Non Beauty Favourites #1

Whilst chilling out in my room this morning, applying for jobs, and catching up with iPlayer, I decided that I would share my non beauty favourites with you guys. I’ve always wanted to do a post like this, but I’ve never really had enough things to actually talk about to make it worthy enough. However, I have loads of things I have been loving lately, that I just NEED to share them with you now!

• 100% Chilled Album

I’ve owned this album for a month now, if not a little longer and I really do love it! Aside from alternative, metal, and pretty much any form of rock music, I also really like electronica, house, and chill out music. So when I saw this album being advertised, I knew I had to have it! I’m not a huge fan of compilation CD’s and I don’t know if this is due to being bought Now CD’s as soon as they came out as a kid. I loved them, don’t get me wrong! But I often found out of 40 songs I would only like about half of them, if that. I always found I swayed towards CD two as well, the one that didn’t have the popular songs on it. However with this album I like pretty much all the songs, which is good of course! I pop this on for my drive to and from work, it really does help me chill out, and I love having a sing along with the tracks that come on. I now have this on my iPod and my iPhone so I can listen to it when on the go as well. I’ll be taking it on holiday as well for me and my dad to listen to, as I know he’ll love it. I thought I would list my top 5 favourite tracks off of the album:

1.  “La La La” ft. Sam Smith – Naughty Boy (YouTube link)
2. “Waves” (Robin Schulz Radio Edit) – Mr. Probz (YouTube link)
3. “Stay High” (Hippie Sabotage Remix) – Tove Lo (YouTube link)
4. “Intro” – The xx (YouTube link)
5. “Counting Stars” – OneRepublic (YouTube link)

If you think you’ll like the sound of this album, I recommend picking it up! Aside from No Devotion’s new album coming out at the end of the month, I can see this being my go to album for autumn and winter.

Image taken from weheartit.com

• South Park

If there is one show that I cannot stop watching at the moment, it’s most definitely South Park. A thing of genius, beauty, and offensive shit. I’m even watching it now whilst I write this post! I’ve just got to season 12 and wow, the show really has changed since season 1, the season I grew up watching and pissing myself laughing at. Next week the new season will launch, which is pretty cool and exciting! A lot of people don’t like South Park due to how offensive it can be, but I think it’s hilarious and when you read and watch interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, you find out that they aren’t intending to offend people, they’re just making a silly TV show and if it offends people, then it wasn’t intentional. Of course, they are also the guys behind The Book of Mormon (review here), something I went to watch with my boyfriend in July. Lately I’ve not been feeling too great, and when I’ve been at home I’ve been watching this and it sure has cheered me up! It’s hard to pick my favourite character, but since it came out it has always been Kenny, but Butters is now my second favourite. They’re both somewhat similar, but different at the same time. Kenny is poor, doesn’t take off his parka that often, and seems to be more knowledgeable about women out of all the boys. He’s also notorious for being killed in episodes, something the creators stopped happening so often, so when they DO kill him in an episode it’s hilarious. Whereas with Butters, he is just adorable! Constantly getting into trouble with his parents and being grounded, being the innocent one out of all the boys, and just being adorable when he says, “oh hamburgers!” I love South Park now more than I ever have, and I’ll be sad when I finally get up to date with all the episodes. Here are my favourite 5 episodes at the moment:

1. “Weight Gain 4000” – Season 1
2. “Kenny Dies” – Season 5
3. “Scott Tenorman Must Die” – Season 5
4. “Towelie” – Season 5
5. “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset” – Season 8
6. “Woodland Critter Christmas” – Season 8
7. “AWESOM-O” – Season 8
8. “Marjorine” – Season 9
9. “Best Friends Forever” – Season 9
10. “Make Love Not Warcraft” – Season 10

Okay I couldn’t just do 5 episodes, I had to do 10! They’re in no best to last order, I love them all equally. Go check out South Park though if you loved it as a teen, it’s even better now.

• Tsum Tsum iPhone Game

I’m totally addicted to this game! I used to own it when it first came out, but I got bored of it and ended deleting. Recently however I saw it being advertised on the App Store and decided to give it another go, and I’m glad I did. This is a little game where you need to join up the various Tsum Tsum characters to essentially get rid of them. They never go mind, but you can get loads of points and cash through it, and then with the cash you can buy new Tsum Tsum characters to play with. They all have different tricks and such you can use to get rid of the characters in the game. It’s very addictive, free, and I recommend it to anyone! The only thing I don’t like about it is that you need to e connected to wifi or 3G/4G to play it. GRR!

