Vanity Claire | Birmingham Fashion and Beauty Blog

ClaireJune 24, 2014

Personalised Cakes from Baker Days

Apologies to any ladies out there who, like me, are currently on the salad graft – for today I come to talk to you about cake. Really good cake. I know; I’m a scoundrel and I’m SORRY.

A while ago we were contacted by the lovely people at Baker Days and asked if we would like to review one of their personalised letterbox cakes. Obviously we jumped at the chance – who turns down cake?! Especially cake that gets delivered to your door, in a beautiful tin such as this?

So, what’s it all aboot? Well, Baker Days is a unique website that allows you to create personalised cakes and then get them delivered to people for birthdays or other special occasions. Like Moonpig, but a million times better because of all the calories. Their cake even comes complete with candles, balloons and whatever those blowy things are called..!The website is really easy to use and has lots of different styles to choose from, including options to upload your own text and images. So what did the fine people at Baker Days whip up for us? ONLY A LEOPARD PRINT CAKE WITH OUR FACES ON.Ahh, never did I think I would see so many of my favourite things combined into one object.

As we have friends dotted all over the country, I LOVE ideas like this and think they’re such a nice way to show someone you care even if you can’t see them on the special day. Also, if you order by 2pm then you can even get next-day delivery, so it’s perfect for those somewhat forgetful moments we all have…

A big thank you to the lovely Baker Days for providing us with this cake. I’d love to say I treasured it in a sentimental manner, but that would be a lie and we actually demolished it in around three minutes flat. I like to think that’s merely testament to the deliciousness of the cake though, rather than being indicative of our hog-like manners.

Have any of you ordered from Baker Days before?

ClaireJune 23, 2014

Primark A/W 2014 Collection: First Look

There are three things in this world guaranteed to excite yours truly: 1. a new series of Game of Thrones, 2. a surprise packet of biscuits, and 3. a sneak peak at Primark’s new season’s collection.

Now, I know we don’t really want to be thinking about A/W yet. Summer’s only just getting started and the thought of fleece-lined tights and razor-sharp nips should still be a very very distant thought for us. But I defy – yes, DEFY – you to look at these photos from Primark’s A/W14 lookbook and not get just a little bit excited at the thought of donning some of this fur.

This exclusive look at next season was first brought to us by Company magazine, who also outlined the key collections that will be gracing our local stores. These include School’s Out, which aims to carry the varsity trend of this (and last) summer into autumn/winter by incorporating a 60s mod edge; and Garden Army which is all khaki, parkas and ankle boots.

Slavomania is probably the new collection I am most excited by, as folky, boho-style finally makes a comeback in a way that doesn’t make me want to vomit. Shaggy furs and floppy hats sound like a welcome relief from all the leather I was hoiking myself into last year.

In terms of individual pieces, the coat and jacket game seems like it’s going to be particularly strong for Primark this year. Texture seems to be played with in a big way, with everything from wool and leather to fur and fluff getting a look in, while shapes are going over-sized and masculine (not sure how this will suit us short girls, but time will tell). It also looks like it’s going to be another amazing season for Primark shoesies, as clumpy platform boots, metallic flats and fashion trainers all make an appearance. And are those thigh-high boots I see below? Yes, all of our panto dreams could be answered, my friends.

These collections are due to start hitting stores around mid-August and I’ll definitely get my squirrel head on and start stocking up for winter as soon as I see some of these pieces start to show up.

What do you all think of the Primark A/W14 lookbook?

ClaireJune 22, 2014

A Week in Instagram #10

Well hello there hottys!

Claire and I have had so much fun this week lurking about in London having a marvellous time being idiots. If you want to catch up on what we’ve been up to, check out our round up of the Company Magazine Style Awards and Claire’s outfit of the day from the event (mine is coming soon from when I decide my pictures don’t make me look horribly ham armed).

We’ve been up to lots of fun stuff recently too apart from the Company Awards, so here’s a little round up of our frolicking. If you want to follow us on Instagram, we are StylingoUK and post lots of stupid pictures of our feet.

