There isn’t a lot this month to be honest.  Still it makes a change from previous entries and yep.  It’s all Lush stuff again. 😛

Grass Shower Gel – In my opinion the best shower gel Lush sell all year round and in store.  It’s became somewhat of an essential product for mornings and the dark and cold winter months.  It reminds me of summer, of sun warmed skin and of chilling with my pals in a beer garden/music festival.  It smells just like cut grass and I hope it never get’s retired.  I’ll be buying a new bottle as soon as I’ve used up some of my other shower gels/jellies. £16.75

Twilight Shower Gel – Smells exactly the same as the bath bomb and is just beautiful.  Also if the glitter in the ballistic puts you off (I’m not much of a glitter fan either) this doubles as a bubble bath too.  It was a limited edition product last Christmas and I have a litre of the stuff left.  I hope another opportunity to buy it comes along at some point in the future.

Calacas Shower Jelly – I love love love the smell of this (actually as a general rule if it has Lime in it then I’ll like it).  I also love the fact that it’s neon green and shaped like a sugar skull.  I have one more pot of this in my freezer.  I’m scared to use it hah.

Happy Happy Joy Joy Hair Perfume – A lovely light hair conditioner with a main (mane – grrrooaaannn) purpose of fragrancing your barnet.  If you like the smell of Orange Blossom perfume then I guarantee that  you’ll love the smell of this.  It’s vegan friendly too which is never a bad thing.  I do like HHJJ and it does make my hair smell amazing but to be honest the price does put me off from rebuying it and so in future I’ll probably just stick with Veganese as it’s like half the price. £30.25

…And it seems I’m back.  What have I been up to to warrant such neglect of this blog?  Quite a lot actually.  Been working lots, have been recovering from surgery, been tattooed, started going to the gym again, started smoking again, decorated my kitchen, celebrated Christmas and my birthday, made some marmalade, spent loads of money on vinyl and pretty much thats it in a nutshell.

How about you?

I am going to try my best in future with updating.  We shall see how that goes.

Last Saturday a few of us went to The Coquette Collective‘s Burlesque Show and since I hardly get to go out thought I’d go all out.  After trawling the internet I found this lady’s YouTube channel and decided to try and pin curl my hair.  For first attempts I was pretty proud of myself and my fella’s efforts as I had to get him to do the back for me.  I went to sleep with them in on the Friday night and went to work with a scarf on my head the next day.  I definitely think I’ll be doing this again in future.  Also kudos to Superdrugs who have a lot of vegan friendly toiletries these days.  I bought some old lady setting lotion from there and not only is it BUAV approved but vegan friendly too.  Boom.

It’s been hectic as of late I’ll give it that.  You wouldn’t think I’ve just came back from a week in Spain.  Literally all I did there was eat, drink and with the exception of a jaunt to Barcelona one day, pretty much remained horizontal with a fag/Gin in one hand and my Kindle in the other (Yeah I’m smoking again).  The weather was glorious and it’s good to know that my GCSE in Spanish, along with any swear words I’ve picked up on on the way still serve me well.

On the way home I hammered the Duty Free and bought the Naked palette by Urban Decay.  I’ve had it nearly 2 weeks now and in that time I haven’t even looked at any of my other eyeshadows.  This is how pleased I am with it.  What’s also good to note is that my eye makeup has never looked the same in all of those days too.  The brush is ace and the shadows themselves have A LOT of pigment in them and so last all day and blend into each other beautifully.  All in all I’m over the moon with it which is just in time considering my long time love affair with M.A.C. is now officially over.

I’ve used M.A.C. for pretty much all of my adult life purely because I a) was (well still am) a massive goth and the colour shades available were like nothing else I’d ever seen at the time, b) I knew that M.A.C. never tested on animals and c) their customer service was always great.  Most things however must come to an end it would seem.  The last few times I’ve visited their counters have been sub standard in terms of customer service.  Friends have said the same with one friend even emailing a complaint to M.A.C. only to receive a generic standard reply back.

Where once their stance on animal testing was a solid “we do not test on animals” it is now  “The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. is committed to the elimination of animal testing. We are equally committed to consumer health and safety and bringing to market products that comply with applicable regulations in every country in which are products are sold”, which is a total sell out in my eyes.  The main reason behind this change of heart?  Well it seems that M.A.C. are now trading in China which require, under some arcane law that every single ingredient/product must be tested on animals before it goes on sale.  I feel betrayed if im honest, and angry.  It’s ridiculous to think that in this day and age companies, who once prided themselves on being against animal testing are now going back on this just to make a bit of extra cash and are quite happy to piss off a lot of their regular customers in doing so.  Therefore it’s time for other companies such as Urban Decay and E.L.F. (who are cheap as chips and vegan friendly to boot) to fill the M.A.C. shaped void left in my make up box.  I’ve also been intrigued by Illamasqua for a while too so I highly doubt I’ll be missing out.

This all came about around the same time that Lush (who I work for and who have a very strong anti animal testing policy and have no shops in China for the very same reasons I’ve mentioned above) launched their Against Animal Testing campaign.  If you haven’t already signed the petition then I urge you to do so here.

