Skincare!

Just got back from a Criminology exam and what with being the little eager beaver I am, I thought I’d sit down and write my next Blogger Challenge Post – EARLY!  (Don’t worry the organisation skills are shocking me too).

Let’s take a looksie shall we:

And the winner is *drumrole please* SKINCARE!

Ooherrr Gaby’s trying to turn us all into beauty bloggers?!

Where to start!?  With a disclaimer I suppose.  Although I wouldn’t say I swore by this routine, I really like it but the disclaimer revolves around the fact this face cleansing ritual I do twice every single blumin day, has yet to rid me of a humongous spot near my mouth.  So feel free to write to the companies coming up and tell them their products are useless and I still have a gynormouse freaking spot!

Probably not the best way to start my skin care routine but hey ho, off we go…

FIRST you shall be presented with an itinerary picture from which we shall systematically go through.

1) On the left we have the Garnier Skin Naturals Fresh Essentials ‘Refreshing Gel Wash’ enriched with grape extracts that promises to purify and clean.  I shall be honest and tell you that I have just run out and that is an empty bottle.  On the plus side at least I can give a well informed review!  I really have never been fussed in the slightest about what face wash I use, I’m a bit of a face wash whore truth be told, always going for the cheapest.  I really did like this one though, it spells divine and although I won’t be repurchasing (as you will find out I have become a Simple girl) it was through no fault of its own!

2) Next along would be Garnier’s replacement – Simple, Sensitive Expert range ‘Kind to Skin Vital Vitamin foam cleanser’.  They don’t all have half posh names these lot!  I adore it!  It’s absolutely lovely and foamy and not only washing my face but making me happy at the same time through the sculpture of Santa Clause beards every day, twice a day.  The only con I am seeing with this is that the formula seems to be going down pretty quickly, possibly because it takes a fair amount to get the required two squirts it recommends.  Hopefully I won’t have to repurchase TOO soon!

3) Third from the left is Simple’s ‘Kind to skin purifying cleansing lotion’.  I mainly use this to get rid of those stubborn bits of mascara that you would normally find hanging out drizzled all down your face the morning after the night before.  It’s lovely and creamy and I really can’t fault its ability to move all that stubborn makeup I never seem to be able to get with a wipe.

4) Next up is Clean and Clear’s ‘Blackheads clearing cleanser’.  This was a repurchase and possibly my favourite face product of all time (apart from the obvious moisturiser).  I love the tingly feeling you get when you smear it all over your face (though my new one doesn't seem to give it as much) and how clean and refreshed it leaves my face feeling.  I have a massive confession to make.  I actually never even knew what a black head was until just after Christmas when I asked my boyfriend what the black things were on his nose.  I thought that a blackhead was just a general spot and that was what the formula was clearing up.  Think how good that makes this stuff.  HAVING USED THIS FOR ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE NEVER HAD A BLACKHEAD!?!?  Now it may be down to genetics or something but I’m just going to go with the fact that it was Clean and Clear looking out for me like the bros that they are.  Since my boyfriend had these mythical blackheads I bought him some of this stuff for Christmas and have got him into a cleansing routine like a boss!

5) FIVE. Simple's ‘Soothing Facial Toner’.  To be honest I have no ideas what this does.  No clue.  All I know is that it was on offer when I was buying the others and it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It claims to make my skin feel clarified and refreshed, but I’ve used so many products by this point it could be any one of them.  I’m not hating it seems nice enough but nothing special in contrast to the other Simple products.  If anyone has any ideas about what I am actually gaining from swiping over my face, feel free to let me know!

6) Lastly but certainly not least is that Simple ‘Kind to Skin Replenishing Moisturiser’.  I have about 3 of these floating around my room from when I bought them on sale.  They are absolutely a life saver for keeping my skin feeling hydrated and clear (most of the time, damn you spot!).  This is the cherry on the top of my Simple collection.  I love it!

So there it is!  Quite a list when I look at it now!  I also do the occasional face mask and use various spot creams when the occasional volcano pops up but mainly I can’t complain about my skin, this lot seems to keep it looking pretty clear.

I look forward to reading everyone else’s and hopefully pick up a couple of tips from you lovely ladies.

