Birthday :)

Hey gang, hope you're marvellous

I just wanted to quickly say that it's my birthday it 40 minutes (30th Jan). Woo! So I've been busy/will be for the next few days with festivities, but I'll be back soon with lots more make-up, beauty and health posts :)

Hope you all had a lush weekend,

Livvy

Chocolate and Trainers: The Battle of Lust and Necessity.

Hey gang, hope you're smashing (wondering how many words I can find for 'good', I'm up for the challenge of finding out ;))

I'm in a rush today as my birthday's on Monday and I basically don't plan on stopping celebrating from now until next Sunday... I'm definitely a Princess when it comes to my birthday, everyone has to know about it! (Hey, I'm single, let me enjoy the annual attention ;)) As I type I should be cooking dinner for my friend who's coming for stomach lining pre-drinking. I'm making risotto which is my signature dish, i.e. the one of few things I can cook without a recipe book. It's just vegetables and rice so nice and healthy, although you do get rice belly before you go out which is not too sexy fine. Off topic quite a bit there, what I meant was that I love finding lovely healthy recipes so let me know if you have any/want to know any of mine? (I'm veggie btw :))

On to the actual subject of the title... Today I had one of the daily dilemmas someone trying to be healthy struggles with. My new trainers had arrived yesterday from Reebok.

Reebok Runtone Ready. I'll give a proper review on these when I've used them a fair bit. Apologies for having walked about before photographing them, I'm still new to this blogging business ;)

I was meeting my Dad for lunch (more specifically getting the money off him for the trainers, he's obsessed with buying anything health related. He tried to buy me an exercise and it took me AND my brother to point out to him that we live in a second story flat and didn't want to fall through someone's ceiling sweating/make someone think there was an earthquake beneath them). My plan was to go for a walk after lunch (I had a tomato and avacado salad and dough balls, not saintly but by no means the pizza I had to physically restrain myself from ordering. Pizza = Number 1 weakness). However, my ankle was playing up a bit and my Dad had just given me cash for my trainers. Hideous move for a shopaholic - I ended up in Primark. I also ended up with this...

Temptation in all it's melting, sweet scented, creamy, cocoa-ey goodness. Or badness.

So suddenly I was at home, ankle hurting, trainers walked in for about an hour and eating a massive bar of chocolate. It's not like I was hungry. I think 2 things lead me here 1) Habit; if you're used to getting chocolate you'll get it. Equally if you're not used to getting it you'll only notice you don't have it when you walk up to a chocolate fountain and give it a great sniff. Really want some chocolate now, which leads me to 2) Desire; we all WANT things. People reading this who are in to beauty and make-up for example are used to WANTing things. I want Chanel nail varnish and NARS foundation, but I don't buy it because I know I can't afford it and don't need it. Everyone has a different vice. The trick is to remember it's a WANT NOT A NEED. You'll also find once you change your lifestyle about your wants change, you learn to love you Bourjois foundation and your bank account suddenly doesn't want to punch you. You learn to want to exercise because even though you pant and sweat your way through it, you feel amazing afterwards (after a shower too that is, me and my housemates at Uni used to exercise together. The last person to the shower often looked like the endorphins had warn off a little. No one likes sitting in their own sweat, however much hard work it shows).

I've just reminded myself I think, how I felt after I exercised. Maybe this blogging about a healthy lifestyle is a good plan. Hopefully you can all appreciate I'm coming at this from a genuine angle, after all I've done it before and so I CAN do it again. And if you need to healthy up a bit you can do it with me :) Next time I think I'll choose the trainers over the chocolate.

If you're not interested in health blogs don't panic, I've got a post on my criminally large mascara collection soon. If you are interested in the health side of things please let me know what sort of posts you'd like to read about; my previous experiences, exercise tips, ways to make the gym bareable, at home exercise, what foods to eat, when to eat? Etc.

Ta for reading. If you're interested in health and beauty posts please follow and comment :)
I'll be reviewing this book as soon as I've finished it...

I'm LOVING this no nonsense, motivational book!

Looks like dinner's going to be late, eek ;)

Livvy xo

Weight Loss/Gain Posts?

Hey gang, hope you're all good :)

I've been seeing a few blog posts recently about weight loss and such like. You know January fitness regimes, healthy eating resolutions etc. I mentioned yesterday that I am of the "squidgy" body type. Let's just say I need my arse safely secured on to the weight loss band wagon.

