A-Z: Get To Know Me!

I recently found a post of the same title by Be over at Love From Be (link) and I just loved the post so much. It was just a nice and different way of getting to know the blogger you enjoy reading, or have just discovered. So I thought I would give it a go myself! Make sure to go and check out Be’s blog, as she’s so lovely and down to Earth.

Anime – I love anime so much, it’s something I have enjoyed watching from a young age, and the older I’ve got the more anime shows I have found myself watching. Some of my favourites are Elfen Lied, Nana, Azumanga Daioh, Himouto! Umaru-Chan, Sword Art Online, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Blogging – I didn’t want to have to use this as the letter B, but I really couldn’t think of anything else! I love my blog. It’s my number one hobby, and something I would love to turn into my job in the future. I’ve been running my blog for four years now, and I continue to carry on with it for as long as possible.

Coffee – Well, the title of my blog does have the word coffee in it! I do really like coffee, so much so I worked in Costa Coffee for nearly three years. That is probably the first time I’ve admitted to working in Costa on my blog. 😛 My favourite coffee is vanilla flat white. I love my coffee strong! 😛

Dirty Sanchez – One of my favourite shows has to be this. I love not only that the guys are from the UK, but I also love how they do some worse off stuff than what Jackass have ever done. I’m sad that they aren’t still around, but I’ll always think of Dirty Sanchez as one of the shows I grew up watching and loving.

Evanescence – My favourite band for over ten years now. I fell in love with them when I first heard “Bring Me To Life” on KERRANG! Radio. I ended up buying their first album Fallen and listening to it none stop. I still have that album to this day! I have seen them live twice, and hope to go again in the future. I’ve also met all the band mates (apart from Amy!) from the Evanescence album days. My favourite song is “Imaginary”.

Fuerteventura – This place is legit my second home. I’ve been going there since the age of 5 and I love it. I didn’t go for 10 years and it broke my heart, I forgot how much I loved it and how amazing it was there. I really want to live there one day… But we shall see. I would want to work in a cocktail bar, or hell even run my own on the beach! 😛

Gaming – I’m a gamer. Not a hardcore one, but I still love to play my games! I’m also a console collector too, and I currently own 7 consoles (Nintendo SNES and GameCube, Playstation, PS2, PS3, and PS4, and an Xbox 360), as well as my handheld collection of the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS Lite, and my Nintendo 2DS. Go me! But I love playing games. Currently obsessed with the LEGO games. I can’t wait for the Star Wars one to come out.

Hyper Japan – I went to my first Hyper Japan convention last summer in London and I loved it so damn much! It wasn’t as good as I was hoping it was going to be, but I still enjoyed myself. I really hope that me and Dane can attend the winter one this year, seeing as we went to the summer one last year.

iPhone – I own an iPhone 6 and I love it to bits! It’s by far the best phone I have owned to date, and I just love it. It feels nice to hold, is great to look at, and to be honest my new phone case just makes me happy. I only got it in the post yesterday when I got home from work and it’s just so adorable. Who can say no to a sleeping Mew, huh?

Jackass – Another one of my favourite shows. I grew up watching this too funnily enough! I would skip school to stay at home eating toast and watching TV shows on MTV. Or I would stay awake all night watching them on Viva. God those were the days! I was gutted when Ryan Dunn died too by the way. It really hit home as he was my favourite one on the show. I’m sad that this has also come to an end, but I love Bad Grandpa, it’s amazing!

Kawaii – A Japanese word for cute. I love cute things and often say kawaii about them to try and be cute myself. It rarely works and I end up looking like a complete loser. 😛

Lipstick – This is really the only makeup I wear, and I’m pretty damn proud of that! I love lipstick, and I’ve recently started to get braver in wearing darker lip shades than I already wear. I love liquid lipsticks the most right now. My favourite brand being Jeffree Star Cosmetics. I also love my MAC lipsticks too, my favourite shade will always be Rebel. I love wearing reds, dark pinks, and purples. Can never get enough of them!

