Soap and Glory The Breakfast Scrub

A few weeks ago i was making myself some dinner while watching YouTube videos. It was just another regular Tuesday night. Then i smelt something burning and then there was smoke, and that's when it hit me, i'd managed to turn the wrong ring on on the cooker and my iPad was on fire!!!!!

That story is relevant to this body scrub, i'll get to it, I promise.

Get your dupe on!! (Giveaway closed)

Erm... following on from my frustrated post earlier, i decided on a bit of retail therapy on the way home... i know, i know, i suck!

But its lucky for you guys that i do because i picked up a few things for a little give away :-)

I took a browse around Superdrug yesterday (to supposedly avoid temptation lol!) and i noticed that the high street is dupe-tastic at the moment, with good old MUA leading the way! Also the new lip stains from l'oreal have started to appear in stores so i've decided  to run with that theme...

And so it begins...

Today is a little bit of a difficult day for me.

Its Payday.

Its pathetic I know. Having a payday should be a reason for joy, laughter, merriment.

But this month, which i think is the first month ever, i'm filled with fear.

Last months musings about the state of my finances made me wonder about what im missing out on in life. Don't get me wrong i'm still definitely wanting to achieve those things but this fear im feeling is to do with the fear of not being able to not just run out and buy everything in sight.

The theory of not buying random stuff when you have no money is very easy to deal with, the reality of having money in the bank and trying to persuade yourself you still don't need those things is very different.

I knew this would be hard so I've assigned myself a small budget (£40) for buying a couple of new things so i  thought it'd be easy to start and make a change but there's a whole world of pretty things swirling around and my inner teenager is throwing a proper strop about not being let loose in Primark.

So I chopped my nails off....

Yeah, so kind of what the title says.

You may have noticed that this 'life and nails blog' has been a little short on the nails front recently.

There is a reason for this, i'm still as obsessed as ever with my polish collection, but my poor nails have decided to give up on me altogether.

I don't know if its because of the cold and my seeming lack of ability in wearing gloves. Or whether the fact that where im working at the moment means i never receive any sort of daylight) but my previously slightly peeling but not that bad nails have flat lined.

Bending peeling and breaking, you name it im suffering for it. I've tried using a multitude of nail treatments and i really thought i was getting somewhere with the Sally Hansen Miracle Cure but eventually enough was enough so as you can see i've cut them back to nothing. Its not terribly practical for my work and i have to grab a hairbrush every time i get an itch but i know ultimately that if i keep them short, out of harms way and give them a bit of pampering all will be well with the world once more.

I am hoping to get a few more nail posts up in the next while but please bare with me during this difficult time...

Does anyone have any suggestions on good polish colours that look nice on short nails? 

Friday Favourite #5 Burt's Bees Beeswax and Banana Hand Creme

Todays favourite is back to being beauty related, Hurrah!

I picked up this jar of Burts Bees Beeswax and Banana Hand Creme back in a haul last October, put it in a drawer and promptly forgot all about it. Honestly this happens to me so often.

Anyhoo i dusted it off last weekend....

First off the scent this product has is quite strong, this doesn't bother me but if you've got a sensitive nose it could be a little much. The other thing about the scent is that its FULL ON foam Bananas. If your unsure what a foam banana is, its a kind of sweet shaped like a banana and it has the most synthetic banana sugary sweet chewy foam texture. They are awesome.

 

I love the scent, and i love this product i think it leaves my hands lovely and soft. It is really quite greasy so if your after a sinks in and your ready to go kind of product i'd maybe not suggest splurging on this as it is pricey for a hand cream, but if your after a good treatment for your hands or something to use with some cotton gloves this is definitely worth a look.

I keep it on my nightstand and apply it, liberally, before i go to bed, and in the morning i wake up to soft smooth hands.

Happy days :-)

Whats your favourite this week?

I got a little bored....

I am an intrinsically impulsive person.

I get an idea in my head then i set about doing it.

I woke yesterday morning and decided i wanted a haircut. Now while most people would call a hairdresser, make an appointment and so forth...... I decided i wanted it now. I probably could've got a standby appointment at a place in town but every penny i have at the moment is ear marked for feeding me until payday.

Now I happen to own a basic pair of hair scissors so well one thing led to another.....

And now i have a jaw length bob. Its by no means perfect, but i reckon it could pass for 'shaggy' and it'll certainly do just now. I decided to curl it, which maybe wasn't the best move, i think it'd look better wavy, but either way i think the messier i make  it the cuter it'll look :-)

Its actually a wee bit shorter than it looks in that photo. And don't i look grumpy, lol!

Have you ever had a go at cutting your own hair?

Friday Favourite #4 The Golden Girls

This week I rediscovered a classic.

The wonderful world of the Golden Girls.

If your unfamiliar with the concept it's a bunch of old ladies living together in Miami in the 80s. Not the most exciting of situations I hear you say but if you haven't watched before I urge you to give it a try.