To cut to the chase, I lost 4 stone about 3 years ago, over a period of around 18 months. I was still a chubster but healthy and happy. More curvy than lardy. I still felt inadequate and massive. Anyway I put a LOT of weight on last year as I've previously mentioned it was a terrible year, again I won't go in to that here.

Me pre and post weight loss (pre-weight gain) :(

So I'm obviously just baby stepping back in to the world of health. Given my previous experience I'm hoping I've got some good tips and tricks to keep me motivated/help me be successful. I was just wondering, does anyone want to read about my journey or some good exercise/weight loss tips? Just to be clear my actual weight loss and healthy lifestyle was very successful. I just turned to food when times got rough, which is another thing that needs to be dealt with. But hey ho, 1 thing at a time :)

I just thought I'd see if anyone was interested in that sort of post because I know I love reading them. And ultimately I think being healthy is definitely in the interest of everyone interested in beauty. :)

Let me know what you think,

Livvy xo

P.s. Sorry for the short post, I'm still feeling uncomfortable talking about it all.

Free-Styler (Rock the Microphone ;))

Hey gang, hope you're all spiffing (Just watched Masterchef and they were cooking at a Jane Austen convention. Immense).

Today I thought I'd share with you my complete lack of fashion. Now it's not that I have no sense in fashion, I just have two major problems. A) I'm on the 'squidgier' side of life, so trousers make me look like a toffee apple (so sexy ;)) and B) I like statement pieces, so unfortunately I spend all my money on funky items that really don't go together (staple wardrobe items needed). In fact a look I frequent is the 'just fell in to my wardrobe and left the house like that' look. This is not too far from my make-up story a few months ago. I loved make-up but I'd just whack colours on my face that I liked, even if they didn't go with my skin tone (for example pink eyeshadow makes me look like I have pink eye, beautiful). I've learnt a lot about make-up from Youtube and blogs now, although there are still some faux pas (too much white eyeliner on the water line, smokey eyes AND dark lips... If the Pixiewoo sisters are Make-up doctors, I'm at like GCSE level ;)). So as I was browsing for make-up books the other day I thought I'd purchase something a bit different:

Style - Lauren Conrad

I confess (with some pride, as I normally indulge in reality tv) that I haven't watched too many episode of The Hills. Thankfully. My mind is a Snorlax already (big up Pokemon ;)), I think too much time watching it would have started killing off my already lounging brain cells. I've seen enough to know who the people in it are though, and out of all of them Whitney and Lauren are the two I can stand. Spencer needs a smack round the face, but that's not relevant (also irrelevant, I would kill to look like Audrina. Someone fell out the pretty tree and/or surgeon's office). Aaaaaanyway, I do love Lauren's style, so when I saw this book I had a little flick. It's really on my level, a proper back to basics vision of how to look simple and chic. It's not that I want to beat out the quirkiness of my wardrobe, I just want to look put together. So I got the book for £9.99 in WH Smiths if anyone's interested.

There are 3 sections in the book. Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle. I won't lie, I immediately ended up here:

The beauty section of the style book. Oops.

I did learn a few things from the beauty section, as with the rest of the book it's fab for a simple, stylish look (especially simple as Lauren has a phobia of wearing eyeshadow. Partly hilarious, partly reasonable, eyeshadow has got to be the no.1 culprit for 'clown face'). But thanks to my constant viewing of blogs and make-up videos, I quickly got throught that chapter and had to brave the foreign territory. Clothes. The first section I came to was about clearing out your wardrobe of old crap. You'd think that wouldn't be my problem, but I'm a serial 'buy-it-and-if-it-doesn't-look-nice-keep-it-anyway' person. So NOT good. I found like 5 things with the tags on. I've got a GORGEOUS River Island cream dress that is too clingy for me (or anyone I know that's size 14, as it is) to wear, but I can't bare to sell it. I need to find it a happy home. Considering I'm not a clothes addict, I do love them. So I had a little clear out - bar the cream dress.