Well after 4 hours I’ve washed the henna out and MY GOD!!!!  It’s gone somewhat lighter than what it was beforehand which I didn’t think it would do but I’m not complaining.  It feels amazing, it looks so shiny and I can run my fingers through it no problems.  It’s gone pretty much Jessica Rabbit / Daphnie from Scooby Doo ginger so all in all a success.  It was a bit of a pain to wash out however but I just used a load of shampoo and then conditioned it as normal and the remaining bits of henna just disappeared from my head down the plughole.  I bought two blocks just in case but I think I’m going to leave it a few days and see what the final colour develops as and if need be I’ll re-do it again for a longer time period later on in the week.  My hair feels thankful. 😛

I’ve finally had enough of bleaching my hair and abusing it by dying it weird colours.  It was nice while it lasted but it’s time for a well earned rest for these follicles.

I’ve been debating using the Henna we sell at Lush on my hair for what seems like aeons and over the last few weeks I’ve been washing my hair at every available opportunity in attempts to wash as much of the blue hair dye out as possible.  It was looking really dire and after seeking advice from a hairdresser friend she suggested doing a bleach bath to try and lift some of the dye from my hair.  I did this and it went a fantastic Lady Gaga esq minty green.

It was fun for about a day but I couldn’t hack leaving it like that and so yesterday I popped a commercial auburn/red dye over it which essentially will act as the “undercoat” for the Caca Rouge which is currently weighing my head down as we speak.  I’m leaving it on until about 21:00 (it’ll have been on for 4 hours then) and fingers crossed my hair will be amazing. 😛

If I end up with hair the same colour as Jessica Rabbit I’ll be ecstatic.  Fingers Crossed. ;P

Anyone who knows me in real life will have noticed the huge tattoo that covers all of my right arm. It’s been a work in progress by Bez at Triplesix Studios for over 3 years and back in January it was finally completed. It’s took just over 100 hours in total and a lot of name calling on my part but it’s ace and I love it. It was entered in the Female Sleeve category at the recent Peterlee Convention and it won which was rather nice. I now just have to get all of the lasering done on my other arm so that we can get cracking on that one now.

Today I went to York for perfume training.  If anything the experience has gave me a whole new appreciation of the Gorilla Fragrances, not just for the work that goes into sourcing and quality of the ingredients but also the work that goes into developing them.  Next time you happen to be in a Lush store I implore you to spray one of them onto your skin.  The essential oils develop differently on each person so there’s no way of knowing how it’s going to smell on you until you actually give it a try.

When I first started working for Lush I went through a phase of trying a different fragrance each shift just to familiarise myself with them all.  I was really dreading the Lust day as I hated how it smelt in the glass but I went for it regardless.  I spent the rest of that shift pretty much with my wrist clamped to my nose and ended up buying a 30ml bottle of it that very same day.

I love how certain smells can take you on a journey and trigger certain memories.  With Lust I feel like I’m transported back to being a teenage clubber who wore high heels, too much make up and not enough clothes.  Every Friday night I used to go to the same minging/sleazy night club which used to host an Indie night and sold cheap bottles of alchopops.  The club itself had really dirty floors which your feet would stick too and there was always cigarette smoke and loads of dry ice in the air.  Whenever I wear Lust I’m transported back to that same dingy little night club and I remember all of the states I used to get myself into (well I try to *imagine* all of the states I used to get myself into ;P), all the fun I used to have and even outfits I wore.  This is why I now love Lust (check out the Inventor’s Story if you can).

If you have any fragrance related stories then I’d love to hear them.  Until then I’ll leave you with this blast from the past which was always played every Friday night. 😉

Last week I finally made the time to go to the hairdressers for a well needed cut.  The monthly bleaching ordeals in order to get my hair bright pink has taken it out of my locks big time so I needed loads chopping off.  Thankfully it feels so much better now.  I’ve been deliberating over a fringe for a while so went for the plunge whilst there and I’m rather pleased I went for it.  I keep looking in the mirror and getting a shock whenever I see it but it’s all good.  My hairdresser is Jonathan Pickup and his salon is on Grange Terrace. 

I first stumbled on Eyeko about a month or so ago when I bought their Vampira nail polish purely because of it’s name, the bottle label and it’s black with red glitter in it (what’s not to like?). It’s also a lot cheaper than M.A.C. (£3.50 a bottle) and in my opinion it’s just as good. I checked out the company a little and liked what I saw that much that I signed up to be an Ambassador and put another order in. For a review of their nail polishes? So far I’m pretty impressed. Three coats of varnish seem to do the trick and it seems to be a lot more chip resistant than a lot of other brands. I really do recommend them and if you use my Ambassador code (E11300) you’ll also receive a free gift if you spend over a tenner. I have my eye on a few more items which I’ll be buying come pay day and no doubt I’ll review them as and when I use them. If you do decide to purchase anything from Eyeko then please let me know what products you went for.

Yes it’s another Instagram photo.

I finally admitted defeat this week. My favourite pair of boots have finally passed away. They held out until the bitter end however. I’ve been walking around in them for the last year with holes in the leather and with loose parts of the sole. There was also an incessant creaking/squeaking noise that came from them whenever I walked too.

I originally bought these for about £50 from my best friend about 6-7 years ago and she’d had them for about 2-3 years previous to that. She never wore them so they were in pretty amazing condition when they were bestowed onto me. In the time I’ve had them I can honestly say that they’ve pretty much never been off my feet. I’ve worn them to uni, to work, to countless gigs, nights out, to bike rallies and music festivals. They must have travelled over a million miles all over the world with me and I’m going to miss them loads, especially since Swear don’t do their stompy boot range anymore (which is a damn shame if you ask me). I have found a replacement pair on eBay but they’re just. not. the. same. May their soles rest in peace.