The Perfect Christmas Candle If You Don't Like Cinnamon

So it seems to me that I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like cinnamon! And at christmas time this seems to be inescapable, it's in food, drinks and smells. Don't get me wrong, I'm just like anyone else, I love to burn a good candle any day but more so around christmas and in the winter months; however, I find that all 'christmas candles' seem to smell like cinnamon! No matter what the name of the candle is, I bet you 9 times out of 10 there will be cinnamon in it, especially if the candle is red. 

Now you can rely on Yankee to break this trend and deliver me a delicious fruity candle that is still christmassy yet that doesn't smell one sniff like cinnamon! 

'Cranberry Zest' is a fresh, citrusy scent yet it is still full and rich like you want a christmas candle to be. I am blown away by how long the scent lingers as well, this being my first full sized yankee candle. By what I have seen so far this candle burns really well and will last a long time. I will definitely be buying a few more in December. This one has be burnt everyday since buying it, that's how good it is.

This is the medium sized jar, I bought from Tesco for £9. 

Beth x

 

Autumn Beauty Wishlist

While browsing new releases and christmas gift sets I stumbled across some items that I are most definitely now on my wishlist.

1 | Clarins Festive Eye Make-up Palette £35
2 | Charlotte Tilbury Dolce Vita Luxury Palette  £38
3 | Bobbi Brown Deluxe Eye & Cheek Palette £59 
4 | Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit $80 (not yet in UK)
5 | Clinique Whole Lotta Chubby christmas gift set £25
6 | Clinique Days of the Week Lipstick christmas gift set £35

I think these are great deals and really great ideas for gifts. Which is your favourite?

Beth x

Brand: Of the Moment | Zara

Brand: Of the Moment

There is one brand that I have been lusting over for quite a while now and nothing else seems to quite be able to match it for me. That brand is Zara. Although I wouldn’t say it ticks every box, it is still able to cater for many different tastes and the style and quality combined makes it just perfect for this autumnal/winter season. Their bags in particular I take great joy in drooling over.

So I wanted to share a few of my favourite and most coveted items.

The Weekly Planner Everyone Needs

I found this little gem on Etsy, whilst looking of a type of diary that wasn't as structured as a yearly one.

I am very unorganised as a person, no matter how much I try or how much better I get, it's all too easy to fall into lazy routines. So I always find that I buy diaries to get myself organised, and then a couple of months in I slack, miss out a few weeks and then start again and the same cycle happens over and over. So I was on the search for an undated diary, when I found this cute little weekly planner and it is PERFECT!

So it allows you to fill in the dates/ week commencing, therefore if you miss a week or two, no pages are wasted! You can just pick up whenever you want and use it as and when. On the left hand page it has the days of the week and some space to write appointments or reminders in shorthand, then in the right hand page you can elaborate with goals, to dos, lists and notes. This little book is my new little holy grail and I can really see myself being more productive for having it.

Both designs are so pretty and as well as this it came delivered so beautifully, wrapped in tissue paper and a hand written envelope, you can see the care put into each order.

You can grab this design or the one over at their etsy shop EfflorescentInkShop.

Beth x

True Match Foundation

Lesson one I learnt from writing this post: always write the first draft of a post in Word. Lesson two: don't write it at 9pm the evening before you want to post it.

So annoyingly I lost a mahoosive, completely finished and edited post I had written about this product, but thanks to blogger I lost it all in the scheduling process. But that is mostly my fault so I'll just have to start again.

I have been searching for a foundation that fits the specification that I have in my head since forever, it has been rather difficult to do so as I am such a tight ass when it comes to spending money on foundation as I always see it as such a costly product for something that I don't use every day. However due to this I think I have made it harder for myself to find the foundation that I am looking for. Anyway all this is relevant because I have found the foundation that fits!

I have read so many rave reviews about this foundation over the couple of years that I have been a part of the blogging world, and finally pushed myself to just try it out. Now I wish I'd done so earlier so that I could've stopped myself from wasting money on other disappointing products!

