November Favourites ’18

Image taken from GIPHY

We are FINALLY in December and I’m not quite sure if I’m excited or meh about Christmas yet… Or the fact that 2018 has flown so damn quickly! Also I’m 29 in almost less than a month. Urgh can’t deal with that right now. 😛

I’m going to try so hard to do Blogmas this year as I would really like to. It wouldn’t be something special every day, but it would at least be SOMETHING on my blog, you know? I’d mostly try and fill quiet days in with advent calendar stuff, as well as what I’ve been up to.

Due to the fact November flew by so quickly, I feel like I never got the chance to really think much about what I loved. I had a long think about it though and I finally came up with what I loved throughout the previous month!

• Marc Jacobs Decadence EDP.

My brother actually bought me this perfume a couple of years ago for Christmas AND I KNOW perfume has a use by date on it (like all things…) but I never adhere to these things. 😛 I really love this scent as it’s so unique and yet has a feminine and slight masculine scent. The bottle itself is gorgeous! This is a proper going out perfume, but I love using it all the time. I’ve used this most of November and it’s reminded me 1. How much I love it and 2. How well my brother actually knows me when it comes down to perfume! 😛 He always buys me the best stuff. 🙂

• Simple Kind To Eyes Soothing Eye Balm.

This isn’t the BEST eye balm in the world, in the sense of it isn’t helping any ageing lines that I might be starting to get… However I was quite poorly for a couple of weeks in November with labyrinthitis. It honestly sucked. This eye balm really helped though when I felt tired and like shit. I do really love this eye balm, it’s not thick and heavy like most eye creams. It’s really light and leaves a lovely cooling feeling after.

• Lush Prince Of Darkness Fresh Face Mask (review here).

I picked up this face mask from Lush at the start of November when I went into London. Aside from online the only place you can get this face mask in store is in the Oxford Street store in London. I had 5 empty black pots so I picked this up for free! It’s by far one of my favourite face masks and I use it once a week. It really does help my skin after I’ve had a bad breakout. It clears out my pores and scrubs my face to make it lovely and soft. I definitely recommend giving this a go if you’re combination skin like I am!

• Vaseline Lip Therapy Aloe Vera.

This is my life saver and game changer! I’ve been on and off over the years about which lip balms have changed my life. Last year when my lips kept splitting in the corners this was something I ended up buying to try and help my lips. It helped so much! Since then I use this daily, whether I’m in or out of the house. It’s also great to use underneath lipstick to keep my lips lovely and soft. Out of all the flavours, scents etc out there the aloe vera one is by far my favourite. 🙂

• The Body Shop Banana Body Butter.

Since I started using The Body Shop banana range, it’s certainly made me realise how much I love The Body Shop for their products. They’re just great and at an affordable price too! I LOVED the banana range and I’m so gutted it’s now gone. It wasn’t around long enough for my liking. BUT I love using the body butter on my hands to keep them lovely and soft. I know this is really odd, but their hand cream doesn’t do anything for me. Only the hemp one works. I do love this though as it smells delicious and really does moisturise my hands when they need some major TLC!

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

Image taken from GIPHY

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite TV Show – The Office (US) and Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.

I couldn’t just name one TV show this month. I loved both of these equally! Thanks to Dane’s brother and his girlfriend we discovered that The Office (US) is fucking hilarious! I’d watched the UK version of it growing up and rather liked it, in a weird way. There are some really funny and iconic moments in the show, but my favourite part is how frustrating Jim and Pam are! In the sense you want them to hurry up and get together. 😛 Jim is by far my favourite character and the way John Krasinski plays him, he does such an amazing job at making the character so natural, normal and relateable.

The second show I’ve been loving is an anime that Dane has been watching for a while now, but every time he’s asked me to watch it, I was either too busy with my blog, playing games or I just couldn’t be arsed to watch it. Finally I gave in and began to watch it towards the end of November. Oh man it’s such a good anime and I’m glad I decided to watch it sooner rather than later! It’s about a guy who sees a girl dressed up a bunny girl in the library and he’s the only one who can see her! Then it goes on from there. It’s definitely worth a watch as it’s pretty unique. It’s on Funimation and Crunchyroll and is only subbed.

Favourite Film – Bohemian Rhapsody.

Oh man I honestly LOVED this film so much! I actually saw it at the end of October but it was pointless mentioning it last month. Alongside Deadpool 2, this was definitely one of my favourite films this year. It was amazing, beyond amazing! I grew up listening to Queen with my mom in the car whenever we were out and about so I do have a love for the band. When the trailer for this first came out I KNEW I needed to go and see it, Dane wanted to see it too. However as the release date loomed Dane changed his mind, “I don’t think I’ll enjoy it as much as I thought I would.” I was desperate to see it and as I didn’t think I’d be able to go with anyone else, I booked it regardless for us both. We left the cinema with Dane loving the film more than I did! I cried throughout the film and I just felt for Freddie Mercury. It makes me wish he was still alive. If it’s still showing and you haven’t seen this film yet, please do.

