (mum’s hand me down)
Umbrella: vintage

A little bit about the top…its vintage Chanel & I bought it for £16. From Beyond Retro. Sixteen frikking quid!
Now if you’ve ever been to a Beyond Retro store you will know what a tedious process it can be, sifting through the numerous items where the dominating decade is mostly always the 80s. Great if that floats your boat but not good for me who likes to find pieces from the 50s & earlier…

Anyway…I made a little trip to the Beyond Retro west end store last week…really wasn’t looking for anything, just biding my time whilst I waited for the bf to meet me…& that was when I spotted it. Wedged in between some really rather fugly oversized mohair cardigans was this beautiful mustard number. At first it was the colour that initially drew me in for a closer inspection & then the crochet detailing…love! A quick look at the sizing & it was my fit & thats when I noticed the label. Frikking Chanel. At first I thought this must be a fake so a quick Google on the Vintage Fashion Guild & soon discovered I had found a 1970s Chanel jumper. AMAZING & what a STEAL!

Think this is definitely high amongst my best vintage fashion finds…perhaps thats a post in the making eh? I’ll do a show & tell of my favourites soon.

What’s been your best fashion finds? Leave a comment & let know!

Have a very lovely weekend everyone

Spotted a rather unassuming little display of the Yu-Be (aka Yuskin A) cream in Boots a few weeks ago…no song & dance, just there on the shelves with no marketing etc so I thought I’d pop a post up about this amazing cream!

I LOVE this stuff. So much so that I stocked up on multiple tubs when I was last in Tokyo which was a good few years ago now.
‘Japanese eight hour cream’ is the best way I can describe it, it’s a multitasking skin saviour that smells a bit medicinal but works absolute wonders on super dry skin without that sticky residue.

You can read my original review of this wonder product here

Yu-Be is available in Boots now, priced £19.50

Quick Outfit of the Day for you!
This is what I wore last Friday. Notice the absence of a jacket! It was so fantastically warm & sunny that there was no need for one when the sun was out.
This was the first outing for another one of my new vintage dresses & I absolutely love the cut of this one. I’ve been collecting more & more 1950s dresses of late as it seems to be the most figure flattering decade for my figure & I love the feminine feel to them.

If you’ve been reading my blog & tweets for a while you will know that I often buy a lot of vintage second hand items of clothing. I use to do this a lot more when I was a student where I could go to a boot sale & come back with a bag of ‘new’ clothes for £5. I love the thrill of the hunt for new pieces so I am trying to make an even more conscious effort to buy more old stuff & less new stuff.

Basically if I can stay away from the high street I will!

So far so good & I can happily say I don’t yet miss it. I’m spending less money buying vintage than I would say in Zara, coming away with high quality pieces that are not only unique but long lasting (most of the dresses I buy are at least 60 years old!).

That being said…I did purchase the black wedge espadrilles from TK Maxx recently…£19.99 for handmade in Spain shoes. Super comfy too!

Belt, bag & spotty scarf are all vintage & the Opening Ceremony sunglasses where a gift from my bf

Hello! Hope you’re all well!
London has seen the most amazingly warm weather this past weekend & even better as it was a bank holiday (public holiday to non UK readers) on Monday so I had three days off work to bask in the sunshine & wear my new sunnies!

The bf surprised me on Friday evening with an impromptu date night in Covent Garden where he presented me with what he modestly called a ‘little gift’.
The weekend before we had ambled into the Opening Ceremony store where I had tried on a bunch of sunglasses, quietly admiring the pretty designs & colours but never actually coming away with any. He had remembered this & made a sneak visit before we met up to buy these adorable plaid print cat eye pair. How cute is that?!
I don’t think I ever would have bought them myself so they are a real treat for me & the bf picked the design out himself..aww! I love the print, so bold & so cheerful! I’ll admit I probably would have gone for a boring brown or a boring black for fears the turquoise plaid wouldn’t match anything but it really compliments red lipstick so so well.

LOVE THEM!

This particular pair are a pricy affair so I had a quick peek on ASOS & found these beauties, all of which I would love to wear & are purse friendly too