Beachwear & Bikinis | Planning For My South African Holiday

Hello you wonderful thangs,

You may be thinking ‘PARDON, we have not yet had Chrizzy yet why are you writing a post about bikinis and beachwear?’. It will all be come clear, do not worry.

Most of our blogging pals probably don’t know this, but I was actually born and raised in South Africa. I lived there until I was the ripe old age of 11, before emigrating to Merry England and becoming obsessed with castles. I’ve put together a nice collage of me being an obese baby with a ginger afro for your amusement.

PicMonkey CollageI unfortunately don’t really get to visit too often – it is HUGELY expensive to get out there and as you’ve all probably noticed in our time as bloggers – me and Claire are poor. But the very exciting news is that me and my family are going for a holiday in the new year! As all of my extended family are still living in South Africa, I’m super super excited to see the rellies. And of course, hit the beach. With the fist of an overexcited woman.

My holiday planning tends to be quite terrible, frankly. It usually involves madly dashing around the nearest shopping centre looking for sandals and at least vaguely matching bikinis. However, as this is going to be one of the biggest, longest and most exciting holidays I’ve had in a while, I have decided to be prepared. As in months-ahead prepared.

Thankfully, the wonderful people at Beach Cafe are aiding me in my prepared state and sent us a beautifully timed email just days after I’d found out my annual leave was approved. They asked us if we’d like to review some beachwear and I said OUI MONSIOUR, YOU ARE TRES EXCELLENT (or something to that effect).

Beach Cafe sell beautiful luxury beachwear that I have to say is vonderful. I particularly like their beach dresses, so I thoroughly recommend having a browse if you’re keen to update your beachy wardrobe! I was able to pick whatever I wanted, so this is what I went for:

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Jamaica Triangle Bikini | Bandit Dress in White | White Diaz KaftanBrasilia Bikini 

Ahhh, how gorgeous are all of these? As anyone who knows me at all, I am a huge fan of animal print – after all, I am African and must remain one with the zebras and/or leopards. The Jamaica Bikini is so lovely and there is some fab detailing, including beading on the strings. The Brasilia Bikini is another fave, mostly because of the lovely colour and the fringing. Bikini fringing is brilliant because you can eat a bit too much beach picnic and hide it with fringe.

Beach dresses are a big must for me. I come from quite a conservative family, so prancing around in bikinis is not always an option – especially if there is beach tennis involved. Both of these kaftan/beach dresses are really light and fresh, perfect for throwing on after splashing about in the sea like a lunatic.

What do you think of these beach outfits? I’m planning on doing quite a few posts about my South Africa planning over the coming months – so be prepared!

Currently Watching: eBay Wishlist #3

eBay Wishlist 3In the words of Simply Red, ‘if you don’t know that I love eBay by now, you will never never never know me’ (pretty sure that’s how it goes anyway). As always, I’ve been keeping my beady eyes on lots of products, and here are my ultimate favourite things on my watching list at the moment:

1. Tiger Print Vest (£6.38) – tiger prints were popping up all over the show a couple of months ago, with H&M in particular embracing everyone’s favourite striped animal (obviously zebras are a close second). I love the tiger head emblazoned on the disc on this cami, and at less than £7 including postage, the fact that it’s not season appropriate bothers me as much as something that bothers me very little.

2. Finger Tip Rings (£2.58 for 5) – has anyone seen the film Interview with the Vampire where Tom Cruise uses a nifty thumb ring to slice open the veins of his victims? I know that scene wouldn’t usually scream ‘fashionista’ but these finger tip rings really remind me of that, in a good way. I would of course use my rings for good though, not evil.

3. ‘Laundry’ Sign (£5.95) – as you may know, Lauren and I recently moved into a new bachelorette pad. I think this would be great in the kitchen above our washing machine. Not only will it look stylish and chic, but there’s always a chance that we can lure some eligible men in and they’ll be forced to drop their pants (NO UNCLE ROGER, NOT YOU)

4. 3CE Lipsticks (£4.40 each) – a while ago I reviewed some 3CE lip pigments that were, in a word, dope. They seem to be a really good brand that have a strong focus on pigmentation and colour, so I’m intrigued by their range of lipsticks. 108 in particular looks right up my nude-lip-lovin’ street.