Image taken from Otaku Magazine USA

Favourite Book – Giant Spider & Me.

I discovered this book whilst I was visited my friend Sophi in London. I was after a new manga to read online as I’d read all my books I’d taken with me for entertainment on the way there. I can’t remember how I discovered this manga to be honest with you, I just know I found it on a UK anime and manga blog. It sounded weird but different, so I gave it a go and whilst I didn’t fall in love with it, it’s something I found myself reading each morning I woke up, as well as partly the way home from London. I occasionally read it before I head into work if I get there early. It’s based in a post apocalyptic world where this girl lives on her own and whilst out she finds the giant spider, who ends up becoming her pet/friend and lives with her. From there she starts to meet more people who have to come to accept the giant spider etc. It’s a very sweet manga and one I recommend people to read, especially if you hate spiders. This isn’t a normal spider and I don’t mean in just the size of it. 😛

Favourite Music – Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

This is by far my favourite Foo Fighters album. As odd as it sounds it’s been there for me through so much over the years. When I’ve been happy, sad, angry and depressed. Lately I’ve listened to it loads as it’s such a great diving album to listen to. I love listening to it before I go to work as well as before I head to my pole and hoop classes with my bestie Jacqui. I’ve popped the whole album above so you can give it a listen for yourselves if you haven’t already. Some of my favourite tracks from it are “The Pretender”, “Let It Die”, “Long Road To Ruin”, “Come Alive”, “Stranger Things Have Happened”, “Summers End”, “Statues” and “Home”. So most of the album really. 😉

Image taken from GIPHY

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite Game – Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Pokemon Let’s Go: Eevee.

Oh man November was just full of games and being poor. 😛 Spyro and Pokemon are both massive games from my childhood and both make me feel really nostalgic. Within the space of a few days both Spryo Reignited and Pokemon Let’s Go came out! I’m still working my way through both games. 😛 First of all I want to say how much I was pissed off about Spyro. Not in the sense of the game but how bloody pisstakey it was for me to get it! So I pre ordered it back in August ready for the original release date of September. The game was pushed back to November so I had to wait another couple of months. Fine. BUT when I didn’t even get it the day it came out due to “courier issues” I was pissed. So I complained to Amazon and they ended up refunding me for the game and allowing me to keep it. It arrived the next day. So I’m pretty chuffed by that result. 😛

ANYWAY on about the game! I LOVE Spyro Reignited so much and they did such a good job on it! I played some of the first Spyro game but fast got bored after I finished the first world and levels. I felt like it lacked what the second and third games brought to the table. So I ended up moving onto the second game, which I’ve nearly completed! They’ve got some of the old voice actors back to reprise their previous roles, as well as some new ones. I love that Cassandra Morris (voice of Morgana in Persona 5, as well as many other things!) does some voice work in the game. I haven’t played the third game yet, but I know I’ll soon get to that this month!

With Pokemon Let’s Go I decided to opt for the Eevee option as it’s one of my favourite Pokemon. I loved Pikachu growing up, but the older I’ve got the more overrated Pikachu has become. Nintendo did such a good job with this game and aww man I couldn’t be happier with it! I think I’ve only had one issue with it so far and that’s that the 2 player option is shite. It’s not for adults really, it’s for children to play with their parents and introduce them to playing Pokemon. It’s a great idea to be honest and there’s nothing wrong with it per say. It’s just not any good for older gamers. Dane has also loved playing this and intends to take it with him whenever he has to work away from home! We’ll probably end up getting the Pikachu version sooner rather than later. 😛 Dane even contemplated getting me a Switch so I could play at the same time as him. The catching system for the game is amazing and works really well! This being said I’ve only used the Poke Ball controller (which I bought with the game) which I find looks like it works better than the joy cons. They seem super faffy! Handheld mode is definitely the best way to play the game though. I plan to write a massive post about the game eventually (probably this month tbf…) so I don’t want to talk too much about it to be honest.

So those are my favourites from November, the month that went by in the blink of an eye and left me feeling poorly and poor! 😛

How was November for you guys? What were you loving throughout the month? Make sure to let me know in the comments!

Again, I am going to try and do Blogmas this year, but don’t get too excited for it as to be honest I can’t see it happening. xD

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re kicking off December with Christmas music and films. 😛

Albums I’m listening to this summer!

Yes it’s time for another music post, but it can’t NOT be done when the weather outside is so beautiful. I haven’t really been able to go out and enjoy it as much as I would have liked as I have a few things going on right now but otherwise I’d been enjoying just seeing it looking bright and sunny outside of my window.