Using these skin products seem to be negating my last resolution of being a zombie in the new year.  Letting the team down most definitely.

I know Sophia, I know.

Ooft look at that complexion

A Christmas in Pictures

A Christmas in Pictures

I thought this would be a nice way to document a bunch of the things I did in Christmas 2013 for myself without having to write a post on each (like I had originally planned *grrr* damn you coursework).  It’ll be lovely to look back and remember all the things I did!  *Warning future Gina* This is a picture heavy post ;)

Christmas started, for me, with the flat Christmas party (which I already have a post up on) but I had a brilliant time with all my flatmate and some pretty awesome food as well!

Revision begun as all my flat mates went home and my lectures finally finished!  A little quote I found in the revision guide was this:

Who slipped Narnia in there!? Law was supposed to be boring!

 As people left, gifts started arriving and I had no problem filching them on discovery!

A great moment was when I found out that the boy who had left Uni had left his room unlocked and I could go and nosy around and laugh at what he had left behind!

When I finally got home, my boyfriend and I went out to the markets shopping (I remember a certain amount of kicking and screaming on his part until he saw the food and promptly shut up!).  Didn’t get any photos but we spent a whole bunch of money in the food section trying all the different things that they had to offer!  Afterwards, (as if we weren't pumpkin shaped enough as it was) we ended up in a cute Chinese desert house.  I have NEVER been in such a place before and boy was it a discovery.  We ordered 2 desserts, I only got a picture of 1 to show my mum, and they were the most delicious things I have ever tasted in my whole entire life.  One of them was a sort of ice cream fruit platter, that was HUGE and the other - waffles with chocolate ice cream and cream.  Only downside was that (yet again) I was sitting in a room and was the only one speaking English (along with my boyfriend of course)!  Everyone looked massively bemused when we started playing rock, paper, scissors for the bill (I lost grrr!).

Tell me you're not jealous?!

Since I've only just gotten my new phone, and my old was too slow to have any kinds of apps downloaded on  it, this was the Christmas of the SnapChat.  What a discovery.  I now have multiple images of my face on different days looking ridiculous on all!

Assumed use of Snapchat:

Actual use:

I attempted to wash in wash out dye my hair the same colour it already is.  Why?!  I have no idea.

Although no pictures were taken of most of our KFC food, I can guarantee we spent a considerable amount of our time in there.  Some would say too much time.  I would disagree.  Either way this was the only picture I took inside the premises itself of the most disappointing thing from the menu - cream balls.

Blah blah blah, insert hideous selfie from Martin's Birthday here… Mmmm look at those rolls!

Christmas presents!!!

Using Christmas presents! (soo manly ;)) 

Trafford Center!  Okay so this was such an awesome day!  To cut a long story short, we skipped the shopping (definitely not like me) in favour of the farrr more fun option of playing in the arcade.  We spent four hours in there and won a tonne of tickets which we fed to machines in order to claim 2 mugs, 3 Maoims and a tub of bubbles.  Unsurprisingly the bubbles were the most popular prize for us!  We did have a mooch round the Trafford Centre as well though and the Christmas lights were so pretty!

We fought over these bubbles and the half hour of entertainment they provided!

Some silly birthday snaps:

 

Cute :')

The day I left we made some chocolate shapes from Magic chocolate that I got given, for Christmas.  Unsurprisingly mine were CLEARLY better!

Mine...

Also mine...

Again, this masterpiece is mine....

I'm sorry Martin but really?! It was suppose to be a dog!

When I finally got back to York my Mama and me went to the pub before she headed back.

And last but not least, today I had a Criminology exam and as I was walking back I got some of the most gorgeous shots of my campus.  Ghost town it may be, but you can’t deny it isn’t beautiful too!

So many pictures! But I had an absolutely awesome Christmas break - minus revision which was less fun!

In the New Year I Want to be a Zombie

YEYYY! The start of the 2014 Blogger Challenge has BEGUN! I’m not going to make a guarantee that I will complete every single tag HOWEVER (going crazy with the cap locks today huh?!) I WILL try and do as many as I can - university and sleeping provided!