5. Decorative Birdcage (18.50) – another decor piece I’m lusting after for the new abode, this birdcage would look amazing with some candles or flowery bits in. Or maybe our golden skull Yorick that currently sits on top of our fireplace – no? Too weird?

What do you all think of these pieces? Anything that you’re loving on eBay at the moment?

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I’m A Scrubber | Exfoliating How-To & Review

Good day to you, lunatics dear readers.

I am here today to tell you that I am a scrubber. HA-HA, you think. What an excellent pun about exfoliating you are making, I applaud your wit and comedic tendencies. Well, you think wrong. I am just a tramp that lurks about eating Tesco Value food and who enjoys a wardrobe stuffed with Primark.

On a completely unrelated note, I am bringing you a post today about exfoliating. If you ever wondered how I get the scaly remnants of St Moriz off of my skin and keep my freckly bone coverings human cushion cover erm, skin looking excellent or at least as excellent as it possibly can – here it is.
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I’ve been scrubbing my skin for years and have used loads of different scrubs, scrubbing devices and loofah-based instruments. The best combination I’ve found is using a pair of exfoliating gloves and a good micro-bead body scrub. What irritates me about a lot of loofahs and exfoliating brushes is that they can lose their ‘roughness’ over time, meaning they’re ultimately useless when they wear down. With exfoliating gloves this doesn’t happen and they also let you get into the bits where fake tan gathers – like ankles etc. I usually buy my exfoliating gloves from places like BodyCare, Boots or whatever supermarket has them. These ones are from Morrison’s if I recall!

Top Stylingo Tip: If you’re an avid fake tanner, avoid getting white exfoliating gloves. They turn a manky orange colour and people will think you have an unusual skin disease.

Scrubs are another thing I can get a bit picky about. I am not keen on products that have big exfoliating beads, mostly because they don’t give the best coverage and they feel a bit ‘nothingy’ afterwards (great description there, Lauren!). Micro-beads mean that a larger surface area of skin gets the scrubby-scrubby treatment. I quite like scrubs that have a nice moisturising feel to them too, which sort of hits two birds with one stone when you exfoliate. The best one I’ve used in recent years is actually The Beauty Parlour’s Buff It Up Body Scrub – it smells amazing and works brilliantly.

Pic2I picked this up for £1.99 in Morrison’s quite recently (I can’t remember if it was on offer or not…useless) but it’s SUPER cheap. It goes without saying that this is definitely a dupe for Soap and Glory and I’d say it’s most similar to The Scrub of Your Life Soap and Glory product. This is not only because of the suuuuuuper adorable packaging, but also the level of exfoliating beads and the ‘smoothing’ promise. For the price, this is an amazing product and I thoroughly recommend buying it if you’re looking for a new body scrub. Saying that, I can’t seem to find anywhere online to buy it, so you might have to stroll to your nearest Mozza’s to find this wonderful tube of joy.

This is my scrubbing routine and I hope you don’t have any weird mental images of me in the shower wearing pink gloves (sorry).

Have any of you hunnays tried this body scrub? Or use exfoliating gloves? TELL ME NOW.

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Outfit of the Day: Shearling Denim Jacket

OOTD 19th N COllage 1Denim Aviator Jacket: eBay / Skater Dress: H&M / Wool Tights: Primark / Boots: New Look / Cross: Primark / Ring: Primark

Hey chicas! It occurred to me that I never really show any coats or jackets in my OOTDs, which is because I generally regard them to be a massive pain in the arse and cumbersome and outfit/life ruiners. But. I do like this jacket, so I thought I’d show it for once.

I bought it at the start of the year for around £15 from an eBay seller who had a job lot of them. It’s actually made by Denim Co, which is the brand behind Primark denim, so I’m not sure whether it was ever actually sold in store. It’s the warmest, cosiest thing in the world though, and I don’t even mind the fact that it makes me look bulky. Now that’s true love right there.

OOTD 19th N CollageKimono: Primark

Of course we’re all layering now it’s getting into chilly willy time, so this beaut kimono was worn underneath. I featured this in a Primark haul a few months back and I wear it more than is probably socially acceptable.

What do you all think of this outfit?

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Exante Low Calorie Meal Replacement Diet | Review

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Hey there you sexpots! In our borderline obsessive mission to ‘branch out a bit’, I’ve got something quite different for y’all today. I was recently given the chance to trial a week’s worth of Exante diet products, and having read a blogger review not long ago I was intrigued to give it a go.