Manga – I love reading manga. I started to read it back in 2011 when I finish university and had time on my hands. I started with Elfen Lied, then moved onto Azumanga Daioh, and Nana. I currently have some Nana to finish reading and then I’ll be moving onto the Sword Art Online series. I need to read the Attack On Titan manga too… But I only have enough time on my hands for one thing at a time.

Nendoroid – These are the awesome figures that me and Dane collect, and we really do love them! We have a nice little collection going at the mostly, which are mostly Dane’s. I only have 3 at the moment whilst he has (from memory) 10 figures… My collection is really lame in comparison! Good Smile recently announced they were creating a Deadpool Nendoroid, so me and Dane are really excited for him!

Ocean – I love the ocean. I love how beautiful it looks and sounds with the colours, and the crashing and gentle swishing noises. I finally got to swim in the sea/ocean on my holiday last January with Dane and I loved it so damn much! I can’t wait to do that again someday.

Image taken from We Heart It

Pokemon – Since the age of 6 I have loved Pokemon, and that love is still just as strong now 10 years later. I still play the games, lust after the cute plushies (as you’ll have seen from my recent wish list post here), and get excited when any new news comes out to do with the franchise. I don’t care if I’m a 26-year-old woman, I love Pokemon! 😛

Queens Of The Stone Age – One of my other favourite bands, and one I really want to see soon! I have always ended up not going to see them live due to having no money, no one to go with, or them playing too far away from home. When they tour again however I won’t let the chance slip away!

Red – Not my  favourite colour (that’s purple) but it’s my colour of choice clothing wise! I love the colour red and how bold, and sexy it looks. It also suits me due to my warm yellow skin tone, as well as my brown hair and eyes. I’m after a gorgeous red rain coat at the moment, but alas I haven’t found much.

Studio Ghibli – This is my Disney. You know everyone loves Disney movies? Well I love Studio Ghibli movies. Me and my boyfriend between us have pretty much all of the films on DVD and whenever a new one comes out we try to go and watch it at the cinema. My favourite is Spirited Away, it always has been and I’m pretty sure it always will be. I do rather like Grave of The Fireflies, even though it’s a really sad film.

Teachers – Another TV show I grew up watching! This used to be on Channel 4 back in the day when I was still at school myself! It always made me want to be a teacher deep down due to how much fun all the teachers had both in and outside of school. Alas that hasn’t happened… My favourite season is probably season 2, but I love them all!

Image taken from We Heart It

Umaru – I am legit Umaru… Constantly hermitting away in my room playing games, eating crap, reading manga, and lusting after things I can’t afford to buy. I’m not cute like her though… Just a very sad 16-year-old stuck inside someone 10 years older than herself… Oh dear. 😛

Vitamin D – This is an odd one, but I actually recently found out I have a vitamin D deficiency… Which of course sucks but I’m currently on medication to help it. The little pills I get are tiny blue ones, which remind me of The Matrix. 😛

Writing – I love to write. I do it for my blog, I write books and stories in my spare time, and I even studied critical and creative writing for my masters degree (as well as for my BA too…). So it is safe to say I love writing. 😛 Need I say more than that???

X (I apologise but I couldn’t think of anything with this letter…)

Yankee Candle – I love these candles! They’re my candle of choice whenever I go to buy any new ones, so I’m always burning them at home. I currently have Christmas Eve burning at the moment as I’m trying to use up all my  tea lights and votives. 🙂

Z (I apologise but I couldn’t think of anything with this letter…)

Image taken from We Heart It

So that was my A-Z about me! Thanks again to Be for posting about this, as if she hadn’t I might not have gotten the chance to have a go at it myself. I also apologise if any of my answers were lame… 😛

Will you be having a go at talking about yourself through an A-Z post? Make sure to let me know if you do so I can read yours!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a great week so far.

Barry M Matte Nail Paint in Vanilla – review

I know I’m not going to be the first to be ranting about how I love the new Barry M Matte Nail Paints and I know I won’t be the last, but after only owning this polish for three days, I already love it and know I want to own more colours.