Claires beautiful Beauty Works 18 inch silver hair extensions, they look amazing!
Having a little twirl in my pink Asos midi skirt before the Company Style Blogger Awards.
Claire’s beautiful new nails, thanks to Nails by Abbie in Coventry.
Claire’s sissy bought her this cute bracelet off holiday, love.

Our snazzy new business cards, thanks to Inktree in Birmingham!
Claire’s oufit for the Company Awards, read the full post here.
Another fit outfit of the day courtesy of Claire, featuring some fit culottes and fedora from H&M. Read the full post here.
A nice little floor pic of our outfits for the Company Awards!

Sunny Hackey on Thursday morning, with a pretty little glimpse of the Shard and the Gherkin.
My shoes and one of my favourite mint green skirt from Primark.
A beautiful Motel dress that Claire won on Twitter! Love that print.
I’m such a big fan of top buns at the moment. SUCH a big fan.

Sometimes we get free magazines at work and when we do, we make tea and read for England.
My recent purchases. The crop top is from Topshop and those lovely flatforms are from Primark.
We recently made Stylingo responsive, so you can read us wherever you want (preferably not on the loo).
Claire’s FIT new Primark sandals.

Banging Neu Apparel gymwear on equally banging Claire.
The lovely Rachel at the Grabble event a few weeks ago, huzzah.
Again, loving the top knot at the moment.
Some beautiful New Look goodies WE LOVE SHOES AND BAGS.

Claire’s prints and rings. Jazzy.
A recent outfit of the day, with one of my favourite Missguided a-line skirts.
Claire’s excellent London Retro sunglasses. How fit?
And another snap of Claire’s lovely Beauty Works hair extensions.

So chums, I hope that you have enjoyed this little peek into our every day lives, and if you want to follow us on Insta then definitely get your sexy asses over there. We also recently wrote a post about some Instagram accounts you have to follow, so check out that if you want some more Insta inspiration.

ClaireJune 21, 2014

Company Style Blogger Awards 2014

So, it’s now the weekend and we have just about calmed down enough to be able to share you with our photos from the amazing night we had on Wednesday at the Company Style Blogger Awards, held in association with Missguided. What can I say, we get very excited when we’re allowed out of our house.

After getting ready and polishing off a couple of gins in our lovely hotel room kindly provided by Premier Inn for us for the night, we ventured out into Shoreditch where we met up with some fellow bloggers at the Queen of Hoxton’s rooftop bar for some pre-event cocktails.

We were reunited with the beaut Lydia from LydiaRose who we went out for dinner with a few weeks ago, and also met Abbie from Fashion Tatt , Megan from Pages By Megan, Atosa from My Bubba and Me, Leanne Lim Walker and several other lovely ladies.

We then ventured over to the venue, which was a huge airy space complete with a terrace area, barbecue and deck chairs outside and rows of champagne, a cocktail bar and Missguided festival area inside.

Needless to say, the event was packed with some of the crème de la crème of the blogging world and I had to try hard not to accidentally blurt out “Hello, I love you” at several points during the evening. Everyone was lovely though and the night was spent mingling, ~~necking~~ demurely sipping cocktails and listening to the frankly corking tunes provided by guest DJ and blogger Zoe London (any girl who likes that much Iggy is a winner in my books).

A huge congrats to Lydia who took home the award for Best Style Newcomer!

We had such a good night at the event, so thank you to everyone who nominated us so that we could get there! While we didn’t win, we’d also still like to say a HUGE thanks to those who voted for us and wished us luck beforehand. I hate to be a huge block of Edam but it really does mean so much to us that people read our drivel and have supported us over the last year, and it’s just amazing to even get to attend events such as this. Next we would like to be nominated for a Grammy. Thank you and goodnight.

ClaireJune 20, 2014

Outfit of the Day: Company Style Blogger Awards #1

Fedora: H&M / Dress: Topshop / Shoes: eBay / Bag: charity shop

Hey there you foxy things! Hope you’re all well and wearing your Friday pants with fervour.

