My five favourite pampering rituals

I'm not very good at making time to look after myself, and I'm trying really hard to change that.

I often run around saying 'I'm so busy, I haven't got time to do anything!' which means I tend to neglect the simplest of my favourite pampering rituals during a particularly difficult time. However, when I'm scrolling through Instagram on a Tuesday evening and realise that I'm absent-mindedly looking at photos of my friend's auntie's neighbour's daughter's hamster, I often regret not using my time more wisely.

As a result, I'm making a conscious effort to make more time to pamper myself. Self-care definitely enhances my mood, and I need these simple rituals to work their magic even more right now. Best of all, some of them only take five minutes and most of them require minimal effort.

Read on to find out what I'm trying to do more of...

1. Painting my nails 

It's amazing how much better I feel with freshly painted nails. I usually paint my nails around once every week but I'm going to aim to do it at least twice per week from now on. I feel so irritated when my nail varnish is all chipped and I've got a massive collection of nail polishes, so I've got no excuses here! 

2. Having a bath

I very often tell myself that I haven't got time for a bath so I'll have a shower instead, but I'm slowly learning that taking the time to have a bath is so worth it. I throw in a couple of Lush products and take my Kindle with me, and I genuinely try to relax! I might not always succeed, but at least it's healthier than sitting around stewing on my negative thoughts (or stalking strangers on Instagram). 

3. Moisturising and cleansing 

I own loads of lovely moisturising products but I'm very guilty of thinking 'I haven't got time for that tonight' and skipping the moisturising step altogether. However, I feel so much better when I spare five minutes to moisturise after my bath or shower so it's really worth pushing away that pesky 'I haven't got time' thought. I also make sure I cleanse my face every night before going to bed, which I blogged about here. 

4. Making an effort with my hair and make up

When I wake up feeling particularly down in the dumps, I'll make minimal effort with my hair and make up which then makes me feel even worse. I've learnt that it makes a positive difference to my mood in the long run, even if it's just by a tiny margin, if I take the time to straighten my hair properly and put on a bit more make up. By 'a bit more make up', I mostly mean mascara, blusher and eyebrow pencil... any more than that is approaching night out territory for me!

5. Going to the gym 

This might seem like a strange one if you're not a fan of exercising, but going to the gym honestly works wonders for me. I sometimes get into a vicious cycle of feeling rubbish about my appearance then skipping the gym (and comfort eating) because I feel so rubbish, which then makes me hate my appearance even more. On those days when I'm feeling awful but drag myself to the gym, the payback is so worth it.

I might start playing 'pamper bingo' to see how many of these activities I can fit into one day. 

What are your favourite pampering rituals? Let me know if you have any recommendations for me! 

Birthday haul

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and I was lucky enough to receive lots of money and gift cards as presents from generous family and friends. The money and gift cards were very welcome as I needed to buy lots of new clothes due to going down a clothes size in the last year. Half my wardrobe has been given to charity shops, so my birthday money gave me the perfect excuse to go shopping!

I had lots of New Look gift cards as it's a commonly known fact that it's one of my favourite shops, so here's what I treated myself to from there...

New shorts! You can find them here and here

Black slingback court shoes

Peplum top. So pretty!

Flat white shoes - now out of stock

Lots of dresses! I'm only giving a little preview of these

as I'm saving most of them to wear on my honeymoon

A few people also gave me money for my birthday so I went shopping in Cardiff a few weeks ago... I love a bit of guilt-free shopping. 

I love Superdry tshirts! Coincidentally, mint and pink are my favourite colours

at the moment.

Short Disney onesie from Tesco

I've been waiting for these two DVDs to be re-released for ages... 

they both happened to become available just after my birthday! Thanks, Disney. 

Disney Princess bag from the Disney Store. £2.50! 

New bags from Primark. I couldn't choose between black/white

and coral/stone so had to get both! £6 each

A few make up items

I made the most of various sales and online discounts to make sure I made the most out of my birthday money and got the best value for money I possibly could. I'm really pleased with my haul and think I did quite well!

Do you have any of these items? Have you written a haul post lately? Send me your links, pretty please! 

Celebrating our third anniversary

Neil and I celebrated our third anniversary last weekend. This anniversary was extra significant as it's the last one we'll celebrate before our wedding in August! It definitely doesn't seem as if a year has passed since our second anniversary... time is moving far too quickly these days.

I decided to try out my new Barry M Limited Edition Carousel nail varnish on our anniversary as I'd bought it with my birthday money and it went perfectly with the dress I decided to wear. I love it!