As much as I live the likes of The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother I sometimes suffer from a bit of "beautiful people all complaining about how hard their awesome looking lives are" overload. There's something comforting about a funny sitcom that is basically about friendship and making the best of what you've got.  This is my TV equivalent of a giant cup of tea, plate of cake and a cozy blanket.

It's sweet, touching and marvellously retro even if you don't find it as funny as I do the outfits should keep you coming back for more, it's 80s shoulder pads and bright prints a go-go!

What's your go-to comfort TV?

Meanwhile in another world....

So my last post was perhaps slightly heavy in the self indulgent wittering front.......this is about to continue.

Since than I've become a little bit obsessed with the concept that the life i would love to live is not actually that far out of my grasp.

I took stock of my bank account, yes ladies  in the cold harsh light of day i took that big bull, grabbed it by the horns and stared it square in the eye (that's a saying right?)

Horrified doesn't cover it. 

I reckon on average I spend nearly £300 a month on unnecessary rubbish. Part of this spent on paying off previous 'buying stuff' misdemeanors (which obviously needs to be done) and part is caused by getting over excited when there's a deal on in Boots (which, not matter how i justify, does not need to be done).

Now some people will think oh that's not so bad, but others, like myself, will see that number and feel a little bit sick.

Imagine for a moment that money didn't wander off every month. 

I wonder what i could do....*if blogs went fuzzy and into dream mode that would happen here*

If i had £300:

I could get myself 'Trev', my beloved imaginary fiat 500- I could even afford the insurance and filling him with petrol and probably the odd day trip, maybe a jaunt to Ikea or visiting friends that i hardly ever see due to public transport being utter poop.

Mind you i'd also quite fancy a weekend in Rome

or

I could spend a week in Marrakech!

or if i could be bothered to hold off for a whole month £600 would get me

A weekend in NEW YORK!! I could be that annoying person that goes to New York all the time, oh how i want to be that person.

Once i get to 3 months worth (£900) things get crazy that would get me

8 nights in Sri Lanka - Random fact: my Grandmother lived in Sri Lanka when she was a child, i'd LOVE to visit there. 

And in 4 months i'd have enough for a ROUND THE WORLD plane ticket.

All this stuff is pretty travel orientated but there really is a whole world out there and i want to see it. I want to be the granny in the old peoples home with albums and albums full of photos bothering the nurses by retelling the anecdote about how i once stayed awake all night because i could've sworn i saw a scorpion in my tent, though that's already happened, but you get my drift.

What would you do if you had the money?

I promise i'll back to more of the lighter nail polish/beauty/tea posts soon but by golly imagine how cool it would be to incorporate some of the above on here????

The girl that has everything and nothing...

WARNING: Incoherant babbling is about to occur.

Have you ever had a moment in life where everything suddenly became as clear as day.

I've just had one.

A while ago i posted about the whole spending ban phenomenon that seemed to be sweeping the blog community and my slight confusion about the concept and whether or not it was a completely great idea or just a one way ticket to a boring existence.

I wrote my piece and then pay day hit and i went on a mass spending spree, i bought stuff, all very nice stuff that i am happy to have in my life but at the end of the day its just stuff. The money i spent on that stuff could have paid off that pesky credit card that although i never use but still takes up 30 quid of my money every month to chip slowly away at the balance on it which was caused by me buying........ something....i cant quite remember what.

And that's when it hit me. I LOVE STUFF but in a very short space of time i'll forget all about it. A new lip gloss is not going to change my life, I hardly ever wear the stuff but I have 8 of them and really that's not ok.

I'm very lucky to have all the stuff i have. I work hard enough for it, I own my own home, I have more clothes in my wardrobe that i could find occasions to wear, i have more makeup than i could get through in a year, but most months by the time it gets to the 15th i'm working out how to make the £10 quid i have left in the bank feed and entertain me until the 25th (payday). And as much as i like beans with toast (yes 'with') its hardly an inspiring way to live.

I think what i'm finally realising is that when I'm old and grey i wont remember the 10,000 tops i got in Primark but i will remember nights out with my friends, the random weekends in foreign lands and the opportunities that i can jump at because i don't have to worry about stretching my pennies to breaking point.

Now i'm not planning on rushing out to sell all my possessions but i think i might not be adding to them for a good while. If i paid off all the things i have already it would afford my life so much more possibility than i feel i have at the moment and right about now sat in the flat on a cold Sunday night the concept of having 'possibilities' is far far more attractive to me than anything else in the entire world.

So, back to the spending ban idea, i think I've come to the conclusion that, for me, not buying some stuff now would not lead to a boring existence but randomly i think not buying 'stuff' could lead me to a whole new more exciting existence. I don't like the term 'ban' so i think i'll go on a splurge on payday, i'll work out exactly what i want to buy tot up the value........... and promptly pay that amount to my credit card bill.

The practice of this might be more difficult than me sitting here pondering about it, but right now, at this current moment, i really do feel like the girl that has everything and nothing at the same time.

Friday Favourite #3 Candy Crush

This weeks favourite is more of an obsession, Candy Crush.

