June Favourites ‘21

Well, as regular readers will have noticed, this months favourites is late… I’m not sorry. 😛

I’ve been so busy lately that this is the only chance I’m getting to write my favourites for June, it’s rubbish but we can’t help how busy and crazy life can be sometimes.

But I’m here and I’m raring to go for today’s blog post about my favourites from June! I already can’t believe we’re nearly a week into July!

Beauty.

• Carmex Lip Balm in Cherry and Sugar Plum.

This is an old favourite I’ve been reminded of recently when searching for a new lip balm to use. Carmex is a lip balm I used to use LOADS when I was working in my last retail job, as well as previous admin role. I didn’t realise I had some spare pots lying around in my beauty drawers so when I found these, I decided to give them a go. They don’t only smell amazing, but they feel great on and leave your lips baby soft! They also contain menthol so they leave a tingly cooling sensation on the lips, which might plump them a little too. The cherry one is still around, but the sugar plum version was limited edition MANY years ago (around 2017?) and I never ended up using it until recently! I much prefer Carmex to Vaseline so when these are used up, I’ll be buying Carmex more often!

So… Now it’s time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month! If there isn’t anything I’ve done I’m not going to mention.

Favourite Film – The Talented Mr. Ripley.

This is a film I watched at the end of June after seeing it on Netflix. I’ve never watched it but both me and Dane had watched a preview from the film and I added it to my list. I ended up watching it on my own whilst I did some work and I really love it! It’s about Tom Ripley, asked to go and find a mans soon, who he befriends. It isn’t all plain sailing though and shit hits the fan. I definitely recommend giving it a watch if you never have! Fun fact, Matt Damon claims this is his favourite film he’s been in to date.

Favourite TV Show – Viva La Bam.

I don’t know why but towards the end of June I got the itch to binge watch season 1-5 of Viva La Bam. If you’ve never heard of it (although I’ll be shocked if anyone hasn’t…) it’s basically a spin off of Jackass in a way where Bam Margera terrorises his parents alongside with his friends. Basically cKy films, but a show! It’s clearly all scripted but this is a show I loved as a teenager. When I would skip school (yes… I skipped school!) I would stay at home and put MTV on during the day and watch random shows, including Viva La Bam. I also used to binge watch this and Jackass when I was working on my dissertation during my university days! When I was old enough to I saved up my pocket money/money I earnt through odd jobs and bought all of the box sets as and when they came out. Years later I still love this show and scripted or not, it still brings back a lot of memories. My favourite episode is season 1 episode 8, Scavenger Hunt.

Favourite Music – Random game music I use on Twitch!

I love having cute music play before my stream starts and I usually try to limit it to a couple of songs to get people hyped for the stream! Above are just three of my favourites that really do get me into a dancing mood before streams! Especially Monday and Friday streams where I bring my Cookie amigurumi (you can read about her here!) to hang out! 😛

Favourite Game – Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!

This is a new game purchase I made towards the end of June! Doki Doki Literature Club isn’t exactly a new game, but it was announced during E3 that Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! was due to come out at the end of June with loads of DLC and updates! Dane was shocked that I’d never heard of the game and encouraged me to get it when the time was right. So, I pre-ordered on my Switch and I’ve played it a few times since. It looks like a cute dating game, but it’s actually a psychological horror game! I’ve not yet reached the horror parts of the game, but after researching what I was expecting, it’s pretty fucking horrific! This game is NOT advised to be played by children, or people who could be mentally affected easily and the latter is why I why I searched to see what happens. I didn’t want to worry I bought it, played and it affected my mental health. I don’t think it will… This is a game I thought about streaming on Twitch, as a few people had asked me to as well. However, this isn’t going to be happening due to the disturbing themes. It isn’t worth it.

Quite a few of my favourite things…

Becoming a Twitch Affiliate!

As many as you guys may have seen from previous posts on my Twitter and Instagram, as well as potentially on my monthly posts in June… I finally made affiliate on Twitch! It was a proud moment for me and I as so fucking happy. It had been something I’d planned to get to by the end of May, so the fact I hit that target on 1st June was typical. 😛

Since then I feel my Twitch has continued to improve and I’m still enjoying streaming Animal Crossing and more! I also have a camera set up now, so you guys can watch me play games and chat away, which is always good! If you haven’t come to check out my stream yet, please pop by, it would be amazing to see you. 🙂

Finally wearing my Black Milk Clothing Butterfree dress!