We decided not to buy each other presents this year as we're saving money for the wedding and spending a lot on our new house. Both very expensive things, I think you'll agree. However, we did buy each other a card and, if I'm honest, we do have very good taste in cards. Who doesn't love a card with fluffy teddies/dogs on it?

I usually have Weetabix and semi skimmed milk for breakfast every day, even on weekends, but Neil brought big thick rolls and bacon from the butchers with him as a surprise so I had a bit more of a hearty breakfast on our anniversary. With lashings of ketchup, of course! 

After exchanging cards and eating our rather large breakfast, we headed in to town for our usual Saturday wander. However, we had a bit more of a purpose to our trip this time... we went to choose our wedding rings! I won't be posting a photo of my ring here as I want to keep it a secret until we're married, but I'm so excited about the beautiful wedding ring I've chosen. It'll definitely feature in lots of my post wedding blog posts in September/October, so keep a look out for it. We went for our usual Caffe Nero fix while we mulled over our wedding ring options, and I ordered my customary skinny hot chocolate. 

After deciding on our wedding rings and going to the jewellers to place our order, we popped to the Sidoli's hut in the Hayes for a cheeky ice cream. I've already blogged about my love for Sidoli's ice cream. They have such a wide variety of flavours! I went for Creme Caramel Fudge and Strawberries & Cream on this occasion. 

We continued to wander around town after eating our ice cream and I successfully spent the last of my birthday money... blog post to follow next week on what I bought! Unsurprisingly, the post will involve items from New Look and the Disney Store. 

I mentioned in my last restaurant review blog post that we ate at Prezzo last Saturday for our anniversary meal so I won't elaborate on that here, but our amazing bread board deserves to be featured again!

After finishing our food, we headed to the cinema to see 3 Days to Kill. I'll write about it in more detail in my monthly cinema round up, but I thought it was a great film. I shouldn't enjoy films with lots of shooting and bombing as I'm so paranoid about crime and violence, but I really do for some reason. I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day trying to analyse that. 

There was one more surprise on Sunday... Neil had bought a beautiful lemon cake from Costco! The topping was basically a layer of lemon sugary goodness and the cake itself was lovely and light. Although I do want to bake a cake again soon, Costco is a good alternative when we don't have time to bake! 

So, to sum up, we had a lovely anniversary and ate a lot of food, as is our custom. Next time we celebrate our anniversary, we'll be married! 

My love for Gelly knows no bounds...

I thought it was about time for me to write an update on my growing obsession with Barry M Gelly nail polishes. My last Gelly blog post was written in November when I had 5 shades... I've now managed to acquire another 6 to add to my collection!

Clockwise: Plum, Blackberry, Guava, Pomegranate, Passionfruit,

Mango, Sugar Apple, Prickly Pear, Blueberry, Greenberry, Grapefruit

Although the vast majority of these colours are beautifully summery, I've been happily wearing them throughout the winter too. Some dark and rainy days just need a splash of bright nail varnish!

The new pastel summer shades are the newest additions to my collection - Prickly Pear and Sugar Apple. I love pastels and shiny nails, so these are the perfect combination for me. Prickly Pear does need two coats in order to really bring the colour out and to maximise the glossy finish, but it's well worth the extra effort. Sugar Apple was a little streaky with just one coat, so I added another coat for that too. I love painting my nails in alternate colours as I get to use two lovely polishes at once! 

It's very difficult to choose a favourite as I've never come across a Gelly shade I didn't love. My top 5 shades are probably Guava, Grapefruit, Greenberry, Blackberry and Prickly Pear, in no particular order. Blueberry and Pomegranate also need to be featured somewhere in my list of favourites... look how beautiful they are!

I've already got my eye on a few of the other newly released summer colours... I'll need a bigger nail varnish drawer if Barry M keep releasing new Gelly shades! 

Do you love the Gelly range as much as I do? Which one is your favourite?

Review of Barry M Matte nail polish

Assuming that you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll already have read about my love for Barry M in my first ever nail varnish post. However, I sadly have to admit that I'm disappointed with their latest addition to my collection.

I bought the Vanilla Matte nail polish a few weeks ago as I'd read lots of good reviews about the Matte range on various beauty blogs. I knew it would be vastly different to my beloved Gelly range, but I fancied a change and wanted to try something different. 

The nail varnish is much easier to apply than the Gelly polish, but even with two coats the colour just isn't very striking. I know the Vanilla shade is quite light and understated, but I was hoping the finished result would look more elegant and a lot less dull. I'm also definitely not a fan of the 'matte' look after trying this nail varnish... the shinier the better! 

