Topshop Make-up Giveaway Winner!

Morning lovelies! Wow, it was such a struggle getting out of bed this morning *yawns* 6am starts are NOT fun. I don't think I'll ever be a morning person, not even for all the coffee in the world.

I hope you've all had wonderful weekends? I had an awesome one, I'll do a photo diary post later on today, but for now let's get down to business.

Time to announce my first ever giveaway winner... thank you so much to all of you who entered, I was really worried no one would enter and it would be the worst giveaway ever. I'm looking forward to doing more of them now I know this isn't the case :) If anyone has any ideas for anything they'd like to see in my next giveaway, please do feel free to leave a comment.

Anyway, I used random.org to find my winner (thank you to everyone who reccomended it to me, I didn't have a clue!).

The winner is... Shannon Beer

Well done Shannon, hope you enjoy the goodies. I'll be in contact with you today!

Beautiful images #1 Without a word

(photos pinched from Tublr)

Hey everyone, IT'S FRIDAY!! This week seems to have flown by for me.

It's going to be a scorcher here in London this weekend, get those daisy dukes out and soak it up!

The mister and I are planning on scooting to the countryside tomorrow to have a picnic by the river, I can't wait!

Instead of a beauty post today, I thought I'd share with you some images I've been perving over this week, I hope you enjoy them too. I might make this into a regular feature, I find so many beautiful pictures. What do you think? I'm thinking about a DIY hightlighting sesh with my hair tonight, super risky, but I'm so bored of my hair at the moment! What have you all got planned for the weekend?

Don't you know people write songs, about girls like you?

Hey darlings, I'm feeling a little fragile today. Amarretto sour cocktails on an empty tummy last night, I'll never learn. Are any of you going to the Vogue Fashion Night Out in London tonight? I'm skipping it, I don't think I can deal with the crowds of people who are going to be in town. Although its a school night, I'm heading to the opening of a bubble bar in South London. I know it sounds pretty weird, but there are free cocktails, it would be rude not too.

Today it's another one of my YSL beauties here for you, Rouge Volupte in 'Peach Passion 13'.

Unfortunately this one is a little too loved to show you the actual lipstick, it's in an embarrassing state to say the least. I'm literally getting every last scrap of lipstick out if it, that's how much I love it.

So instead, I've swatched it for you, and you can see what it looks like on my lips too.
For all of you who are a little afraid of brighter lipsticks, don't be, this is actually more of a gentle coral peachy shade than an orange. The pigmentation, as with all YSL lipsticks, is fabulous. It's so soft and easy to apply, and really compliments a tan. I find that it really brightens up my face, especially if I'm wearing minimal make up.
It's a great shade for the office to help brighten up the uniform too.
I've been wearing this lipstick all week, with Carmex mint lipbalm underneath, which I absolutely adore too, it's one of those that makes your lips feel a bit tingly and numb. These two are perfect in combination, they come together like lovers :)

The only downsides for this lipstick I'll mention are, it that it doesn't have the best staying power, you'll definitely need to re-apply throughout the day. It doesn't have the name of the shade on the bottom like most lipsticks, this is kind of annoying if you're looking to repurchase. Some people find the lipstick settles into the creases in your lips, it does tend to do this, but I find when teamed with Carmex it looks a billion times better, as it's being applied to a smoother surface.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I really love YSL lipsticks, I blogged about another one here. I do think they are totally over-priced, but I just can't resist. For a start, theres just something about the packaging that makes you feel a little bit special when you pull it out of your make-up bag. And every woman needs a little luxery in their life, right? 

Oh, if you follow me, don't forget to enter yourself in my Topshop giveaway. Good luck!

Celebrity Bash

I've only just realised that I've been holding out on you guys.

I still haven't introduced you to my favourite Autumnal nail polish. Meet 'Celebrity Bash'. Rimmel isn't normally a brand I go to for nail varnish, (I'm Barry Ms' biggest fan) but every winter I come running back to this shade.
I like to wear it with just one coat and a top coat, so it's a gorgeous raspberry kind of shade, and I think it looks really great with a tan (more on that later). Sometimes I pop another coat on top if I want more of a darker wintery look. I do find with one coat it chips a lot easier, but I'm willing to sacrifice this, I just love the shade so much.
The brush in this polish is my fav, I have quite fat nails, this sounds weird. I mean, wide I guess? Anyway you can see from the photos. The brush is large and thick, so spreads over quite a lot of my nail, meaning it's pretty quick for me. Oh, I know this is really lame, but I really enjoy the name of this varnish too... told you it was lame.
Have you tried celebrity bash? What are your favourite Autumn nail varnish shades?

