Subtle Lips

   

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I have been loving wearing a more subtle lip colour recently so I thought I would share with you all my top picks. I am also currently rebuilding up my brights collection, but how many pinks can a girl own. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to support an orange lip yet! I think/hope these colour will suit most people, even though they are subtle I have selected different colours and consistencies. So from left to right -

Rimmel Apocalips - Shooting Star £5.99*

This is the newest addition to my nude lip collection. After seeing all the buzz around the bloggers it was only right to try it out. Rimmel have recently launched a range of shades entitled Apocalips and they are all perfect for Summer. The shade I have is called Shooting Star and it is a brown peachy nude, the great thing about this range is that the lip product itself is a mixture between a gloss and a lipstick. They are deeply pigmented, don’t feel sticky and are moisturising. 

Joey Speciality - Vanilla Ice and Cinnamon

I purchased this double gloss stick a good while ago now from a discount store and it was a few pounds. I thing the actual rrp is in its twenties? It doesn’t have the best staying power but the shades are perfect. Vanilla Ice is a frosted baby pink and Cinnamon is a very light coral. They are glosses but aren’t too shiny or sticky.

Gosh Cosmetics - Darling/Light Rose 134 £4.49

An original nude lipstick is a staple in everyones collection! This Gosh lipstick is the perfect nude. They have since renamed it from Darling to Light Rose. I usually use this nude lipstick with other lip colours to tone them down in order to make them paler but if you are fair and want a nude lip this is the one to go for!

Rimmel Moisture Renew - Spotlight Beige £6.49

This is my go to lipstick and I reach for it all the time. I came across this lipstick through Beautycrush who raved about it many times. Spotlight Beige is a pink/brown nude but the best thing about it is its longevity. This lipstick stays on for a reasonable amount of time and it is also creamy in consistency, this packs moisture into your lips.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please let me know your favourite summer lip colours or your go to lip products x

Thrifty: Growing your own Veg #1

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This is a bit of a different post but I am so excited to tell you about my newest hobby. As most of you may be aware I am really wanting to bring more ‘lifestyle’ into my blog. I enjoy writing about beauty and fashion but would love to add abit of diversity! I enjoy the ‘outdoors’ and something I have always loved doing is gardening, so when Debt Free Direct who run the blog Making money go further asked me to prove how much money I would save by growing my own vegetables I knew I had to accept! Between now and May is the ideal time to start sowing your seeds so if any of you are interested I would urge you to start now. Wilko’s have a fantastic range, and they are super cheap too!

I chose so many vegetable seeds I’ve lost count. I chose the easy ones like tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, watercress and the ones that are a little more difficult like rhubarb, hot chillies, onions and more! I even opted for sweetcorn! I researched like crazy and have learnt so much, it is actually quite interesting; nothing like a new hobby! At this present moment which is around 10 days after sowing all of them have successfully germinated. Now the real work starts with rearing these little beauties and hopefully in a couple of months I will have a lot of veg to show you all.

How great would it be though to just go out into the garden and pick out some fresh veg. When you go into the supermarket the majority of the fruit and veg are from the other side of the world and have had so many chemicals sprayed on them to ensure they don’t go off in transit. When you think of it like that its hardly ideal. I think growing your own veg enables you to know exactly what has been put on it of anything.

I personally am always on a tight budget so organic vegetables for me are a no-no. But hopefully if/when my own vegetables grow I will have an endless supply!

Last year we had an accidental harvest, quite a funny story really. We gave the pet rabbit strawberries and tomatoes to eat and he always leaves the seeds and fast forward about a month later and we had plants! The fruit that came off them was amazing, and they didn’t need much care. The tomato plant died hover from the frost but the strawberry plant is still going strong!

