Christmas Party #2 Cowboy Hat and Fancy Dress

Saturday night, another Christmas party.  This time there was a theme.  A Disney theme.  I had a couple of ideas including Ariel from Little Mermaid which is appropriate for my hair colour, or Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas which is a film I love.  But then I went and dyed my hair brown, and I really didn't have too much time on my hands.  In fact, it got to Saturday afternoon and I still wasn't completely sure what I was going to wear.  I took a trip to a fancy dress shop, spotted a cowboy hat and decided I was going to be Jessie from Toy Story.

Think I was disorganised?  I then ironed a white shirt, went to put it on and realised it had a huge stain down the front.  Massive fail.  But finally I decided on an outfit, even if it did look like I had gone to the minimal amount of effort.

Blouse from Primark, shoes and trousers from New Look, and hat from local fancy dress shop.  See! My hair is brown! I still don't expect to see myself with brown hair everyone I look in the mirror, it feels so strange!

Now the Christmas parties are over I can focus on my last few days at work before I get a couple of days off for Christmas. Yay!

Christmas Party #1 Sequins and Silver

Friday was the evening of my work Christmas party. As per usual I left it until the last minute to get a dress.  I was starting to panic when at the last minute I fell in love with a dress from Warehouse on the ASOS website which you can find here.

This dress was perfect for me.  It is covered in sequins, and I am in love with sequins at the moment.  It was the perfect fit, leaving a little bit of room around the waist for food and drink, and was the perfect length.

It was a good night with lots of yummy food, including a lovely Christmas dinner, plenty of drink (perhaps a bit too much), and a good deal of laughter with some dancing to finishing the evening off.  Not leaving out the part where we went into town after, I slipped in a puddle of drink and now my knee is purple and very swollen.  So accident prone.

Al in all a lovely evening and I am now feeling even more Christmassy.

Christmas Nails

It was my work Christmas party last night and I thought I would do something different with my nails.  I had a little idea in my head to create Santa nails, and that it what I did.  They're not perfect but I think they are pretty good!

To create this look I used Maybelline Colorama French White 51, Mavala Rouge Rubis 385 and OPI Gaining Mole-Mentum.

What are your favourite nail designs this winter?

Love The Skin You're In, Scars And All

This is something that is very personal to me.  Everyone cares about their looks one way or another, myself included.  But not everyone looks perfect.  In fact, no one is perfect.  I am going to share something that happened to me.  I have only ever told one person this story, and not the full story.  So for the first time I tell this story... it's to the world.  Scary huh?

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Four years ago I had an injury.  I won't go into the full details but I was basically dropped onto my face.  The damage was pretty bad.  A few teeth were broken in half and the damage to my face itself was bad.  If anyone knows me well they know that I take pride in my teeth.  I didn't spend seven years of having braces for nothing.  My teeth were perfect in my mind, so for this to happen was catastrophic for me.  As for the skin itself, your face is the thing that everyone sees.  To have so many physical injuries and imperfections was heart breaking to me.  This may seem pretty vain, but these were my initial thoughts.

On the way home from the hospital I remember stopping at the shop so my mum could go and get all the prescriptions for my painkillers and antibiotics.  I of course stayed in the car as I didn't want anyone to see me.  I remember a group of teenagers walking past the car, stopping, pointing and staring.  It was possibly one of the worst feelings in the world.  I didn't know where to hide, I had no where to hide.  So I closed my eyes and pretended they weren't there.  I should have told them to eff off if I could speak at the time.

Fast forward to four weeks later, the awful teeth problem was fixed, and the facial wounds were healing nicely.  I went back to university for the first time, feeling terribly nervous as I still couldn't speak properly. I had a lisp for months, and I still can't say some words properly to this day.  I felt sick stepping into class, wondering if anyone was going to judge me on my new looks.  Of course it went fine which gave me a little step of confidence, no one said a word.

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That was back in 2010.  I still have scars on my face.  Luckily they have faded somewhat but you can still see them.  The scars are on my chin and under my nose.  I feel self-conscious of them.  Since the injury  I had never been out of the house without make-up, afraid of people seeing those ugly scars.  Recently I have been able to step out of the house without make-up on, just a few times.  The scars are part of me now, I am used to them and I don't care what anyone else thinks.  Although sometimes the scars do flare up and turn red, this is when I feel self-conscious.

