October Favourites ’20

Can you believe it’s November already? October really did go by in the blink of an eye and quite frankly I’m glad. I mentioned back in my September favourites that I’d lost a family member and that grief went through from September to October. I still feel sensitive some days but I’m so busy with work, I’m managing okay.

October was a strange month. I was incredibly busy with work towards the end and I’ve kind of been a hermit and got on with my own thing. As well as that we all know it was Halloween on Saturday and as depressing as I sound, it didn’t go to plan as much or as well as I’d hoped.

We went to a pumpkin patch to pick our own for the first time and it was shit. It rained, we seemed to grab the only decent pumpkins left and it felt very rushed at the farm we went to. I certainly won’t go there again next year.

We carved our pumpkins when we got home, ordered takeaway for dinner and watching scary movies. OH and of course I played Animal Crossing! Two days passed and today we’ve had to throw away the pumpkins as they had started to turn… What a let down. 😦

I can’t complain too much though. We got to see family briefly in the afternoon and we spent most of the day together. For next year I may visit another pumpkin patch, but I won’t be buying any pumpkins and I especially won’t be paying a fee to go in…

Image taken from The Latest Kate

I thought I would share a spooky image this month from The Latest Kate. I love it so much and the little spooky ghosts are so cute!

As you may have noticed (if you’re a regular reader) this months favourites is up a day late… SHOCKER! Basically due to being so busy in the week with work I’ve been shattered and then the weekend I was busy with Halloween and D&D session with friends.

BUT it’s here now and it’s better now than never 🙂

• Happy Melon Sabrina Bubble Bath.

I recently bought myself some goodies from the indie bath brand Happy Melon and I don’t regret it! I picked up two bubble baths, but Sabrina is the one I’ll be talking about this month. This is a gorgeous purple bubble bath that smells of Lush’s famous Snow Fairy shower gel. A little goes a long way with this product and it’s been such a pleasure to use in the evenings when I need a good soak after work. The scent lasts for AGES after too which is always good and leaves the bath with a gorgeous purple/pink colour. I highly recommend the bubble baths by Happy Melon and although their stock has sold out on the website at the moment, if you give them a follow on Instagram they post updates on when the store will be stocked up with goodies.

• Pineapple Cuticle Oil.

This is a cuticle oil from and by my nail technician, I don’t want to mention names to try and keep some privacy my end. I can’t not mention this cuticle oil though as it’s amazing! The smell reminds me of a yummy shower gel I owned back when I was a student, as well as summer holidays abroad both as a child and as an adult. The pen format is perfect too as it’s great to use on the go. When I went to Japan I took one of my previous cuticle oil pens too by my nail technician as it was so handy whilst travelling and out and about. But yes, this is amazing! My nail technician does sell them on her website so if you know me well and would like to get one, DM me and I can link you. 🙂

• Tisserand Tea Tree Pure Essential Oil.

I love this essential oil so much! Dane’s parents bought it for me a few birthdays back alongside my unicorn diffuser and it’s something I find myself using all the time. I especially love using it at night before I’m about to go to sleep, as well as during the day when I’m cleaning and doing housework. Considering how long I’ve owned it, I’m only halfway through the bottle in question. I honestly recommend their essential oils if you’re looking to buy one or two. You can get them on Amazon as well!

• Collection Colour Lash All Day Wear Colour Mascara Clear.

This is a definitely an old  beauty favourite of mine and of late I feel like I’ve needed to use it loads… I don’t know why! My eyebrows are just rebelling at the moment and going all over the place. This is actually a clear mascara but I use it on my eyebrows as it costs sod all (just £1.99!) and works really really well for the price. I highly recommend if you want a cheap brow gel, this one is good. Some brands will charge a fortune for a clear brow gel and they probably don’t work half as well as this does. 🙂

• L’Oreal Paris Hydra Genius Liquid Care (review here).

I thought I would mention this product this month as it’s one I use all the time and it’s really been good this month. With the temperature change happening so quickly my skin has really suffered this year. I really love this moisturiser as it’s so hydrating and I always feel like my skin has had a massive drink. It lasts me ages too as a little bit goes a long way. I use the normal to combination moisturiser and it works perfect for my skin. I’ve just bought myself a new bottle and my skin is very happy about that. 😛

So now my beauty favourites are done, time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month!

Favourite TV Show – The Haunting of Bly Manor.

This horror series was AMAZING and I already can’t wait for potentially another “The Haunting” style show by Mike Flanagan. If you didn’t know he also created The Haunting of Hill House. I loved this show so much, you’re constantly questioning what is happening and on the edge of your seat. We binge watched this pretty quickly and it had the same amount of suspense and nail biting as The Haunting of Hill House did. We did find that the genre of this show went from one thing to another… I’m not going to say anything as it could spoil and ruin it for people who haven’t watched it yet. This is a Netflix exclusive show, so if you haven’t seen it already, GET TO IT!

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite Movie – Brüno.

