First Impressions: H&M Beauty

When I heard that H&M were relaunching their beauty line, my first thought was about bloomin' time. The first images dripped through the grapevine and I was excited to see luxe looking packaging, and a vast line, long gone are cheap nail polishes and chunky glittery shadows in clear packaging. A real beauty line has arrived!

When I finally got to see the line, I was immediately drawn to the packaging. Whilst I'll admit, it feels a little cheaper than I had hoped, I love how it looks! I opted for the Pure Radiance Powder Blusher in Deep Brown, because it reminded me of the likes of Tarte Exposed. I was after something to use as a blush bronze hybrid on days when I want a little subtle cheek definition, and this is perfect. It's super pigmented, soft and easy to blend, and it's a great shade to go with a bold red lip!

 I was intrigued by the Colour Essence Eye Cream texture, it's almost mousse like, reminiscent of the MAC Electric Cool Eyeshadows. I picked up the shade Dauphine Truffle, which is more brown on the eyes than I expected, but also much lighter than it appears in the pot. A nice all over lid shade, that lasts really well throughout the day and doesn't crease.

I'm all for tinted lip balms at this time of year, so I've been giving the Lip Saviour Balm in Sepia Tint a go too. This is really creamy and soft on the lips, with a barely there hint of colour, a great one to chuck in the handbag for on the go!

 And lastly, I picked up the Knot A Problem Hair Primer Spray, mostly because I really appreciate a good pun. I've been spritzing this into damp hair pre blow dry and it does a good job of detangling my mane without weighing it down. My one complaint is that the packaging is pretty vague, and there's no real description of what this is actually supposed to do!

So far, so good, I'm impressed, so much so that there are a few more bits on my wishlist!

Are you going to try H&M Beauty?

Flower Mail

Because I'm a total girly girl, when Debenhams approached me and asked if I wanted to try out their flower delivery service, I said yes straight away. I love having flowers in my home, we rent our flat and are very restricted when it comes to things we can do, we can't paint or hang things on the walls, so having flowers around makes the place feel more homely.

I've never actually had any flowers from anywhere other than the supermarket before, and never any flowers by post, so I was super excited to pick these out! I went for the Apple Rouge Bouquet, a beautiful arrangement of Oriental Lilies, Berries, Carnations and Red Brassica. It's so autumnal and beautiful, I can't stop staring at them!

You can have your flowers delivered as soon as the next day, they arrive in a giant box so they don't get squished, with enough water to survive a night. I took these photos 6 days after the flowers arrived, and they still look beautiful, I think they'll be going strong for another week! 

The lovely team at Debenhams are offering my lovely readers 25% their orders with the code DFBLOG25, the code doesn't expire, and you can use it as many times as you like, so you can treat your friends, family, and maybe even yourself too! 

Because if you can't treat yourself on a Friday, when can you?

A London Hotel You Can Actually Relax In

 Last week we took our wonderful American visitors on a whistle stop tour of London. Since my flat is approximately the size of a postage stamp (and there was four of us) we decided to book a hotel in Central, so we could get an early start (and not have to lug our luggage around all day).

The K West Spa Hotel came highly recommended from a few friends of mine. It's located just around the corner from my uni (and a hop skip and a jump from Westfield White City) so I was familiar with the location, and had high hopes. We booked two rooms totally last minute (ie, the night before) but the room rate was really reasonable, and we had high hopes!

Luckily we weren't disappointed. Located on a quite residential road tucked round the corner from Shepherd's Bush tube station, it's handily placed as well as being really quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of central London. Inside we were greeted by friendly faces and checked in in a matter of minutes. The lobby of the hotel is simple but perfect, a long bar is the focal point, with a large and comfortable seating area around it. Tucked away next to the lifts however was a much more relaxed atmosphere, the 'festival hub', a room packed with books, bean bags and fairy lights. The perfect place to recline after a large meal!

 For a London hotel the rooms were super spacious and well equipped. We booked Executive Twin rooms and it was refreshing to stay in a hotel that is actually well thought out. A dressing table placed facing a large window for good makeup lighting, a large full sized mirror as well as a small one on the dressing table, plug sockets everywhere, an assortment of magazines on the coffee table, big fluffy towelling bath robes, the works. A lot of thought went into the rooms and it shows! I was particularly enamoured with an extension lead on the bedside table, with four plug sockets and two USB chargers. PLUGS NEAR THE BED GUYS, THIS NEVER HAPPENS.

The room was spacious and despite sleeping in a single bed, it didn't feel small. The rooms were modern and spotless and I really can't pick fault in anything. The only niggle is the glass bathroom door, which wasn't really a problem anyway since the bathroom is tucked around the corner. 