The thing that initially drew me to this particular product is the shade range. It is split firstly into cool, neutral and warm and then into further shades of these base tones. I personally am shade C1- rose ivory, the lightest shade, which matches me perfectly for my natural skin colour. I loved that I could pick a 'cool' toned foundation as I find a lot of high street foundations are quite yellow/warm toned and therefore don't match me at all.

Now the part that made this product for me was the formula. It's light therefore doesn't feel too 'caked on' when you're wearing it, blends really nicely and has a satin finish that isn't too matte but also isn't dewy. It really just looks like skin and that's all I need. I would say it has a medium coverage but is buildable so it can be heavier if you have particularly pesky blemishes or uneven skin tone.  

I am content now that I have a foundation I can rely on. 

Beth x

That SOS Exfoliater

Facial exfoliaters aren't exactly new or exciting products to talk about but I really think that this one is worth the mention. 

I like to use a face scrub a couple of times a week to really give my skin a deeper cleanse and to remove any dirt and dead skin that isn't really reached by makeup removers or cleansers. As well as this, I find that my skin can feel quite clogged up and itchy after a long week (lovely, I know), so facial scrubs are a great way to get rid of anything lingering or irritating my skin. I know for a fact that I am very guilty of touching my face, especially at work, and therefore transferring all of the oils and dirt that is on my hands onto my face. This, I think, is a major factor into my skin breaking out.

I find that this scrub breaks through the oils in my skin and really feels like it gives a deep clean. My face feels so much fresher after using this and it really helps, when I do breakout, to minimalise the blemishes. As for the actual purpose of the product, I don't think that it does have much of an effect on blackheads directly, but may contribute to clearer skin as a whole.
The scrub itself is a white cream with orange exfoliating beads. The only part of this product I'm not so keen on is that it smells rather like aftershave, which isn't terrible as it doesn't linger once washed off, however a nice fresh orange scent would've gone perfect with the packaging!

It comes in at an affordable £3.69 as well, so what's not to like?

TIP: this is great for after a night out or if you've had makeup on a long time, it really takes everything off and rids you of that caked on feel!

Beth x

Things I'm Looking Forward To

So as a lot of my friends are gradually heading off to uni and I'm not, it can start to feel like I am being a bit left behind. I don't regret my choice in deferring a year, however I am getting jealous of those who are going to new places and meeting new people, discovering new things. So I thought I would try to focus on the things that I have to look forward to, big and small.

Having time.
One of the biggest restraints of education is the impact it has on your time. The demand it has due to work load and motivation to do well can be massive, and therefore very time consuming. By taking a year out of education before committing myself to at least another 3 years of it has allowed me to focus on things that I want to do outside of learning. Whether that's earning money, travelling or just pursuing other hobbies such as this blog.

Travelling.
Moving on from my next point, I fully intend to do all of those things. Earn money, to save and to travel with. And to travel, sometime early next year I hope to explore Europe by interrailing. This is such an amazing idea and a really great way of spending time in multiple places over a period of time. It has great flexibility and can be really unique to what you want to gain from the trip.

This blog.
I want to put more time into this blog again. I used to really enjoy using this space but after getting out of it for so long it felt odd going back to something that was no longer up to date. Now I am finding new ways of sharing on this blog without restricting myself to beauty as much as I did before. I never really wanted to be solely about beauty however I think I got swept away in the storm of beauty bloggers and just wanted to fit in with the rest. However it is evident through my diminished enthusiasm that as much as I enjoy beauty it is not my whole life and therefore not my whole blog. So I'm excited just to use this blog for fun again.

Autumn, winter and change.
Cliché and cheesy, I know. But I'm looking forward to wrapping up warm, autumn/winter fashion, bonfire night and christmas and all of the feel good season events that make you feel fuzzy inside. With all this of course, inevitably comes the new year, and for once I am actually looking forward to it.