Teeny Tiny Collective Haul

The other day I went into the city with my mum to go shopping for various bits and pieces, but I ended up buying a whole outfit on top of the bits and bobs I genuinely needed, so I thought I'd document the things that I ended up buying.

 

So the first and best thing that I bought the other day were some really really really nice jeans from Hollister. All jeans were on sale for £39 so I just thought eh why not. I've never actually got jeans from Hollister before because I've just never really been bothered to try and understand the sizing system they have going on there, but these jeans are so nice and they fit really well and you can just tell that they're good quality and that they're going to last and I think this sort of denim wash is great for the Autumnal time of the year. They are the natural waist medium wash jeans and their usually £49, but since there was a sale on as I said I got them £10 off which was great. I like the natural waist style because you can wear crop tops with them without having all your baggy belly bits hanging over your jeans. But yeah, I really do love these jeans and I would definitely recommend them.

 

Also from Hollister I got this nice white tie front crop top. It has a pocket on the front and a little slit in the neck line which I think makes it look really nice. I think this is one of those clothing items that you can just wear with anything, plus they go really well the jeans I got. Its kind of a bit see-through but I guess you can wear a vest top or a bandeau or something underneath it. This was in the sale for £15 which is pretty good for Hollister I guess. Oh yeah, and please excuse the blue fluff in this top. I've been wearing it with the next item so take a look at that...

 

Finally from Hollister I got this drapey navy knit cardigan. This just hangs really nicely at the front and its so soft and surprisingly warm even though its quite a thin knit. This just really tops the whole outfit-so-far off in my opinion. I love this cardigan and I can see myself wearing it a lot in the future, especially for Autumn. This was £39 too.

 

I saw this shoes in Primark and really liked them. I don't usually go for clothes in Primark, but I think its a really good place to get shoes from when you have a low budget. These came in a like grey colour, but they didn't have any left in my size so I settled for the brown which is still a really nice colour. It also came in black but you know...meh. Its kind of textured with this really sandy grainy material that looks like it should be swede but it isn't, and they're lace up, but not like lace up all the way from the toe to your knee which is pretty nice. They're also fur-lined so I thought they'd be the perfect little ankle booties for Autumn and Winter. These were only £10 which I'm really pleased with.

 

Also from Primark I got a bunch of black hair bands because they keep on disappearing - I'm sure you understand the pain. There's a mixture of thick and thin ones in here and this was all for just £1, so that was great.

 

I then stopped off in Superdrug and got some toothpaste because we all need toothpaste. I chose this one because I like Colgate and I like white teeth, so yeah.

 

My favourite pen ran out! I went to Jarrolds and got two new ones, and they were the last two in the stand so thank god I got there when I did. These are my absolute favourite handwriting pens and I will honestly refuse to write if I don't have this pen so there you go.

 

Thanks for reading this little collective haul. I hope it interested you and I hope you like the outfit which I bought because I certainly do.

 

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How to Messy your Bun

Hey! In this tutorial I'm basically going to be showing you how to do my take on a messy bun. Personally I love tutorials on how other people create their messy bun look thing, because before now I've never really been able to keep a good looking messy bun in place. But now with the combination of about a thousand different messy buns, I have decided on the messy bun that works for me. It may not work for you, but why not try it out anyway.

 

Did anything in that paragraph make sense? I don't even know anymore.

 

I'm on day two hair (I usually wash my hair every other day), and my hair is pretty long... but this tutorial will probably work better if you have shorter hair than me because I end up wrapping my hair around and around and around about a million times so yeah. What you want to do first is tie your hair into a pretty high ponytail. I like to use two thick hairbands just because it keeps my hair up and high and stuff for longer and its stronger and sort of rhymed. Now what I like to do at this point is just to grab two pieces of hair from the top of my ponytail to each side and just tug on that lightly. This makes the ponytail more upright and a bit more messy at the front which is kind of cool.