I bought my BMC Butterfree dress back in September 2020 and finally for a meal and drinks out with my best friend and her bridesmaids, I got to wear it! It’s so bloody comfortable, flattering and made me feel so pretty and confident. I haven’t had the chance to wear it again since, but honestly I can’t wait! I’ll be wearing it at some point in the future when me and Dane go somewhere for a day out, as well as if we decide to go on holiday anywhere in the UK this year too. If you want to find out more about the dress, you can read all about it here.

My best friend got married!

Almost a month ago now, my best friend got married! It was such a beautiful day and many tears were shed due to that. I had an amazing time and was so happy to be a huge part of it with being her maid of honour really was an honour! Not going to lie though, I was so tired by the late afternoon and evening and I couldn’t wait to sleep. 😛 It’s just amazing how quick the time has flown already since the day and I’m so proud of my best friend! 🙂

I would have posted a photo from the day but I feel it isn’t my place, so you guys can have the one of me holding the flowers my best friend and her husband gave to me. 🙂

Gorgeous flowers.

In June my mom came over to help me with my garden and gifted me this amazing hanging basket she’d done up, as well as some flowers in one of my flower beds. Our garden is looking so beautiful and colourful and I’m so thankful for her help! I love how pretty my garden now looks and I cannot wait to do more in the future with it now. 🙂

I bought myself a new car…

So… I bought myself a new car! It was a very random and spontaneous thing but I’d been thinking of getting something new since I came back from Japan in January 2020. Due to COVID it didn’t happen and lockdown and working from home that also put me off as I wasn’t needing to drive anywhere. Finally I decided to bite the bullet and get something new! Originally I was going to buy a two year old car, but it didn’t feel like it was very… Me? So I settled on my gorgeous blue Citroen C3 and I love it! I’m hoping to do a post about it in the future, but I don’t know if/when that will be sadly.

So there we have it guys! My favourites from June! June was a good month, but I constantly felt hectic and busy so July will be nice to just try and relax a bit. 🙂

What were your favourite things about June? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time guys, I hope you’re having an amazing week and take care.

Black Milk Clothing x Pokemon

Guys I have been SO excited to write this blog post! I wasn’t planning to until later on this month, but I can’t wait any longer. It needs to go up as soon as possible! 😀

I discovered Black Milk Clothing back in 2011 through a forum I used to be on. It was only in 2014 when I got my first piece, my mermaid leggings from eBay. Since then I’ve always bought my pieces second hand/new via eBay and Depop. I’ve never been caught out by fake Black Milk, thankfully! So, although I own Black Milk Clothing pieces, this is the first time I actually bought direct from them. I’ll share that experience later on in the post. For now, I want to talk about the Pokemon Collection!

Back in June Black Milk Clothing released their Pokemon collection and it was one I was SUPER excited for. I was worried there wouldn’t be any pieces I wanted to get, but it turns out there were at least a handful of pieces I really like the look of, one in particular, the Butterfree Romance Dress.

I knew I wanted this dress and decided if I was going to pick up one item from the collection, it was going to be this piece. The collection launch was slowly looming and I got myself ready to put the dress into my basket and pay. When it came to pressing “confirm payment” I kind of… Freaked out. It was coming to a lot of money, I was preparing for my bathroom to be worked on and… I hesitated. By the time I had some mini regrets, the dress had sold out… Followed shortly by the rest of the collection. I was gutted but at the same time I felt better for not picking the dress up, due to money.

Weeks flew by and I kept thinking about the dress. Every time I ventured to Instagram, Black Milk Clothing was showing off people wearing THAT dress and even one of my Instagram friends had bought the dress. I WAS GUTTED! I tweeted Black Milk Clothing pleading with them (not seriously… but seriously! :P) to bring the dress back.

Black Milk Clothing heard mine and many others pleads and prayers for the Pokemon collection to return and guess what? They announced a restock in July, over a month after the original release of the collection. I knew I was going to get that Butterfree dress this time and more! I wasn’t exactly rich in July after the bathroom being worked on, but I was so gutted about not getting the Butterfree dress, that I knew I wanted it.

I settled on three pieces I wanted to pick up, including the Butterfree dress and I managed to snag them all! 😀 Before I show them all off though I just want to share how I went about buying from a popular collection, as well as from Black Milk Clothing for the first time.

As I mentioned before, due to hesitation alone I missed out on buying the Butterfree dress from the original launch. Items do not get saved or kept in your basket, so you need to act fast, which I made sure to do when buying from he restock.

Something Black Milk Clothing do is to pop all collection items up in the store for you to view and add to your wish list ready for when they release. You select your size, and click on the “add to wish list” heart, simple!

