Fresh Summer Face

Posted in Beauty.

After sharing a ~fire selfie~ on Instagram a few weeks ago, I had some comments asking for a post about my makeup routine. I’ve never been particularly experimental with my makeup – I know how I like it and I’ve perfected my methods over the 15 (!!) years that have passed since I bought my first Rimmel Hide The Blemish. I’m pretty loyal to the products I love but I do like trying new things, especially in summer when colours are brighter and skin is bronzed.

laura mercier mineral pressed powder review
When Urban Retreat got in touch and asked if I’d like to choose a couple of products from their site, I thought it’d be a great chance to add something new to my routine. I’ve recently starting buying more beauty products online – living outside of London means it can be tricky to get hold of the lesser-known brands, and even though there’s a Space NK in Leeds it rarely has brands like Hourglass or Sisley in stock. After an enjoyable hour of browsing the Urban Retreat site, I finally settled on something brand new – the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Luminous Flush and an old favourite I find hard to get hold of – Laura Mercier Pressed Mineral Powder.
My choices were shipped super speedily, arriving nicely boxed and ready to use. I spent a few days incorporating my new products into my routine until I was ready for my close-up…

makeup looks for warm weathermakeup looks for warm weather
First off, the Hourglass blush is probably one of the most beautiful I’ve ever used. It’s so finely milled and glides on smoothly for a really natural finish. The blush is mixed with Hourglass’s infamous Ambient Lighting Powder, which adds radiance and brightness to the skin – I really struggle with ‘radiance’ as a concept for my skin as I’m usually battling to keep shine under control, but this gives me just the right amount of sheen.

I’ve used the Laura Mercier powder before and found it can be quite heavy, but after reading the description on Urban Retreat I realised that it’s designed to be used as a foundation alone, not over the top of something else. I’ve been wearing a tinted moisturiser rather than my usual foundation, and this adds that extra coverage – perfect for days when I want to look polished but not too ‘done’.

hourglass ambient powder blush review
I’m really pleased with my new products – they give my regular routine a little something new without changing my overall look (perfected over 15 years, remember!). I’ll definitely be purchasing more from Hourglass – I’ve got my eye on the Ambient Lighting Palette and the Modernist Eyeshadow Palettes are to. die. for!

makeup for summer
Face
Benefit The Porefessional, NARS Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturiser in Alaska, Amazing Cosmetics Amazing Concealer in Fair Golden, Laura Mercier Pressed Mineral Powder in Soft Porcelain, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Ambient Flush, Topshop Bronzer in Mohawke.

Eyes/Brows
Naked Basics Palette in Venus and Faint, Benefit They’re Real Mascara, Illamasqua Eyebrow Cake in Thunder, Benefit Gimme Brow in Light/Medium.

Lips
Topshop Lips in Infrared. 

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A Weekend In Kielder, Northumberland

Posted in Travel.

things to do northumberland

For many years, I was “not the outdoorsy type”. Despite a childhood spent camping, climbing and collecting snails, once I discovered hairdryers and MSN Messenger I was never too far from a power source.

Most of my twenties was taken up with living the city life – cocktail bars, 24 hour Tescos, impractical shoes, that sort of thing. I developed a reputation for being anti-outdoors and embraced a ~comical~ hatred of nature, bad weather and a lack of amenities. I probably became a bit of a Carrie-Bradshaw-in-the-country parody – all manicured nails and McDonald’s drive thrus. And then I married a programmer and our shared love of Netflix and wifi was strengthened.

In the last few years, though, I’ve started to actually enjoy being outside. And not just in a beer garden – I’ve done country walks, climbed a mountain and camped numerous times. So when Rob suggested we go camping together – just the two of us, no outdoorsy friends to help – I was a bit apprehensive but soon came round to the idea and within a few weeks we’d booked a weekend away, bought a tent and borrowed a large amount of equipment from aforementioned outdoorsy friends.

visiting kielder northumberland

Check it out! Here’s me, with a successfully-pitched tent (I’ll gloss over the fact we had to ask a proper adult to help us erect it…), on a campsite in Kielder, Northumberland. We chose Kielder because it has the darkest skies in the UK – the area’s skies are actually protected from light pollution and it’s the best place to go star-gazing. We’d booked a slot at Kielder Observatory to look at Saturn and Jupiter and were ready to kick back, sans phones, for a proper outdoorsy weekend.