I also loved the idea of a tablet on the dressing table, with everything from local weather and tourist attractions to room service and spa menus. Such an easy way to consolidate a wealth of useful information.

 We were totally pooped from a day of exploring, so I decided to make the most of my serene, spa like settings and run myself a long hot bath. On the lovely lady at Lush's recommendation I picked up the Big Blue bath bomb, and it was perfect, the sea salt, rosemary, lavender and lemon all served to relax my aching muscles and send me straight off to sleep when I climbed into my comfy hotel bed!

It's a full thumbs up from me for the K West Spa Hotel, I'm already planning a trip back for one of their infamous Aromatherapy Associates massages, and a go in their Snow Room. Yes, you heard me right, a Snow Room.

Ban.do Florabunda Large Agenda

I wasn't planning on picking up a new planner (I'm very happy with my Erin Condren Life Planner), but when I spotted one last copy of the Shop Ban.do Large Florabunda 2016 Agenda in the wondrous Tottenham Court Road Paperchase store (the BEST Paperchase FYI) I had to bring it home. Having seen the Ban.do agendas blowing up Instagram over the last month I had without realising fallen in love with it's pretty, girly design. I didn't know that Paperchase stocked these, and I can't find them on the website, but it's worth having a look in your local store!

They had a couple of the smaller designs but I went for the large Florabunda design, because I wanted to have a ton of space for doodles and ramblings. For the size these are pretty reasonable too, clocking in at £25.

 I love all the cute little illustrations throughout the planner, and the sticker page is just too adorable. Because the planner is American, some of the dates don't quite match up, but I love the inclusion of fun holidays, like 'National Taco Day' and 'Hug Your Cat Day'. The weekly spreads are sprinkled with fun ideas of ways to spend the weekend, as well as some random little quotes and sayings. It's just a bit different, and that's why I like it!

Any fellow planner addicts out there, I'd love to know how you use your planners, I'm thinking of using this as more of a journal than a planner, but I need some inspiration!

Let's Talk Snacks - New In From Graze

When it comes to dieting, or even healthy eating, I have one almighty downfall. I'm a snacker. 

I'm not one of those people who can eat three big meals a day and nothing else. I like to snack, graze and generally just pick at food throughout the day. I can't help it! And this is where I slip up, because I find eating good, healthy, whole foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner easy, but snacking is hard.

There's only so many cherry tomatoes and apples a girl can eat before she starts to get a little bored. 

Enter stage left Graze Boxes. I've had a fair few standard Graze boxes in the past, my boyfriend used to have a subscription and I'd bag all the flapjacks, as well as a few free box codes that came in handy. But I stopped ordering them a while back since, in all honesty, the standard boxes are quite expensive long term. Great for every now and then, if you're having a busy week, travelling or just out and about a lot, but as a weekly thing? It wasn't really necessary for me, especially since I work from home.

However, a couple of new(ish) releases from Graze caught my eye, so voucher in hand I placed an order for a couple of bits!

First up, a sharing box. This is the answer, I think, for people like me. A one off box like this contains five resealable snack packs, each containing around 20 normal Graze servings. It's a pretty easy process, Graze have 20 different snacks available in this format, you pick out which ones you like the sound of and they'll send you a random five. These little pouches are a great size, I've got one in my desk drawer, and I think they'll be great for taking away with me when I travel too. 

So, in my box!

Spiced Apple and Ginger Granola Topper: Equally good for sprinkling on top of granola for extra flavour, or just snacking on straight from the bag! Inside is spiced granola, dried apple pieces, ginger fudge and orange raisins. That description alone has me dribbling. If you're a fan of cinnamon and ginger, you'll love this. I may be almost out already because it's that damn good.

Texan Corn Salsa: If you're a nacho lover like me, you'll love this. Corn chips, salsa almonds, roasted corn and jumbo chilli corn, a handful of this is almost like a healthy version of tortilla chips and salsa. Not too spicy, just a hint of chilli flavour, super tasty!

Herby Bread Basket: This is my answer to avoiding eating a giant garlic bread on my own at three in the afternoon. Inside are mini basil breadsticks, garlic crostini and oregano rice crackers. It's a carb fix without leaving you feeling bloated and disgusting, and the herby flavours are delicious. 

Cherries & Berries: One of my Graze favourites, I'm so glad you can get a big pack of these now! Inside are dried cherries, lingonberries, cranberries and raisins, I'm not normally a dried fruit kinda gal, but I just adore these. I've had the Tesco and Lidl knockoffs before, but I much prefer these, they're juicier! 

Sour Cream and Garlic Crostini: For when you're craving pringles! Inside are sour cream and onion cashews, and garlic crostini. I should point out that as a rule I don't like nuts, but I generally always like them in Graze boxes, since they're flavoured and tasty!