So, for those not familiar with the challenge, I’m supposed to be writing a blog post twice a month to a prompt that the lovely host Gaby has chosen.  This month’s prompt isssss:

‘The topic for the first post of the #2014BloggerChallenge is going to be "New Years Inspiration" - the idea is that instead of writing new year’s resolutions on your blog you share a quote or a picture that inspires you and you think will inspire others in the New Year.’

After pondering long and hard over the vast amount of inspirational pictures and quotes that ol’ tumblr is churning out these days, I felt compelled to bypass the generic ‘be a better person’ nonsense.  Far too generalised for my liking.  What I was looking for in my ‘inspiration’ was specifics.  After strenuous minutes of panicking that I may well have fallen at the first hurdle and maxed out my brain capacity at this early stage in the year, I finally realised what the perfect inspiration for the coming year would be:

These sexy beasts here.  Ooft.  Look at that dress sense… the style… the flare these guys have just jumps of the screen.  Don’t tell me that you’re not now wishing that you’d grabbed this picture first.  Cursing that your inner fashion demon had sniffed out the up and coming trends.  No?

In all serious though, I genuinely think that this picture, and indeed the concept of these basically bad-ass butt-kicking walkers should indeed inspire me to brave out this scary new blank page of a year.

Although most of my examples are going to be fastened to *cue dramatic voice* AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’, I am a humongous zombie book and film fan and these observation have come from numerous sources across the genre so don’t shoot me if it doesn’t always match up to everyone’s favourite show.  Disclaimer done!

I know.  I’m making no sense but stick with me here!

First thing’s first.  Say what you will about their potentially skewed moral compass, these zombie folk are persistent buggers.  They see what they want and BOOM, they will not stop till it’s theirs.  Short of the occasional severing of the lower limbs, and bullet through the face, few creatures have such determined drive to succeed.  Relating this to my year, I most definitely need to chase my university degree and further procrastination (note the use of the word ‘further’) needs to be minimised.  Law is wiping the floor with me at the moment and I don’t want to be constantly playing catch up to the other boys and girls who already did the subject at A Levels and spend their lectures laughing at the 50% who didn’t.

So yeah.  Persistence

An example of how one should most definitely seek to pursue ones love interest.

This next one most definitely relates to the first.  Over the next year I hope to develop a more definitive sense of purpose.  Right now I’m floating around in the vast universitysphere, a place where all those who have-no-clue-what-they-want-to-do-in-life-but-hey-screw-it-I’ll-go-to-university are pushed into.  I’m like a zombie without a lovely hot meat bag to chase.  Like said zombie though, I hope to jump on the perfect opportunity (assuming one will come waddling this way in the next three years) and know that it’s exactly what I want to… eat?  The word ‘do’ seemed inappropriate for my simile but anyway.  NEXT.

Friendship.  This one speaks for itself.  Ain’t anyone got more friends than a dead person. 

Never leaving anyone out the biters are always together, making new friends all the time. Look at that teamwork - Isn’t it lovely <3

TOUGH SKIN.  Metaphorically of course.  Think of all the mean things that people say about these poor misunderstood dead people.  Did their Nana never tell them not to talk ill of the dead?  Pshhh.  How rude.  Anyway, nothing gets under the decaying’s skin.  Maggots and germs maybe but never WORDS.  And that’s what's important here.  Getting upset over silly things that I’ll forget about in a week’s time should be off the agenda for the New Year.  Looking back through all the things that have upset me over the last year is making me feel foolish – some of the overly emotional responses have most definitely not been warranted.  (As an aside though, as a hormonal teenage girl I am holding up less hope for this one than some of the others!)

Look at how much happier not caring what people say makes you ^^ His grin is so adorable :’)

I have tonnes more qualities of these friendly beasties I’d like to adopt – Never saying no, less inhibitions, nerve, a catchy theme tune, good hygiene etc etc – you get my drift.  But I think I’ll cut this off here with my last one:

A worldwide audience of 16.1 million people.  Aiming high right? A girl’s got to hope…

So from this exercise I have learnt a lot about myself.

1.   I really know how to stretch a metaphor
2.   I apparently want to be able to compare myself to a flesh eating monster from a (currently) fictional scenario (you never know)
3.   I have absurdly high aims

This should be an interesting year...

I look forward to reading everyone else’s!

Gina x