The Pokemon collection launched on Tuesday at 7am Australian time (as that’s where the company is based), which is Monday 10pm here in the UK. I wanted to pick up three items from the collection, so I had three tabs open of my wish list ready. I kept it open for about an hour, but at 9.45pm I kept refreshing all three tabs. The collection for me launched at 9.58pm, so as soon as items started to become available to buy, I clicked buy on each tab until all three items, in my chosen size were in my basket.

I proceeded through the payment sections and confirmed my order, which went through without any issues! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shaking before, during and after ordering my pieces… Which sounds pathetic but I was so anxious that I wouldn’t get ANY of the pieces, let alone all three.

I was so anxious to be honest that the order wouldn’t go through, or it would be cancelled, so I waited for my email to say it was confirmed, which came through pretty quickly. I also waited to hear about my goods being sent… Which was a couple of weeks later after ordering.

I’d already ordered some goodies from Australia, which had taken a month to arrive from me, but I also knew of friends who had bought from the first release of the collection and had waited a month for their goods to arrive. I was happy to wait and just under a month after ordering, my goodies arrived!

The tracking was really good! I was able to keep up with where my parcel was and more. It did give an estimated arrival, but my goods arrived almost a week later than what was suggested. Again I didn’t mind, as long as my goods arrived to me. 🙂

I know a lot of people who were stung by customs and I also know a lot of people who weren’t. I was the latter, thankfully! I know someone who bought three pieces like me and wasn’t charged customs. I also know someone who bought one piece and was charged customs. Finally I heard of someone online who bought four or five pieces and was charged £40 in customs! FUCK!

I don’t know why I wasn’t charged customs. I don’t know if it’s due to Royal Mail delivering my parcel or what. I was very lucky and I’m grateful I wasn’t stung. I can only hope for the same in the future whenever I want to order pieces from Black Milk Clothing.

I didn’t take any photos, but the pieces I ordered arrived in perfect condition! Two of the pieces were made in China and came in clear plastic bags, whilst one of the pieces that was made in Australia arrived in a special bag you can throw away in your compost bin and it’ll decompose. I love this idea! More brands need to do this. It’s a shame that only the pieces made in Australia get these bags.

Finally the time has come to share with you the pieces I picked up… But if you were aware of the collection and all the pieces that released with it, you may have realised by now just which pieces I picked up… Seeing as I posted a photo of them all together at the start of this post! xD

I just want to add here by the way that all the pieces I bought are sold out and as far as I’m aware, they aren’t making a return. There are some pieces under the Pokemon collection that WILL return (which you can see here), so make sure to sign up for restock alerts if you’re interested. 🙂

• Butterfree Romance Dress (link)

As mentioned time and time again this is the dress I fell in love with from the Pokemon collection and I KNEW I had to have it! It’s a gorgeous light pink colour with Butterfree’s all over it. I went for a size L and I have no regrets! I could have probably gotten away with an M but I like the extra give. It’s really comfortable and roomy and I love clothing like that. Tighter/snug fit clothing often make me anxious and self conscious of my figure and always have, even when I was really skinny.

The romance dress style is one I’m new to but one I really love as it’s really flattering to my shape with it’s skater style skirt and the v-neck front. V-necks are usually something I pick up as I’ve always worried it doesn’t suit… Especially considering I’ve always had a big chest, but if anything this v-neck really suits that and I’m so pleased! I was wary that the v-neck may be too low and actually show off a bit more than I wanted to. This isn’t exactly the case, however due to the dress size giving a little, I think I may need to invest in a new bra to wear with this, or wear one of my other bras as you can see my current go to a little… This is something that is easily sort able!

The fabric itself is sheer, especially on the sleeves, but it’s not too sheer that you can see completely through the pink material and Butterfree design. The sleeves are also puffed, but the wrists are cuffed which I really like!

The style of the dress really does remind me of something from the 60’s/70’s and although it seems more like a spring/summer dress, I already know I’ll be wearing this all year through! I plan to wear it for evenings out with Dane and friends, as well as at work for any special events that are going on.

I’d wear this dress with black tights, a fake leather jacket and either some flats or boots.

• Gastly Evolution Handkerchief Dress (link)

This dress is one I really loved from the start but wasn’t sure if I was going to pick it up or not when making my order. Purely because it sold out so quick in the first release, that I didn’t think I’d even get hold of it when making my order. Alas, I did and it’s a dress I’m glad I ordered. It’s a dress that is out of my comfort zone, purely for the fact it’ll be hard to cover my arms unless I wear a t-shirt underneath, or a constantly cardigan over the top. It’s a gorgeous grape purple colour with Gastly, Haunter and Gengar printed all over it in a flocked fabric. It’s a mid thigh length, which is perfect for me but it’s just something different with the handkerchief style.