Since the injury my jaw clicks a lot.  This is only a minor problem but sometimes I get jaw pain too.  Maybe I should have had an x-ray at the time.  I have scars inside my mouth and sometimes they open up, when this happens sometimes they bleed.  I hate it when this happens as it is so painful, sometimes I wake up with blood around my lips from the scars that have been bleeding in the night.  Maybe I needed stitches.  My nose is wonky.  When I compare photos from before the injury to now, my nose has changed and it is slightly wonky.  I don't know how this happened, I don't remember injuring my nose.  My lips are also slightly wonky and misshapen which is understandable considering the injuries.  However this is so slight that it is probably only noticeable if you study my face very closely.

Then there's the problem with the teeth.  Now, I have a massive fear of going to the dentist.  At the age of 24 my Mum or Dad still have to come to the dentist with me and I shake with nerves.  However, no matter how many times I visit different dentists each year, they just can't get my teeth right.  They are now slightly wonky, they aren't perfectly white and sometimes they hurt.

These are all minor things.  You probably can't notice them from far away, but I see them every day.  It could have been much worse.  I could have broken any bones in my face, or fractured my skull or even had a brain injury.  I got off lightly and was lucky.  I am still in one piece.

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There is a message to this long-winded story.  I have spent all of this time hating the way I look.  Ranging from thoughts of hoping my looks would get better, to thinking I will always be ugly.  Instead, I should have been focusing on learning to like my looks.  I will never say that I like the scars and imperfections on my face, but I have learnt to accept them.  They are part of me and who I am now.  I like the way I look.  I know this all sounds pretty drastic.  If you were to compare a photo of me from before 2010 to a picture of me now, I still look like the same person overall.

I just think that why waste my time being unhappy on how I look, if I can be out there being happy and having fun with new experiences.  These vain worries of mine are so minor compared to some people out there.  Why worry about what is on my face when there are others who have injuries and illnesses that are one hundred times worse than mine.  When you put it like that, I feel guilty for worrying about a few scars on my chin.

I like the way I look and I feel great about that.

Yearly Summary 2014

I have been reading blogs on what other people have achieved throughout the year, and this has got me thinking.  What have I achieved during 2014?  I cannot think of anything.  Not one single thing.  Has this year really been that meaningless?
Honestly, no, I don't think this year has been meaningless.  It's been a completely stress free year, full of smiles and laughter, and that feels awesome!
I have gone through the photos on my phone from the year and have selected the best ones to sum up my year!

January

I have come across this picture of me wearing a beard.  I cannot for the life of me remember why on earth I was wearing this beard, but I like it. This beard has definitely made a reappearance at other points throughout the year.

February

I went to the gym a lot.  It was time to get serious about fitness, and I have come so far since then!  My body looks so much better now I have gotten into a proper gym routine.

March

One heck of a St Patrick's Day party ensued, meaning lots of fun. and lots of beers.  Being drunk in London in the middle of the day is really quite strange, you step out of the club and you're like woah, it's still day light.  I love how friendly everyone is to each other on St Paddy's Day.

April

In April I must have overindulged on alcohol as pretty much every week I have pictures of nights out or lots of drinks.  Oops.

May

In May I brightened up my wardrobe, swapping my usual all year round dark and dingy colours for brighter colours.  I also dyed my hair this lovely colour.  May involved a week long holiday to Ibiza which was exactly what I needed, sun and relaxation.  We ended up at an awesome hippy market where there were loads of cool bands playing.  It was such a cool place.  I loved every second of Ibiza and would definitely go back.  The beaches were lovely.

June

Since I don't have a garden in my flat, when the sun started to appear I spent every possible moment at my parents house making the most of their garden.  I really wanted a tan!

July

The month I turned 24.  It seemed so old!  A few days after my birthday I packed my bags and jumped on the place to Barcelona.  I had never been there before and loved every second of it.  A few days in, we boarded the train and headed for Benicassim where we camped for a week and went to the music festival.  Camping in Spain in July was HOT. The festival was so, so good.  Then after we headed back to Barcelona for a few days to recuperate.  Such a good holiday!!  I had the time of my life.

August

This month seems to have been the time of pulling funny faces in pictures meaning very non-attractive pictures!  I found this picture from a night when I found a vase of roses in a bar and insisted on having my picture taken with the flower.  On this night we went for drinks with a friend that was leaving, there was lots of craziness that night.

September

I got pierced.  Now that's a funny story.  One Friday night after a few drinks one of my friends decided that they were going to get a piercing the next day, then another friend decided to go along too.  Then I was like hey why not, I will come too.  You can tell which is the new piercing in this picture from the redness and slight swelling.  This is the least I have ever thought about getting a piercing, such a spur of the moment thing!