• Sudoku

To me there is nothing better than relaxing evening of playing Sudoku whilst I watch South Park, or chill out with my boyfriend. Yeah, that sound pretty dull but I love it! Sudoku is something not many enjoy, due to how long it can take to finish one puzzle, but I love that side of it! Recently my boyfriend bought me this gorgeous book and since then I haven’t stopped doing the puzzles. I usually buy a cheapo mini book that I keep in my handbags when out on the go, but this one is much better to pull out of my bag. It was pricey at £2, but totally worth it!

So those were my non beauty favourites recently! I really enjoyed doing this post, and I can see me doing them every now and again. What did you think of this new addition to my blog? Yay, nay? Let me know the comments, as well as what non beauty things you’ve been loving lately.

Until next time, take care all!

July Pay Day Haul

Okay so I said I wouldn’t be spending any money due to a voluntary spending ban, but I ended up spending… But this being said I don’t feel I spent much when I was out and I wrote my wish list post a day before pay day, so I didn’t know I would earn as much as I actually did.

So with a few extra pounds burning a hole in my pocket I bought a few things on a shopping trip with my boyfriend and our friend Sophie (hello!). My mom also owed me some money and offered to pay me back in a few items I wanted to pick up, so she kindly ordered said items for me. Oh and a couple of things my boyfriend kindly bought me. So I did save some money in that sense.

Before we went on our shopping adventure, I received the goodies my mom ordered for me in the post, the first one being Neal & Wolf’s Daily Cleansing Shampoo in a huge 950ml tub! I remembered testing this shampoo out two years ago and I loved it. I just can’t believe it has taken me that long to order a bottle to finally use. I’m also really impressed with how quick Neal & Wolf shipped my shampoo as well. I ordered it Thursday late morning/early afternoon and it arrived first thing Friday morning! I was so happy that I would get the chance to use it Friday (as that’s a regular wash day for my hair), so happy in fact that I dropped Neal & Wolf an email to thank them on their awesome customer service. It was packaged really well too, which I was glad about. I’ve used this a couple of times now and after use my hair feels smooth and looks fresh and clean. I’m so happy that I finally have this shampoo, but now I’m just wanting to try out more of their range.

The next thing my mom offered to order for me was some Lush goodies as she knew I was after a new body scrub, as well as a new face scrub. I knew I wanted Rub Rub Rub Shower Scrub, but was umming and ahhing over Ocean Salt Face And Body Scrub. I tried a sample of it from Lush the last time I visited one of their stores, and I did really like it. So I ended up caving in and told my mom to order both.

Since having these I’ve of course used both and I have never loved a product as much as I love Rub Rub Rub. I used it on wet skin and it has left my rougher parts (top of arms and thighs) gorgeously smooth! I don’t want to talk too much about it as I really want to review it soon. As for Ocean Salt I can’t really praise it as much as Rub Rub Rub, not because it’s a bad product but just because I don’t feel I’ve used it to it’s full potential yet. That being said I used it on my face as a scrub, at the time I was suffering with some bad breakouts, but a day or two after using Ocean Salt, they appeared to go away. I put this down to the vodka ingredient in Ocean Salt. I didn’t find this too rough on my skin, which is strange considering I have sensitive skin. However, due to this I’ll only use this as a once as week treat.

Our first stop on our shopping trip was IKEA, mainly because we wanted to get it out of the way. My friend needed to pick up some frames, whilst me and my boyfriend just wanted to have a quick mooch around. Whilst in the frame section my boyfriend suggested I pick one up for a picture we had drawn of us at Hyper Japan (you can read all about that here and here) and I was worried it wouldn’t fit in the frame, but alas as you can see it fits perfect. It was only £2 as well, which was a complete bargain!

A couple of other things I decided to pick up were some small candles. I picked up some scented candles… Which I now regret because 1. I forgot that there is a Yankee Candle store where we went shopping, and 2. IKEA candles are bloody awful! I picked up a pack of chocolate fudge and peppermint candy. These came in three packs of each, but I gave three to my boyfriend, two chocolate and one peppermint. I’ve so far only burnt the peppermint ones (which is why one is missing from the picture above) and as I said, these just aren’t very good. They’re great if I don’t wish to light a Yankee Candle, or have anything with a strong throw burning, but I expected SOME scent. So IKEA, very disappointed.