This box is normally £15 but you can get your first box for £10, which I think is really good, considering how much you get. Again, it's not something I'd buy weekly (I don't think you'd need to anyway, this stuff will last ages), but for travelling, or as an occasional one off it's perfect! 

I also ordered two of the standard graze boxes, a flapjack box and a chocolate box. Because treats. I love that these are the perfect size to slip into your letterbox, and each individual snack is individually wrapped, and a good size for your handbag!

I've never had a Graze Flapjack I didn't like so the idea of an entire box devoted to flapjacks was a no brainer. Inside was (I definitely ate this one straight away) an Apple and Cinnamon flapjack (my absolute favourite), a Lemon Curd flapjack (a close second), a Cocoa and Vanilla Protein flapjack (I hadn't tried this before but I ate this in a midafternoon slump and it gave me a real energy boost), and a Fruit and Seed flapjack (a solid contender). Not one complaint at all, except that the box doesn't come with a little man to stop you eating them all in one go. 

The chocolate box was a bit of a risk for me since I'm not a giant chocolate fan (I know, I know). I was pleasantly surprised though, these little packs are the perfect afternoon-pick-me-up when you're craving a six pack of Mars bars. Inside I had Caramel & Peanut Track and Field (Salted Caramel milk chocolate buttons oh my oh my, peanuts, fudge, and raisins), Dip Your Own Chocolate Pretzels ( poppyseed pretzels and a chocolate dip, yum yum), Graze's Chocolate Orange (orange chocolate raisins, milk chocolate buttons, jumbo raisins & orange raisins, this tasted like jaffa cakes) & After Dinner Mint (peppermint raisins that were surprisingly delicious, dark belgian chocolate and almonds). Basically, it was all delicious! 

So the verdict? I still wouldn't get a box every week, but as a treat every now and then (or before a big trip) these are just perfect! 

Also, if you want a free box, you can use the code JAYER2WLE to get one! This isn't a sponsored thing with Graze, just a code every customer gets to share with their friends! And I like you guys ;)

Aaaaaand writing this post has made me hungry.

London Eats: MEATliquor

 This place can be a real mixed bag, and it's worth keeping in mind you will either love or hate it. 

There's no reservations so you can expect around a thirty minute wait, any evening of the week. If you go for lunch you'll often be seated straight away, but the food is never quite as good. 

MEATliquor has an outdoor queue covered with heaters to keep you warm, but it's unlikely you'll wait more than ten minutes there, they usually move you to the bar area when you have about 20 minutes to go. This means if there's more than two of you, your table will be ready by the time you've got your drinks.

The cocktails are tasty, and the bar staff will make a bit of a show of preparing them, but you're essentially paying around £8 for two mouthfuls of drink and a glass of ice, so I generally stick with bottles of beer/cider which all tend to be around the £4.50 mark. 

To say the atmosphere in MEATliquor is unique is an understatement. The decor looks like it was executed by graffiti enthused pirates, and it's exceptionally loud, a place to avoid if you like intimate conversation or dislike rock music. The majority of tables are large, so if you're a smaller group you can expect to be seated with another party. Be wary if you're seated under the domed section of ceiling too, the design means that your conversation can be heard better by those on the other side of the room than those sat next to you. None of this is a bad thing, it's just worth bearing in mind, since it makes for a rather 'marmite' dining experience. 

Moving on to the main event, the food! This is a strictly eat with your hands sorta destination, all the food is served on giant trays, and you can expect to finish your burger with a good amount of grease and sauce dripping down to your elbows. Each table has a big roll of kitchen roll that comes in handy for mopping it all up, but hardly makes for a silver service experience. 

I can whole heartedly recommend the Dead Hippie Burger, but all of there burgers are delicious, cooked medium rare as standard, and served in brioche buns. I've tried a fair few of the sides (cheese fries, dead hippie fries, chilli cheese fries, onion rings, fried pickles, chicken wings, Mac & cheese) and they were all delicious, but it's worth keeping in mind that the portion size is enormous. Particularly the onion rings, which look like they started life as giant genetically modified onions the size of a boxers fist. 

The service in MEATliquor is stretched thin, you can expect to have to haul in a server for your bill at the end of the meal. They're always lovely, their just stretched thin. 

Other notable things, it's cramped quarters and always rammed, expect to be rubbing shoulders with everyone. There's a photo booth that you can purchase tokens for at the bar, which gets a good rep. 

Overall, it's definitely an experience, the food is good, but it's not something you need to repeat more than once or twice. There are other burger joints in London with better service, food, and an atmosphere better suited to being able to hear yourself breathe. 

Ladies Who Brunch

 Monday marked my final ever uni hand in (eeek, does this mean I'm technically now unemployed, or can I call myself a student until I graduate?), so to celebrate, the girls and I headed for a cocktail fueled brunch. 

