The Weekend Face #1

As you may or may not know, Matt and I met at Uni but he has since graduated and got a big boy job in London, meaning our relationship has gone from seeing each other every day to every weekend. We are quite lucky its not too far to travel, however I am an appalling packer and find it virtually impossible to pack light. I've been making a conscious effort therefore to try and squeeze down my make up bag for the weekend and plan ahead (although I am still terrible at this!) Among making my case a little lighter (the amount of skincare I take is not ok) trying to condense my make up bag has lead to me using well loved things I had forgotten about again and mixing up my make up routine. So I thought it might be interesting to show you what I take as a mini series on the weekends I go down to visit, but leaving out the standard staples as that would get boring!

Lets start with the base. I chose Healthy Mix as it gives light to medium coverage, which is buildable and also helps to perk up and hydrate my skin in this horrible weather (review soon) with the usual culprits of Benefit's Erasepaste for under eyes and Collection's Lasting Perfection Concealer for any redness or blemishes. My new powder of choice - Rimmel's Stay Matte - was put to the test to set my foundation and keep oil at bay, but I'm not seeing much difference between this and my previous 17 Miracle Matte powder. Finally a dusting of 'London' from my Fashionista palette (amazing for travel) along my cheekbones combined a blush and highlight in one.

For my eyes, I chose to go for a natural look and began by lining the waterline with Rimmel's Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl in 'Nude' and swept 'Naked' from my Urban Decay Naked palette all over the lid. This palette is amazing for travel as it has shades for every occasion so I take it with me everywhere as you can probably see from the battered packaging! I took 'Virgin' also from this palette as my brow highlight and used Bourjois Intuitive eyeliner to deepen my lash line - still not too sure on this one but a review will be coming soon. Lastly, lashings of my two favourite mascaras completed this look. 

For lips I took two lipsticks - Kate Moss for Rimmel 107, an amazing deep red which I have been obsessed with recently and wear for both the evening or day and Barry M lip paint in '101' - a milky nude shade. As my eyes were pared down I either went for a bright pop of red or combined both of these together in the style of Lisa Eldridge to brighten up 101 which can be a bit dead by itself.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Let me know what you think of these products xxx

Turning 21 | Part 2 |

A month before my actual birthday I had a tea party to celebrate with my friends from home before we all went our separate ways back to uni. I had a lovely day filled with tea, laughter, gossip, macaroons and Cath Kidston! We had bucks fizz and pink champagne, played our traditional game of articulate and even a few uni friends came down which was great for them to meet my long term friends from home.

The day after my birthday I was back at Uni and so had a night out with my close friends at Gatecrasher. We managed to secure a place in one of the VIP areas, where we were really impressed that the tables had ice in them! haha. We drunk, danced and sung the night away, ending up with a cheeky take away and getting told I still looked 15 by the man in the chippy!

I really had the best birthday surrounding by great friends and family, love and happiness. I feel like the luckiest girl ever!

I was in Nottingham this weekend for another friend's 21st which was amazing, so may do a blog post on that too :) xxx

Turning 21 | Part 1 |

Last Sunday it was my birthday and I turned 21!! Although it is quite scary to be properly in my 20s now, I'm also really excited to start the next chapter of my life. I had the most amazing of weekends which I will remember for ever, so thought I would share some snippets of what we did on LML as this is kind of like an online diary for me as well as a place to rave about beauty. I felt so lucky, loved and happy the whole weekend and it really made me cherish having such amazing friends and family. Part 1 will focus on what I did with my family.

We began the weekend by having cocktails at the American Bar in the Savoy hotel and then we met up with my sister, her boyfriend and Matt and had a pre-theatre dinner in the Riverside restaurant there. It was so sweet Matt met me with some pink Moet and flowers :) Needless to say, the food and service was impeccable and it was an amazing treat to begin my birthday. After dinner I got presented with a plate decorated with some handmade chocolates and lemon macaroons which said happy birthday that was a lovely touch! We then got taxis to the theatre where the show was, which was meant to be a surprise, but my Grandma let slip earlier in the day (doh!) that we were going to see Phantom of the Opera which was so exciting as I have always wanted to see it. The show was fabulous although I wasn't expecting it to be so scary (I screamed twice :|) My mum and dad even bought me a mug afterwards as I collect mugs from places I have been and being a massive tea drinker I find I can never have enough! 

On the Saturday I had all my family over for a pseudo-Christmas lunch as Matt couldn't be with us on Christmas day and I love everything to do with Christmas! It was amazing, we had turkey and beef with all the trimmings and we even had my Grandma's homemade Christmas pud for dessert. We watched some baby videos of when I was first born which was rather embarrassing and had tea, birthday cake and turkey sandwiches in the late afternoon. I also opened some early birthday presents from my grandparents and extended family and felt so lucky. I'm not going to list everything I got as personally I don't like to do that, but I have included a few pictures of some special gifts that you might be interested in (also see my instagram!) 

The next day was my birthday and I opened my first present in bed - a bag that Louise also has! I then went downstairs and opened the rest of my presents from Matt and my parents with some Bucks Fizz. Matt was so thoughtful and got me 21 gifts arranged into three boxes which were colour coded - pink, gold and blue - each which represented a different area of my personality. It was so thoughtful and lovely I felt so lucky! My favourite present was in a Tiffany box - he put a set of keys to his flat in there which was really romantic! He also got me something to keep for ever which was a Tiffany pearl bracelet that is so beautiful. In the evening we made our way back to Birmingham for the best concert of my life - to see Trey Songz!!! I've loved him for years and to see him so close (we were right by the barrier) made my life!! I didn't get too many good photos as I was too busy screaming haha.

Overall, it was such a memorable and perfect weekend!! Part 2 will be what I got up to with my friends :) xxx