What's in my make up bag?

As a Christmas present to myself I bought this "Zoella Lace Collar Purse" from Superdrug for £6.00, I picked this one up as I know everyone has the guinea pig ones and the eye ones. I also have a top that looks exactly like this and the bag is just the right size for the (little) amount of make up I own.

Inside my bag you will find my four essential items: firstly the Barry M Bold Waterproof Eyeliner for  £3.99. The first time I picked this up I was in a hurry to find a cheap eye liner, and little did I know what I had stumbled upon. The most amazing waterproof eyeliner I have ever owned! I didnBa't realise it was waterproof, but it really does what it says on the tin, this bad boy has survived 12hr days, and full on crying sessions! I am so impressed with this product, my only beef is that you can't sharpen it, so once it goes blunt you have to buy a new one.

Next on the right I have Collection Lengthening Mascara Black 1 for £2.99, I don't really have very many eyelashes and they aren't long and they are more defined from my profile, which is useless. Pretty much any mascara works with my lashes, but I do have a soft spot for any Collection mascara as they don't charge an arm and a leg for decent mascara.

Bottom on the left we have Barry M Lip Boss 3- Office Romance for £4.49 I previously had Barry M lipgloss which I loved but I have misplaced [insert sad emoji] so I went straight over to Barry M. I prefer light pink lip glosses, I don't know why I just prefer my lips to look slightly more pink and glossy. The container is a decent size and it lasts forever for me.

I have previously mentioned in another post how much I love my final product. It's only Collection Eye Definer Ebony 1 for the small price of £2.99 it's a total steal, I can be using the same one for up to three months depending on my variation of use and how big I make the wings on my eyes. I don't get along with any other eyeliner, I've tried felt tip liners and Collection must've known I was cheating as I could not get the same effect I wanted with the felt pens. Look out for a tutorial in the near future on how I do my eyeliner, it took me a few months and hundreds of tutorials to get it right! Eyeliner is the only make up related thing I am actually good at!

Now you've seen what's in my make up bag!

All products are from Superdrug and prices were correct as of 30th December 2015.

Saffron x

Post Christmas Haul

Hello!

For Christmas I received far too many gift cards from my loved ones, and after noticing that I had around £75 worth of New Look gift cards, I thought I would face the Christmas/New Year sales.

I also wanted to go to Top Shop as I have a number of jumpers and shirts on my wish list that I really love.

Top Shop

                              Jumper- £26

I'm a huge lover of jumpers, and I got this in the next size up for extra bagginess (and incase of shrinkage) I love the sectioning of black to white, I also like Top Shop's jumper with the addition of orange in a similar style. As I don't own anything orange, I liked the idea of incorporating it in with my wardrobe.

New Look

PJ Top- £3.00

PJ Bottoms- £7.00

Socks- Three for £4

Sports Bra- £9.99

Black Leggings- £14.99

I'm a regular at all the New Look stores in my area, I love the discount I can get as a student, and the limited 25% off you can sometimes get. I also love the socks and the multi buy deal, as I always need new socks, and especially pug ones. There wasn't too much left in the sale for my taste and size, but I managed to bag a cute new PJ set! The checked bottoms are super soft and fluffy, and the top isn't supposed to go with the bottoms (as the writing is pink and the bottoms are a blue check) but they are pyjamas and I opt for comfort these days with my jammas.

I bought a new sports bra to hopefully nudge me to go running, as that's one of my promises to myself in the New Year! And I'm forever losing my clothes at the minute, so I now own three pairs of the same black leggings with silver zips on the sides, but they last and they are so comfy!

Side Note: I got these cheaper through using my NUS Extra card, if you are a student I would 100% recommend as some stores only accept NUS and not your college/university card, depending on the store you can get around 10%.

In total I saved £10.99 which is not including the sale prices!

Saffron x

Why blog?

Hello everyone!

As I have just picked up the blogging baton again, I thought it might interest some of you as to why I am blogging. Why now? Well I used to blog a lot when I was younger, when I was in secondary school. That was mostly cringey rants, movie or book reviews, nothing special.

Last year I noticed one of my best friends started blogging, so I looked at my blogs....and decided I better start a new one as my old one's (as previously mentioned) where uber cringe worthy.