 

After that's all done and out of the way, you want to swing your ponytail to the side, grab your brush or comb or whatever you're using to detangle your hair and well...tangle your hair with it. Back comb your ponytail to exhaustion until it looks like a freeking balloon because it is so puffed full with back combed voluptuousness and voluminiosity. What, that's not a word? Oh well. Swing your hair over to the other side and back comb the bits that you missed from that size. And if your worried about not being able to brush all this out, you may find it reassuring to know that I use this hairstyle loads and my hair seems to detangle itself while its in the bun or something. Anyway, your hair won't be excruciatingly tangled when you take it out of the bun.

 

Next, take your hair and gently twist it. Be careful you don't knock out the volume you have there.

 

Wrap your hair around itself in the classic bun fashion and secure it with another thick hair band. I wrap the hairband around my hair twice and then sometimes I use a clear elastic or two as well just to make sure that the hair is secure. If the bun looks ridiculously separate from the rest of my head, I like to take a bobby pin at the front, back and both sides of the bun and just pin it down. Lovely.

 

Now its time for the extra messifying. The made up words I am using today are off the chart. Pull out a few wispy bits of hair around your face to kind of frame it and if you want you can even pull some out around your neck - up to you. Gently tug on the top bit of your hair to give you more volume at the front of your face and pull a teeny bit around the sides of your head too. Lightly rub the sides of your head with your hands just to get the fly-aways dancing and to make it look spectacularly messy.

 

And there you have it. Your very own messy bun! I use this hairstyle with basically anything. Its good for casual days, its good for school, you could even get away with it at some sort of fancy event I guess. I hope you liked this tutorial and yeah. See you in the next post!

 

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo

Vitamin E Cream Saved my Life

I have been searching for a moisturiser that suits my irritatingly fussy skin's requirements for literally years. I've been through the whole lot and they've all been too oily, too light, too make-my-skin-go-red-and-puffy, but half a year ago I found my skin's soul mate: The Body Shop Vitamin E Moisture Cream.

 

This moisturiser may feel kind of wet and oily at first when you put it on, but that only lasts a short while and the comfortable hydration that it allows your skin to feel lasts for the entire day. This will banish any dry skin that you have on your face and if used regularly, it will not let it come back. Before I started using this cream I had the most disgustingly flaky face that every time I went to touch my face, white flecks of skin would fall off of it and fall in front of me like snow or something, but now my skin has the perfect balance between oiliness and dryness. Nowadays I just top it up every morning and I haven't had any trouble with my skin since I started using it. Its also made all natural and it smells pretty good as well.

 

 
 
 
 

 

After my moisturising miracle. I wanted to see what else the Vitamin E range at The Body Shop had to offer. I found the Vitamin E Overnight Serum-In-Oil, and first of all I really love the pipet applicator packaging thing. I think that's a really great way of applying serums. This is pretty oily ('Serum-In-Oil' duh) but I only put it on just before I go to sleep and by the time I wake up its all soaked in and my skin is so hydrated and fresh and gah its just amazing.

 

I used to use the serum a lot more than I do now, because now I own the Vitamin E Nourishing Night Cream. This is my favourite product from the Vitamin E range so far. It honestly feels so soft and smooth when you put it on your face. Its like a chick wrapped in a blanket or something else really soft, okay maybe not but you get the idea. It glides onto your skin and doesn't take too much to cover your entire face. And when I get up in the morning after using this night cream my skin feels so soft its unbelievable. I really recommend this like totally one hundred thousand per cent get this night cream. I use it every night and sometimes I'll use the Overnight Serum-In-Oil underneath it but frankly the night cream does an outstanding job on its own.

 

My mot recent Vitamin E discovery is the Eye Cream. This glides on so well both under my eyes and on my eyelids. It sinks into your skin so easily, and somehow...I don't know... it toughens up the skin? Like, I can see the veins in my eyelids becoming more faint and the skin around my eyes in general becoming stronger if that's even possible. It also makes my eyes look really awake, even if I've just woken up or I'm about to crawl back into bed. The only thing I don't like about this product is the packaging. I don't like how you can't stand the tube up on itself and the bit that the cream comes out of is pretty sharp-ish so I find myself reluctant to apply the cream directly onto the skin around my eye and it would be convenient if that wasn't the case.