It just looks a bit dull...

On the plus side, I've had this nail varnish on for five days now and it hasn't chipped at all, so it does seem to be more robust and less susceptible to wear-and-tear than the Gelly shades. I'm sure I will use this polish again as this is a good understated look for more serious occasions, but I don't think I'll be buying any more polishes from the Matte range unfortunately. 

This just means I'll have to keep buying from the Gelly range! Has anyone else tried Barry M's Matte range? What did you think?

Christmas presents... the toiletry edition

This is the second post in my 'What I got for Christmas' series (read the first post here), and it's a bit of a bumper category. I love toiletries of any kind so I was really pleased when I had so many for Christmas. Edwina bought me a huge variety with lovely explanatory gift tags on each one, and I also had some from my parents, Neil, Phillipa, Siân and Amy. You can just never have too many! I'm now nicely stocked up so I technically shouldn't need to buy anything for myself for ages... I'll see how long I last before I crack. I have a slight addiction to buying toiletries!

My favourites from the pile above are the Peaches & Clean face wash, Iced Strawberry Dream shower gel (smells good enough to eat!), the Minnie Mouse toiletry bag and the Palmolive shampoo for coloured hair. I can't wait to start using all these and they're already all standing neatly in line ready for when my existing bottles/packets run out. 

Moving on to the gift sets I received, I especially love the set of mini Body Shop body butters from Neil as well as the giant Strawberry shower gel. He bought me big bottles of Satsuma and Lemon shower gels from the Body Shop last Christmas and they're both amazing, so I'm expecting great things from the Strawberry edition. I also love the Soap & Glory set from Phillipa and am excited about trying The Scrub of Your Life for the first time as it's been on my wishlist for ages. I had the very pretty Guess Girl gift set from Siân and I'm already obsessed with the perfume scent. I'll definitely be buying more when this bottle runs out! While we're on the subject of perfume, Britney Spears' Curious perfume is an old favourite so I was very pleased when I found a bottle of Curious under the Christmas tree from my parents. I'll definitely be smelling lovely for the next few months!

Lastly, Neil bought me four bottles of Barry M nail varnish for Christmas... he knows me well! I love the limited edition glitter polish, and I always jump at the chance to extend my Gelly collection. These shades are called Blackberry, Blueberry and Plum and they all look really striking. I'll have to write another update on my Gelly collection soon... it's growing rapidly!

What toiletries did you have for Christmas? Do you love the Body Shop, Soap & Glory and Barry M products as much as I do?

Barry M's Gelly range - part 2!

I first blogged about Barry M Gelly's range in August. Back then, I only had the Greenberry nail varnish from the range. Seeing as that one was such a success, I've purchased another 4 in the last few months...

Left to right: Passionfruit, Greenberry, Grapefruit, Mango and Guava

These nail varnishes are just so bright and vibrant. I can't resist them! They also last a few days longer than normal nail polishes as long as they're applied properly. I found that they chipped very quickly if the polish was applied too thickly but looked streaky if it was applied too thinly, so I've pretty much perfected my technique now. 

It's a difficult choice, but I think the Guava polish is my favourite.

The other four colours are very summery, but Guava is more suited to autumn/winter. This means I'll be using it a lot during the next few months! 

The Grapefruit colour (right) comes a close second, and I love wearing it on alternate nails with Greenberry. This was my nail varnish combo for my recent holiday to Florida... perfect summer colours. 

I probably won't use Passionfruit and Mango as much as the other colours just because I hardly ever wear red or orange (clashing issues with my red hair). However, they're lovely bright colours which really stand out and will definitely be noticed. I like wearing these shades with an all black outfit as they create a great contrast and look even more vibrant. 

Which Gelly shade shall I buy next?

Barry M's Gelly range

I've wanted to try Barry M's Gelly Hi-Shine range for months. I finally caved last weekend and bought the Greenberry colour as it looked so bright and summery.

I've read a lot of reviews about the Gelly range which say that the nail varnish is quite difficult to apply as it's thicker than normal nail varnish... they are all correct! When applying normal nail varnish, I put a minimal amount on the brush as I hate ending up with a clumpy effect. However, with the Gelly polish, you have to put a substantial amount on the brush or you end up with very streaky nails. Not a good look.

Gelly nail varnish might be a bit tricky to apply, but it's worth the effort as it looks AMAZING. It's super shiny and beautifully bright with just one coat.

These photos don't do it justice... 

the finished colour is much brighter than this!

I'm hoping the colour won't chip easily as it's thicker than the usual nail varnish I use... watch this space!

