Happy Advent!

Happy December 1st, you lovely people! I know everyone is saying the same thing, but I can't quite believe it's December already! It doesn't feel that long since it was last Christmas. This year, Oscar surprised me with a fancy Liberty beauty advent calendar! For the last two years I've handmade advent calendars for O with lots of little goodies inside and he forgot to get me one! So this year he seriously made up for it with this little beauty! 

It's taken all my willpower not to Google what's inside and this morning I had that Christmas morning feeling when I got to open the first little drawer!

So inside drawer #1 was this adorable hand cream by Byredo Parfums and it smells amazing! I'm not a very patient person, so I'm not quite sure how I'm going to limit myself to opening one drawer per day? But O said if I cheat, I won't get any Christmas presents!! How mean is that?! ;)

I suspect I'll be posting my daily treats over on Instagram, so you can follow me here if you want to see what's inside the other 24 drawers! 

{Four} Favourites

Today I'm coming at you with four favourites that I've been loving this month. I love it when I find something new that I love using/making/eating. I'm the type of person that will use/eat/wear said favourite until I've either used it all up or am thoroughly sick of it. No happy mediums over here! Here's some products that have seriously been my jam lately...

1:: Bath & Body Works Pumpkin Pecan Waffle Candle: 

Oh my...this has been my Christmas candle staple this year. It's sugary, mapley scent has been wafted all over my little bungalow this month. It smells good enough to eat and there have been times when I've been tempted, believe me! I have been *trying* to use it sparingly, so that it lasts til Christmas day, but I just can't bare to blow it out!

{Bought from a lovely eBay seller}

2:: Korres Basil Lemon Body Milk:

I am absolutely in LOVE with Korres products! This body milk smells amazing. I'm not a huge lemon fan, but it just adds a little zing to the basil. The thing I love about Korres is that they mainly made up of natural ingredients. This body milk has 93% natural content which are listed on the back of the packaging. Oh and it's also seriously hydrating. The guava shower gel is also my jam this month, but I had to narrow it down, y'know? 

3:: Bourjois Magic Nail Polish Remover:

If you're like me and paint your nails every few days, then this is your saviour. You just stick your finger inside the sponge (sounds a little saucy!) for literally a second and the polish is all gone! It's even quicker at getting glitter polish off too and we all know what a mission this is! I've converted three of my friends to this bad boy...maybe I should be on commission?! 

4:: MAC In Extreme Dimension Lash: 

Oscar bought me this mascara as a "sorry-I-didnt-get-you-an-advent-calendar" apology gift! I've never used a MAC mascara before, usually I just head straight to the lipsticks. I love it! I have really straight lashes and it gives them a great curl and some serious length. The brush is huge and really gets a good grip of the lashes. It doesn't clump or smudge by the end of the day. I am a serious fan girl. 

What have you been loving lately? :)

 

happy face :: three favourites

Today I'm coming at you with three things that have transformed my face. Seriously! I used to be a straight up facial scrub and moisturiser kinda gal, but lately I've been thinking that at the ripe old age of 33 {still acting like I'm 12 though..}, I should start paying more attention to my skincare. After a trip to Boots and a few pounds lighter, I came home with some Good Things swag! Now, I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to cleansing, so I'm sure there are things I should or shouldn't be doing, but here's what my skincare routine now looks like...

* Cleansing: every morning I now grab this beautiful Good Things Manuka Honey Creamy Cleanser along with a face cloth. I noticed the difference in my skin the first morning I used it, no lie! My skin, even before moisturising, seems so much softer and hydrated. So much so that I almost forgot to moisturise yesterday! It smells divine and the formula doesn't have any of the nasty things in it like some other brands. My old facial scrub used to leave my skin tight and I'm just realising, slightly angry. This cleanser leaves it feeling soothed with none of the red patches I used to get. Back in the day, I used to think cleansing was too much of a time wasting faff, but having skin as soft as a baby's derrière is well worth the extra 5 seconds it takes in the morning. 