I’m not lying when I say I’ve never watched Borat or Brüno… It was only from the new Borat film coming out on Amazon Prime that me and Dane decided to have a Sacha Baron Cohen marathon and basically have me watch everything he’s ever done. The only film I have ever watched was Ali G Indahouse and I LOVED that growing up. Out of all the films we watched, Brüno was the best one for sure! I was told by loads of people “How can you not like his work?” and I think it’s because I found it dumb at the time. Now I look back, I love Jackass, Viva La Bam and Dirty Sanchez which are REALLY dumb, so how can I not like his work? Brüno is just fucking hilarious, end of.

Gif taken from Tenor

Favourite Book – No reading for me again…

Yeah I didn’t read. To be honest I didn’t have the mental capacity to do any reading and I was so tired from work all I wanted to do was chill out in front of my phone, laptop, TV or switch lite. I’m gutted to be honest as I have so much to read… I will keep trying. I need to spend more evenings reading.

Favourite Music – PVRIS –  Use Me (Deluxe).

I’m mentioning Use Me again this month as quite honestly I’ve listening to this album more this month and I have proper fallen in love with it. I feel I’ve listened to it more because I decided to buy the Deluxe version, which came out a couple of weeks back. It’s been on repeat whilst I’m working and whilst I’m out and about, both walking and in the car. I felt like I couldn’t get into the album at first and I think it’s due to some of the tracks being from previously released singles and EPs. Plus due to buying the normal version on iTunes, the tracks from the EPs that I already owned messed up, so I only had half an album! However now I have the fill album, I’ve found myself listening to it more. All the tracks really compliment one another and everything works so well. The new tracks really do stand out too, with one track in particular which I have fallen in love with, which is “Stay Gold”. This track is amazing and I find myself dancing to it quite often whilst I do the simplest of things… Aka make myself a cup of coffee. 😛

Among Us fan art by One In Hundred – make sure to check out her store!

Favourite Game – Among Us.

I have fallen in love with this game! Mine and Dane’s friends have played it altogether over a couple of Saturday nights in October and we cannot get enough. It’s so much fun, especially with a big group of people. I’m crap at being the imposter and always get caught as soon as I’ve killed someone. I’ve only been the imposter twice as well, thankfully! 😛 The thing I love the most is when you discuss with everyone about a body and who the killer might be. We all have our little jokes and quirks with one another and some of us can suss if someone is fibbing. I know straight away half the time if Dane is being honest or not. It’s just a fun game and it costs next to nothing to buy! It’s free on mobile phones and £3.99 on Steam. I have it on PC and definitely recommend it there, but at least on mobile phones you know you can get it cheaply. 🙂

So there we have it guys, that’s my favourites from October! Can you believe it’s already November and before we know it we’ll be starting to open up advent calendars? It’s crazy isn’t it?

What were your favourites from October? Make sure to let me know in the comments below!

Until next time guys, I hope you’re keeping safe and well during these hard times and please remember… This won’t last forever. ❤

Secondary School Nostalgia!

A random post but sod it, who doesn’t love a bit of nostalgia eh?

From 2001 to 2006 I attended secondary school and they were a mixture of some of the best and worst times of my life. But some of the best times are when I look back to all the awesome trends we have flying around and how they’re now making a comeback.

What really inspired me to write this post was the story I am writing for my dissertation at university. It focuses on a girl between 2001 to 2008 and the nostalgia I am feeling writing about it towards the start of 00’s is making me feel so nice and fuzzy instead.

I wish I could go back to this time. I legit want a time machine!

But alas, I can’t get hold of one right now, so I thought I would share my nostalgia list with you and things that remind me of secondary school.

• Davidoff Cool Water EDT.

This was probably the first perfume I owned as a teenager (alongside Thierry Mugler’s Angel) and I loved it! I used to spritz this all over my uniform and then head to school. I always got compliments on it too and at the same time my mom and one of my cousin’s wore this. However over the years my nose has changed and I no longer love this perfume, but I rather hate it! I smelt it recently to try and get some memories back, but urgh vile! I never remember it smelling so strong and cheap. For an EDT it is a really strong scent. I did love this though as a teen and I don’t have any regrets! I smelt damn good! 😛

• Bath pearls.

Does anyone remember these? Where were you if you don’t? I remember these being a weekend treat for myself after a long week of school. I would run a hot bath and pop one of these into the tub. I love bath pearls even now! They give some essential oils to your bath and smell gorgeous too. The Body Shop used to sell these and my mom always treated me to some whenever we went shopping together. Over the years though, bath pearls have sort of vanished and the only place I’ve been able to find them now as Wilko’s own brand, which are really nice. I used to love coconut and strawberry flavours. These have now been replaced by Lush’s bath bombs and bubble bars.

• Light up dummy.

I recently spoke to someone about these and I thought me and my cousin’s were the only ones to know about this craze, but alas, everyone else did too. I remember a time when flashing dummies were in and everyone apart from me had one. These were popular with ravers and clubbers, which of course we were WAY too young to be involved in. So both my cousin’s owned these dummies and I didn’t, and it sucked! By the time I found one to buy, these were well out of fashion. I’d be half tempted to try and bring the craze back though. These were fun in the early nights and later nights when it was dark out and you were still playing. They only cost a couple of quid too from poundshops and markets. Bargain!