 

But anyway, annoying packaging aside, this is the best collection of skin products that I have ever used and I can see myself spending plenty of money on the Vitamin E products. If you are having difficulties finding a moisturiser that fits your skin, start here. That's all I have left to say.

 

~ Moisture Cream £11 ~

~ Overnight Serum-In-Oil £13 ~

~ Nourishing Night Cream £12 ~

~ Eye Cream £11 ~

 

View the full Body Shop Vitamin E range here

The Best Study Hack Ever

I've literally just gotten back to school and they're already giving us shedloads of homework and assignments. What a fun weekend I have ahead of me.

 

To stay in the style of this back to school sort of theme we have going here, I'm going to share with you an amazingly fool proof, perfect, fabulous, nothing-can-go-wrong life hack for when it comes to studying and revising and remembering things. I use this study tip every time I have a writing test coming up in French and I have to remember a whole passage of writing to the letter or when I'm stuck on memorising a fact or equation that's vital for a particular test I have coming up. This trick is so easy and doesn't take up loads of time - its perfect, and there is literally know reason why you can't use this study hack... unless you don't have the equipment...what you need...erm...let's just get into this.

 

Okay so all you're going to need is the passage slash fact slash general piece of writing that you need to get glued into the inside of your skull, a phone or some sort of device that can record voice memos (I would a hundred per cent recommend the default voice memo app on the iPhone because its just so easy to use), some headphones if you have them and your voice.

 

I don't know about you, but when I listen to a song a couple of times, I can learn every single lyric like that and I won't forget it for years and years. This study hack basically follows the same idea. What you need to do first is get your voice memo app or whatever you are using and record yourself reading whatever it is you need to memorise. Then you want to plug your headphones in and listen to that voice memo on repeat until it is stuck inside your head. It helps if you are reading the passage or whatever it is as you listen to it being said on the voice memo, but what I really like about this is that you have the freedom to be doing pretty much anything else while you are listening and revising. You could be doing homework whilst listening to the voice memo, which basically means you're doing two homeworks at the same time and you'll get everything done twice as fast. You could be doodling. You could be going for a jog. You could be making snow angles or sand castles depending on the time of year. And it really works!

 

I hope this has helped you out with your revision as this school year begins. Thanks for reading!

 

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo

What's in my Pencil Case

Today I have woken up horrifically early because today is the dreaded day in which I encounter my first day back at school. No, I'm actually pretty excited to go back to school but I swear hands down that if I said that to any of my friends I'd get shot there and then before I had time to finish the sentence.

 

So I have a little time now to write a post because I really have nothing better to do, so I'm going to empty out my pencil case(s) and share with you the contents, just because, you know, this could be helpful to you in some way? I don't know. I just thought it was a nice thing to do to get in that sort of back-to-school vibe or whatever.

 

I'm sorry I haven't been posting for the past few days, its all been quite hectic recovering from the festival I went to at the weekend and preparing myself for school and finishing off last minute homework that I've had the whole Summer to complete. So, sorry about that. In the future I'll be aiming to post every other day so let's just look forward to that.



 

So these are my two pencil cases - yes I have two, ones for ordinary stationary, the other's for colouring stuff because I like colouring. The one on the left is an Cath Kidston pencil case that I got in August last year for roughly £6. I had a bit of a Cath Kidston craze back then so a lot of my supplies are all matching Cath Kidston prints. The inside and the outside kinda of this pencil case is absolutely filthy, and it is pretty small, but I like the birdies so, yaknow. The second pencil case is one that came with one of my year seven bags so its pretty old, and I never really used it until last year. I should probably get a different one because it isn't the prettiest pencil case I'll grant you, but all of my colouring stuff fits into it so I'm happy dandy about that.

