Lush - The Fizzbanger Bath Bomb

Hello lovelies,

 

I'm very excited to share this post with you as it's all about one of my new favourite bath bombs from Lush, called The Fizzbanger. It may look like a standard bath bomb from the outside, but just wait till you see what happens when it goes in water..

 

 

Lush says -

 

"A Catherine wheel of a bath bomb. It changes colour as it fizzes, crackling with popping candy as it goes and releasing first a citrussy apple and then a cinnamon, apple pie like scent with a hint of ylang ylang. Petitgrain is used in aromatherapy to calm the breathing, slow the heartbeat and reduce feelings of anxiety. Ylang ylang produces a feeling of joy, and cinnamon leaf oil helps you let go."

 

Ok, so first of all, I adore anything apple scented! It's one of my absolute favourites. As soon as you smell the bath bomb, you get a subtle citrusy, apple scent which becomes stronger when used in the bath.

 

My friend Lorna had recommended this bath bomb to me on our trip to London back in September & she couldn't have picked a better one for me.

 

She described it as a 'minion bath' which is spot on! When you lower the Fizzbanger into the water, it starts whizzing around & producing a blue stream of bubbles out the sides, circling the yellow bath bomb in the centre.

 

You can also hear tiny popping noises, this is from the popping candy that is hidden inside the bath bomb. Such a nice little touch.

 

After the bomb has come to it's finale, it leaves a beautiful greeny blue water for you to bathe in. It's so pretty.

 

& for the final surprise, I found this little piece of paper at the bottom of the bath. It made me smile.

 

As well as having a delicious scent, this bath bomb is full of little hidden surprises & is perfect for un-winding after a stressful day. It contains ylang ylang & petitgrain, which are both used to relieve stress & anxiety. I couldn't be more in love with a bath bomb if I tried, so I'm definitely re-purchasing this one!

 

Have you tried this bath bomb before? : )

 

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Tanya Burr Lip Gloss - Berry Picking

Hello lovelies!

I wanted to blog today about the Tanya Burr lip gloss I received for my birthday from my girl Bo (thankyou so much babe!). I already own a nail polish from Tanya's collection & absolutely adore it, they are such long lasting polishes so I had really high hopes for the lip gloss.

And what can I say..? I've fallen in love.

I've always been a lip stick girl as long as I can remember. I do own a few lip glosses but tend to stick to lip sticks as I feel they last longer & give a better overall effect. I've never owned one like Tanya's that is so pigmented & it's totally changed my view on lip glosses.

I was given the shade Berry Picking, which is a beautiful dark red / brown shade. I absolutely love my darker products for the colder months, so this one suits me perfectly.

As well as the pigmentation being so beautiful, it's very long-lasting on my lips & doesn't feel sticky at all, just very moisturising. I think I'm always put off lip glosses because of their consistency, but this one just applies so beautifully on my lips & keeps them hydrated throughout the day.

I must comment as well on the packaging & the brush used for applying the lip gloss. It's so easy to use & bends to form the perfect shape of your lips. I really can't rave about this product enough! I'm definitely going to pick up a few more shades for Spring!

These lip glosses retail for £5.99 in Superdrug & in my opinion, they are worth every penny.

Have you tried any of Tanya's collection? What are your thoughts? : )

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Life Lately #96

 

Ok, so who else is dying of cuteness right now?! I'd like you all to meet Lily! I mentioned that she was born in my last update post & this was the day we went to visit her in hospital. Isn't she just the sweetest little thing you've ever seen? I don't have any babies in my family, so I'm massively excited by Lily's arrival! I didn't take a picture unfortunately, but we also said goodbye to Mils & Craig the same day as they headed off around the world on their travels. I already miss them both terribly, but can't help but be super jealous of all the snapchats I'm getting of Mils sitting on a beach.. how unfair as we currently suffering -5 degrees here in the UK!

 

Last Wednesday, I met up with Gemma for an early birthday lunch at Sugar & Snow. I was trying to be healthier with my diet since the new year, but that's gone out the window this past week! It's impossible to diet when it's your birthday! We had a lovely catch up, along side a tea & chocolate filled pancake. Was so delicious.

 

Our Race For Life photo was in our local newspaper this month! You might remember me posting about our day last year when we ran as a group from work. My lovely friend Shez who has organised it for the last 2 years left work middle of last year, so it's been left to me to organise this year's event. After meeting up with her last week, I'm actually so excited about organising it & we've already got some people signed up. If you want to take part this year, you can join in January for £10 as opposed to £14.99. It's such an amazing experience to take part in, I'd highly recommend it.

