STUD STYLE

When it comes to jewellery, I like to keep it simple and low maintenance. Whilst I do enjoy a statement piece now and then, generally I like my fashion and makeup to do the talking. Even so, it's nice to still have nice some accessories that you can utilise to complete your outfit. One of my favourite pieces of jewellery to wear are earrings - in today's post I thought I'd go through the Ted Baker studs I recently purchased to add to my accessory collection.

The studs I purchased are all the same style - the "Eisley Enamel Mini" and I have three colour variations to share with you. The earrings are simple and minimal in a button style design - they come in silver, gold and rose gold colour ways with the middle of the stud available in a range of different colours too.

The first pair I have are these rose gold and baby pink studs. As you can see, the outer rim of the stud is a plated rose gold and the middle of it is a beautiful baby pink shade. These earrings are cute and girly yet still chic and sophisticated! 

Next I have a pair that are a little more shall we say, special? They are a beautiful gold and have a lovely sparkly glitter center. These studs have the most beautiful shine to them when hit by the light and are still perfect for everyday wear but will also be great for a special occasion and when you want to wear something with an added sparkle. These are easily one of my favourite pairs of earrings!

Finally, I have this rose gold and black pair. I love the contrast between the two colours on these earrings and the black colour adds an "edgier" feel to the studs and your outfit. 

Overall, I love these studs and think I'll definitely be collecting more colours. They're minimal yet make a great addition to your look. They're really nice quality for costume jewellery and definitely feel on the higher end scale.

These earrings generally retail for £29.00 each and can be found from various retailers such as John Lewis, House and Frasier and Goldsmiths.

Getting the Glow

My current favourite makeup product has to be the highlighter. I love adding a pop of glow to my makeup look and I really love the difference that it makes. It's safe to say then that I'm a fan of shopping around for highlighters too and one brand in particular that can always be heard of when doing so is BECCA. 

LUSH FOCUS | PEEPING SANTA

If you don't already know, I love Lush products. I especially love their bath bombs and melts - they are one of my favourite ways to relax and pamper myself. So in a new series of posts, I thought I'd feature different products from Lush (mainly their bath products) and give you a short breakdown and review of each of them.  Today's post is going to focus on a Christmas bubble bar - Peeping Santa.

A Christmas favourite, Peeping Santa is a bubble bar containing ingredients such as: shea butter, bergamot oil, geranium oil and olibanum oil. Lush's official description of the product is:

Santa may use his dairy-free chocolate eyes to see who's been naughty or nice come Christmas, but, at this time of year, he also looks out for the perfect batch of hand-churned shea butter. Nipping over to Ghana, he visits the Ojoba women's cooperative, who crack and churn the shea pods into a rich, chocolatey butter. Blended with Fair Trade, organic cocoa butter, this indulgent combination is sandwiched between fragrant bergamot and geranium oils. Crumble under running water for sack loads of fruity bubbles.

Ingredients:

• Sodium Bicarbonate
 
• Cream of Tartar
 
• Sodium Laureth Sulfate
 
• Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter
 
• Lauryl Betaine
 
• Cornflour
 
• Laureth 4
 
• Bergamot Oil
 
• Olibanum Oil
 
• Geranium Oil
 
• Fair Trade Shea Butter
 
• Benzyl Alcohol
 
• Hexyl Cinnamal
 
• *Linalool
 
• Colour 14700
 
• Colour 45380:3
 
• Dark Chocolate

• 
  

*occurs naturally in essential oils.

I love the cute design of this bar and especially this chocolate eyes which is a cute little detail. The scent is mild and pleasant - mainly smelling of both the shea and cocoa butter. Being a melt, I find this bar to also be fairly moisturising - though not as much so as something like Butterbear / Ball. It's definitely moisturising enough however that you feel it and don't necessarily need to moisturise after if you don't want to. This bubble bar definitely does go a long way - I decided to use half but I think you could certainly use a quarter and still get the same results. Overall, this is a lovely, relaxing and moisturising bubble bar that I'd definitely recommend you pick up around Christmas time!

2017 READING CHALLENGE

As a child, reading was easily my biggest passion. I loved to write but I especially loved to read. I would visit my school library and hire out several books each week and spend all of my free time lost in a new fictional world. As an adult, I haven't lost that passion for reading, I've simply lost the time for it. At least that's what I tell myself. So, for 2017 I'm setting myself a goal to get myself back on track to reading regularly again. I'm going to compile a list of books I want to read / re-read and I have until December 2017 to complete that list so wish me luck! I've decided on a modest goal of 25 books - a number that I'll hopefully exceed.