This is basically the contents of my colouring case? It doesn't really have much in the way of pencils in there so I'm going to go with that. So inside my 'colouring case' I have five highlighter pens from Ryman that I got yesterday. They did come in an eight pack but I gave three of the colours that I didn't like to my bro because I'm such a lovely sister. The colours that I have here are yellow, orange, pink, purple and blue, and my brother has green, dark pink and dark blue. I also have a tonne of felt-tip pens that I got from WHSmith a while back for like a fiver. There are like fifty but that would be insane to include all of them in the picture. And last but certainly not least, I have my trusty multi-coloured pencil - it changes colour as you write! How cool is that! I think I might actually be in love with this thing, I use it all the time. I got this earlier on this year at an art gallery gift shop (the best part of going to an art gallery is hands down looking around the gift shop. So yeah, I would totally recommend getting this pencil. It was only a couple of quid and I think you can find them anywhere really, but I'd look online.

And these are just a few doodles I did so artistically to show you what they look like on paper.

This is the contents of my Cath Kidston pencil case. I have a mini stapler from Roys which I'm going to find pretty handy at school because everyone is always asking the teacher for a stapler and I can be like lol no; I've got some Papermate Tip-Ex that I actually got from Australia but obviously its available in all countries, and I think this is great because at my school we generally use pens instead of pencils to write with and when it comes to writing I'm a bit of a clutz; I have a yellow highlighter which I don't even need anymore because of my super cool new ones in my colouring case so I'm going to go ahead and get rid of that as soon as I've finished writing; I have some blue scissors which I've had forever so I have no idea where they are from; I have a compass from school - no I didn't steal it, the Maths teachers sell compasses; I have a black pencil sharpener which I just found in my stationary draw; I have a very sad rubber which I also bought from school but its getting pretty small so I'll need a new one soon; I have a Pritt Stick because you never know when you'll have to stick something in and I get through glue like its chocolate; I have a black ink pen which I always have to use and rebuy because it makes my awful handwriting look decent and I hate biros or any other type of pen there is, but these don't last very long and they're pretty expensive which isn't the best combo; I have a green pen of the same make just to spice things up a bit; and last but not least I have six HB pencils , and funny story I actually had to shorten these because they didn't fit inside my pencil case o I took a bread knife and sawed through them all and got led all over the kitchen work top - oops.

 

So that is what is in my pencil slash colouring slash casey cases. I hope you liked this post and give me luck on my first day at school because after this has been uploaded I will be getting ready for it and going, so yeah.

 

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo

DIY Chevron Nails

Recently, I've been seeing a lot of chevron patterns in various DIY videos and posts whether its been used to decorate the front of a notebook or a pen pot or a picture frame or anything that may need decorating really. And as this pattern, style, whatever you want to call it, has become quite popular, I thought I'd share with you my take on a chevron nails tutorial. Its super simple and easy and you don't need to be a grade A nail artist or have loads of nail polishing experience to be able to do this look perfectly. Hey, let's face it, if I can do it, you can do it, a snail or some other limbless animal could probably do it if they tried hard enough. What I'm trying to say is, its easy. Okay? Okay.

All you are going to need is:

~ Two different brightly coloured nail polishes ~

~ A clear top coat nail polish ~

~ Some tape ~

~ A knife, preferably a craft knife, but a small kitchen knife will do ~

~ Tweezers (optional) ~

I've chosen to use a blue nail polish and a pink nail polish because they're pretty contrasting which means they compliment each other well and bring out the colours and stuff... I'm not the best at art theory. Anyway I chose these colours. The nail polish itself isn't anything too special: I got them both in a set of three from a friend for my birthday. The other colour is a pretty average purple, if you were wondering. The brand is S&C, which I've never heard of before, but the nail polish, although its quite thin and may take two coats, stays on well and spreads nice and evenly, plus it doesn't make your nails feel like they are wearing like a tone of nail polish. And they come with little charms around them! How cute? Very cute.

So to start off with you're going to want to paint one regular base coat in your first colour. I'm starting off with the blue but it really doesn't make much of a difference which colour you decide to begin with. If the colour is a bit transparent, feel free to go over it again with another coat, but it shouldn't matter too much as half of this base colour will be covered up.

Once the coat is pretty much dry and to the opacity that you are happy with, start cutting out little strips of tape with your knife that are about two or three millimetres wide and at least ten millimetres long. You'll need quite a few of these, but you can make them as you go along and when you need them.