 

It's been so warm up until this week in the UK, we've had all the Spring flowers popping up in the garden! These were shop bought daffodils, but my mum gets them every year on my birthday. If you didn't see my post earlier this week, it was all about turning 25 & how challenging this year is going to be for me. If you fancy a read, you can view the post here. Thankyou for all your lovely comments, I never thought it would get the response it has. Really does mean a lot to me to know you guys relate to it as well.

 

Which leads me nicely on to my birthday celebrations! James travelled back from uni in Gloucester last Thursday & took me out for dinner at The Giggling Squid in the evening. I've raved about this restaurant before, but if you haven't heard of it, they serve the most delicious Thai cuisine. We had such a lovely evening & headed back to mine for some wine & pudding!

 

On Saturday I celebrated in style at my Disney party! I've literally been planning this night for months so you can imagine my excitement when Saturday came round! I hired a local venue for my event & decorated it with balloons, fairy lights & party poppers, complete with games such as pin the tail on the Eeyore & kiss the frog. We also did a quiz & connected a laptop to a projector so we could watch Disney films! It was such a good night & I was surrounded by all my amazing friends. I got to wear the most beautiful dress & was able to become a princess for the night! (A life long dream of mine!)

 

On Monday night I met up with my girls & we went for dinner at Cote. I've never sampled the early bird menu but it was such good value for money, definitely recommend it if you get the chance to go. I had a three course meal; pate to start, steak for main & chocolate mousse for pudding.

 

How has your 2016 been so far lovelies?

 

Thankyou so much again to everyone that left me a tweet, message or text for my birthday. I'm still in my little bubble of happiness from Saturday. : )

 

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25

On Saturday, I'm turning 25.

 

That's a quarter of a century (as I keep getting told by my relatives!)

 

I'm not usually one to reflect & take time to look back over my life, but I was lying in bed last night & was thinking how different my life is now, to how I thought it would be.

 

When I was in Secondary school, I was apart of a group of 4 girls & we were best friends. We still are best friends in fact but I was the one in the group that they all said would be married & would have kids first (by about the time I was 21, which seemed scarily old to us back then!) This to me now seems crazy, as I was so not ready for kids or marriage at that age & still nowhere near that now. Funnily enough, one of my girls is now married & about to buy a house so we definitely guessed wrong!

 

When I was 16, I remember having the best birthday. To be fair, all have mine have been amazing, but looking back at that one, just brings back the happiest of memories. My parents hired me a coach & we took a group of my friends to West Wittering beach. We had my ipod docking station playing full blast the whole way there & back & spent the majority of the time in the coach as it was so cold on the beach. We just had time for a few photos, then it was back to eating Colin the Caterpillar Cake in the safety of the coach! At the time, I'd just started seeing my first boyfriend (we went to an all girls school so it was difficult to meet boys!) & I remember him being really annoyed that he couldn't come on the outing, despite it being organised for months & it was girls only.. duh!

 

My 18th, 19th & 20th years were a blur of parties, going out & being the most social person I could be. I was also feeling a bit lost as the majority of my friends headed off to uni after college & I was left in our small hometown, working my way up into the world. I used to look back at that time & wonder if I'd made a mistake not going to uni, but I totally stand by my decision now. Besides, I still got to see the girls when they came home at weekends & I made more friends from work. I'm sure uni would have opened a few more doors for me, but I was quite content & never really excelled in any particular subject that was worth me spending thousands of pounds studying.

 

& now we come to the past few years, where I actually feel like I haven't got much to say about them. I'm still in the same job, living in the same house with my parents & still with the same man I met when I was 21. Having the same things in my life doesn't upset me though. I'm quite an anxious person & change to me isn't usually a good thing. As my 25th year approaches on this planet, I'm starting to feel that I need to push myself, not that I particularly want too. However, this year will be full of changes, whether I like it or not.

 

James finishes uni in May / June time & are looking to move in together. All these years that I've been working & saving have been building up to this year, so I'm hugely excited to be sharing this with him. After 3 years of being long distance with him living in Gloucester, we can finally start our lives together. If I'm honest, I'm terrified but excited for our adventure.

 

So this year I've decided to embrace life. I've been quietly sitting letting it pass me by for too many years & although that's ok with me, it isn't in the long run. If I want to see a show, I'll book it. If I'm feeling adventurous & want to go on a day out, I'll plan it. If I want to meet up with an old friend, I'll organise it.

And you know why?

