My Generic Skincare Routine Product Talk Through ! | Spring 2016

     

       

Hey!

So as those of you who read my 2016 goals post, I am trying to better my body and my skin was something I really wanted to focus on as well as weight loss. So over the past few months I have wanted to find my perfect skincare routine and I have finally found a system which works for my skin! 

For the most part the products are very inexpensive and can be found in Boots stores in the UK. For this post I've decided to talk through the products and what part of the day I use them in(morning and/or night). This is the generic routine that I do roughly 5 days a week and the other two nights which tend to be a Wednesday and Sunday is when I use a few more products because those are my pamper nights where I give my skin some extra love. 

***Step 1- Cleanse***

***Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish***

I use this cleanser on a night time if I have worn makeup during the day as it is quite a deep cleanser so it really works to get rid of the makeup (even the eye makeup)and cleanse the skin at the same time. I use 1 pump at first and apply to the skin, I then dip the muslin cloth it comes with in very warm water and rinse it out. I use the cloth to wipe away the makeup. I then repeat with another pump of the cleanser to make sure any excess makeup has come off. 

***Simple Kind to Skin Puryfing Cleansing Lotion***

I use this cleanser every single morning to get rid of any grime and I also use it on a night time if I haven't worn makeup that day. I use it by rubbing onto the skin and then rinse it off with warm water. 

***Step 2- Tone***

***Simple Kind to Skin Soothing Facial Toner***

I use this toner on a night time to refresh my skin after I cleanse. My skin always feels and looks really fresh and vibrant after I use this. For this step I apply the timer into a cotton pad and rub it around my face in circular motions. 

**Step 3- Moisturise***

***Simple Kind to Skin Nourishing Rich Moiusturiser*** 

I use a small amount of this moisturiser on a morning after I tone and then I use a larger amount. On a night before bed. I use this by placing the product on my nose,chin,cheeks and under my eyes and I pat into the skin and let it settle in. 

***Step 4- Hydrate***

***water***

I try to drink at least 4 of this 500ml glass bottles ( I bought this bottle from collectables at Christmas) per day and then after I do my night time skincare I try to drink another bottle of water. This keeps skin and the body hydrated during the night and makes me feel so refreshed on a morning. 

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Well that's all for this blogpost guys. I hope this has given you an insight into my skincare journey and maybe given you some tips on your own skincare routine. We are back into blogging now even though Chloe hasn't got a laptop at the minute she is trying her best to be active on Instagram. 

-Aimeexx

Spring has sprung!

Hey everybody! 

So I wanted to do a little update about why I've been absent from blogging, I know a post has already gone up about it but I just wanted to expand on the situation a little bit more and  explain a little bit about what's going to be happening on the blog and also a little bit of an update. 

As you will know if you read the last blogpost, Chloe and I have been very busy with college recently. As mentioned, Chloe does exam and coursework based subjects which means not only does she have to learn and remember and revise the things she learns, she also has to do a small coursework for those subjects plus her art exam is looming. For me, I take purely coursework based subjects which may sound easier but it really isn't. I get roughly 5 assignments given per week between my three subjects. A level coursework is next level difficult, you have to work your way up and make sure you add in as much detail as you can and each assignment takes around 6 hours from start to finish to complete in our own time because our lesson time consists of learning the information we need to include in our coursework. We both have a lot on our plate at the moment. 

As I am writing this we have nine school days until we break up for a two week Easter holiday, this means that we are (well in my classes) trying to get as much of our set work done so that we are as up to date as possible for when we break up. It is very likely we will get a small amount out of work set for during the holidays but at least if we are caught up we won't have to spend as much time doing work. 

During the holidays, I am going to do my best to write lots and lots of posts ready for when the new term starts so that you will get regular posts even when we are busy.  Please bare with us guys we do try. 

It's beginning to look like spring where I live and my dad is currently out in the garden tidying it up ready to begin planting veg and flowers ( it gets very full of junk and rubbish over the winter for some reason) I'm in a very good mood right now which is making me feel very productive and I'm about to write my skincare routine post which will be up on Tuesday. 

I hope this has been a little bit of an insight into our lives at the minute and thank you for being patient with us. 

Aimee X 

Hummus and Avocado Addict | What I Ate Wednesday.

Hello Again!

So this week has been a bit full on, I have been really healthy apart from the weekend and I really think I am doing okay with this 'Cleanse' we started in January (if you imagine February is actually the start of the year and forget that the actual cleanse lasted about 2 weeks and then I was back eating unhealthily again).

Well without further a do I shall now show you lovely people what I have eaten today!