I’ll start by saying that I’m pretty sure I’m not Exante’s target audience. I’ve got a BMI of around 21 so don’t really need to lose any weight, but I’m in the midst of a health kick and have been dedicating my life to the gym and spinach (exciting stuff, let me tell you), so I was still keen to see is a diet like this could give me an extra boost. I’ve also got to admit that I’ve always been pretty cynical about these sort of systems, so was mainly interested to see whether the diet’s claims – that you stay feeling full and receive all the vitamins and minerals you need – were true or not.

How Exante Works

Exante is a low calorie meal replacement system that consists of shakes, soups, snacks and ready meals that you eat in place of your normal meals. There are three options that you can choose from depending on how much weight you want to lose:

  • Total Solution: this is the VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) option, where you completely replace your food intake with Exante products. You have three products per day, which amount to 600 calories. This is obviously an extreme diet, and is only recommended for people with a BMI of only 25.
  • Working Solution: on this version of the diet – which is known as an LCD (Low Calorie Diet) plan – you have three Exante products each day, plus one low-carb, high-proten meal that you make yourself. This should be no more than 400 calories, bringing your daily intake to 1000 calories.
  • Simple Solution: this is I suppose the ‘easiest’ of the diet plans – again, you have three meal replacement products a day, but you’re also allowed a meal of up to 600 calories.

I decided to go for the Working Solution option; I think as I don’t have much weight to lose I would have been advised to go for the Simple Solution, but my evening meals recently have only been around the 400 calorie mark anyway so I figured I’d chance it.

Ex 5 Ex 6 Ex 7The science behind the system revolves around a state that your body supposedly enters into once a LCD or VLCD is undertaken called ketosis.The calorie deficit that’s created once you’re having less calories than you need causes you to enter ketosis, which, according to the Extante website, is “a normal metabolic state… where your body will use its fat stores to produce energy”. So rather than relying on carbs for energy, you’ll be running off your own fat (there’s a pleasant image) and thus the fat will go.

My Products

I received 21 meal replacement products to last me 7 days. These consisted of 5 shakes, 2 bars and 14 soups. I definitely would have preferred to have more shakes and bars rather than quite so much soup – it was also unfortunate that about 45of the soups were mushroom flavoured, which would definitely have made me throw up into my own lap if I’d had to eat them.

Ex 4 Ex 3 Ex 2My first few days on the diet actually went brilliantly. I had a shake for breakfast, soup for lunch, a bar for a snack and then my usual evening meal (which is never too exciting anyway – omelettes and chicken salads abound).

The shakes are honestly really, really nice. They’re creamy and thick, and I liked all of the flavours I tried (strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and banana). The soups are nice enough – as exciting as what are essentially cuppa soups can be anyway – though I don’t recommend blending them as suggested, as I found this made it go weirdly frothy. The bars were also really nice; quite stodgy so you felt like you were eating quite a big portion, which is much better than your standard cereal bars that can disappear in two bites.

Ex 1Unfortunately with only 2 bars and 5 shakes, this dream combination didn’t last for the full week. On 2 days I had to resort back to my trusty breakfast friend porridge for breakfast, then have a soup or 2 throughout the rest of the day. It was on these days that I got a little bored of the diet and I’ve got to say, if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I had my evening meal to look forward to then I might have given up earlier. I think the Total Solution would be fine if you had the ready meals though, as this would add some variety.

But what about my main concern, whether I’d feel full and healthy? I have to say that despite my reservations about diets like this, I was actually full and satisfied all day. I was also going to the gym most nights, and never felt at all weak or tired like I expected I might. I also didn’t find myself having any cravings, though this might have been down to the fact that I’d already cleaned my eating up a lot in the weeks before.

The Verdict

Considering I started out quite cynical about the diet’s claims, I have to say that the products did pleasantly surprise me in the way that they kept me full and energised. While I still think that there’s no substitute for healthy, clean eating (and that this is actually pretty easy to do once you get into the habit of it), I can see why these sort of plans could be a good option for certain people who want to kick start a new eating regime.

The Exante diet plans start from £3.87 per day, making them one of the cheapest meal replacement services on the market today. If you don’t want to commit to the full plan, then you can also buy the products separately via their shop.