Our university is right around the corner from Westfield at White City, so we headed there without much of a plan, and ended up in Balans Soho Society, a restaurant I've walked past a thousand times and never been in. 

It was pretty quiet (unsurprising since it was 10am on a Monday), and they quickly put together a table for the five of us. We took an inordinate amount of time to order, because breakfast food problems. Does anyone else think breakfast is the best meal of the day?

In the end, my friend Joanna and I split the bacon pancakes and Eggs Benedict and it was delicious. The eggs were cooked to perfection, served on English muffins with lashings of hollandaise, whilst the pancakes were thick and fluffy, the bacon crisped to perfection. The nice thing about Balans is that they really do every breakfast option, pancakes, french toast, eggs, Chorizo Con Papas, avocado toast, the lot. You'd find something to suit every breakfast taste. 

We followed up our breakfast with a round of celebratory drinks. The girls all opted for cocktails whilst I stuck with prosecco, which was delicious. The girls loved they're cocktails, but did say they were a little strong, but maybe that was just since it was a Monday morning!

They did stick a service charge of 12.5% on the bill, but we didn't mind paying since the service was fab, they were attentive and fast, but let us relax and didn't rush us out either. The meal was really reasonable, with breakfast and a round of drinks, including service charge worked out around £17 a head, pretty reasonable for London!

I could definitely get into the habit of leisurely brunches!

March Happy Mail and Messy Box

I've been an avid reader of A Beautiful Mess for a long time now, nobody can scrapbook quite like those girls! Last month I decided to try out the A Beautiful Mess Happy Mail Service, and I loved it, and ended up ordering the brand new Messy Box service this month to try it out too. I ordered a month to month subscription for both, and figured it was just a one month deal, but when my Messy Box arrived, there was this month's Happy Mail inside too, so without realising I'd been charged for two months! I figured I'd show you guys both, since I have pretty mixed feelings about the contents and the experience I've had with them too!

For those of you unfamilliar with Happy Mail and Messy box, here's the essentials. They are both subscription services that run month to month, Happy Mail is an assortment of cards and prints perfect for sending snail mail, whilst Messy Box is scrapbooking supplies. It's a US based service, but for an extra $2 you can have international shipping inclusive of import taxes, which is pretty darn cheap. The prices are in USD, but I ended up paying £18.24 for the Messy box, plus a £1.54 charge from my bank, and £14.63 for Happy Mail, plus a £1.48 bank charge. The website says they ship on the 10th of each month, and both months I received mine on the 30th, so it takes almost three weeks to arrive for international shipping, not great but not terrible either. 

 Of the two, I think the Happy Mail subscription is my favourite, although I'll admit, I think last months was better. There's nothing wrong with this months, I think I just thought last months was more exciting, and more me! This months box contained 9 assorted cards and postcards with envelopes, one large print, one sheet of stickers, six neon gift tags and one shopping list notepad. I love the notepad, it's really cute and I'll definitely get a lot of use out of it, and I love the print too. Also, that pug card, so cute

The Happy Birthday, Thank You, and New Home cards are handy to have for any future dates coming up, although you probably wouldn't need these every month! It's always nice to have these kind of cards on hand though! The others I'll either send to my friends, or use within my scrapbook, I love the one with the Dolly Parton Quote, and the rainbow envelope it came with is so cute!

Unless you send a lot of post (or have a LOT of friends), I don't think you'd need to get this every month, but it's a nice little one off to get every now and then!

 Now I'll be honest, I was a little underwhelmed with the Messy Box. Don't get me wrong, I'll use everything in it, but I just expected something more exciting! I feel like there's a lot of card stock here, and for the price point I'd rather buy another Project Life kit. I think I expected more variety, stickers and stamps and even some variation on the card would have been nice, like a glittered sheet or something, all of the cards here look pretty samey. As a concept it's a great idea, but I just felt it lacked variety. 

In the kit you get a roll of washi tape, some white split pins (why?! This is the most unexciting inclusion of them all), some gold chipboard letters, an assortment of journaling cards, and some thin tissue paper circles and hearts (not entirely sure what I'd use these for?) for the price, a real let down.

Something to keep in mind, I was under the impression I'd signed up for a month to month subscription, where I can cancel at any time. What they don't tell you is that you have to pay a $15 fee per subscription to cancel the service. Had I known this, I probably wouldn't have ordered any at all, since I'm not really in a position financially to commit to the subscription!. My suggestion would be to go for a 6 month subscription instead, so you don't incur any cancellation fees (after the six months)!

Whilst this months boxes didn't blow me away, I wouldn't rule out ordering these in the future, and I really think they're on to a great thing here!

I think I'll stick with Project life kits for now, but if you send a lot of mail, this is a great kit!