Because life's too short to say "I'll do it tomorrow."

 

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Cotswold Wildlife Park

Hello lovelies,

 

Towards the end of last year, I went to visit James in Gloucester & we decided to have a day out at The Cotswold Wildlife Park. We'd visited the park almost 2 years ago & I remember it being so perfect for a day out (& you can get super close to the giraffes which are my favourite animals!) So I thought I'd show you a few pictures I managed to get of all the beautiful animals.

 

 

 

I just adore giraffes! Poor James had to wait for over 10 minutes while I got the perfect shots & videos of them! (Vlog coming soon!) I just find them so adorable & elegant but clumsy. Does that make sense? I just feel so calm around them. : )

 

These little fruit bats were hidden away in a dark room, filled with fruit! They must have just been fed as they were all going crazy for the offerings!

 

Ah the meerkat. This little one was digging for Australia it seemed!

 

I love monkeys. I find them so fascinating & cute. Especially if you find one like this with a moustache..

 

This (was going to say little, but I should say BIG as he was massive!) cutie is called Darwin & he's extremely old. He looked so adorable looking at the family home.

 

One of the main attractions of the park is the rhinos. This little one is called John & he was born in August. He's with his mum here, who was called Nancy. We saw him running around playing & even heard him squeak in excitement!

 

Such an acquisitive penguin this one was! Half of them were swimming around but he preferred to walk along the path looking at all the people!

 

 

Have you ever been to the Cotswold Wildlife Park? : )

 

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Lush - Luxury Lush Pud Bath Bomb

Hello lovelies,

 

I wanted to post today about the Luxury Lush Pud Bath Bomb that I received for Christmas (thanks Gem!) I know some Lush products are seasonal, but after getting such a positive response on social media when I posted a picture of it asking if you'd like to see a review, I thought it would be worth writing.

 

I hadn't heard too much about this bath bomb if I'm honest. It's one I've always seen in store but never really picked up. Odd, as it's so brightly coloured & pretty, I'm usually a magpie for things like this! However, after using it this year, I'll definitely be purchasing it again!

 

It has a distinct smell of lavender, which isn't my favourite scent, but it wasn't too over-powering in the bath & I felt very relaxed laying in the colourful pool of pink water. When I dropped the bomb into the bath, it produced the most beautiful colours; pink, blue, green, yellow, orange, white & even some red. It was beautiful to watch but didn't seem to last as long as some other of their bath bombs.

 

It left my skin feeling really soft after my bath, plus the scent lingered on my skin for the whole day which was lovely.

 

The only thing I will say about this bath bomb in a negative sense is it didn't feel very Christmassy. I know that sounds weird, but apart from the name & the holly on top there wasn't much about it that made me feel festive. Saying that, it was one of my favourite bath bombs I've used from Lush & will definitely be going out to re-purchase it when it's back in store.

 

Have you tried the Luxury Lush Pud? What did you think of the Christmas range from Lush? : )

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Life Lately #95

 

These last few weeks have been completely manic but also some of the loveliest of the entire year.

 

Let's start with Elisa, one of my best friends going on maternity leave on Christmas Eve. She was due to give birth on 6th January, but actually went into labour on 29th & baby Lily was born at 11.09am! We have a facebook chat with all our close friends in & it was going crazy as soon as Elisa sent through a picture of the birthing pool! It was such a tense day as I was at work 12-8.30 & we heard the news at 2pm! Another of the ladies I work with ran out to box office & we both celebrated. Both mum & baby are doing fine & myself & James are going to visit Lily later on today. I'm so excited!

 

As tradition stands, myself & James go to watch panto every year on Christmas Eve. This year was Beauty & The Beast & we thoroughly enjoyed it. It had some beautiful music & we fell in love with the beast & the dame. They were both amazing.

 

After the panto, we headed over to James' mums for Christmas Eve dinner & then to my family for lunch on Christmas Day, followed by James' dads on Boxing Day! I love spending time with our families & of course that includes our lovely doggies. Just look how adorable Honey is! Of course, way too much alcohol & food was consumed, but that's what January is for right?

 

New Years Eve soon came round as I had to work between Christmas & New Year (luckily not Boxing Day!) & we celebrated with some fireworks, a curry & games in the evening. It's always a special night as James' birthday is on 1st January, so a lot of alcohol was consumed Thursday & yesterday! We decided to go bowling & out for dinner in the evening with the family at TGI Fridays. I'd never been before, but the food was delicious.

 

How was your Christmas & New Year lovelies?

Would love to hear what you got up too : )

 

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