YSL baby doll mascara

I am a sucker for beautiful things and alothugh I had been pretty sceptical about how great the effects of a mascara that costs more than £7 could be compared to my normal cheap product, I could not resists buying the Yves Saint Laurent Baby Doll Mascara after all of it's positive reviews. I actually was lucky enough to spot it on sale and it came with a travel size ysl mascara too, all for £19.50 in Debenhams so I didnt' end up paying as much as I could have.

I usually love my lashes a little clumpy, but as of late I've been trying to tone down my eye make up, so this gives a great individual lash effect, giving a wider fanning of your lashes, making them appear longer and more curled. The wand has small brushes, in fact they are barely brushes they're more like little spikes so the mascara doesn't go on thickly, leaving your eyelashes light but with a good coverage.

I'm not surprised at how much I love this mascara and I expect I will be repurchasing it even at it's more expensive price, once it runs out!

xox

INSTAGRAM RECENTS!

I don't post on instagram that regularly but I do keep it updated a fair bit. I thought I would start doing a little recent instagram posts thang that I can do every now and then just to give an overview of things that I've been up to lately!

1) Kate Moss is a beautiful angel. 2) The Libs in Hyde Park soon! 3) My parents relationship summed up. 4) Browns with Dad for a last night in Leeds celebration. 5) Last university night out till 2015. 6) The Peak District with Mia. 7) Revision and exams. 8) Dan Crolls amazing album Sweet Disarray. 9) I rewatched all the X-Men films and am in love with them again.

Anyway, I hope this was interesting at least a little. You should follow me on instagram though, I will of course follow you back! You can find me here. 

xox

sotw; the weeknd/wanderlust (clean bandit remix)

It's so sunny and so it feels incredibly summery where I am, I know it's summer but it never really feels like it in the United Kingdom so I decided on a song that makes me feel happy!

The Weeknd's Wanderlust is such a great song and I do love it, but the Clean Bandit remix really gives it an exciting holiday feel. It makes me want to dance and sing and I have been listening to it a lot, not just this week but the past few weeks whilst I've taken a little bit of a hiatus. 

At first I wasn't too keen but it grew on me and I'll definitely be putting it on my summer playlist for whilst I'm driving around to various festivals this summer.

xox

The original can be found here.

lee stafford bleach blonde VS bleach london silver shampoo and conditioner

I am a serial hair changer, I cannot help it I just love messing with my hair, putting colours in it, making it lighter, making it darker, black, white, brown, blue, purple, green. I love to experiment. A few years ago I decided to make it my mission to get grey hair, I went to the hair dressers after I'd bleached it to get it toned but honestly the toner did nothing and since then I kind of gave up and went for something different.

However one night whilst I was wasting time surfing the web I saw someone recommend Lee Stafford's Bleach Blondes Shampoo and Conditioner. 

   

It's a toner that claims to remove the 'brassy tones' from your hair. Perfect I thought, just want I wanted as I don't really like the way my hair sometimes appears yellow.

My hair was already pretty light and after damaging it with bleach to the point I had to have it all cut off I was pretty reluctant to bleach it again so I just started using it with the colour hair I had. I was wary of whether it would work or not as it wasn't actually bleached but I was incredibly happy with the result. It works so so well. It is amazing. I will say your hair has to be fairly light it wouldn't work on a dark blonde but it seems to work on a darker than bleached blonde which I love. It removes the tones to give you a white and grey tone, just what I had been attempting to achieve with all the bleaching and toning I had previously done.

It says not to use it everyday, and depending on what colour you're going for I wouldn't - unless you're going for a peachy purple colour of course. I find that if I use it 2 times a week it will keep the ends of my hair nicely toned, if I do it more than that people seem to comment on the fact that I have dyed my hair pink/purple so I try not to do it to much although I don't mind the pink colour in it at all.

This is literally the perfect toning product and I would recommend it to everyone and anyone who wanted to take the yellowness out of their blonde hair and add a cooler, paler colour to it. Of course it also leaves your hair feeling incredibly healthy and restored.

The shampoo is an insanely deep purple and it always turns the water pink which I thinks cute.... and the conditioner is a light purple, both smell absolutely amazing and that is definitely a plus because I love catching the scent of my hair throughout the day. Also a good tip, if you're looking for a quick tone i.e want to see a difference from one wash, I find that out of the shampoo and the conditioner the shampoo works best and so leaving it on for the duration of your shower which give you a more immediate tone.

On the absolute polar opposite side is the Bleach London Silver Shampoo and Conditioner. I am most definitely an advocate of Bleach London, I have used a number of their hair products and colours in the past and found them to be absolutely fantastic, but these two items just didn't do the trick, it probably didn't help that I was used to the success of Lee Stafford's products.

