My free drug store make up haul

To start off, I'd like to say happy 2017 and sorry for neglecting my blog. Unsure if I actually have any readers, it would be a positive to actually write again, even if I do it just for myself. My Youtube account is active more than ever at the moment and have gained a decent amount of subscribers toward the beginning of this year, but after feeling inspired, I felt to write a short blog about my free items I obtained today!

So, no, I didn't go dumpster diving or committing any sinister activities. My local Superdrug were celebrating their birthday today, and being a Beauty Card holder, I was treated to a free basket to celebrate. You are eligible every Thursday, I believe, to win a free basket, so you don't just have to catch them on a great day. I put around £18 worth of items in my basket, so not an enormous haul, but enough to brighten up a rainy day!

The first item I got was the MUA Luxe Lip Lacquer in Harmony. I was looking for a warm nude that was both matte on the lips but not flaky or drying. I had been wearing Lime Crime Buffy for the past year or so, but it's time to accept there is not an ounce of product left in that bottle!

I would not say it's a direct dupe of Buffy, but it's a close alternative and very affordable. I have cool toned, very pale skin, so a warm nude is best for my skin tone.




For the past year or so, I've been using Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow in Ebony, along with the Morphe E29 angled brow/spoolie brush. I am probably guilty of allowing my pomade to dry out, and wanted to grab something affordable and available to me straight away.

Most brands are doing their own pomades now, but I'm such a fan of Make Up Revolution, this was perfect for me. The pomade advertised coming with a double ended brush which I assumed would have a spoolie, so I picked up the Studio double ended smokey eye brush just for the angled brush end, as it was a longer brush so more controllable.

Neither brushes had a spoolie so I will probably repurchase the E29 Morphe Brush (I am too lazy for brush cleaning, and it's very cheap anyway) to use with the pomade as I was really happy with it. I got shade 'dark brown'.

I am of the era of Dream Matte Mousse, foundation lips and 3 shades darker foundation whilst in high school. Something I have repurchased often has been the Collection Naturally Matte foundation and Sheer Loose Powder. The foundation and powder are both so inexpensive they were on a two for £5 offer. The powder works well for setting concealer and is a great drugstore alternative to higher end setting powders. The foundation is of course no Studio Fluid Fix, but mixed with moisturiser it's great for in the day time to give light coverage. This foundation is notorious for oxidising throughout the day, however it is very matte so great just to avoid an oily shine, which is why I buy the lightest shade in Porcelain and usually wear for a light make up look and mix with a liquid based primer.

Of course, hindsight is beautiful and had I known I was going to get a free basket, I'd have bought the Cleopatra's Kiss palette I have been wanting and had a better look for Freedom's Rainbow highlighter. However, the £18 I saved did mean I could purchase more make up from other places and I am loving Models Own Dare to Bare collection at the moment, as well as lusting over Kylie Cosmetics Valentine's Day collection. Although that glitter graphic on the homepage is reminding me of every year 7's Piczo website in 2006.

Along with the above mentioned products, I used Anastasia Beverly Hills Cream Contour in fair to sculpt, as well as L'Oreal Miss Manga mascara, Rimmel London Glam Eyes and Technic Highlighter in pink, which is a dupe of Benefit's High Beam.

I'm officially a Pro-Youtuber

Only joking, but I did just make my account and finally upload my first video.

I feel so awkward and uncomfortable, but it's something I've always wanted to do but always felt too ugly for Youtube. I've decided this is something I want to do and shouldn't let others comments influence that since my passion is hair and beauty and I want to work with some companies that I love and the only way to do that is to put myself out there.

My first video is about how I make my tape in hair extensions. I might blog less and use Youtube more as this is a bigger platform.

Please comment, like and subscribe, I'm so new to this I had to use iMovie and my iPhone because I still don't know how to use my camera properly and I have no special software but hey at least I'm trying. 

BHF Hair Company Review- Wrap Around Ponytail

I've wanted a wrap around ponytail for so long, but the problem is I just don't like synthetic hair. You can't match it to your own colour and it just doesn't look real. I can't get along with it at all, not even for the price. I've become savvy in my ways with buying hair that I do get good deals so if I needed hair, I would be able to get something substantial for a decent price rather than resorting to buying something that I know will not match the colour or texture of my hair.