I've just settled down at my desk today with my cosey cardy and a tasty caremel macchiato, yum! I do enjoy a good Starbucks on a crisp Autumn morning, I do!! Oh, and excuse the lack of lipstick and the helmet hair wont you??
Anyway, I've been thinking about deleting some of my older posts, I find them a little embarrassing, messy and just don't really like them.
I had a little conversation on twitter with Jessica (go and check out her beauty and lifestyle blog, its really cute) about it. We came to the conclusion that it's kind of nice for readers to go back to older posts and see how far your blog has come, and how much it's changed.

I guess it's okay not to be brilliant at something, and not really know what you're doing when you first start out. That's one of the things I love about blogging and the blogging community, every one is always striving to improve. There's so much ambition, and that's really inspiring. I know I always look at other peoples' blogs and compare mine to theirs, but that just makes me pleased for them that they're doing so well, and it only makes me strive to improve. What do you think about it all? Have you ever been tempted to delete older posts to make your blog appear better?

Oh, if you follow my blog, don't forget to enter my Topshop giveaway, 4 days left to enter, good luck!

Espresso eyebrows

(sorry for the awful shot, it's sooo hard to take a photo of your eyebrows. How do other bloggers do this?! Oh, and sorry for the badly groomed brows, I'm working on these!)

The name of this eyeshadow seems to be completely fitting, seeing as I am a total coffee addict.

Last week I decided that I have an intense hatred for my eyebrows. I hate the shape of them, and I just thought the pencil I was using was far too harsh and they look way too drawn on. So I decided to switch over to powder. Cue MAC Espresso eyeshadow and the MAC 263 small angle brush.

You'll have to excuse the shape of my brow still, but I wanted you to see the colour. I think it's a great match for my hair. Espresso has brilliant pigmentation, you literally need the tiniest bit on the end of your brush, and it's so easy to build up the colour if you do want a more dramatic brow. I've just been filling in the sparse areas, I'm no expert yet, but it seems pretty easy to do and I'll keep practising. I think I'll probably watch a couple of youtube tutorials on this too. Maybe I'll even do my own when I've perfected it. I'm really enjoying the brush so far too, and the great thing is you can also use it for eyeliner and eye make-up. Total investment in my eyes. Have you used Espresso before? How do you groom your eyebrows?

Hope you're all having a great Tuesday? As soon as a parked my bottom down at my desk today, I had a nail painting sesh. Yup, I'm such a good employee. Currently munching on Oreos, drinking tea and reading some lovely blogs.

By the way, if you follow me, don't forget to enter my Topshop giveaway!!

Topshop make-up giveaway!!- Now closed

*giveaway open internationally*

So, this is my first ever giveaway, eeep! I really hope some of you do actually enter and I don't look like a total loser! I'd just like to thank all of you who are following me :) I tried to pick a couple of things I thought would suit everyone, and that I thought everyone would like. I ended up buying things that I wanted myself and now I just want to keep the giveaway prizes. Pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to work?! 
I picked this gorgeous Topshop lipstick in shade 'Pillow Talk', which I thought will go well with pretty much any skin tone. I don't have this shade yet, but I really want it! I also picked up these Nail Rock wraps in a polka dot print, can't go wrong with those, right ladies? Oldy but goody.
So, if you'd like to enter, all you need to do, is be a follower of my blog on blogger, and leave a comment below with your email address so I can contact you if you win. If you'd like to tweet about it, that'd be great too! I'll announce the winner next Monday (the 10th).
Good luck everyone!

Photo Diary#4 I think I'll try, defying gravity

Hey darlings, here are a snaps from my weekend, it's been a pretty busy one! I've been to the National Portrait gallery, and shopping in Covent Garden. Then I was totally spoiled for the rest of the weekend, we went to go and see 'Wicked', which was absolutely incredible. The costumes, the set, the voices. We were even lucky enough to be given the directors seats, I had the perfect view! It was totally magical and made me feel a little emotional. I kind of want to be friends with Garlinda (the good witch) too. If she was real that is...

Today we went for Sunday lunch in a super swanky restaurant called Trinity, the food was INSANE. Possibly the best ever. For main course I had baked sea bass, sweet and sour peppers with sardine vinaigrette. I actually didn't even want to eat it, it looked like such a work of art on the plate, I've never had such a pretty meal. For Dessert I had BBQ peach, Cobnuts, lavender ice-cream, and honeycomb. Absolutely divine. Needless to say, I had to have a lye down when I got back home. I'm still full now, 6 hours later. 

Anyway, sorry my face has been a little absent from my blog this week. I'll be completely honest with you lovely lot, I've been feeling really rather down and un-motivated this week. Do you ever feel that way? Also my bad skin day, turned into a bad skin (and hair) week, so I haven't really felt like photographing myself. I just haven't really felt up to posting. But I'm feeling a little better now, so I'm back :) 

How have your weekends been?