The first thing I actually noticed was that they didn't smell that nice. They smelt a bit weird and I didn't really like it, no where near as nice as the ones I had been previously using but I wanted to give them a go regardless because I love discovering new products which really work. 

I started off my using them every few days thinking that if I used them too much they too would give a purple tinge to my hair but I was completely wrong, I didn't see any change, I was almost hoping for a purple tinge. I upped my use to every day thinking this had to do something but I still did not see a difference in the colour of my hair what so ever and to be honest with you I was disappointed as I have such high expectations of Bleach London. I found that the shampoo was really running and the conditioner was too thick, not to mention the poorly designed bottles making it difficult to access the conditioner and when using the shampoo it would run through my fingers and down the drain. 

I'm not really sure why these didn't work as they are from a company that is so on point when it comes to hair. But there's not much more I can say about them, they were disappointing and bearing in mind the fact that they do not smell as good and cost around the same price as Lee Stafford's, I definitely will not be changing my hair products to them any time soon.

This being said, if you've had success with the Bleach London Silver Shampoo and Conditioner let me know!

xox

You can buy the Lee Stafford products from here & the Bleach London products from here.

film review; white house down

I am in constant need of a film to watch or a series to binge and have been meaning to watch this for a while so I decided that tonight would be the night. What a wild Friday eh?!

Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed this an unbelievable amount more than I expected to. It was packed, and I mean PACKED with action, fighting and guns. If that's really not your thing then you probably won't enjoy this, but I love action films and I love Jamie Foxx and I LOVE Channing Tatum so this was just perfect.

At times it was pretty unrealistic, well not pretty, extremely unrealistic but I was gripped nonetheless. I actually noticed I was biting my nails with stress at one point, it is a real 'edge of your seat' film. 

Channing Tatum is the disappointing father who lets his daughter down but gets the opportunity to earn her respect after being the only one able to guide the President to safety. Jamie Foxx plays said President, who is cool, kind and collected and is a pawn needed for the terrorist plans. 

In a film of this sort it would seem rather strange that there would be room for humour, but there was and I found myself laughing quite a lot, this was probably more so because of how ridiculous some of the scenes were, but either way a laughs a laugh.

I'm sure as a politics student I have probably picked up more on this but I really liked the fact it was based around a massive issue that caveats the world today and is extremely important to security and in all honesty, I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

On terms of enjoyment I would definitely give this film a 9/10, I'm not giving it a 10 because frankly, I didn't want it to end.

xox

freedom at last!

I haven't updated this for a while as I have been absolutely bogged down in revision and essays, but now I am free for an entire year whilst I do my work placement and will be able to continue to do this frequently. I was incredibly nervous for my exam but I got through it and now we just have to wait for results!

I hope everyone else who had exams did well!

xox

very early birthday presents!

It's not actually my birthday until the 1st of August but as I'm not at University then, my housemates got me some beautiful goodies to have early. 

I haven't got a full body picture of the shirt because sadly it doesn't fit properly over my chest, which is a common problem that I have with shirts but I'm attempting to shed a couple of pounds and hopefully, in time it will fit. I don't want to take it back because I actually love it so much, it's a beautiful colour and is really simple and elegant.

The necklace is from my favourite lady, Vivienne Westwood! I have a number of different pieces of VW items including a lot of jewellery and this is a wonderful addition to the collection. I will admit it's not something I would usually choose but I actually love it. I usually just choose the simple orb shaped items and although this is shaped like the orb it has a twist. I think it looks great against a block of colour because it really comes into it's own and I will probably be wearing this a lot!

xox

The shirt is from Zara and the necklace from Vivienne Westwood.

film review; the amazing spider-man 2

So tonight at long last I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2! I am a lover of the Marvel Franchise and any action film for that matter and so I have been incredibly excited to see it. The first one left me with great expectation for the next and I sure as hell was not let down. 

Andrew Garfield is a perfect Spider-Man, an amazing actor and easy on the eye. He's not too cool and so plays the slightly nerdy role of Peter Parker so well too. 

It goes without saying that Emma Stone is a really really talented actress, starring in films such as Zombieland, Easy A and The Help, I was not surprised at all to find she again portrayed Gwen Stacey fabulously and is probably my favourite character in the films. She is absolutely flawless and definitely deserves all the praise she receives. 