As you may know, Lauren and I were lucky enough to go along to the Company Style Blogger Awards on Wednesday night. We’ll have a full post on the event up over the weekend but for now I thought I’d give y’all a look at what I wore. I fell in lurrrrrve with this Toppers dress as soon as I saw it. Short, body con, garish print? Yep, that’s a Claire dress. To give it a slightly more casual edge I teamed it with my new H&M fedora and JC ~~rip-offs~~ dupes. I also picked up this furry bag in a charity shop recently (I know, who am I now) and I love it – though I did throw almost half a pina colada over it later in the night, so I’m not sure how funky fresh it’s smelling now. C’est la vie.

What do you all think of this outfit?

ClaireJune 19, 2014

Seventeen Back Lash Mascara Review

Anyone who knows me and Claire at all will know that the quest for the perfect mascara is always present. From Benefit’s They’re Real to horrible excuses for mascaras like Rimmel’s Scandaleyes Rockin’ Curves, we’ve tried and tested so many different brands with varying degrees of success. I like to try and buy a different mascara each time I run out because to frankly, I haven’t found anything that has made me think ‘Zut Alors, I must give up my life as a rather short, stumpy ginger girl and dedicate it to this here tube of mascara’.

Unfortunately, Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara hasn’t quite done that for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, it’s just that it doesn’t wow me (…who do I think I am? Simon Cowell?). So without further waffle (I want a waffle), here’s my Seventeen Back Lash Mascara review. With bells on.

Lets get started with the brush. I’m a fan of most brushes. Claire’s partial to a nice plastic brush that separates the lashes properly, but I’m not too fussed whether its fibre or plastic. Although there’s a hugey caveat on that. If it’s fibre, it can’t be rubbish. While Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara isn’t exactly rubbish per say, it’s a bit on the weak side. As you can see from the before and after pics below, it’s tends to clump my eyelashes together a bit. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

On the other hand, it doesn’t flake off and lasts really well. I also hugely enjoy the silver packaging, it makes me feel mega jazzy. If I ever get stranded at the discoteque without a glow stick, I would quite happily whip this bad boy out and flail around.

I just can’t agree that it gives me over 100% greater lash impact. Maybe like, 23% greater lash impact but lets all be honest, that’s not particularly hard since I have the blondest eyelashes known to womankind. Any mascara would give me a greater impact, in the sense that it would actually make my eyes visible (fun fact, my aunty once told me that I should get my eyelashes tinted because they made my face look piggy. Cheers hun).

So would I repurchase Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara? Probably not. But its handy enough to make me look less piggy eyed, so for that I will thank Seventeen profusely, and perhaps ask them to send a letter to my aunt in South Africa explaining that.

If you’d like to buy this silver tube of relatively alright mascara, you can do so for £6.49 at Boots.

Have you tried Seventeen’s Back Lash Mascara? Do you think its aight too?

ClaireJune 18, 2014

#JammingWithGrabble | Grabble Party

So tonight Lauren and I are off to the Company Style Blogger Awards, which we are TOO excited about (yesterday Lauren actually said the phrase “I’m so excited I want to burn my hair off”, which, while disturbing, I kind of understand), but I realised we still hadn’t told you about another stonkingly fantastic event we went to recently. What are we like, eh?! “You’re like really bad bloggers”, I hear you reply. Shh…

So a couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited to #JammingWithGrabble, a party held by life-changing shopping tool Grabble in partnership with Jam Industries (the clothing brand of Made in Chelsea’s Andy Jordan). After a quick drink… or five… each… on the train down to London after work, we turned up to the proper groovy Hoxton Hotel where we were greeted by the lovely Katie from Grabble, along with more drinks (hurrah!) and a gaggle of exceptionally lovely bloggers and cool industry types.

