So last Sunday my friend Poppy and I met up after 4 months of not seeing one another to have a much-needed catch-up, as well as do a little bit of shopping. We were both super excited and couldn’t wait to get together to do what we do best, drink coffee and talk about make-up!
I told myself I wouldn’t spend much and in just a few hours I spent about £50… Oops! I won’t be treating myself for ages though now and will be making sure to save up as much as possible!
Otherwise I’m not that bothered, it was a lovely day and all the things I bought were definite essentials and at one point I came out with something that sounded rather like something Rebecca Brandon (née Bloomwood) would say from the Shopaholic books by Sophie Kinsella… (I love that series!) But I’ll explain that later into this post!
The weather was pretty crap but I’d started my journey to town rather well, as I made my way from Coventry for a change. The train journey was pleasant and it only took me 20 minutes to get to Birmingham. It’s weird, from where I live it can take maximum an hour, but yet from Coventry it doesn’t even take half an hour… Weird, huh?
As soon as we met up we went to go and get hot chocolate to warm us up as it was pretty chilly and was raining none stop! I enjoyed my mint hot chocolate, Poppy enjoyed her soya hot chocolate and when we were warmed up and had a mini catch-up we headed over to Zara to make a must-needed purchase.
Poppy had her eye on the Mini Office City Bag (which you can find here) which she picked up in Navy. I’d never bought anything from Zara before, so I’d never looked at the bags either and I was expecting this bag to be at least £40-£50 but when she said it was £29.99 I was really surprised! She picked it up in navy and it looks gorgeous, she wore it all day whilst we carried on shopping. I’ve never seen someone so pleased with a new bag purchase before, she is adorable, bless her. FYI this bag also comes in burgundy, which looks really nice!
After this I made Poppy come with me into Primark, while as boring as I sound right now, I needed some new socks for work but I left with a new set of pajamas too!
I’m a big kid when it comes to 101 Dalmatians, like most people are about The Lion King or any of the Disney Princesses. Lady & The Tramp and Bambi are included in this too. I’d heard from a friend that Primark were selling 101 Dalmatians pajamas, which made sense as I recently bought myself some slippers of the same Disney movie from Primark too. There were two different sets, this one, which as you can see is shorts and another with had trousers, but out of the two, this was the only set in my size! I’m going to be checking quite a few Primark stores throughout the month to try and track down the other set. I really could do with some new pajamas and I might as well get some cute ones that I’ll love. I own too many 101 Dalmatians pajamas sets now… It’s a tad worrying! This set was £7, which I thought was good! I had a very anxious Wednesday afternoon so as soon as I got home I had a relaxing bubble bath, put on my new pajamas and slipped into bed to relax some more for the evening. These are really soft and fit comfortably, well worth the money I paid for them! If you would like to pick these up but sadly can’t find them in Primark anymore, they do have them on eBay, but they’re more expensive than they are in the shops, which is a bit crap.
Finally after making our way out of Primark we headed back to Zara as I saw something in there I really wanted and just had to have after spotting it from our previous visit there.
We walked past many hooks with scarves hanging off of them in Zara but this one stood out to me the most, a black and red striped scarf, that is long enough to wrap around yours as well as another person’s neck beside you. This is described on the Zara website as a Long Narrow Scarf With Stripes (which you can find here) and I got it in burgundy. The red is looking brighter on the pictures I took, when it’s more of a wine red, which I really like. This is super warm and since buying it I’ve been wearing it to and from work in the car, as well as when I went out Wednesday. I can really snuggle my face into my scarf, which I like and I haven’t bought myself a decent scarf for quite a few years now, as I’ve been a snood lover for a while. This was £19.99 which shocked me when I checked out the price tag, as every time I have been into Zara, their clothes have always seemed really expensive to me, but for how big and how warm this scarf is, the price didn’t bother me at all. This was a real treat today and one that I don’t think I’ll be regretting anytime soon. It goes with everything from my pleather spiked biker jacket, to my navy military coat, to even a grey or navy boyfriend cardigan. This will keep me really warm this autumn and winter and with the weather becoming so bitter and cold, it looks like I chose the perfect time to buy this.
We wandered around for a while, including Selfridges where I found out how much I need certain Laura Mercier products in my life (post about those in a few days!) as well as finally swatching MAC Speak Louder, which will definitely be my next MAC purchase… When however, I don’t know!
We went for lunch and some tea, as well as more catching-up and one of our last stops was to Boots, where I needed to pick up some essentials, as well as a few treats.
I had a list inside my head of certain things I needed to get, but I ended up bringing home a couple of things I really didn’t need. At the moment Boots are doing one of their 3 for 2 deals, so although I didn’t intend on doing this, I ended up being sucked into it and picked up three items, getting one free, hooray!