Breakfast- 
For breakfast today, I had the same as what I have been eating for the last week and what I featured in last weeks post which was grilled bacon with mushrooms on bread( the picture is the same as last week because I didn't see a point in taking another photo of the exact same thing). I really like this breakfast because it is very filling and not too unhealthy either.

Lunch-
For lunch, I had a slice of wholemeal toast with tuna mixed with a tiny bit of  light Philadelphia mixed in instead of mayo and some sweetcorn(I usually use homemade hummus but I didn't have any ingredients)  I also had some sweetcorn and avocado on the side.        

Snack- 
For my snack, I have half of an avocado, some very messily cut up carrots, a few pieces of red pepper and some cherry tomatoes. I had this with some shop bought hummus(I'm taking a break from the home made stuff as It was taking too long and I like the homemade one freshly made and not pre made the day before).

Tea-
For Tea, I marinated some chicken breast chunks, sliced mushrooms(my mum likes mushrooms but I'm not a fan unless they have plenty of flavour to them) some diced red and green peppers and red onion in Nandos medium peri-peri rub and then cooked it in a tin foil parcel for 15 minutes then added a small amount of pasata to the parcel and cooked it for another 20 minutes. I served it with some basmati rice and some home made wedges.

Drinks-
Today I have drank a cup of pomegranate iced green tea, 4 glasses of water and a cup of nettle and blackberry tea.

Well that was what I have eaten today so far. I have not long since ate my tea and I am very full and it was extremely tasty.

I shall post a beauty related blog post on Saturday which I am about to plan so be sure to check that out!
Bye Loves,

Aimee xx

                                                         

A Healthy(ish) Day | What I ate Wednesday!

Hi Everyone!

This post is very late. I am so sorry. I have been poorly the last week or so and completely forgot to document what I ate yesterday ready to post today(Wednesday) so I have had to wait until now to write this post up because I have not long since had my last meal of the day. The other what I ate Wednesdays will be up a lot earlier than this but this was just an error on my part, oops. Presentation isn't the best but you can see whats what so that's the main thing.

Breakfast-
Breakfast this morning wasn't the healthiest because we hadn't yet done any food shopping and we only had white bread rolls. I just cut one in half and popped on a little but of Flora Light butter on each half and then topped with some bacon which was grilled in the George Foreman lean mean fat grilling machine and added some mushrooms cooked in a tiny bit of Flora Light which is the only way I like mushrooms.

Lunch-
In between breakfast and lunch we done some food shopping and I bought some lovely and healthy foods. So when we came home I made some hummus (Recipe Here!) and also had half an avocado chopped up, a snack pack of carrot batons and some grapes.

Snack-
After Lunch I was doing lots and lots of coursework and ended up eating a snack pack of mango fingers which were yummy!

Tea-
We picked up a Coleman's chicken tagine meal kit which was super easy to make; all you do is marinate the chicken in the marinade given in the pack and then cook the chicken with some veggies( we used onions,carrots,mushrooms and peppers) and added some water and some sauce mix from the kit and served with couscous and raisins from the kit. It was super nice!

Drinks-
I had a cup of coffee with breakfast, 5 glasses of water and a bottle of pomegranite iced green tea throughout today.

Well that's all for my first What I ate Wednesday- I really hope you all enjoyed this post and I shall be doing another next week.

Byeee!

Aimee xx

Current Favourites.

                

                 

Hey guys.                      

So today's post will be all about what I am loving recently. I'm not going to do these month by month because it takes me a while to develop a love for new things so each month would get a bit repetitive. I will however post a short 'love list' on Instagram on the last day of the month to show you four things that  have stood out from the month.

..Makeup..

Mac Studio Fix Foundation- I can not rate this foundation highly enough. It has medium to high coverage and lasts all day, I got mine in the shade NC18 which really matches my skin tone perfectly and I love the way it evens out my redness without the need for concealer.

Mac Select  Cover-up Concealer-  When I first saw the size of this product, I thought it would be gone with a few uses but I have had it since November and it is still going strong. You only need a tiny tiny amount of this to cover your blemishes or dark circles, a little goes a long way. 

Urban Decay Naked 1 and 3 palette-  I mentioned in my 2016 goals post that I wanted to get better at makeup application and rediscovered these two gems! I have been loving combining these palettes to create beautiful eye makeup looks with natural looks, shimmery brown looks but also lovely  gold and pink looks which would be perfect for valentines day. The colour payoff of these eye shadows are amazing and when used with a primer, last all day long. I love the versatility of these palettes also. 