Whenever I go to the shopping centre we visited, I ALWAYS go into the Yankee Candle there, and more often then not I leave with something, usually something big. This time, like always I left with a large jar candle. This store are amazing when it comes down to Yankee Candle exclusives and they always stock them, and even more of a range than the official store which I think is great. Oh and can I mention that they don’t charge £21.99 for large candles either? I’m disgusted that Yankee Candle have put the prices up on their large jars. It isn’t right!… Mini rant over… So I made sure to sniff every exclusive jar they had in store and I wasn’t going to buy one and to be honest, if I had a lot of money I probably would have left the store with at least five candles… Oh yeah! I was tied between Blueberry Scone, Cotton Candy, and Hazelnut Coffee. My boyfriend was asking me which I liked the most, as well as which I didn’t have a scent similar to already, which was definitely Hazelnut Coffee. So with that choice made he took it off of me and made his way to the till. It was really lovely that he bought me a candle, as he was the one who said, “you should save your money Nat.” but alas, it was so sweet of him to buy this for me. I’m not burning it until I have used up all the IKEA candles I bought. It smells so rich and delicious that I cannot wait to use this in the autumn. Roll on September!

This isn’t beauty or fashion related, I know but meh not everything can be! I’ve been after this game for years and with my and my boyfriend playing Lego Jurassic World at his house recently it’s made me realise just how much I miss playing the Lego games. So I decided (if it was the right money) to pick up Lego The Hobbit. I loved the trilogy and I especially loved playing Lego The Lord of The Rings. Plus I’ve wanted this game ever since it came out. Since buying it I’ve been playing it loads, and it’s a definite chill out treat after work, as well as for lazy days in bed.

I didn’t buy anything from Lush whilst I was out shopping, as I had already picked up what I wanted a few days prior, but I did know that I wanted to grab a sample of one of their coal facial cleansers. I gave Dark Angels Facial Cleanser a go in store and it was really nice! With Lush I always try before I buy if I can, as I’m allergic to some of the ingredients they use and I don’t wish to spend a lot of money to find out not long after I’m allergic to said product. This felt lovely after I used it in the store on the back of my hand, and as of yet I haven’t tried it out on my skin, but I will soon and will make sure to update.

I do just want to say the staff at the store I visited were lovely! We had a good natter about all the new products that will be hitting all the Lush stores and online for Summer tomorrow! A huge majority of these new products will be from the Oxford Store (can read about my experience there and see my haul here) too! I will be making a small order of products I didn’t manage to pick up in London. I cannot wait.

Finally when I popped to Asda to grab some dinner for me and my boyfriend, I decided to pick up a new album for my car, as quite frankly my music at the moment is really boring me. Plus I wanted something relaxing. I listened to most of this on Spotify before I picked it up to make sure I liked it, and I loved it. Very chilled music that I can listen to whilst I write for university, for my blog, or if I just want something mellow in the background whilst I chill out. It was only a tenner and when we got to the till my boyfriend was lovely enough to buy it for me. Total sweetheart! I now have this album on my iPod, as well as in the car and it’s a definite must have if you like chill out music.

At the moment of writing this post, I haven’t been able to take pictures of the actual products yet due to them not arriving, but as you can see I’ve edited a lovely image of the two things I bought from eBay. The first one being a new case for my iPhone 6, which I should be getting today! I like to have a wrap around case for my phone whilst I’m at work to protect it that little more. It was only 99p with free postage so I’m pleased at that. It’s The Fault in Our Stars themed, which is a book/film I adore.

The second thing I bought was something I wasn’t even sure I would bother bidding on. But alas I bid on the last 10 seconds and won! I’ve been after a new piece from Black Milk Clothing for quite a while now. I bought my mermaid leggings about a year ago and they weren’t cheap at £35, but I was content with that, considering they cost a hell of a lot more from Black Milk Clothing themselves, not to mention how much the shipping costs! So every week I had a good look through eBay to see what I can snag for a bargain in my size, and I found this dress. It’s a thermal dress and will be perfect for autumn and winter when it’s chilly outside. I managed to snag this beauty brand new with tags for just under £30! I’m so pleased with how much I got it for and I know I’ll enjoy wearing it when it arrives. I already have the idea to team this up with my Jake Dr Martens boots (can read about those here) and depending on what happens, I may even wear this dress to my graduation. But we shall see. I can’t wait to do a look book with this dress though already.

So that is my haul from pay day! I didn’t spend much and I’m really pleased about that. I won’t buy much more this month now and although I should really save money, I don’t feel like I made any ridiculous purchases, which I’m pleased about.

Has anyone else bought some lovely little bits and pieces for themselves since pay day? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time, take care all.