The party had basically all of my top essentials for a night out: magicians, beer pong and gin. So much gin. On top of this, there were also performances from Andy himself (who yes, we did get to meet, and yes, I did behave like an utter tit and got him to do a live action replay of when he told Louise “I WISH I COULD DELETE YOU” because it was my have TV moment ever) and the uber cool Ivy and Gold.

It was also wonderful to finally meet some lovely bloggers, including Rach from Rachel Nicole (snapped with us below!) and Georgina from Notes La Mode, while also catching up with our beaut Holly from i2Style.

Because me and Lauren get overly excited at events and basically run around wanting to be friends with everyone, we usually forget to actually take any photos so most of these pictures have been shamelessly stolen from Grabble’s Facebook page. However, here are a few that we managed to get when we weren’t being total dorks.

Oh wait, clearly I was being a total dork.

For the event, I wore a H&M crop top, Primark trousers and my adored Garage shoes. Lauren wore a snazzy t-shirt dress from Missguided and some really expensive shoes that she bought from some really fancy expensive boutique (*cough*BIRMINGHAM MARKET*cough*).

A huge thank you to Katie and the rest of the Grabble gang for organising such an amazing event, and for supplying us with a fantarrrrrstic goody bag too. It was such a fun night that ultimately ended with us doing vodka shots with the barman. Well, you can take the girls out of Coventry…

If you haven’t checked out Grabble yet then I absolutely insist you do, as it’s a bloody genius tool that allows you to ‘grab’ fashion from all over the internet and save it to one big Grabble collection. Grabble also then lets you know when any of it goes in the sale, saving you loads of dollar – presumably so you can buy more gin. We like, we like very much.

ClaireJune 17, 2014

A Tale of Two Hoes: The Birth of A Blogging Duo

Since Claire and I will be making our merry way to London for the Company Magazine Style Blogger Awards tomorrow (yes, we are excited and are permanently singing Fancy by Iggy Azalea), I thought that I would tell you all about the beautiful story of when we met. You might want to gather your tissues and prepare yourself for an emotional journey that will ultimately leave you changed and uplifted, just a warning.

It was a sunny day in 2009…

As two girls who now work in digital, its unsurprising that we met in the thoroughly modern way people seem to these days: Facebook. We’d both applied and got into the University of Birmingham and were about to start on the same course, so I did the stalker thing of adding Claire on Facey so that I wasn’t a tragic loser with no mates when term started.

Fun fact, I thought she was really rich and fancy because it looked like she had a walk in wardrobe in her profile pic. It turned out it was just her mates messy bedroom and I soon found out that she was actually a fellow Lambrini drinking lunatic like myself. Thank god.

Becoming uni wankers…

After bonding over inappropriate jokes, we started sitting together at lectures, going out and generally living the ~~embarrassing~~ uni life. First year is a bit of a blur of a terrible lack of eyebrows, drunkenly trying to break into people’s flats (why I ask you) and drinking a lot of tea and/or Glenns. While I’m sure we had a wonderful time, it makes me sad looking back at the horrible fancy dress and how excited we were about going out. Still, we became firm pals and moved in together in second year. And then I got a job where Claire worked. And slowly, we merged into one weird freckled/blonde bobbed monster.

The afterlife…

After we graduated, we were cruelly torn about by real life. I moved back in with my parents and Claire started a jazzy new job in the media. Not happy to stay away for too long though, Claire wangled me a job at her agency and I moved down to Coventry – where we moved in together again. After a couple of months, we decided to start blogging together (in for a penny and all that) and now even strangers call us Clauren.

Well. I just realised how boring this post actually is and that our story of friendship is actually horrifically dull. Oh well. There have been some brilliant highs (virtually everyday) and a few lows (when Claire woke up with a pie on her face, and when I lay in a pile of my own sick on her 21st birthday), but most of all we are just happy that we managed to stay friends through some frankly terrible outfits and still manage to spend more than 8 hours together everyday and not even slightly feel like killing each other.