• Ali G Indahouse.

When this film came out everyone in my year loved it… Well most people anyway. And (this is how pathetic the people in my year were) if you had watched this, you were pretty cool, which at the time made me feel awesome because I had infact watched it. So much so I knew most of the funniest lines and people loved me because of it! However, I look back and cringe at the fact that I felt cool for watching this. Either way, I loved this film so much. I could do the finger clicked business and everything. It just makes me laugh. And I still can’t believe Martin Freeman is in this, he plays his character really well and he always makes me giggle. If you haven’t watched this film, do! Because it’s the perfect stereotype for how people used to be in the 00’s like Ali G… And possibly some people still today!

• Bubblegum Club.

I LOVED the Bubblegum Club and the characters in secondary school! If I ever found anything in the shops with the characters on, I often spent my pocket money on it. We all loved them in class too and often spent ICT classes making Powerpoint presentations with little gifs of them all to create discos, and such like that. We also used to discuss which one of us amongst the class were certain characters. Mine was usually rock chick, which makes sense still even now! One item I fondly remember buying by the Bubblegum Club are some lip balms my mom bought for me from New Look. There were five different colours/scents and I used to use a different one each day at school. I felt really cool having them.

• MySpace

The second time we got internet in our house, was when MySpace was all the rage and everyone and their pet had an account. My cousin set mine up and I met so many people on it. Even some of my oldest friends I met through chatting to them on MySpace, moving onto MSN from there. You could personalise your page using HTML coding, pop your favourite song on for everyone to enjoy when they went to your page, as well as friend loads of artists, bands, and celebrities. It was the place to be but then Facebook came along… and when MySpace changed it’s layout, that’s when it really went downhill! I recently logged into my account and it really has changed. It doesn’t look as good anymore. But it was fun to try and stalk people. 😛

• Scented gel pens.

Most people had these at school, at least one in their pencil case. I had all of them! I used my pocket money on them whenever new ones came out and even received them for birthday and Christmas presents. I still use my scented gel pens now. At one point they were all I used at school and everyone loved me because of it. I especially loved the dark blue one that smelt of soda and the black that smelt like cola as I used these for my uni work. My teachers used to sniff the pages of my notebooks whenever they marked my work during class. I want to get the whole range of scented gel pens again so I can use them for my uni work. But I can’t find them online at the moment, which sucks.

• Rimmel Sweet Jelly lip gloss.

I remember when these first came out and I adored them! I loved lip gloss as a teenager and rarely used lipsticks. I would apply these before and after classes, as well as during toilet breaks. I was naughty and during my GCSE’s I would sneak off to the toilet to apply my lip products… As well as pee! I did go there for the toilet! But everyone had this lip gloss when it first came out. I had both the clear and a pinky red shade. If I didn’t wear them at school, I wore them during the weekends. I felt somewhat cute wearing lip gloss, especially if it was pink or red. It seems times haven’t changed in that sense! But what I loved most about these was that they smelt and tasted like fruits. It was delicious. It’s a shame they got rid of these.

• Roll on glitter.

Who DIDN’T like this back in the day? Hell we all still love it now, don’t we? I loved the roll on body glitter and each time I used one up, I got a new one. You could get spray on body glitter with scents, roll on, tubs, everything! These were used mostly on upper arms, collar bone, and the face, mostly next to your eyes and above your cheeks. My cousin’s were crazy for these and I only got into the whole glitter phase after it started to die out. I remember buying myself some roll on glitter and wearing it to the school disco. I felt so cool and hip! Oh those were the days. Only needing to worry about where to apply body glitter. Sigh.

• Lip Smacker lip balm.

I remember when this first came out in the UK and I bought almost all of the stand in my local Superdrug. My mom was with me at the time and wasn’t too pleased that I spent £10 on lip balms. They were worth it though. I used them all the time at school and I don’t ever remember seeing anyone else, other than one girl using Lip Smackers. They clearly weren’t as hip and with it as we both were. 😉 Then Lip Smackers vanished from my local Superdrug and I was really gutted. Since then I’ve tried some of their newer flavours and they are great and kept my lips lovely and soft.

• Bang on The Door – Groovy Chick character.

Every girl I knew KNEW about Bang on The Door and either had some sort of object with the characters on, or craved something. I was a mix of the two. Most of the girls in my school had notebooks and journals with the characters on but as much as I wanted a notebook myself, they cost nearly £10! That’s expensive for a teen who doesn’t have a job! I remember seeing BOTD and being jealous of anyone who owned anything like it. I did have a few pieces myself, but they were never as cool as what everyone else had. I did some research whilst writing this post and discovered that BOTD are apparently bringing back Groovy Chick, and their retro pieces! I bet all 20 somethings are feeling a little nostalgic right now? Huh?

So that was my nostalgia post! Do you remember any of the items and things I mentioned? Hey, did you own any or hate any? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

I know throughout May to September whilst I’m writing my dissertation I’m going to continue feeling the nostalgia.

Uni is the reason I have been so quiet lately but as soon as May 21st rolls around, things will be alright.

I hope all my readers are well and enjoying Spring so far.

Take care all and see you soon.