Arrange four of the tape strips into two arrow formations on your desired nail, pointing up to the tip of your finger. Make sure you have a tail to your tape strips so that you can easily remove them later.

Once your four strips are stuck down in the chevron arrow formation thing, take your second colour, in my case the pink, and paint over the nail, including the tape, until you are happy that the whole nail is this colour.

Wait for the second colour to dry. Once it is completely ready, carefully peel off the strips of tape. Your nail should now look something like this:

Repeat these steps for all of your nails or for as many nails as you want, and then go over ever nail with a clear top coat. I'm using the Rimmel London Finishing Touch Ultra Shine Top Coat. I love using this top coat, mainly because the brush is so wide and flat, so it only take the minimal amount of brushes to cover the whole nail. It also does a really good job of protecting the nail art.

And there you have it! DIY chevron nails! I hope you liked this tutorial, and I'd love to see your takes on it.

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo

 

 

No7 Mascara VS MaxFactor Mascara

I am currently using two drugstore mascaras (not at the same time obviously... duh) to compliment my everyday makeup look. One is the No7 Lovely Lashes mascara in Brown/Black, and the other is the MaxFactor Clump Defy mascara in Black. I've used the Clump Defy for a while now and I'm contemplating whether or not I should switch to the new Lovely Lashes mascara, so what better way to decide on which to use than to analytically compare them both, whilst maybe benefitting your choice in future mascara purchases?

First of all, the packaging. I like the colours that both brands have used: for the Clump Defy its a shimmery purple with a very subtle red-ish tint, and for the Lovely Lashes its a lighter, shiny lilacy purple ma-doo-hickey. I prefer the shape of the Lovely Lashes packaging, because it stays stood up on my shelf, where as the Clump Defy, though it will stand up, when nudged or hit by a gust of wind it will collapse completely, knocking everything else that's stood up on my shelf over and causing a very frustrating mess, because its all curved and shizz.

This is the effect of each of the mascaras:

~ No7 Lovely Lashes (£12.99) ~

~ Click here to view ~

~ MaxFactor Clump Defy (£10.99) ~

~ Click here to view ~

In my opinion, the Clump Defy mascara makes my eye lashes longer and darker, which are both important qualities in a good mascara, however, the Lovely Lashes mascara adds an effect that can almost match it, but it looks a lot more natural, and personally, I like my makeup look to be natural. Although the name of the MaxFactor mascara is 'Clump Defy' it seems to me that this mascara is a lot more clumpy than the Lovely Lashes mascara, especially on the bottom lashes. The Clump Defy does do a good job of fanning out the lashes though. Since the Clump Defy is a more heavy mascara than the Lovely Lashes and to my collection it is older, it leaves more small flakes and specs underneath the eye, which I absolutely hate, but this could just be due to its age. The Clump Defy is also supposed to be water resistant, however whenever I go swimming whilst wearing it or I simply can't be bothered to remove it before I shower, it comes completely off of my eyelashes and ends up somewhere near my chin. It couldn't be less water resistant, which is really annoying.

The Clump Defy brush is a plastic brush and can be kind of painful, especially when you catch it on your eyelid. I'm not really a fan of plastic brushes in general but this one I'm sure is like created to remove people's eyes entirely instead of to make them look better. I also tend to find the fact that its curved a bit of an inconvenience for applying the mascara, but that's probably something to do with the shape of my eyes. I prefer the Lovely Lashes brush because its a bristle brush and its nice and soft and it doesn't try to gouge your eyes out which is always a bonus in my books. The Lovely Lashes mascara is easier and less painful to apply, although I do tend to find myself putting about a gazillion coats on before I'm happy that the mascara has made a difference. Also, the mascara itself is quite liquid-y, and since I'm quite a rough putter-onner of mascara, I will get it all over my eyelids and under my eyes and sometimes even on the tip of my nose and on my mirror - ugh, its a disaster honestly. But that isn't anything a few cotton buds can't fix! Cotton buds are my best friends.

So what do you guys think? Which mascara do you prefer? I hope this post has been helpful to you in some strange way, and I hope it has somewhat aided you in your future purchases of mascara.

Lots of love

Lyllie

xoxo