Week off and back to Uni

This is just a little random life up date post for a bit of a change. :) I’ve been on a mini break from uni, just for a week :( but its been a lovely little rest after a pretty stressful hand in day. The week off was supposed to be a reading week, and to be fair I did do quite bit of reading and research but I also got up to some fun things with friends! I thought id write about some of them and post some pictures.

As we broke up on the Thursday I had a nice long weekend to relax and chill out. Work free! (It felt strange to have no uni work for the weekend) I decided to go round to my friend Zade's house after spending the afternoon with her in town. It was really nice to meet her family and put faces to all of the lovely, funny stories that i get told most days over lunch. Her dad was hilarious he comes out with some right corkers, plus he makes a mean burger. So anyways we chatted, laughed, watched you tube and A LOT of adventure time. I had a really nice time. (I was going to put a nice photo of us up on here but I realised that we're rubbish and the only photo that I have of us together is from Halloween... we look mental.) Oh well ill put it up anyways! By the way I was just a grey person don't ask :')

Me and Zade looking mental at halloween.. 

Later in the week I went to Newcastle with my friend Glenn for a Cultural artsy day as recommended by out teachers. Although I’m pretty sure they didn't recommend getting lost a lot and eating at a world buffet for about two hours but those were the funniest parts. Before we got into Newcastle we stopped off at the Baltic art gallery. There were actually some pretty cool exhibitions on so they were nice to have a gander at. After that we decided to find free or super cheap parking, as were poor students. This resulted in us driving around and accidentally stumbling across a Tesco car park over the river. Slightly problematic as there was a rather large body of water in between us and Newcastle. In the end we gave up and drove into the city and spent a lot on parking. The first port of call was a comic shop; on the way we saw a china town sign and couldn't resist it so we took a detour to be nosey. Here is a photo of the Chinese arch thing

Arch in china town Newcastle

So off to the comic shop we went, we got told it was good for zines and Nobrow publications and so it was! I would have bought all of the pretty books if I could. Anyways there was a girl in there that got a bit too exited about the anime it was quite amusing, she even apologised for herself. :') After looking in the comic shop we went to look for somewhere to eat so we found a world food buffet and spent a bit too long in there but it was AMAZING! I do recommend it if your stuck for something to eat in Newcastle :) we were too stuffed and it was getting a bit late to do much more after that, so we got back in the car and headed off home. We stopped off at the biscuit factory, a cute little artsy shop thing, on the way and it was lovely to look at all of the paintings and sculptures, I even got an illustrated children's book. It’s so cute!

A bit of a blurry photo of me in the comic shop :) 

The amazing Buffet with food from all over the world

So yeah at the end of the week I went to see my friend Candice in Washington I had a nice little shopping afternoon with her, a well needed catch up and a chilled night with good old Saturday night TV. 

And that was my week off over :(. Back to my little messy desk or as some people call it the Mel cave :') Here are some photos, say hello to my desk it will probably feature a lot in my blog its my home away from home.

My desk is a mess but i love it and wouldn't have it any other way

Close up of some cute things that i see right in front of me.

My working mess :) 

So yeah I hope you liked this post sorry its a bit long I always get carried away and write WAY too much... oh well. I hope you enjoyed it anyways 

Thanks a lot

 Mel xx

review no7 Instant Radiance foundation

I know, I know I already have two reviews up on this blog already, and here is another one for you to feast your eyes upon. Fear not i have a few different posts planned to be up soon for a bit of a change. But for now i am going to write a bit about my all time favourite foundation the no7 Instant Radiance foundation. Now i have an essay that i'm putting off so this could be a long one, i'd go and grab a cuppa :)

the foundation in the nice mirrored box that it comes in. 