I knew I wanted to pick up Vaseline’s latest limited edition, Paint The Town Red lip tint as whilst some beauty bloggers had reviewed it as overrated and rubbish, most had reviewed it as being a lovely product to use on their lips and went on how good it was. So I decided to pick it up for myself! I’ve been using this loads since I bought it and I’ll definitely be writing a review for it! It leaves a lovely dark pink tint to the lips, which is perfect if you don’t fancy wearing lipstick but would like a hint of colour, plus it smells gorgeous and it reminds me of autumn. This was £3.49 but so worth it and I know come Christmas I’ll be buying these for my Vaseline loving friends, as well as picking some more up for myself before they’re taken off the shelves. If you can’t find this in stores to buy, you can pick it up from Boots and Superdrug.
Oral-B 3D White Brilliance toothpaste is the only one I’ll use since it came out… Well until something I think is better than this one comes out anyway! My Mom bought us some to try when it first came out a couple of years ago and since then whenever I’m close to running out, I’ll pick up a new tube. I run out of this every 3 months or so and since using it my teeth just look so much better and even my dentist agreed! It’s £3.49 a tube but it doesn’t bother me, as I really like this toothpaste and I use it day and night!
I nearly forgot I needed shave gel and I haven’t treated myself to a nice, woman’s shaving gel for quite a long time now! I usually opt for men’s shaving foam as it does a great job, but after buying a cheap can of shaving foam, my legs ended up breaking out in a terrible rash from an allergic reaction and I felt like the skin was being taken off of my legs, instead of my hairs. For a while I discontinued using any shave foams or gels and opted for using conditioners and shower gels instead, which didn’t do so much better for my skin either! When I looked at the women’s shave gels I saw that certain Gillette shave gels were on offer at £1.74 each, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have one of these. I decided upon the Satin Care with Touch of Olay for Sensitive Skin as it sounded rather appealing. Not only is it suitable for sensitive skin but it also moisturises as you shave, which is exactly what I need for my legs of late! I gave this a go on Wednesday during my relaxing bath and afterwards my legs felt so beautiful and smooth and shaving them with this gel felt lovely too. I don’t think I would repurchase this at its full price of £3.49, but if I got it on offer again, I don’t see why not!
I needed to get another product for make my 3 for 2 offer and even though I don’t need anymore shower products, this seemed like something I wanted to give a go after Poppy telling me how lovely it smelt. I love strawberry scents, even though I hate them to eat or drink. I gave this a sniff and it reminded me of the Strawberry Shower Gel by The Body Shop, which is a firm favourite from my childhood. I’ve used Natural Collection products since I was a child too and Wild Strawberry has been around for ages, but I don’t recall ever trying it myself! The shower cream sounded yummy and as it was £2.00, it became my free product in the 3 for 2 offer! I gave this a go before going to work on Monday and it really did perk me up! It left my bathroom smelling lovely, as well as leaving my skin the same, as well as it being soft too. I’d love to try more of Natural Collection’s shower gels/cremes as although they’re a tad expensive at £2.00 each, it’s not as expensive as some shower products, eh? I can imagine my boyfriend stealing this whenever he comes over in future and I can hardly blame him! You can find this here on Boots website.
Last of all I had thought about picking up a new eye gel whilst shopping in Boots, but I was only going to pick up my good old Simple eye balm, but I wanted to try something new and decided to pick up Soap & Glory’s Puffy Eye Attack Turbo-Boots Hydragel. I’d looked at this before and thought how cooling the gel felt on the back of my hand, so who only knows how it would feel on my eye! I decided to go for it as you only need a little bit for the eyes and it goes a long way! I reckon this little jar will last me for 6 months, if not more! I tried some of this when I got home on the Sunday afternoon and it felt lovely on my eyes and when I’ve used it before going to work and out during the day it’s felt really refreshing on my eyes too! This was a pretty expensive purchase at £12.50 but it was a treat and it’ll last me months! You can pick this up in Boots and a lot of Soap & Glory products are featured in the 3 for 2 offer, which is what I bought mine in. I know I’ll be reviewing this in future as my eye bags can be quite big depending if I’ve had much sleep or not, so I’m going to be trying this little pot out day and night to see how it does!
So after another sit down with some pots of tea and some gossip to be had, it was finally time to go home and at the last-minute Poppy decided to drop me off at home, seeing as it was on her way, which was lovely of her!
I had such a lovely day and it was great to see Poppy again, as I had missed her terribly!
I’m now poor and need to stay in eating cheap meals, but at least I’ll be clean and warm eh?
Have you been shopping recently? What did you buy nice for yourself? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time, take care and I hope you all had a great week.
There Might Be Coffee 