I’ve seen some girls over on Instagram style this piece up and they look AMAZING! I’ve seen some wearing a black mesh t-shirt under and some with a thick chain belt around the waist. I’m loving the latter, but I haven’t yet found a belt I want to get for it. Shoes wise, I don’t have a bloody clue what I’m going to wear with it yet! Probably end up being my Dr Martens boots to give it a rock/punk look.

Someone over on Instagram said how perfect this dress is for Halloween and she couldn’t be anymore accurate! Although I’m glad I ordered this dress, at the same time I need to get the right bra to wear with it, as well as how and when I want to. I think this is a dress I’ll wear for evenings out with friends, meals for work events and more. I have worn it around the house without one and whilst I can manage to get away with it in my own company, I’d never 100% feel comfortable doing that outside of the house.

If there is one issue I have had with this dress it’s the fact you have to hand wash it in cold water… But this isn’t the problem. The problem was the amount of purple dye that came out of the dress when I washed it. The bath looked like I was draining away a purple bath bomb! Plus it was just a pain in the bloody arse to try and wring out the dress. I thought I’d done it enough and hung it on my clothes horse. An hour later I went down to check on it, only to discover a MASSIVE pool of water underneath it! Thankfully the floor was fine, I mopped up the water and put the dress outside to dry on the line. It didn’t take long to dry, but due to all the faff it’s put me off wearing it and washing it a little… I’ll wear it and wash it, but it’ll be a dress I need to wash when it’s a good day outside so I can dry it!

I already know how I want to dress this up! I’ve bought a chain belt to wear around the wait, black tights, my Dr Martens boots and a fake leather jacket.

• Eevee Evolution Black Scoop Skater Dress (link)

The last dress I picked up from the collection is one that I’ve worn the most out of all three and it’s because it’s a Black Milk Clothing dress style I own a lot of. I love Eeveelutions and they’re some of my favourite Pokemon, but what encouraged me to pick up this dress was Attack On Mew purchased it and it looked adorable on her! PLUS this dress has pockets! I’ve never owned one of the skater dresses with pockets and it has literally changed my life! 😀

I ordered it in a size L and with Black Milk Clothing I fit either an M or L. Their sizing has definitely changed over the years and if anything their pieces feel like there is more room to them now than before… At least with the skater dresses anyway, which makes me really happy!

I’ve worn this dress with a long sleeved black mesh t-shirt underneath, black tights and my lilac Vans for a relaxed look. This dress is so comfortable and makes me feel confident, I honestly can’t wait to wear it more! I wish I could wear it at work as I think I’d feel super confident wearing it. Instead it’s going to be a casual dress to wear over the weekend, as well as for events and such. I’m already excited to wear it for Hyper Japan and Comic Con in the future.

So, those are all the pieces I picked up from the Pokemon collection! I could have easily picked up more looking back and there are a few limited pieces that I kinda regret not picking up, including – Mew Sheer Midaxi Dress and Ghost-Type HW Toasties. I definitely regret not grabbing the toasties leggings as I think they would have come in handy over the colder winter months. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled on eBay and Depop for either of these in the future.

There are also some permanent pieces that I’m definitely looking to pick up in the future, including – Bulbasaur Apron Dress, Eevee Evolution Floral V Dress and Eevee Evolution Floral Cuffed Pants. I could say I regret not picking up any of these pieces, but as they’re permanent items they’ll be back in stock in the future. I’m already planning on picking up the apron dress as well as the cuffed pants in the future!

I have always been a Black Milk Clothing fan, but for the past year and a half I’ve really forgotten just how much I LOVE the brand! I haven’t worn my pieces as much since joining the company I currently work at, but COVID and the Pokemon collection has reminded me how much I love Black Milk Clothing and why. 🙂

Since picking up these goodies from the Pokemon collection I’ve already purchased another piece from the Welcome to Halloweenia collection. I can’t wait to show it you in the future… 😛

Overall I am really happy with the pieces I picked up from the Pokemon collection and although I may have wished to pick up another item or two, I got the main three pieces I wanted and that is kinda enough for me… For now. 😛

What do you guys think of Black Milk Clothing? Do you own any pieces by them? Are there any pieces you like the look of? Would you guys like me to eventually show off all the pieces I own? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Until next time, stay safe, take care and have a lovely weekend!