I bought this foundation about a year ago in boots, i got it on an absolute whim because i had a christmas voucher to use up. I had never tried out any from the no7 range before but as boots had just got the new foundation skin match machine i wanted to give it a try. Who wouldn't want to try a magic device that tells you your perfect skin shade! so anyways the lady that used the machine on my face asked what id like to get out of a foundation and because of my usually dry, flakey skin i asked if they had a moisture filled foundation. She also asked about the coverage, because i sometimes suffer with acne i asked for a medium to high coverage. She recommended the Instant radiance foundation. i trusted her opinion and thought id give it a try, i'm SOOO glad that i did.

the actual bottle of foundation

anyways i thought it was time for a review as i have just re bought it after running out. Even though i got the skin colour match test i was still super skeptical about it actually matching my incredibly pale skin but it does indeed match perfectly. Yey its so hard to find a matching colour for my skin, Im sure all pale skinned girls have the same problem (I use the shade Calico.) In the packaging and when you first pump it out the foundation actually looks really dark this is due to the grey ashy undertones which is strange for a foundation as they usually only have pink or yellow undertones. I feel that the ashy grey undertone mimics my skin tone the best although it looked quite frightening to begin with. I went ahead and tried it on my face when i got home and it matched so well you couldn't tell i was wearing anything! it still had all of the coverage that i was promised though. I was so impressed.

from left to right: Rimmel Match Perfection in 010 light porcelain (pinky undertone), Bourjois Paris healthy mix in 51 (yellowey undertone), No7 instant radiance in calico (ashy undertone)

Its the only foundation that i have ever tried that doesn't turn my skin into a dry cracked horrible mess by the end of the day (and believe me i have tried a fair few foundations in the past.) If you also have this problem i highly recommend this foundation to you. If you like a dewey finish then you will not be disappointed, it also comes in 12 shades so theres a shade for almost every skin tone. It's also Hypo-allergenic so you don't have to worry about your skin being too sensitive for it. 

im terrible at remembering to take before and after pictures so here us my silly face with the foundation on :)
(i haven't edited it or added any filters btw)

Now moving on to the things i would change about it if i could.. It is quite pricy for the amount of product that you get at £12.50 for only 30 ml :( for me living on a student budget that is a bit too much for me to pay. I usually wait and save up my boots points or ask for boots vouchers for christmas, then i try to use it sparingly. The only other thing that i would change about it is how much the pump pumps out at a time, for me it lets too little out at a time resulting in me having to use two and a half to three pumps!

Thanks for reading i hoped that helped if you are on a hunt for a new foundation :) 

Mel x

Current Barry M favourites

i received a lot of Barry M nail varnishes for christmas which i was very pleased about as nail varnishes are always a winner with me. i managed to decide on 3 favourites and thought i'd make a blog post about them.

1. Barry M Matte- Espresso 347: I've been loving this nail polish a lot at the moment. It's a black colour from the new range of matte nail varnishes that barry m have recently brought out. I was looking for a matte nail varnish for ages so i was so pleased when my best friend Candice bought me one for christmas. I was slightly skeptical the first time that i tried it and i thought that it might leave a horrible chalk board sort of texture on my nails. Thank god it didn't, the feel that it has is actually smooth and rather pleasant. I would definitely recommend this if you are on the hunt for a good matte nail varnish as i love it and is a really good price usually selling at £3.99

2. Superdrug Limited Edition-E348: I decided to include this glitter polish as i am partial to a bit of glitter every now and again. Unfortunately it was a limited edition for christmas at Superdrug but i'm sure there will be some good dupes out there. Barry M pink silver glitter or Models own Northern Lights-Wonderland should give a pretty similar look. I love the pretty pink sparkle it gives and the sheer pink undertone that it has. It is the perfect combination of glitter and subtlety, my mum even loved it and borrowed some to wear for the festive season and she's not usually the nail varnish type. I think this nail varnish looks great on its own but for an extra bit of snazz it looks fantastic over a contrasting colour. Im not sure how much this was as it was a christmas gift from my boyfriend, but you can pick up normal Barry M glitter polishes for a right bargin at just £2.99 

3. Blue Moon-317/333: I chose this nail varnish to be in my favourites as i absolutely love this colour i like it so much that my bedside cabinets are the same shade of blue. This pale pastel blue is so pretty and girly it really is the perfect colour, its not to pale and not too bright. The photo that i took doesn't really give it justice but believe me its really nice. When i first looked at it in the bottle i thought it had a darker blue sheen but when i put it on i realised that it doesn't but i don't mind that, i like it how it is. This was also a gift from my boyfriend but after some research iv'e found that it costs around only £2.99.  i think this will be my staple nail colour this year!

I hope you liked my current Barry M faves and hope this has inspired you to try out some new colours. what are your current nail varnish faves? im always on the look out for new colours to try, id love to know in the comments

Thanks for reading :)

 Mel x