I know I'm not a beautician, hair dresser, stylist, fashion designer, baker, cook or skilled in any particular way. However, I thought I had an advantage point, I know pretty much nothing about any of the before mentioned topics (I know somethings, but not much) and I found my angle:

"NORMAL IMPERFECT GIRL ATTEMPTS MAKE-UP, BAKING ETC"

One thing I do know is, that I am imperfect, I have blemishes like everyone else, I have scars and stretch marks, my teeth aren't straight and my eye's change colour in different light. One thing I have always dreamed of being is a role model for younger girls who might be too afraid to talk to their female relations. I've never had my eye brows waxed/threaded, I've only plucked them, and badly because I had no idea what shape my eye brow was meant to be and plucked too much and now they aren't thick enough -_-.

My point being is that being an in-experienced twenty year old I can try things for the first time and write/film it for others entertainment and maybe one day make a difference to some one's life. I know I'm not going to become the next "Zoella" but blogging also helps me, I don't get as stressed and ragey, and I'm not having anxiety attacks as much. 

Today is the first day I realised how much better I actually feel, despite my usual sleepiness, I feel quite refreshed. Blogging fills up time that I used to freak out about random things, and let the anxiety take over.

So as much as it'd be nice to become a famous blogger, I am quite happy with who I am, I'm feeling relatively happy for one of the first times this year! It excites me when I think of things I want to write about, I'm even going to buy a pretty notebook to put my ideas in. Plus it will make me do things I've only dreamt of doing, I'm going to try out more make up, and flex my (lack of) baking and cooking skills.

Saffron x

Christmas Nail Varnish

Happy Boxing Day! 

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas with your family and friends, this post is post-christmas but can be used any time of the year too!

Whilst I was supposed to be shopping for my family and friends, but also to re-stock my eyeliner. I got swayed by Superdrug's offer no Barry M products. If I spent £6 or more on their brand I would get a bottle of Barry M's Gelly Hi Shine Nail Paint in Sparkling Ruby. When I saw it on the model above the products, I knew that I needed to own it.

I'm usually spotted wearing red nail varnish as it's one of my favourite colours, and this red has glitter aspects in it which made it my Christmas nail colour!

When I needed to take off the remainder of the nail varnish to re-apply for Christmas Day, I realised that it was going to be harder to shift because of the glitter in it. I learned the hard way to soak my nails previous to removing the varnish!

Barry M is one of my favourite nail brands alongside Rimmel, I find that they last longer and the colour selections suit all my nail needs!

Excuse my awesome christmas onesie! So far I've been really impressed with this varnish as it's lasted quite a while without chipping, as I use my hands a lot in my place of work and everyday life! If I could sustain growing my nails this paint would look even better for those of you with proper lady claws!

Saffron x

Winter Wonderland 2015

Hello everyone, 

I hope you're all recovering from Christmas and getting ready for the New Year!

I had wanted to go to Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland for years, and this year I managed to bully my boyfriend into going with me yippee!

As we are two students we went up to London Victoria on the National Express, for a return for both of us it cost £25 in total compared to the possible double sum to get the train. It took longer, and was slightly uncomfortable when trying to sleep, but for the money is was worth it!

Enjoy some of our snaps below:

Images courtesy of my lovely boyfriend; Connor Cleary, for once he was able to take nice photos of me!

The two attractions that we paid for were The Magical Ice Kingdom and Ice Skating, the time slot I chose for the latter was five in the evening, as I saw from the images that they have lots of fairy lights above the rink, and I thought it would be romantic. And as per I was correct! Even though my feet were blistering and my arm was hurting from holding my boyfriend up as he is not an avid ice skater.

I wouldn't have changed anything about the day, it was worth our money and it was a lovely day out with wonderful new memories. I completely recommend anyone going to Winter Wonderland, we nearly got lost in all of the cute little markets to get souvenirs or christmas presents.

As a side note I was very nervous about the day out, as it'd been a while since I'd been out for a whole day. With my anxiety I don't really like being out of the house much as my home is my comfort and sanctuary. I always worry what time I'll be back and if i'm going to have an attack or get ill, I had only one moment in Winter Wonderland. We were on our way from Oxford Street to Hyde Park and I was anxious about being late for ice skating as I didn't want to miss our slot that we had paid for! On the way I really needed to pee and there was a queue, and I was getting really close to having an anxiety attack in the middle of Winter Wonderland. 

But why? You may ask, I was having a lovely day with my boyfriend doing something I'd always wanted to do. So why was I getting so anxious? There's no reasonable explanation for it, I try to reason with it but I can't think of anything that explains why I would be so anxious in this situation. All I can do is try my breathing exercises, where I just breath in really deep and out over and over again until I feel better. The only issue is I can't tell anyone around me what's happening as it will get worse, I just power through with breathing whilst speed walking through Winter Wonderland so I can get my ice skates.