ClaireJune 16, 2014

Outfit of the Day: Primark Culottes

Fedora: H&M / Crop: Primark / Culottes: Primark / Shoes: Primark

YES, approximately a million and twenty-three years after buying them, I finally got round to wearing the Primark culottes! Admittedly I struggled for a lengthy amount of time trying to work out exactly what to wear with culottes and eventually came up with the vague idea of balancing out the volume on the bottom with something big on top – so say ‘hiyaaaa’ to my jazzy new fedora (which is definitely a better version than that huge sombrero-like one that I accidentally bought a while back).

Overall I’m actually very fond of them now, and like the 70s vibes of this outfit. I feel like I would suit an afro, don’t you? … no?

I also teamed them with my BEAUTIFUL new Primark shoes to add a bit of height. I’m completely besotted by these, despite the fact that I heard a girl next to me make an audible grunt of disgust when I picked them up. Ugly shoes, eh, you either love them or ~~are a twit~~ hate them.

What do you all think of these culottes? How would you style them?

ClaireJune 12, 2014

Makeup Revolution: The One Foundation | Review

As y’all no doubt know by now, we love cheap stuff and can never resist giving purse-friendly makeup a go – even if just out of morbid curiosity to see whether we break out in scales. Anywho, Makeup Revolution are most definitely the hot young things on the cheap makeup market right now, and I placed a sizeable order with them about a month ago. One thing I decided to throw in my online basket on a whim was The One Foundation, which boasts an impressive range of 16 shades and is uber affordable at only £4.

Packaging wise, the first thing I noticed was that this obviously bears more than a passing resemblance to MAC’s Face and Body. Brave, Makeup Rev, brave. The other thing that caught my attention was how teeny tiny the bottle is. ‘WHAT IS THIS?’ my brain yelled, ‘A FOUNDATION FOR ANTS?’* However, once I check the volume against my other foundations I realised it really wasn’t much less at all, and so the Borrower-esque appearance is more just down to lack of excessive packaging and pump etc.

*(I’ve definitely used that joke before on here, but I feel it’s still got some life left)

As I mentioned, the shade range is undeniably impressive, and one of main selling points on the website is that there is “ONE shade for everyone”. This is definitely something to be applauded, as I know lots of pale chicas struggle to find shades light enough, and similarly dark-skinned girls are seriously lacking in options when it comes to high street makeup. I opted for Shade 7, but probably should have gone for 9 as this is a little too pale for me when I’ve got a layer of fake tan on (hence why you just get to enjoy some fun hand swatches in this post, soz). On the plus side, it’s a yellow based shade which suits me much more than pinky-toned foundations.

The first thing to note about this foundation is that it’s really watery. Shaking before pouring any out is an absolute must, otherwise you get a literally clear liquid with random particles of foundation in. When mixed it still comes out very thin though, so you have to act quite quickly before it just absorbs into your hand or brush. Needless to say, when I first saw this I really wasn’t too impressed, and my hopes for The One plummeted faster than James Franco’s sex appeal after that 17-year-old scandal.

Partially Blended

HOWEVER, you know what dear readers? The foundation actually kind of impressed me. It’s marketed as full coverage, which I would say is definitely not the case. It applies quite sheer on the face, but is definitely buildable. After two layers I was quite happy to see most of my blemishes covered, and the finish is as matte as promised.

Fully Blended

I’ve worn this to work a couple of times and I will say that the staying power isn’t super amazing and by the end of the working day I would need some serious touch ups (ooer). So in that respect it’s definitely not a foundation for days when your makeup needs to last, but I think it’s well suited for those days where you’re just popping out to run a few errands or want to go quite natural looking without actually going natural (perish the thought). It’s also a good summer foundation, especially for girls who don’t struggle with their skin and like quite a light finish. If I had to sum up my views with some sort of physical sign of approval, then it doesn’t get a full round of applause and a celebratory fist pump from me, but it does get a pleasant nod of approval.

Have any of you tried The One yet? You can click here to read our other Makeup Revolution reviews.