* Serum: now I'm complete novice when it comes to serum. I didn't even know when to apply it, before moisturiser? After? Instead of? But after some googling and a tweet from the lovely Vivianna Does Makeup, I was sorted. Basically, I use it after cleansing, leave it 5 minutes or so to soak in and then put my moisturiser on top like normal. So far I've only been brave enough to use this in the evening. I don't have particularly dry skin and didn't want to overload my face during the day. Although, saying that, the morning after some serum action, my face feels so glowy, smooth and a little more plump...does that make sense? The one I've been using is the Nude ProGenius Treatment Oil which I got as a sample in a recent BirchBox. I'm not gonna lie, this serum doesn't have the nicest whiff to it, but it makes my skin sing! I'm on the look out for some other decent brands, so please hit me up if you have any recommendations! 

* Moisturising: for years I've been an Olay girl. So I was a bit wary of trying something new. Good Things Miracle Mattifier Moisturiser is the bee's knees! First of all, the smell...berry goodness! I wasn't sure that I would like a fruity scented moisturiser at first, but oh my...I'm a convert! This leaves my skin SO completely hydrated, seriously softer and maybe even a little less shiny? I used to get a little dry patch down my nose and now it's completely disappeared. I've been using this morning and evening and my skin is thanking me for it! 

O has been laughing at all the new face cloths I've been buying to accommodate this new ritual and I may have a Body Shop order {oops} winging it's way to my door mat sometime soon with some new skincare products...

Do you have any favourite skincare products? I've chosen these three because they've completely turned my skin around and I love them so! Have you discovered anything new that's made your skin happy? I'd love to hear about them!

 

retail therapy!

So, I was a little naughty last week on the shopping front. You know how you just get those weeks when you have nothing better to do and before you know it, you've got like five order confirmation emails in your inbox? Well, this was me last week. A few clicks later and I had made a serious dent in the bank account. Unluckily for me, it's a joint account, so I have some explaining to do to my other half...whoopsies! We all need some retail therapy sometimes, no?

I did put some teaser photos on Instagram, so you may already know about the above purchases! But I've managed to keep the actual contents a secret until they all arrived so I could unveil them in this post. Now, I'm not going to go through everything in the boxes, I'll just give you a sneak peak of everything and some of my favourite things. If you have any questions about anything I've bought, just comment below. Let's start with a glance at what's inside...

Look at all these shiny beauty products! I'm so excited to actually try them all! I'm gonna start with the Birchbox. I've finally popped my Birchbox cherry. I've wanted to subscribe to this for absolute ages, so when I go an email offering me free shipping, I finally bit the bullet and let me tell you, I wasn't disappointed. For those of you who haven't heard of Birchbox, you complete a beauty questionnaire online and they send you samples/full size items every month tailored to your preferences. These are great if you want to test something before splashing out on the full size product. I also love the packaging this month, they've collaborated with Harper's Bazaar (you also get a discount on a HB magazine subscription). If I remember right, it only costs about £10 a month to subscibe and you can cancel at anytime. Judging from the contents of this month's, though, I won't be cancelling anytime soon! Below are my favourites from the Harper's Bazaar Birchbox.

 

Next up is the Selfridges Beauty Project Box. As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to have it. It was love at first sight! Considering the amount of swag you get, it's well worth the bucks. This box was launched to celebrate their new Beauty Project campaign, which you can read more about here. Unfortunately, the box is now sold out online, but you may be able to get one in store. My favourites are down below. How much am I in love with this NARS Deep Throat blusher?? I can't even put it into words! I'm also loving the EOS products at the moment, I already have one of their lip balms and it smells as lush as the hand lotion. The packaging of the Eyeko mascara gives me a happy heart!

 

Last, but certainly not least, we have the Benefit b.right! Radiant Skincare sample set. I've wanted to get my hands on this set for a while now. I'm a serious Benefit fan, but have never tried their skincare products before. I have only tried the Total Moisture facial cream so far and I'm loving using this at night after I've taken my make up off. I'll report back once I've tried the other five products. I'm especially looking forward to trying the It's Potent! eye cream, I've been on the hunt for a new eye cream for a while now...any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, fellow bloggers!

 

My debit card has now been safely tucked back into my purse for another month (week) much to O's delight!
Which lovely things have you been buying lately?