I haven't got to the other chapters on what are the essentials to have in your wardrobe yet. Partly because I don't have any money, partly because I'm carrying some serious "2011 was a terrible year so I ate a LOT of pizza" weight and partly because it will just highlight to me how much I need to re-landscape my wardrobe (I keep writing wardrobe even though I have a rail not a wardrobe. I think I just miss the word wardobe. Wardrobe. Okay, done). When I've read more I'll keep you posted on my little toddle in to the fashion world. I might even go and buy a copy of Harpers Bazaar which I definitely just buy because I love the name and pretty pictures. I'm hoping it sends subliminal messages to my brain. No luck thus far. ;)

What key items do you have to have in your wardrobe (snuck another one in ;))? What fashion items do you think are over-rated? Let me know, I'm a keen learner. :)

Ta for reading, please follow my blog. I love chatting away to bloggers :)

Or tweet me? @LivCR

Livvy xo

The Nail Varnish Collection.

Alright girls, hope you're all loving life :)

It's time for the big one, my nail varnish collection. I'll warn you now it screams 'addict!' I've photographed my storage for it, then the polishes by brand then a miscellaneous pile at the end. I started off with 57 nail polishes. Eeeeek! I've narrowed it down to 44 now. I know that's still criminal, but you never know when you'll need 7 shades of blue. Right? :/ Haha.

So first off I'll show you how I store them:

My drawer top with my polishes, sprays (deodorant/hair spray), a fruit bowl of body products, 2 spare purses and some lip balm. It looks a bit cluttered but I love that shabby-all-over-the-place-chic thing :)

Up close: My nail polishes in a rose styled white wire rack from BHS.

The empty rack with white card in, to stop the polishes from going walkies, and a turquoise butterfly hair clip my Mum got me from Turkey.

Up close: The white card is just cut to size and folded in half. I saw DollyBowBow use this trick on her Youtube channel :)

I love my pretty wire rack. It doesn't take up much space and I can easily pull them out to have a look at. Originally I had them all on a drawer to lined up, but I kept knocking them over. Not practical. I feel like the rack is a good compromise between sensible and aesthetically pleasing. :)

On to the actual polishes, I'll just name the brands and put close-ups of a few faves. If you want to know a specific shade please do comment and ask, I'm more than happy to check for you:


Essie. Definitely my fave brand for wearable daytime neutrals. Although, you'll notice those shades are few and far between. ;)

Models Own + Models Own Pro (which looks a beautiful, shimmery emerald green in the bottle - it comes out almost black on my nails though. Sigh).



Barry M. - A.k.a. I have a serious issue. They're so affordable at £2.99 each and for the most part they only need a couple of coats. And the colour range is immense... I realise that has lead me to a few faux pas (bogey green, I'm looking at you) but we live and learn.



Boots No.7 - I.e. The crusaders of the £5 off voucher. Theses are of surprisingly good quality and the speed dry ones are complete gems. I'd never pay £7 for them though. Have a word Boots!

Revlon. Dribble. Facets of Fuschia (left) is my favourite. The more coats the better. Chunky glitter in deep purple, it's just pure heaven. In fact, all the Revlon formulas are beautiful and they have some gorgeous unique shades. Serious thumbs up.

Rimmel. I wouldn't write home about Rimmel polishes as they're quite translucent and need a good few coats. Disco Ball, however, (second from the left) is amazing! It looks silver, but it sparkles like a rainbow and looks like the night sky over a deep blue. A must have at only £2.99 (well I got it for £1.99 on offer, BARG!)



Max Factor. Don't buy these. They're practically see through. It's such a shame because I love their colours! The only reason I have so many is because I bought 2 to get a free gift box, which the other 2 came in. Luckily for Max Factor their Masterpiece mascara was in the gift or I would have been put off for life.



OPI. I love this polish. OPI is £10.99 or there abouts in England though, that's insane! I got this as a gift, I really can't justify spending that much myself (she says, wait until we get to Nails Inc.). That's the cost of 3 Barry M's with some change left over. It is incredible though.



Nails Inc. Oh the beauty. The one on the left is limited edition. It was hideously expensive, I only bought it because I saw Anna from ViviannaDoesMakeup wearing a similar colour which I thought was this. It was actually a previous limited colour and a dupe for Essie's Ladylike, which I bought because it actually looks nothing like this on. On the flip side Victoria, on the right, was free in a magazine (was it Glamour? I can't remember) and I LOVE it. It's like a deep blood red. Paints on like a dream.



I don't even know... I think they were my Mum's. Possibly Marks+Spencers? I just included these to indicate when hoarding goes too far. Oh dear.