Fortunately that was my only moment, I think half the time I don't get as many as I used to because I find it so irritating I refuse to go to that place where I'm not in control.

Saffron x

Just Breathe

Merry Christmas everyone!

I have a present for you all, a little bit of insight!

Some where in the middle of July something happened to me. To which I have no clue, nothing traumatic happened, there's no explanation. I didn't realised until a couple of months later what I had. What I still have. I was feeling ill all the time, I wasn't going to work, and would often not call in sick as I hate making phone calls. Then I dodged calls from my work place as I had no idea what to tell them.

I was ill at least three or four times a week, having to live on shop bought medication so that I could try and get on with my life. I was constantly ill when I went on holiday to Turkey with my friends, I thought maybe I had caught a bug or something. I knew I was just overthinking things, and making myself ill so I tried to chill myself out, by sun bathing, swimming in the pool, and having cocktails with my friends. I started avoiding certain foods for fear that was what was making me ill.

But food doesn't make your heart beat out of your chest, and disrupt your breathing. I came to the realisation that I have anxiety. I was in denial and was hoping it was something more medical that doctors could sort out, but this is something within me. 

It's been about five months living with this. Almost everyday I have to take myself physically out of what I'm doing, going for a walk, getting fresh air. I get panicky about various things that are stressful; university work, going out with friends/family, going on holiday, days out where I won't be back home for a whole day. The were all things I enjoyed-maybe not the university work. I don't understand why these things now bother me and make me so ill and anxious? I have to partake in breathing exercises to calm myself down.

I never knew much about anxiety before, I usually only had temporary anxiety for a job interview, first day at school/college/university, or exams. But I have unexplained anxiety attacks, I can be sat in the comfort of my room watching Netflix, and I'll suddenly have to pause and breathe in and out deep breaths.

I just wanted to let anyone know who might be possibly reading this that you aren't alone, of course every always says that. But I felt alone when I didn't know what was wrong with me. Then I started opening up to my loved one's around me for some support and understanding. I actually found out that they understood and my friends and family are there for me now, not that I always tell everyone when I'm having an anxiety attack as it makes it worse to admit I'm in one to people around me. They ask me how I am, and check in on me, and I'm ever so grateful to have them in my life. I used to be closed off and wouldn't let anyone in and know my problems, but I enjoy being able to be open to people now.

In the new year I'm seeking further help with cognitive behavioural therapy, to hopefully try and find out what's at the root of this. As I've tried to put blame on various things, and help myself get out of this, but I'm too far into this now. I'm afraid of how long I will have to deal with this, how it will affect me next year; when I go on holiday, when I have deadlines at university and just waking up every day wondering when it's going to happen again.

Before I realised what I had, I found out that the YouTube vlogger "Zoella" has anxiety, and I think it's admirable for someone with so many fans and younger girls looking up to her that might have the same sort of issues, or even if they don't. That someone who's partially in the lime light still makes videos each week, can go to award ceremonies, and can have a book published that breaks selling records.

I'm obviously not in any sort of lime light and don't get invited to awards ceremonies, but I'm proud of myself for so far not dropping out of social engagements, I force myself to go. I'd rather go and not enjoy myself, than sit at home wondering how it was and looking at photo's of my friends having a good time. I go home earlier than usual now, I don't drink an awful lot, and I'm not my usual self on most days. I'm quieter now, I blend into the walls on most occasions, not that I was the centre of attention from the beginning. Anxiety has changed me, I prefer to stay in bed and watch Netflix than socialise, I love the days where I don't have to talk to anyone and I can just lie there and stop any anxiety attacks.

I know I haven't had this for very long, but it's taken over my life in more ways than I would've thought. I never had an opinion on anxiety before, as I've had panic attacks in my life but very rarely, so I guess I kind of understood anxiety a little bit.

I hope that next year will be a better year for me, and that there is a reason for the way I am, if there's no reason whatsoever this is a cruel world to go through this almost everyday. Overtime I open my laptop to do university work, every time I'm getting ready to go out to every time I even eat now.

I just wanted to reach out to others like myself, that are taken over by what they have. And to inform others of what it's like, as some people use anxiety as an excuse when really they are just being dramatic, the same with depression, some people just want attention. I hate having attention, I don't want this at all, if someone else wants it feel free to take it! 

I just want to be a normal twenty year old again.

Saffron x