I started looking for natural human hair ponytails and because I hated the synthetic wrap around ones or claw clip ones online. The only company that offered different lengths and a wide range of colours were Flipin Hair with their Pasoday Ponytail. I change my hair colour so much however that their prices just weren't achievable to me, since I knew I would have to dye it to match anyway.

This is where aliexpress came to the rescue, there are so many suppliers of natural human hair ponytails in so many different lengths, weights and colours for decent prices. I went with BHF Hair Company and ordered 12" 120g in #27 which cost £26.59 and the shipping was free, and standard so 15-29 days. I'm really unsure what their company is called, it said BHF Hair on the item, but their aliexpress store says 'Ali Real Beauty Hair'. Either way, you are taken to the exact item I was happy with via that link!

 I got an email later that day saying that the colour #27 was out of stock, which I was annoyed about because it's the perfect base to dye red as it's a very warm, single toned blonde. The company offered #27/613 which was the highlighted ginger/blonde I used to wear back in the day. Out of curiosity I asked if they did 14" too, because I knew in a few months I would probably want to order one again and was just interested to know. Straight away, whoever I'd spoken to said yes, we will send this out today with express delivery! This was so kind of them, as it was only a minor inconvenience with the colour and it didn't really matter because I was going to dye it anyway. 

Making a clip in U-part wig

The difference between a clip in U part wig and clip in hair extensions, is that the wig is one piece of thick hair that covers all of your own hair apart from a parting that you leave out the blend the hair from the scalp. Clip in hair extensions are bulky for how much hair I like to wear and can take a while to put in and style every day. I also wanted to keep my own hair from sun damage when I go holiday this year, as it go so badly damaged last year, I had to dye it dark and I'm loving my bright red at the moment. I'm going to tell you how I coloured, constructed and styled the wig from the outset. This is what the wig looked like on:

I used 14", 16", 18" and 20" hair from Fashion Leader Hair, an aliexpress vendor I would buy from again and again! The hair I bought was body wave and in colours 4 (medium brown) and 1B (natural black). There was about 500g of hair in total and it has to be bleached to be dyed red, I used 40vol peroxide with blue dust free powder bleach, then dyed over that with Mellor and Russell Red Alert as its 99p for a box in Savers and I needed about 12 boxes to cover all the hair. To bleach and dye hair, you'll need foil to protect your surfaces, disposable gloves, mixing bowls and tinting brushes. All of this is available at your local beauty supply store, as well as discount stores like B&M, Homebargains, Poundland etc if you're in the UK, I'm sure if you're elsewhere in the world your discount stores will sell them too, and of course eBay is your friend!

I mixed the bleach and peroxide to a cake batter like consistency, saturated the hair in in, folded it in the foil for about 15 minutes. The hair being brown, and using 40 vol bleach, the hair didn't take long to process light enough to put the red on. After rinsing and leaving the hair to dry, I applied the red to the hair, then again rinsed and left to dry. I cut the wefts into approximately 10" strips to make it easier to sew in rows as well.

iPhone SE unboxing and Aliexpress 6th Anniversary Sale Haul- Phone Cases

I recently upgraded from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone SE. My reason for this is that the SE has all the features of the 6S but the size of an iPhone 5, which is convenient for me because my hands are quite small. I do miss the big screen but in the long run this is better for me, and the camera is better quality than the one on my previous phone and the selfie-flash feature is doing it for me right now! I have the phone in Rose Gold and 64GB.

Originally, I'd preordered with Apple around a week before the release date. I didn't get a confirmation email for a few days however, and it said that I would get my iPhone between the 5th and 7th of April. This didn't seem right for a preorder, the phone was meant to come out on the 31st March but they said I'd 'just missed' the first lot of preorder stock, but if they could get one earlier to me, they would. The 31st came around, still no shipment notification. On the 1st April, I called again, because I was receiving emails saying I could just pick one up from my local Apple store, and that there was stock in Birmingham and Solihull. They said I couldn't go into store and collect one, but I would have to cancel my order and re-apply for financing in store and then if they have one, they could give me one there and then but if not, it would be another 5-7 days. The person on the phone
still couldn't tell me when I would receive my phone, but in the end I cancelled my order with them and ordered with Argos, and received it the next day on 2nd April. I'd never had such slow service with Apple, but they were just being so slow and unhelpful I shouldn't have had to wait so long for something I'd preordered.

The phone is built just like an iPhone 5, so is sleek and compact. The colour is pretty and I like that it has all the great features I was used to, including Apple Pay.