I will admit that it is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, I found myself tearing up a number of times but also gripping on to the arm rests of my chair in some of the more stressful and action packed scenes. I would say that if you're really not a fan of action films this is probably not the right film for you but it really does have everything. Spider-Man is a cheeky and comical character which brings an element of humour and the electricity filled villain Electro played by Jamie Foxx brings the action, whilst Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker's relationship adds the lovely romance!
I also think that one of the good things about it was that it ended where inevitably the next film will pick up from which I like because I hate it when a sequel of a film comes out and it has skipped a few years.

All in all, I enjoyed it so so much, I actually left the cinema kinda wishing I was Spider-Man, haha. 

I would really recommend that you go and see it if you haven't already.

xox

sotw; keaton henson/you are always on my mind (brenda leecover)

I have been listening to a lot of Keaton Henson this week, more than normal. I think that he is an insanely talented song writer and he knows how to clock into the emotions when singing. His voice is just perfect for these types of song.

To be brutally honest, I'm not really a fan of the original, or any of the other classic versions (Elvis, Willie Nelson), I mean it's a beautiful song but I just don't enjoy listening to them. So I was pleasantly surprised when my friend showed me this version for The Crypt Sessions, it gives the song a new lease of life and I could listen to it all day long. I think this is the best version to date, but I am fairly bias as a massive Keaton Henson fan. 

I think that listening to Keaton Henson could be the best thing you do this year, so I recommend you all give him a try. He can be pretty depressing at times but who doesn't love a relatable song about love and heartbreak?

xox

The original song can be found here.

L'OREAL Nude Magique CC Cream

I was insanely excited to be using this as I'd seen it reviewed as one of the best CC creams on the market by IndyBest along with MAC Prep & Prime and Cover FX CC Cream Time Release Tinted Treatment. I had tried the MAC one previously and loved it but didn't want to spend £23 and so after seeing the IndyBest list I decided I would go for L'Oreal as it was only £9.99, boy what a waste of £10 that was.

At first I thought it was going to be great, it comes out pale green and the 'smart pigment capsules' are visible, so far so good. As I began to apply it to my face it began changing colour and I thought this was amazing, I mean to go from green to light pinky-brown in a few seconds I thought it was the best thing ever. However it didn't stop at my skin colour and kept going, until it was a streaky dark orange colour, I applied my foundation anyway just to see if it would work under it. It didn't. My face was just really quite orange, almost a reddish hue. For an 'anti-redness' CC cream I was fairly surprised. Smart pigments may be not so smart?

I'm disappointed by this because I've always quite liked L'Oreal's beauty products but this was honestly awful, at least on my skin anyway. 

It would maybe be better for someone with more of a tan colour to their skin, but definitely not for those of us who have fairly pale skin. 

To their credit, it is very lightweight, has good coverage and is SPF 20. But in terms of colour this just did not match mine.

xox

If you do think this would be a suitable product for you, you can buy it here.

sotw; arctic monkeys/it feels like we only go backwards (tame impala cover)

This week, Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner and Matt Helders were in the studio with Australian radio station Triple J and performed this amazing cover of Tame Impala's 'It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards'. 

Turner's voice has always been magical but I think it's even better in this cover. He gives it a completely different angle, it hasn't got the psychedelic feel anymore but none the less it is still a wonderful cover and I am in love. For this reason, it's my song of the week.

 If you didn't like the original, check this out and you may just fall in love too.

xox

The original song can be found here.

music review; the horrors/luminous

I won't lie, I was incredibly excited about Luminous, so much so I pre-ordered it in February. Skying has been my favourite album to date by these boys so I was bracing myself for what they could possibly follow it up with. I'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed and I have listened to it on repeat since the day it arrived, it puts me in a good mood and that's not an easy thing to do. 

I have sometimes found The Horrors not to be everybody's cup of tea however I think it would be difficult for someone to really dislike Luminous, it's not too in your face and the songs follow each other perfectly. There's lots of drums and guitars as you'd expect and Faris' vocals of course are on point. As I was listening a few of the songs reminded me of Skying which, from a group that have changed so dramatically since they began was a bit of an anti-climax, but is it really surprising as it's only been 3 years. Plus Skying was great so I'm not really complaining. 

If there is one difference it's that it's definitely slower than we're used to, especially from a band that wrote 'Sheena Is A Parasite' but I think they've taken a step in the right direction. 

All in all, if you're a Horrors fan I would definitely recommend buying this CD. Even if you're not, give it a go and you might be surprised.

xox

You can buy luminous here.

an awkward introduction

Welcome to my blog!

My name's Ellie and I am majorly bad at this sort of thing.

I'm 19 and studying Politics at Leeds University, but when I'm not at University I'm at home in a town near Bath.

I'm hoping this blog will provide you, as well as myself with some decent music, books, fashion and beauty reviews. No promises though!

Enjoy.

xox