Hilariously, the wifi from the campsite’s reception reached our tent so we spent quite a lot of time lolling about on the airbed with our phones. But hey, it rained a lot.

places to visit northumberlandstar gazing kielder northumberland
weekend in northumberland

Kielder is a 3-hour drive from Leeds so pretty easy to get to from the north. We arrived at 7pm on Friday night and after pitching the tent (with help… ahem), we settled down to a BBQ and beers in the evening sun.

Saturday started with cloudy skies and a totally deflated airbed, so we set off for a drive over to Gretna. Driving around this part of the country is just glorious – we dipped into Scotland and then back to England, crossing through Northumberland, Dumfries and Galloway and Cumbria before picking up a new airbed in Gretna and heading back to camp.

restaurants pubs kielder northumberlandweekend in kielder northumberland

Kielder is a beautiful little village – there’s a great pub just behind the campsite called the Angler’s Arms, and Kielder Water provides some amazing scenery. Our event at the observatory wasn’t until midnight so we drove to neighbouring village Falstone for a few drinks in the Blackcock Inn before heading down the long, pitch-black path to Kielder Observatory.

Devastatingly, the weather was truly awful on Saturday night so we didn’t get to use the telescopes at the observatory. Not much you can do about the Great British Weather, I guess! The staff at the observatory were great though – we got the guided tour of the building (which is beautiful and so cosy) then chatted about space for a few hours with a hot chocolate and wood-burning stove to keep us warm. The clouds didn’t clear and we left without experiencing the darkest skies in the UK, but we’ll definitely be back for a second go.

visiting kielder observatory

The rain hadn’t cleared by Sunday morning so we packed up the tent and had one last look at Kielder Water before heading home. Despite the wet weather and lack of starry skies, we had such a great time – there’s something really satisfying about building your own shelter and successfully surviving in ~the wild~. 

And I’m already planning our next camping trip!

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Afternoon Tea at Bettys, Harrogate

Posted in Food, Travel.

bettys harrogate review
Last week I had what can only be described as the Best Radical Babe Day Out Ever (TM). After a pretty raucous night out in Sheffield, I dragged my hangover over to Harrogate for a day of luxury pursuits – shopping, afternoon tea and beauty chat with Sali Hughes.

I’d been invited to Bettys in Harrogate to try their Lady Betty Afternoon Tea which I combined with Sali’s beauty discussion, a Harrogate Literature Festival event I’d booked a few weeks before. Along with aforementioned radical babes Lil and Nic, I arrived at Bettys for 3pm and settled down for an afternoon of indulgence.

celebration afternoon tea yorkshire
places to eat in harrogate
I’ve lived in Yorkshire all my life so obviously I’m familiar with Bettys, a Yorkshire institution. I’ve been to both the York and Ilkley shops but never Harrogate, which is the original 1919 location. We had a reservation for our afternoon tea so swept past the very long queue and headed straight upstairs to the Imperial Room, where a piano tinkled and sun streamed in from windows that overlooked the Montpellier Gardens. Everything, from the crisp tablecloths to the huge floral displays, was dazzling white. It was absolute heaven.

We started with drinks – a special rhubarb cocktail that tasted like a Yorkshire summer in a glass alongside pots of Earl Grey, Darjeeling and Bettys Afternoon Tea Blend. Before afternoon tea was served, we enjoyed an appetiser – a delicious prawn cocktail with avocado puree – and a savoury selection of smoked salmon and gala pie. Then came the main event – two cake stands filled with light sandwiches, warm scones and rich desserts. I love finger food and think afternoon tea is such a gorgeous way to enjoy a meal – all that picking and choosing, trying a bit of everything, sweet before savoury if you fancy… it flies in the face of conventional eating rituals and I think that’s great.

afternoon tea yorkshire
We sat at our table for nearly two hours, chatting, eating, enjoying extra sandwiches and tea refills and generally living our very best lives. It was such a beautiful afternoon – we were surrounded by groups of girls, couples, female friends and families just thoroughly enjoying themselves. I remember a few years ago Bettys had a ‘no mobile phones’ policy which made it feel a little ~posh~ but in that airy space everyone was snapping away, staff were taking photos of big groups, people clinked glasses and we clapped along to Happy Birthday twice as little cupcakes with candles were trotted out.