I mentioned this in my October wish list recently and whilst I popped in Superdrug earlier this week to get myself some flu remedies, I also picked up this polish. I’ve been feeling poorly this week, as well as pretty down in the dumps so I thought I deserved a treat. Plus my eczema has come back this week with brute force and my right hands knuckles look as if they’ve taken some damage from a fight! Not pretty, so of course I thought some lovely polish would make my hands look less ugly.

Barry M have brought 5 shades out for their Matte collection, Espresso (matte black), Crush (red wine), Caramel (coffee brown), Vanilla (light grey) and Mocha (a dark brown) and as this post titles, I bought Vanilla. The paints are all named after coffee related things, which I think is awesome for myself personally as 1. I love coffee, 2. My blog name and 3. I work in a coffee shop. What’s not to love about these nail paints!?

I stood at the Barry M stand in Superdrug for AGES trying to decide which one to buy, as I’ve got my eye on Espresso and Crush too. I asked one of the service assistants if they had any 3 for 2 deals on, but they said no, which was a shame as I’d have bought Espresso and Crush too if it had have been the case! I was good though and decided to go for Vanilla, the more nude and thus muted colour of the three.

It’s a beautiful light grey shade with an undertone of pink to it, the colour reminds me of a shirt my Dad used to own  when I was little so since wearing it I keep thinking of a fond school and Father’s Day related memory. You know when you were at school you would make cards for your parent(s) for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter, Father’s Day or Mother’s Day? Well we were making cards for Father’s Day and our teacher had come up with the idea that we make cards in the shape of shirts. We got to pick whatever colour we wanted to for the shirts, but all the basic colours bored me, red, blue, yellow, orange, green and even purple. I wanted something different, my Dad never did and nor does he still to this day wear bright coloured shirts. The one coloured shirt he ever wore was a purple one I bought him one birthday. Anyhoo, he had this dark grey, almost beige shirt and I asked the teacher if we had any grey card we could use. She brought out some card that was the same colour as Vanilla and thus, this is why Vanilla reminds me of my Dad…

Right I really did ramble there and digress… ON WITH THE POST!

The matte nail paint’s are all perfect shades for autumn and winter and with their matte finish they look really grown up and match the time of year perfectly. I find the shades in this collection are perfect for in the office as the shades aren’t over the top and most of them are nude shades so will work perfectly, no matter what skin colour you have.

Due to these being matte polish, I found when painting my nails it dried REALLY quickly, even when I put on a second coat! I hate waiting for polish to dry and I know with Barry M’s Gelly Nail Paint in Lychee I find with two coats it takes forever to dry and I end up needing to apply a glitter top coat just so it’ll dry on time for me to leave the house.

Staying time is perfect too and as I don’t own any plain top coats that will continue to leave behind the lovely matte finish I didn’t bother to put one on. However I have seen fellow beauty bloggers write their reviews for Vanilla as well as the other matte nail paint’s and have painted their ring finger with a top coat, which left it with a lovely gloss. It looked really nice but I doubt very much I would do this myself as I really like the matte look this polish gives.

The matte nail paints only cost £3.99 each and before we know it they WILL be on a 3 for 2 offer and quite frankly I can see me buying all of them as I’m already in love with Vanilla.

With Christmas coming up these will make lovely stocking fillers, especially for teenage girls who are into trying out all these new nail polishes with their magnets, sand, glitter, matte, shimmer, gel, oh the list could go on and on!

Keep your eyes peeled on these if you like the sound of them, the place I heard about these first and saw swatches of was over on The Sunday Girl’s blog. Her swatches are great, so if you would like to see what the rest of the shades look like, head over to her blog and check them out.

Quite frankly I love my Vanilla nail paint and I think it’ll be a firm favourite of mine this autumn!

So what do you think of the Barry M Matte Nail Paints? Do you think you’ll be checking them out? Which shades do you like the look/sound of? Let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time, take care and I hope everyone has had a good week!