Collection Volumising Mascara- I got this as a gift from my friend Emma at Christmas and I love the things it does to my eyelashes, its not the best for lengthening but it doesn't claim to be. But this mascara makes my eyelashes so voluminous and thick that when paired with a lengthening mascara makes my eyelashes look really pretty and fluttery. 

MAC Matte Lipstick in the shade Velvet Teddy- The first MAC lipstick I have ever bought and I have completely fallen in love with it. Its natural looking but its one of those colours where you can still tell that whoever is  wearing it has got lipstick on if that makes sense. People often find that matte lipsticks make their lips dry but I don't find that at all, it inst glossy mind, but it certainly doesn't dry out my lips.  

..Beauty and Fragrance.. 

Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau So Fresh- My two favorite scents in perfume are sweet/womanly or fresh and I feel like this perfume is the perfect blend of them. It has the undertone smell of palma violet  sweets which means it is suitable to wear for a special occasion but also it has a fresh smell to it which means you can have a quick spritz on a morning and it will liven you up for the rest of the day. 

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleaner- I made a goal this year to look after my skin and I knew that to do that I needed to invest in a really good cleaner to get every bit of makeup from my pores as that is what most of my spots are caused by. I love how this makes my skin feel, it feels tighter and fresh and most importantly, clean. I also really like how you can actually see how much makeup and crap has came off your face. 

Lush Bubble Bar in '5 gold rings'- I bought these out of my Christmas money and I can by far say these are the best value for money product I have bought from Lush so far, they leave a glittery sheen to your skin and are very moisturising. They smell sweet but also have a slight spice to them which is why they are in the winter collection at Lush. Each of the five rings can be cut in half which gives you 10 uses but I tend to go with the flow; if I am pairing with a bath bomb then I use half of one and if I am just wanting bubbles I use a full one. Definitely one of my favourite all time Lush product. 

VO5 Nourish My Shine- Another of my goals for this year is to get my hair into better condition and the nourish my shine range from VO5 has really helped. I have the shampoo,conditioner and the heat protection spray and I can see a massive difference in my hair. I also want to buy some other products from the range such as the hot oil and the re hydration miracle mist.

..Random Favourites..

YOUTUBER- Mollie Georgia-  I have been subscribed to Mollie for a few months now and I absolutely love her videos! I feel like I can really relate a lot of what she says because we are in a similar age group and both doing our AS-Levels. She is such a sweet, genuine person and I honestly commend her for the amount of work she puts into her videos, she deserves so so so many more more subscribers than she has! I often comment on her videos and she is always always lovely when she replies. She just seems so genuine and real and I tend to do a shopping splurge whenever I watch her beauty videos(she has very good makeup taste) which for someone on a beauty buying ban is a nightmare ;) If you want to check out her channel the link is here Mollies Channel.

SONG/MUSIC- Shawn Mendez, Stitches & Zayn, Pillowtalk. No words other than; AMAZING. 

FOOD- Hummus- I have been really loving hummus lately; I use it to dip carrot sticks,cucumber and other veggies in it.. I absolutely love it! 

Well I hope you enjoyed this post guys, I am back into frequent blogging after some time away and I will back on Friday with a recipe for you all. 

See you later, Aimee xxx

My 2016 Goals.

      

       

                      

       

Happy New Year!! 

I know we are a fortnight into 2016 and we should have posted this before now but I am finally up to date with coursework again so I am making the most of my time. There are a few things I would like to achieve by the end of 2016. They aren't New Years resolutions as such because you are meant to start them from the first day of January and some of them aren't possible to achieve yet as you will see. I have five goals I would like to achieve and then mini goals to help me achieve the bigger goals so hopefully this will be an insightful look into my plans. 

1) Make changes to my body to feel good about the way I look. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate the way I look at all, I just want to be more confident about myself and learn to love my body no matter how much I weigh. For this reason I am following the Slimming world plan to some extent but not too strictly because as I am a larger girl and I eat a lot of junk foods I can lose weight by eating healthier and moving more. I also want to improve the condition of my hair because straightening it since the age of 7 hasn't done it any favours so I want to look after it and hopefully lighten in it colour before I start to treat it. The reason I want to lighten it before I treat it is because if I treat it them use dye it will wreck it again. The last thing that I want to focus on in terms of appearance is my skin, I have very spot prone skin especially around the dreaded time of the month and I never feel confident without a little bit of foundation on. I have got myself a really good little routine going on and I can see improvements already ( it was that time of the month last week and I only had one spot which cleared up after 2 days) I will do a skincare routine post in the next few weeks. 

2) Get a job and earn my own money. 