When we finally rolled out onto the street, we headed to the Crown Hotel and spent another enjoyable few hours listening to Sali Hughes talk all things beauty before heading back to Leeds feeling on top of the world.

afternoon tea bettys harrogate

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Two Summer Beauty Buys

Posted in Beauty.

I’ve never really bothered with specific ‘summer beauty’ products. I might swap my foundation for a tinted moisturiser if it’s crazy hot, but I don’t have a stash of summer stuff that I dig into when warm weather finally arrives.

So rather than a big long post about introducing SPF (wear it all year round, kids) or skipping powder for a lighter look (not on yer life), I thought I’d share two products I’ve bought recently that really do feel like ~summer essentials~.

pixi makeup setting spray review

Pixi Makeup Fixing Mist, £16
Pixi isn’t stocked anywhere in Leeds (that I’m aware – enlighten me if I’m wrong!) so whenever I’m in London I visit their Carnaby Street shop to restock my beloved Glow Tonic, and last time I was there I picked this up on a whim. I have pretty oily skin that goes into overdrive during warm weather, so anything that promises to fix my face in place is worth a shot.

I spray this all over my face after applying makeup and it really does stop it sliding off come lunchtime. It’s particularly good for my filled-in brows, which are prone to smudging.

Sachajuan Ocean Mist, £18

Since chopping it all off, I’ve adopted a super low maintenance approach to my hair – I wash it, scrunch some form of texturiser through it, let it air dry then apply a bit of wax to muss it up. My hair is poker straight and very fine, so finding products that actually add movement and volume has become a lifelong challenge.

I resisted the Sachajuan Ocean Mist for ages because products that are hugely hyped by bloggers can often be pretty disappointing IRL, plus I have a long-standing love affair with Toni & Guy’s Wave Memorizer, which is still my favourite for creating some semblance of a wave. But Ocean Mist is a really lovely product – if you’re heavy-handed it can make your hair feel sticky and overloaded, but a light spritz into roots and lengths adds just the right amount of grit for that casually bedraggled look.

sachajuan ocean mist salt hair spray review

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The First Picnic of Summer

Posted in Competition, Food.

barbour picnic rug
Guys, I’m calling it. Summer has arrived!

It’s been really quite boiling hot this week and whenever it gets really quite boiling hot, I want to be outside. There’s something fundamentally wrong about sitting on the sofa watching Modern Family when it’s 25 degrees outside, even if it is 11 o’clock at night and you’ve got an 8am meeting. A proper British summer is fleeting, so I’ll be damned if I’m not sitting in my garden with a G&T at every opportunity.

As a freelancer without the confines of a 9-5 working day, I have more opportunity than most to get outside when the sun shines… although you will find me working furiously every Saturday morning to make up for it, but we all know it rains at the weekends anyway. So when the temperature nudged into the 30s this week, I did a sweep of M&S Food and headed to my local park for a proper picnic.

food for summer picnic
barbour tartan picnic rug
eating outdoors picnic recipes
I had a pretty good excuse for settling down to a picnic at 2.30pm on a Tuesday – the lovely folks at Barbour sent me one of their fancy new picnic rugs and after watching the (gorgeously dreamy) video on their site, I was genuinely excited to try it out. Because this is no ordinary picnic rug – it’s a poncho, a makeshift tent, a pillowcase, a dog blanket… I could go on. Even the bag it comes in doubles up as a drinks cooler!

Barbour also sent me a picnic hamper filled with summer essentials which I loaded up with more treats and then carefully unpacked onto that classic tartan.

summer picnic ideas
best picnic rug waterproof
Rob and I spent a glorious hour eating bread and cheese under a shady tree – it was so enjoyable I think picnics will be my lunch format of choice from now until September.

The Barbour picnic rug is limited edition with only 250 made, but there’s still chance to get your hands on one by tweeting a photo of your summer adventures using #barbourpicnicrug by 5th July. Good luck – maybe see you down the park next Wednesday at 12.30pm? I’ll save you a spot!

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