 

I'm sure you are all aware of this time swallowing craze. The tasks vary depending on the level but the premise is simple, match the coloured candies in groups of 3 or more to achieve a goal.

 

I'm currently stuck on level 32, but I only downloaded it a couple of days ago. The thing that gets me is that when your out of lives you have to wait sooooo long (30mins) to get a new one. You can link it to facebook so you can beg your friends to give you a life (oh the irony!) but I haven't let myself do that yet. For now I'm finding things to keep me occupied, so my flat is shiny and clean and I even went for a run at one point!

 

What your favourite app at the moment? Have you been sucked into the Candy Crushing craze?

P.S the face of the yeti shop is soooo cute!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Fat Girl Run??

As you will know if your a regular reader last year i had a series called  Fat Girl Slim. It was short lived to say the least, i mean Christmas just isn't the same if you don't keep your sugar levels sky high with a constant intake of Quality Street.

But now we're at the start of February and my habit of having cake for dinner really must end. There's a bridesmaids dress to fit into and even more scarily there's a bikini to be donned on my beach holiday. The good thing about these 2 events is that i only need to lose a bit for the wedding (June) and once i get to that its only a bit more and a case of extra toning for the holiday (September) so i have a decent run at this timeline (see what i did there....)

My problem is that when it comes to exercise i have the attention span of a 3 year old. I've lost count of the amount of workout DVDs that I've used once and lost interest in. They get wheeled out from time to time but not with enough regularity to actually achieve anything.

So onto my next fad, running. I've never seen the point, you'd never even catch me running for a bus but i have friends that run and live quite close to a jolly big park so it seems logical that i give it a go.

Now obviously this requited me to go and buy some running shoes (any excuse to shop!)

They're so pretty! The recommendation is that you should go to a specialist store and be 'fitted' for running shoes so you don't do yourself an injury. I haven't done that  but since i'll probably run to the end of the street and pass out before shoving them in the bottom of my wardrobe i didn't want to spend to much. If this works out i'll go and get a special pair.

So here i am ready to go, i should probably stop procrastinating by babbling on here :-)

Are you a runner? how do you stay motivated?
And can anyone recommend a good android running app?

Seche Magnifique

I have a confession to make. I haven't been into Sallys for MONTHS. Most of the time i can recite the approximate stock of each nail range in each branch of my city but with moving my work to an out of town location i no longer just have a wander down on my lunch break :-( 

But i went into Oswald Street the other day I've just been paid and it was VAT free day, that's a combination i couldn't ignore. I also couldn't ignore the big Seche colour stand that they had right next to the checkout. I've no idea whether these were new in or had been there for a while but i was curious so i had to pick one up. There wasn't anything that was out of the ordinary in the colour range that i could see, which was a bit disappointing but i've been looking for more summery colours so Magnifique seemed to fit the bill.

I've been a fan of the Seche Vite fast dry top coat for a while so i was looking forward to see i got on with this. The formula was nothing special it was easy enough to work with, the brush was very similar to the one with the top coat (but that's hardly surprising) I could possibly have got away with 2 coats but i did 3.

 Its more a deep magenta than the pink that it photgraphs but the pictures do show the really pretty blue shimmer that made me pick up the polish in the first place, i think it gives an unusal edge to the colour, and will look even nicer when i get a bit of colour (as much as i get colour!) in the summer. What i've found with a lot of polish with shimmer is that the prettiness doesnt show up on the nails, not with this! It inst quite as bright but its definitely still there.....

Is it just me or does it look like Simon Cowell reflecting in old pointy??

The picture above shows the pink more true to colour. I really like this colour, and i probably would by more from this brand but the colour range seems a little 'meh' at the moment but i will be watching to see if more are released over time.

Have you tried anything from the Seche range? What did you think?

Friday Favourite #3 Activia Kiwi

Ok, so its not as exciting or glamorous as an Urban Decay giveaway but these posts are about what my favourite of the week and this week its a yoghurt.

I was at my folks a few days ago for dinner and I decided to help myself to a yoghurt, as you do!

I realize kiwi sounds a bit odd as far as a yoghurt flavours go, but its SOO GOOD!

Sweet but not sickly, slightly tart so quite refreshing and the bits of kiwi that are in it still resemble kiwi instead of being squishy mush. Really love this stuff.

The only down side I've found to this is it only comes as part of  the summer fruits 8 pack so for every 2 of these i get i need to eat my way through 6 others, but according to the lovely Gok Wan apparently eating all this will make me feel good on the inside.

i don't know about that but i do know i'll be eating this like its going out of fashion, and be warned, if your round my house any time soon i may force you to eat a strawberry yoghurt.....

Whats your favourite this week?

And the winner is......

The winner of the Naked Basics palette is.... Julie K (GFC: OhSoKansas)

I'm sure you'll all join me in congratulating Julie. Don't worry if you missed out this time, as there will be another giveaway in a few weeks if I get to 100 GFC friends :-)

I'll have a new post up later, but for now have a great day and if your Julie-go check your email ;-)