I will definitely be buying more colours in this range, and I think I'll go for one of the bright pink shades next. Any recommendations?

Happiness is... #1

I saw the idea for this post on the lovely A Life of Geekery blog, where Vicki has listed 100 things which make her happy in two separate posts. I'm going to write about 50 things rather than 100 things... I'm not sure if I could come up with 100 things within a realistic timeframe! It's good to reflect on what makes you happy whenever life seems a bit rubbish, however small those things may seem, so this list should come in useful.

I decided to link each item to a relevant blog post if there was one... it turns out that I write a lot of blog posts about the things that make me happy! Isn't that what blogging should be all about? That's probably a separate blog post in itself.

So here are the first 25 things that make me happy, in no particular order...

1. Cwtches (or hugs, for those of who you aren't aware of this lovely Welsh word)
2. Listening to my Now That's What I Call Disney CD
3. Fresh bedding
4. Haribo Jelly Babies
5. Buying outfits for Duffy the Disney Bear
6. A good session in the gym
7. Proofreading
8. Joe's Ice Cream
9. Going on holiday to Florida
10. McFly
11. Sun
12. Buying a new diary
13. Painting my nails
14. Going for long walks
15. Friendly people
16. Pyjamas
17. Soap & Glory Peaches and Clean
18. Saving money
19. My Kindle
20. Watching a Disney film
21. Friday evenings
22. Barbecues
23. Watching Outnumbered
24. Ticking items off my to-do list
25. Welsh rugby Grand Slams

What makes you happy?

More glitter!

I recently posted about my experiment with Barry M glitter nail varnish. I appear to have caught the glitter bug, and now I'm now wearing a totally different shade of glittery goodness. I had forgotten  one thing about glittery nail varnish though... it's an absolute nightmare to remove it so make sure you allow enough time, patience and cotton wool!

I wanted purple nails this time with some glitter, so I used these two shades:

Bright Purple and Silver Multi Glitter

I love this purple shade and use it very regularly, so it was nice to try a variation on the theme. I used the purple as a base coat, then painted the silver glitter polish on top.

The finished result!

I really love this shade, and it totally transforms the ordinary purple nail varnish into something a lot more sparkly and unique. The silver polish could also be worn by itself as it's very striking and won't always need a base coat. What combination shall I try next?

Glitter glitter glitter

As you'll have read in a recent blog post, I absolutely love nail varnish. I recently bought some new glittery Barry M nail varnish from Boots as it was on offer, and Barry M make the best nail varnish in the world. I haven't had glittery nails for ages, so I fancied a change. Rather than just using the glittery nail varnish, I decided to use a base coat too to add some more colour.

Aqua Glitter and Turquoise

I painted my nails with the Turquoise first, then painted the Aqua Glitter on top! Here's the finished result:

I've had the nail varnish on for three days now and it hasn't chipped at all yet. The picture doesn't really do the nails justice, as they're actually a lot more sparkly than they appear on the picture. I love them!

Can anyone recommend any other Barry M shades which I haven't tried yet?

Girly post #2... My love of nail varnish!

I haven't been seen without nail varnish on my nails since I was 14. This isn't an exaggeration. At first, I wasn't particularly interested in that kind of thing at all and just used to wear it to prevent me from biting them. This actually worked and cured me of the habit, and also encouraged me to become a little bit obsessed with painting my nails every different colour under the sun. I've gone through phases of painting every nail a different neon colour, painting each hand a different colour, using pastel shades and using glittery polishes. I can't get enough of the stuff. I gave my nail varnish drawer a good spring clean recently as I'd had some of the bottles for years, so I got rid of a lot of my old clogged up polishes. Here's my collection after my culling spree:

Still fairly extensive, although I'm sure some people have much bigger collections than this one. 

As you can see, my favourite nail varnish brand is Barry M, closely followed by No7. These two brands can last up to a week and usually only need one coat, unless you want your nails to be super colourful. I find that painting more than one coat makes the varnish chip more easily, so I only ever use one coat. Barry M nail varnish is £2.99 for the standard shades I've got in my collection, which is an absolute bargain. Their more fancy shades are £3.99, but I tend to prefer their standard range. No7 nail varnish is a lot more expensive, but I always use my Boots points and vouchers on them so that I don't have to pay the full price. 

These are my three favourites at the moment:

Barry M, No7 and New Look's own nail varnish brand

Here's a sample of what the middle one looks like when painted on:

So pretty!

The next shades I'd like to buy are a very deep purple colour, a silver glittery polish, and the most shocking pink shade I can find. Hurry up, pay day!

What's your favourite nail varnish brand?