October

The most talked about night of the month.  The night we went out dressed as pirates.  I was super excited as I love dressing up.  I wore a black bralet under a white shirt with a red skirt.  I added a belt which I tucked my sword into.  My black boots were perfect for this outfit and the pirate hat and eyepatch finished the look off. (Oh the state of that mirror.)

November

Remember, remember the 5th of November.  I love firework night!! This is my favourite night of November.  We went to the local park where they were having a firework display, it was such an awesome display and I watched in amazement.  There was a fair and we drank yummy hot chocolate in the cold.

December

The month of Christmas jumpers!  December has been fairly dull but with a couple of Christmas parties coming up it is sure to liven up!

All in all, an awesome year!!

Four Most Used Hair Products

My hair is my favourite thing about me.  It has always seemed so healthy and nice looking.  But years of dying and straightening had taken it's toll and it got to a point in the spring where my hair was looking a little dull and excessive amounts of hair seemed to be falling out every time I touched it.

Back in July I made the decision to grow my hair, and I decided that I was going to take it seriously.  No more dying, and no more straightening!  I prefer my hair short and red, so this has been a real challenge.  I haven't touched a single drop of hair dye and well, I have straightened my hair, but only the bare minimum.  The last five months of no hair dying has been so tough.  Each time I go in to the supermarket I eye up the hair dyes before reminding myself NO! The roots, don't get me started on those light brown roots!

So what products have I been using on my hair?  There are four main products that I have been using.


Renewing Moroccan Argan Penetrating Oil

I randomly picked this up in the supermarket when looking for a hair oil before dying my hair.  I immediately fell in love with it.  Firstly it smells so good!!  I could smell my hair all day.  I apply this to damp, towel dried hair.  I then comb it through and blow dry.  This oil makes my hair feel so soft and creates a little shine.  My hair is no longer dry and feels so silky.  I will purchase this time and time again.  My hair has never felt so soft!


Batiste Dry Shampoo - Cherry

My Mum once told to never use dry shampoo as it's bad for your hair.  I honestly have no idea how true that it.  But I didn't listen to her and went ahead and bought the stuff anyway.  Then again, and again.  I first bought dry shampoo went I went to a festival and felt like it really freshened up my hair.  Now I use it in between washes.  I don't wash my hair very often.  Only once, or twice a week.  Gross I know.  I do have some excuses though.  Firstly, I have my hair up in a bun every day for work.  Newly washed hair and buns just don't go well together. Also I have such a busy life and... ok yes I would get time to wash my hair. Maybe I am just lazy.  Anyhow, using this dry shampoo in between hair washes gets rid of the oil leaving it feeling fresh and cleaner.  The cherry flavour smells good too.  Just make sure you massage this product through your hair!! The first time I used this I didn't and ended up with grey looking hair.  Not a good look!


Head & Shoulders

I use this product as I feel it is one of the few shampoos that gives me a thorough wash.  It smells so good, my hair smells like apples!  My hair feels so clean after using this product.  If I have been adding a lot of hair spray to my hair styles I feel that this product completely washes that out.  I will always have a stock of this shampoo.


Johnson's Baby Shampoo

Babies can use it.  So can I.  Don't you just love the smell of baby shampoo?  I feel like this stuff gives my hair a good enough wash.  I give my hair one wash with Head & Shoulders first, then Baby Shampoo for the second wash.  Another plus of using this is that I get shampoo in my eyes all the time, with this product I don't get that awful red eye puffy look after my shower.  I am sold!


Can you recommend any hair products to me?

This Weeks Loves

It's been a pretty unadventurous week for me.  With working, being really ill and working night shifts this week seems like a blur.  So today I bring you the things I have been loving this week.

 1. Christmas jumper and pyjamas combo.  I have been living in this sort of wear all week.  Feeling ill and wanting to keep warm has left me with no option but to don the Christmas jumper and pjs.

2. Messy hair is allowed for sick days and snuggling in bed.  Oh ok then perhaps I have the messy bun look at work too but it's dark in the mornings.  Poor excuse.

3. 'Tis the season to be sparkly with OPI Nail Lacquer Gaining Mole-Mentum.

4. Clinique Airbrush Concealer in fair, because every day can't be a perfect skin day.  This is my go to concealer at the moment,

5. Cold days = Hot Chocolate.

6. Saturday night out in London.  Got to love a bathroom picture.  I love, love this playsuit from Zara.  It's the perfect fit!

7. More glittery nails.  Can't get enough of the stuff!!

8. Frosty mornings and freezing evenings mean my selection of hats are out!

I hope you have all had a good week!