You don’t have to have the biggest house/garden to grow veg, the windowsill is another great place and pots don’t take up much space either. And if you are on a really tight budget use old yoghurt containers when sowing the seeds, just make sure you poke some drainage holes on the bottom and place them on a warm surface like the washing machine. Another great tip is cover the top with cling film so the heat stays in and water when the solid goes dry, for me this was everyday, sometimes twice a day. Then once they germinate take the cover off and give them as much light as possible and then put them into bigger pots!

I will be replanting these into larger pots later on in the week and will also try and get them used to the outside temperature as that is where they will be going. I have so many good gardening accessories too from Wilko’s and will show you the set up in the next post. 

This is another great way if you are limited on space and money - the bottle tower planter!

I hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully feel inspired about growing our own veg in order to save money. Let me know if you have any tips and also what you think of the idea!

*Making money go further (Debt Free Direct) provided vegetable seeds and gardening accessories in order to write up this post. All opinions are my own.

DietChef: The Plan

I’m always interested in reading about new diets, actually doing them is another thing. I heard of DietChef when they first launched years ago. DietChef does all the work for you, so if your anything like me you’ll love the convenience which is something most diet plans lack. No cooking,measuring or counting is involved. I still need to lose a few more pounds till I reach my goal weight and have unfortunately reached a plateau. I am so excited to trial DietChef plan in order to try and lose weight.

Each day you will have Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and a Snack. Meals should be accompanied with fruit/veg. The total calorie intake ranges around 1200. An average persons BMR (energy you burn off without actually exercising) is usually around that mark so this is ideal as you don’t really need to exercise, although it would be beneficial to in order to lose more weight. 

This diet is calorie controlled, and when you look at the menu online you wouldn’t believe it. Chocolate granola and Maple syrup popcorn?! I am so excited to try the range. DietChef runs a delivery system, so all you need to do is choose what it is you’d like and then it is delivered straight to your door. 

Where needed the food can be heated up in the microwave within around 2 minutes. This is the epitome of convenience. No need to spend hours preparing and no need to spend ages heating things up!

Studies suggest the DietChef plan is 3x more likely to work than any self regimented diet because everything is already prepared for you and it is delivered straight to your door. DietChef also have a live chat function available on there website so you have someone there to help you should you have any queries or are looking for advice.

I am trailing the 4 week plan which includes 28 breakfasts, 28 lunches, 28 dinners and 28 snacks. I wasn’t expecting there to be such an amazing range of foods so I was very surprised! I spent a while scrolling through the site and found so many I liked the look of. I’ve been off meat recently so I decided to opt for the vegetarian diet. As mentioned before also I not longer eat chocolate so I didn’t order food with chocolate in it either. Even still the range is amazing and I choose so many different items.

• Breakfasts range from a variety of cookies, muesli, granola, shakes and porridge and the ingredients work to boost your metabolism and provide you with enough energy till your next meal. They can be accompanied with milk, yoghurt or fruit.
• Lunches range from a variety of soups, pasta and more, they can be accompanied by a bread roll. Protein bars and shakes are great for those days when you are on the go.
• Dinners range from Italians, Chinese, British, Mexican, Indian and more. There is a great range from curries to pastas to lasagnes etc! These would go great with vegetables or even sale to bulk up.
• Snacks range from a variety of popcorn, biscuits, crisps, protein bars and oat bars.

                                      *all in varied flavours/ accompaniments must meet serving size suggestions.

The four week plan is suited to those who want to lose less than a stone and costs £61.25 a week.
The lengthier the plan the cheaper the weekly price gets and the more weight you can lose. 

As I type this I have already just had 2 whole days on the DietChef plan. Yesterday I had Luxury Muesli for breakfast, Minestrone soup for lunch, Taka Daal for dinner and Salt & Vinegar popcorn as a snack and today I tried different items which I will blog more about soon. Although I didn’t specifically count the calories I have read they equate to 1200 or less. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and I am sure I will enjoy the 4 week plan!

The serving suggestion pictures on the website look amazing! I can’t wait to try out the other food, and I will let you all know next week how it is going.

*This post contains PR samples provided for review consideration