Yeah.. I have a Kindle. I know some avid readers are quite against e-readers but for me and my current limited space, real tactile books just aren't practical - whilst I do own a few and nothing quite beats a real book in your hand, my Kindle has been my main literary outlet and I love it!

Here's my list:

1. The Lord of The Rings Trilogy (All 3 Volumes) By J.R.R Tolkien

2. 1984 by George Orwell

3. Never Let Me Go by Kashuo Ishiguro

4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harpee Lee

5. The Stranger by Albert Camus

6. Forty Years of Murder by Prof. Keith Simpson

7. Crash by JG Ballard

MAC LIPSTICK COLLECTION

For a lot of people, MAC has always been a go to brand for transitioning your makeup collection into higher end, more "professional" products. Whilst I have always loved and always will love drugstore makeup, as my interest and collections have grown, I have wanted to delve more into higher end brands. The first brand that I delved into was MAC and it all started with a red lipstick. Since then, I have discovered an abundance of high end and independent brands that I have fallen in love with but MAC lippies have always had a special place in my makeup-loving heart.  So, since getting that very first lipstick a few years ago, I have slowly worked up my collection and I thought I'd share it with you all today, enjoy!

Russian Red

Matte finish. Intense-blush red. 

This was my first ever MAC lipstick and is still one of my favourites. It's a classic, universal red shade and it's perfect for a go-to retro glamour look. A red lipstick is a must have in a makeup collection for me and I love this one.

KEEPING ORGANISED WITH BAN.DO

I'm a sucker for organisation. I love planning and above all, I just love lists. Perhaps it's my tendency to worry that is so influential on my need to plan things but all I know is that I don't really feel like me if I'm not able to organise what I'm doing. One of the things I love that helps to keep me in check is my Ban.do diary. I first got a diary from Ban.do in 2016 when I spotted the one that my beautiful friend Tanith of ThingsTanithDid was using in University one day. She had shown me through hers and other than how beautiful it was to look at, I loved how it was laid out and organised and knew I wanted one. I swiftly went on to ASOS where I knew Ban.do organisers were sold and I bought myself the same one. I used my diary throughout 2016 and I absolutely loved it so I knew I'd want one for 2017 which is why I asked for one for Christmas! I was lucky enough to get one so in today's post I thought I'd show you through it and tell you why I like it so much.

Both the 2016 and 2017 versions of the diary are pretty much the same in terms of what they include internally. The only key differences that the 2017 version has is the size and layout of these sections. For starters, the 2017 diary is much wider and contains fewer pages. This does mean that the diary is a little bit on the bigger side so it isn't going to necessarily fit in a bag as easily as the narrower 2016 one did. I don't mind this too much however as I find it fits easily into near enough all the bags that I use including my current one. The diary also has a beautiful floral design just as last years did except this one is designed using more muted, pastel colours which I really love.

Inside of the diary there's a handy pocket for documents containing a cute little slip which details the diary's "Secret Code" - symbols that are scattered around the pages of the diary and which are encoded messages that you can decode in your spare time. The diary also has within in two full pages of adorable little stickers - I especially love this little novelty addition to the diary as it allows you to really personalise it.

As you enter the actual pages of the diary itself, you firstly find a layout of the year showing you all the days of each month from January 2017 on to December 2018. Then, there's also a page allowing you to write down some notes or "Reasons to Party" for each month of 2017 as well as a neat little list of the nation holidays of the year too.

As we get into the pages for every month, each section is divided with a handy side tab meaning you can easily flick between months to find a specific date or page. The first page of each month shows you a layout of each day of the said month giving you room to write down a small note or two. Whilst the 2016 Ban.do diary also had a section for each day of each week of every month, the 2017 version has downsized on this and decided to simply divide each bit of its pages into weekly sections. I like this change as when I finished University in particular, I didn't feel that I needed room for each day of the week for note taking and so that left a lot of blank space in my diary. Having sections for each week of the month rather than each day for me means i'm more likely to utilise all of the space in the diary - there is also a small notes section provided on each month page for any extra things that you may need to jot down too!