I bought an unofficial charger in rose gold to match, as well as earphones because I went crazy and couldn't get enough.

Recovery from damaged hair: One year without broken tufts, missing patches and frazzled ends

Okay so, it's not quite a year, it's been ten months. But it is about four years since I first decided to start bleaching my own hair at home. I began with thick, curly brown hair that reached just above my waist when I decided I wanted it "ombré", in quotation marks because it really wasn't ombre. It was medium brown with a line of demarkation to yellow bleach blonde tips. It didn't even start until near my chest and always looked odd when in a ponytail or a bun. This started in 2012, which was actually a time before at home ombré kits, balayage instagram trends and Guy Tang blessing us with video tutorials every week. I included a photo of how my at home ombré used to look in 2012, compared to earlier this year when actually none of my hair was bleached but I did the colour myself on hair extensions and found feathering, blending and using more than one tone of blonde.

This started a number of problems for me, as about 6 months after I took that photo, I decided I wanted blonde all over. I went to my local drugstore, bought about 10 bottles and sachets of Jerome Russell 30 vol bleach, had no experience or done any research and began slopping it on my head. It didn't go as badly as I would have you believe, but the bleach blonde on the ends of my hair that I wanted all over, had to go. I had about 4-6 inches cut off my hair, had a fringe and layers cut back in to repair the damage I'd caused and my hair was still thick and full. I was a little upset that I'd had so much cut off, but it needed it and this is probably where my addiction to hair extensions began. I could walk into any beauty supply store in the world, pick up an 18" pack of 27/613 highlighted blonde and it would be perfect.




I'd discovered my mixture of dark and light blonde that everyone was complimenting me on simply wasn't enough and I wanted it lighter. No matter what I did, I always felt I could always get my hair lighter. My hair was becoming fried and I genuinely didn't notice, and if anyone said anything, I was in denial. I think the worst point was when I was gluing bits of hair extension in to my "fringe" that was about 1-2 inches of pure frazzled hair, picture inserted. I honestly didn't realise this wasn't a bad look. The turning point for me however, was coming home from my holiday in June 2015, about to start at a new store with new people who I refused to let lecture me on my fried hair. I ordered 3 bundles of dark hair, went to Savers and bought 10 boxes of hair dye and let my hairs journey back to health begin! The whole time I had damaged hair, I could barely put it all into a ponytail. I couldn't reach my fringe back into a hair tie to put it out my face and I relied solely on hair extensions, as in, literally addicted. I could not go out the house without them in to mask all the broken, sticking out hair. As bombshell as it looked, there was nothing to be proud of here, because every single part was extensions, my hair was so short you couldn't even see the underneath layers when it was down

Dresslink Haul #2

I recently posted my DressLink haul, which was actually from February using photos from my old blog. I decided to place another order from Dresslink because I was pretty impressed with most of the stuff I got from there. I placed the order on 9th April 2016 and received it on the 18th April. I did pay for shipping with Fed-ex as it was only $2 more than the standard shipping, I still think it's overpriced though. Even though Fed-ex promised to deliver within 3-7 days, at $23.36, approximately £16, I still think their shipping is just too much. I understand it goes on weight but I hate websites where the more you buy, the more you pay for shipping. It should be the complete opposite, I get the same thing from everything5pounds, it's like you're being punished for buying cheap clothing! The shipping said 3-7 days and I received it in 9 which is a little annoying, they didn't ship for a few days and I really struggled to track my parcel through their website, as although Fed-ex texted me when the parcel had been picked up, the shipment on my account was from 2014, which is odd considering I only found this website earlier on this year.


 Like I always say with cheap, Chinese fashion, you have to be careful with sizing. I am a size 10 on top and a 12 on bottom (UK sizing, between a M-L in generic fashion) so usually go for the L or XL option.


The first item was this two piece, I bought this entirely because it was in the $0.01 sale. A playsuit I'd previously paid £12.99 was also in this sale, so I was kind of mad. I'll probably take it on holiday with me though as I can really see myself wearing it in rainy Britain. You can buy it here, I got it in size L and I probably should have got an XL because although it fits, it doesn't fit me like it fits the model. It will look cute when I've lost a few pounds and I'm hoping to before my holiday. It has a really annoying zip on the side of the top so there is four fastenings on the outfit altogether, along with both bows and a button at the back of the neck. The material is nice, kind of thin but again will look better in half a stones time.