As I travel quite a bit these days to visit my partner (boyfriend sounds so school girl, don’t you think?) so during my train journeys I’ve been listening to various albums and some have stood out whilst the weather has been so pretty.

So I thought I would share with you what albums I’ve been listening to at the moment, enjoy!

Destroy Rock & Roll – Mylo.

This has been one of my favourite summer albums for nearly ten years. It was released in 2004 but I picked up my copy in 2005 after falling in love with the tracks; “Drop The Pressure” (don’t be mistaken by “Dr Pressure”) and “In My Arms”. They were catchy, had those annoying repeated lyrics that everyone knows the words to and were just great for listening to on hot summer days. The tracks on this album are all different from one another but work alongside one another at the same time. There isn’t a track no one can not like on this album and to this day I can’t really pick a favourite from off of it (probably “In My Arms”). It’s sad to say that this is the only studio album that Mylo has released as I craved for him to make another, he has however done some exclusive albums for Mixmag, but I don’t own these and I haven’t listened to them either. Fingers crossed for the future though!

In Your Honor – Foo Fighters.

The year this album came out is one of the best years of my life. It was when I was finally discovering which music I would come to love and enjoy for the rest of my life, the year I saw Bob Dylan (what a legend!) live with my Dad and the year I also go to see these guys live with my brother. It was an amazing gig and is still one of my favourites to date. I mentioned this album briefly in my music series as one of the albums that defined my taste in music. This album is one of those that you listen to whenever but I find it more meaningful during summer but that’s because that’s when I bought it and when I listened to it the most, mostly when I visited my brother and he would have it playing whilst we had a BBQ or drinks. My favourite tracks from this album are “Best of You” and End Over End” but I love all the tracks from this album. I listened to this when traveling recently and I forgot how much I love this album and whilst some Foo Fighter fans weren’t keen on this album, it’s by far my favourite.

EP – Beth Ditto.

This was out by Beth Ditto about a year before I discovered it and when I did I fell in love and it’s something I’ve listened to on a weekly basis since downloading it. It’s only four tracks long and I just wish there were more as the album just leaves me craving more songs! I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned this on previous music posts, but maybe I hadn’t downloaded it by then. As most know, Beth Ditto is in the band The Gossip and is their singer, I don’t know if she created this EP because she wanted to spread her wings and venture off on her own or just because she fancied a change, but either way I love it and I hope she records a full album in the future. I discovered this album through her tracks being featured on the video she made with MAC to go alongside the make up collection she made for them. The track was called “Open Heart Surgery” and it’s an amazing track. If you like The Gossip and/or electo-pop then I recommend her music.

† (Cross) – Justice.

This was a hard choice to make as I love both † and Audio, Video, Disco are both as good as one another. I finally decide on this one as I’ve found I listen to it more whilst traveling in my car and it has more listens on my iPod. There are some amazing songs on this album like; “Genesis”, “D.A.N.C.E.”, “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy” and “DVNO” to name a few popular ones. Two of my favourites from off the album are; “Phantom” and “Phantom Pt. II” they’re such amazing tracks and should be played in clubs. The day I’m in a club and these are played one after the other, is the day I scream the loudest I ever have and run over to the dance floor! I only really started to listen to Justice a year or so ago and I have grown to love them a lot. Their music is just different but also reminds me a little bit of Daft Punk, which regular readers will know is one of my oldest and favourite bands. Check out Justice if you like Daft Punk, you won’t regret it.

Random Access Memories – Daft Punk.

Majority of what needs to be said about this album can be found in the huge review/post I made about it here when it came out. All I’ll say is that this album is amazing and is definitely my album of 2013 and one I’ll call my summer 2013 album too. Probably sounds daft (appropriate wording FTW!) but I always pick an album that symbolised the summer and winter months of each year, as well as an album for the whole year. This album is just amazing, seriously go and read the review for more about this. Favourite song from this is “Instant Crush”.

Tongue Tied EP – Iwan Rheon.

Some of you may recognise this guys name, he’s well-known as Simon Bellamy in Misfits and he’s also in Game of Thrones as Ramsay Snow. Like most people I discovered him in Misfits and since then I’ve watched most of the TV shows and films he’s acted in. In 2010 he brought out his first EP, Tongue Tied which only has four songs but they’re all so beautiful and summery songs. I haven’t listened to this EP as much as I have recently and it think it’s because I was too busy listened to other albums, songs, EPs, etc but this one has slowly turned into a summer favourite.

So those are my albums for this summer! Are there any here that you like for summer, or any other season?

What are your favourite songs for summer? Let me know in the comments down below.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, I know I intend to after a rough week, so see you next week!