As well as novel little additions like the secret code on certain pages of the diary, there's also motivational sayings and messages of encouragement too. I think this is a lovely addition to the diary and it's nice to be able read a comforting and feel good message now and then! Finally, at the very end of the diary there's a super large section of pages for notes - always handy as you never know when you may need to write something down.

Overall, I think this is an awesome diary - from it's layout to its design, I'm really impressed with how it's been produced and I know I'll definitely get a lot of use out of it just as I did with last years. Organisation is something that is important for me and having such a useful, handy diary like this one means that planning is so much easier. If you're on the look out for a good planner, I'd certainly recommend this one!

As mentioned above, you can get Ban.do diaries from ASOS as well as from retails such as John Lewis and Selfridges. 

What I Got For Christmas: Beauty Edition

Hello everyone and happy 2017! It's weird to say that but it's also exciting to be at the start of another year. In this post, I thought I'd reflect on and share with you some of the items I received for Christmas. This isn't everything - certain things I'm going to leave for reviews / focused posts but it's most of the beauty type gifts I was lucky enough to receive from friends and family members. 

Whilst I'd like to hope most people would already know this, this post isn't to brag about the things I received. I'm an inherently nosey individual and I love seeing the lovely things people buy and receive be it at Christmas, birthdays or as part of a haul, so I thought I'd also create my own "What I Got for Christmas" post too. Needless to say I'm so grateful for receiving the presents that I did and even more importantly than that, I feel blessed to have such wonderful, caring and loving people in my life. Soppiness over with, let's jump right in!

I received three perfumes in total this year from my friends and family - a fact a perfume junkie like me is more than excited about. I've really been getting into fragrance this past year so it's safe to say I was really happy to receive some this year for Christmas. The scents I got were Olympea by Paco Robanne, Bon Bon by Viktor & Rolf and finally Gucci Bamboo by Gucci. I'll list the scent notes in the captions of the perfumes' photo just incase you're interested too! I'd been lusting over all three of these scents for quite a while - particularly Bon Bon so I'm really excited to start wearing them all.

Scent Notes:
Gucci Bamboo by Gucci: Top - Bergamot, Heart - Ylang-Ylang & Orange Blossom, Base - Amber & Sandalwood
Bon Bon by Viktor & Rolf: Top - Mandarin & Peach, Heart - Caramel, Base - Amber, Sandalwood & Cedar
Olympea by Paco Roxanne: Top - Green Mandarin & Jasmine, Heart - Vanilla, Base - Cashmere Wood & Sandalwood

Next off I got these stunning brushes from Zoeva. As a makeup lover and wearer, new beauty tools always come in handy and it's a bonus when they're as pretty as these ones are. I loved the Zoeva brushes I had previously but had never delved much into their facial brushes and had only really tried their eye ones. I'm really excited to have a play around with all of the brushes in this collection - I can see all of them being staples that I'll be using regularly.

Zoeva Rose Gold Collection Brush Set Volume 2

Let's also just take a moment to appreciate the beautiful design of these brushes as well as that gorgeous rose gold bag too!

Next off I got this MAC palette - it features 9 purple toned shades and I absolutely love it. Purple is my favourite colour and I love how it looks on my blue eyes. I've never tried any MAC shadows before so I'll be looking forward to testing out this palette.

This palette also has a great range of light to dark shades so I feel as if there's a lot of opportunity for a multitude of different looks. As you can see there is also a lot of different finishes in these shadows from mattes, to shimmers to satins.

MAC Purple x 9 Palette

The final beauty item I received for Christmas that I wanted to share with you is this Natural Eyes palette from TooFaced. I am a massive TooFaced fan - especially when it comes to their palettes. I think they have amazing pigmentation and such buttery formulas. I'd been eyeing up this palette for quite a while mainly for it's beautiful shimmer shades. I think a neutral palette is always so versatile in a makeup collection and I can't wait to use this one.

TooFaced Natural Eyes Palette

And there you have my Christmas beauty haul featuring most of the beauty products I was lucky to get for Christmas this year. As I mentioned before, there are some beauty products I got that aren't included in this post and that's because I wanted to feature them in posts of their own. I also got some fashion pieces that I'll be showcasing in some upcoming posts soon too so please do stay tuned for that if you're interested.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year and I'd to see your Christmas haul posts if you've written any too so please do send the link for them my way! As always, thanks so much for reading and have a happy Monday.

Levinia,
 xo