Miscellaneous: (Top Left to Right) Miss Sporty x2, MUA, ELF, M+S
(Bottom Left to Right) Miners (No idea, my friend stole that from her Mum and gave that to me when we were about 9. Oops), 17, M+S, Collection 2000 & M+S. Standouts are the blue Miss Sporty, it's a really unique, fun colour, the 17 magnetic blue (which creates a cool way effect, plus it just gets extra points for having a magnet!) and the turquoise M+S colour. Beautiful.

Now for my close up:

Magpie.

Classic.



And that's my humble collection. I managed a small purge, ridding myself of these few:





Max Factor's water in a pot and Barry M's vomit shades took the main hit, along with a few others claiming their pensions. (Nice bit of celotape on my drawers, Christmas left overs. Can't buy class.)



It might not look like many to get rid of, but to be honest I'm always changing up the colour of my nails. My lipstick collection is more of a cause for concern, but I'll save that for another post.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my stash, it took frickin ages to photo/write. I'm appreciating pro-bloggers more!

Do you have a nail varnish collection? What's your ultimate fave polish? Are you team neutral or brights?Ta for reading and please follow/comment if you liked my post,

Livvy xo

Question of the Week - QOTW. (1)

Alright gang, hope you're all dandy :)

I've decided I'm going to do a QOTW for beauty/make-up or maybe even fashion things. I'm still learning about all this stuff so I'd really appreciate the Beauty Blogger Community's help :)

So my question for this week is:

Does anyone else find it difficult to apply mascara to the eye opposite the hand they right with? I.e. I'm right handed and my left eye always looks a little off. I can never get the inner corner without splatting black over my face. Any tips for me?

Ta for your help in advance ;)

I pinky promise my next post will be my nail varnish collection. I've already taken the pics of it! :)

Livvy xo

Naked Hue.

Hey everyone, hope you're all cheery :)

I'm just about to photograph my nail polish collection, but I thought I'd quickly whack a little update post up first. The other day I got a very special delivery and I thought I'd show you what I got:



Urban decay Naked Palette.



MAC 'Hue' lipstick. Hello massive camera shadow ;)

I really shouldn't have bought these, but I've been lusting after both for about 3 months. Neither I could justify spending so much money on, however sheer desire eventually won. ;) The Naked palette was £35. Anyone who's read more than one beauty blog will know what it is, the ultimate cult eyeshadow palette. With it's little sister the Naked 2 palette having been just released in the UK (on the Debenhams website at least), you may be wondering why I bought the original? The simple answer is, I just prefered the wider selection of brown tones. I love it! Although now ViviannaDoesMakeup (how do I tag people? I feel like I'm robbing her info lol) bought MAC Soba recently and posted about it. Oh my gosh, it's like a dark chocolatey brown eyeshadow. I need it. Apparently an addict can never have enough ;) Hence why I'm doing my nail polish collection now, I'm desperately trying to convince myself to cull a few! Eek.

The MAC Hue lipstick (£13.50) is permanently listed in people's favourites on Youtube. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not the biggest 'nude shades' fan, but I'm learning to appreciate them. I am in love with this lipstick and I can't stop wearing it, but I can't put my finger on why? It's a paleish pink (nowhere near as bright or pale as the 'Saint German' shade - I'm trying to branch in to subtle) and really creamy. It almost feels like a lipblam and as a Glaze finish it is very sheer. My lips are SO dry though so it still looks a bit patchy. Can anyone recomend a really good lip scrub? I have Lush's Pow Wow popping candy scrub, it's okay but I need a miracle worker! Anyway, I piled my purchases on to my face, as I'm prone to, and this was the finished look:



FOTD



Naked and Buck eyeshadows, Max Factor Masterpiece and YSL mascaras :)

Firstly I know that's a really weird angle for a FOTD, but I used my MAC Fix+ and it gave me MEGA SHINE. Lesson learnt. I like the matte shadows with the lipstick because I think they make a quite natural but put together look. I'm also a new found fan of foundation in a shade that matches my face, although I'm not sure I'll ever be converted fully from my 'foundation tan face' love. ;)

I love how this is my version of a short post. Oops. I'm going to photo my polishes right now so I don't forget, so stay tuned and please follow my blog if you're a fan of nail polishes/obsessive collections.

Ta, Livvy xo