As you will see a bit further down my list, I have a very exciting thing happening this year which I need to save up for and to do that I need to get a job, ideally I can find a job within my community as we have a few little shops and a bakery right around the corner from me which would mean my wages would be spent on bus fare to my job. I want to be able to support myself financially and hopefully I will have a job pretty soon. 

3) Manage my anxiety. 

Anxiety isn't something that I have spoken a great deal of on this blog but it is something that I have to live with. I often get anxiety if I am stressed and taking on too much or if I am nervous about something coming up. Now I am not going to talk too much about it today but I will later on. On Tuesday I will be having my first councilling session at college to come up with some coping strategies for my anxiety so hopefully I Will be coping with it better by the end of the year. 

4) Expand my makeup collection and improve my makeup skills. 

I love makeup and beauty and I take great enjoyment from doing mine or someone else's makeup. I think I am pretty good at makeup and I love collecting it. This year I would like to find my staple products and expand on my collection as it isn't huge but it is a decent size but I just want to be able to try more things out. This time next year I would like to have expanded my collection and also hopefully really improve my skills. I have also grown to love MAC lipsticks and I would like to fill a 12 hole lipstick holder with MAC lipsticks, this may sound like a silly goal but it is some,thing I really want to do. 

5) Buy my first car and hopefully learn to drive. 

Hopefully in the spring, I will buy my first ever car which is why I want to save up money. My dad is going to buy me a second hand car that is in good condition and then I have to pay for the insurance and petrol and my mum is going to pay my car tax for me until I make enough money to pay for all three. I can't learn to drive until July but I want to have the car beforehand so that I have an incentive to ace my driving lessons. I am already practicing theory work and i am getting pretty good scores. I am hoping to take my test befriend the end of the year but if not beginning of next year. I am so excited to start driving and having the freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want. Plus, it will make going to college so much easier 😂

Well those are my five goals of 2016 and I will definitely keep you all updated on every single one of these goals and how I am doing. I hope your 2016 has been amazing so far and you are doing the best to acheive your goals. You can do it! 

-Aimee xx

Ramblings- College

Heyy!
So my instagram post earlier kind of explained why I had taken a few weeks away from the blog but just in case you don't know I shall explain a few things that I have been up to.

COLLEGE
On the 2nd of September I started College. Its been alright I guess except for the fact that my subjects aren't exam based subjects so I wont get to use most of the stationary I bought before we started which sucks, but on the bright side NO EXAMS! I dropped English lit and replaced it with double health and social which means that by the end of year 13 I will have 2 A-levels from 1 subject. I find exams to be so stressful and I tend to fall apart in them. With exams, once they are over there is no turning back but with coursework its easier to correct mistakes and that is a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

 College is alot more laid back than secondary school except when it comes to free periods. In most colleges if you don't have a lesson you don't have to be there, In our college though, you have to be there for 8:30am and stay until 3pm which sucks considering I have 10 hours free per week which is 10 hours when I could be in bed. In the upcoming months though this isn't too bad because I have to do 365 hours of placement which I do on a Friday all day( I have 2 free lessons and the other three lessons of the day are lessons which I am at placement for so I am excused from them, I also am on placement from 11pm on Wednesdays which means I miss the last three lessons of the day which for me is free periods. Which leaves 5 free lessons in the week, one of which is tutorial time where we do activities such as preparing for Uni and writing up CV's. The four free lessons of which I am at school are all in one day, we have 5 lessons in the day and 4 of them are free. Luckily, lessons 1 and 2 I am with everyone in my friendship group(i think) and during lessons 4 and 5 I am with Chloe and our other friend, Chloe. Because there is only three of us during the last two lessons and no other people at all where we sit it is relaxing but also boring because by that point in the day we just want to go home and tend to be rather pissed of because we want to go home. Its okay though because I have found love since starting college. I have discovered the 'hot chocolate twist' (okay so I said I had found love I didn't say it was with a human) basically its hot chocolate with cream,a broken up flake bar and m&ms and marshmallows if they have them.. its so nice and the day I bought one it was pissing down with rain and I had gotten soaked walking from the car park to the entrance, it was just what I needed.

At the moment, the coursework isn't challenging for me because in Health and Social we are doing Communication which we covered last year so we are just recapping what we learnt last year and then learning a few other bits. Also in Childcare we are studying 'Child development from conception to one year old' so its lots of research but not too challenging yet. However, because we don't have exams for that subject, it means that there is ALOT of coursework and we have to work to really tight deadlines to get it all done which is stressful.
Overall, I am enjoying my time so far and I'm sure Chloe will be uploading week 3 of her College series soon :)

Tomorrow I will be posting my 'after college' routine to let you guys in on what a college girl gets up to after a long day at College.

Speak soon,
Aimeexxx