Have any of you tried Exante? What do you think of Very Low Calorie or Low Calorie diet plans?

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So Susan’s LacquerLove Beauty Subscription Box | Review

SS8First of all, with my Mystic Meg-type powers I know what you’re likely to be thinking: another beauty box? With Glossybox, Birchbox and Love Me Beauty to name but a few, the market for monthly beauty boxes is pretty saturated right now, and even companies ranging from Glamour magazine to Selfridges are going out of their way to get their foot in the beauty box door. If you’re getting a little tired of all these boxes though, then you’ll be pleased to know that the latest offering from So Susan Cosmetics thankfully isn’t just a carbon copy of the others.

SS7The reason that my personal love affair with beauty boxes was cut quite short was due to the amount of products I received that simply weren’t relevant to me. I’m more into my makeup than skincare, so building up a collection of shower gels and face serums just didn’t thrill me all that much. When the lovely Susan herself contacted us to see if we would like to review one of their Lacquerlove boxes, though, what attracted me immediately to the concept was the focus of the products inside. The Lacquerlove Box is designed for nail polish lovers, and 3 of the 4 products that you receive each month will be from their range of 4-Free Nail Lacquers. So Susan also stocks a range of other cosmetics which may be included as the bonus items. So NO MORE SHOWER GELS, hurray!

SS6

SS5We received the launch box this morning and are really impressed with its contents. It came with four nail polishes from the range, and also a 2 in 1 eyeliner and shadow product from Jelly Pong Pong. I actually received this item in a past Glossybox, so fans of other beauty boxes might be able to expect some other recognisable brands in the future.

SS4If you’re into your ethical products, then you’ll be pleased to know So Susan has a very strong stance on what goes into their cosmetics. The 4-Free Nail Lacquers are specially formulated to be free from toluene, DBP, formaldehyde & formaldehyde resin. No, I’m not entirely sure what those things are either – but I’m sure I probably don’t want them. They’re also 100% cruelty free and contain no animal by-products.

ss1We received a beautiful range of colours: Mimosa, a sugary pale pink; Raspberry, a classic deep red; Pink Guava, which is a shocking pink perfect for the party season, and Silver Clouds, which is a metallic polish with a purple sheen. The formula promises high pigmentation, high shine, quick drying and a chip-free finish. Of course I wanted to put one to the test straight away (it is a Friday, after all…) I chose Raspberry as I’ve been rocking nude nails for a while now and thought some vampy colour could be a nice change.

I can confirm that it goes on brilliantly, and in two coats was opaque. It dried nice and quickly, and really does carry the most intense glossy shine – fans of Barry M’s Gelly Paints will not be disappointed!

SS10Overall, I’m really impressed with the Lacquerlove Box. Obviously, receiving three nail varnishes a month isn’t for everyone – but if you’re a nail polish fanatic or want to build up your collection then it’s probably your dream situation. As we get closer to Christmas, it’s also easy to see that these cute little boxes could make brilliant presents.

A huge thank you to So Susan for sending this box for us to review. You can buy your own launch box for £14.95 here or you can find out more about the subscription service.

My November Homeware Wishlist

HI CHUMS.

In the interest of being as diverse and vaguely interesting here on the old blog, Claire and I have been delving into new territory and writing about things we know nothing about interiors and homeware. This was mostly inspired by our beautiful new house, which now may or may not be be slightly covered in my moulting brown hair and miscellaneous socks. We’ve done a couple of posts giving you perverts a tour of our bedrooms (read Claire’s bedroom post and mine here) and now I’m lurking about creating wishlists and spending my money on ridiculous things (because buying a personalised doormat with a Step Brothers quote was normal behaviour).

frames

Bird Frame from Vintage Forever on Facebook. Black ornate frames from ThePaintedLady on Etsy. Gold Frames from Huckleberry Vintage on Etsy. Owl Frame from Vintage Forever on Facebook.

I may have gone a little frame mad and wish everything in my life could be framed, but gone are the days that I collage merry pics of my and my pals next to my Eminem poster. I want to do some wall collages with picture frames in the very near future, and I’m thinking a mixture of these cute animal pictures with framed snaps of me and my pals will go down veeeery nicely. We also need some frames to go on the walls of our staircase, so I will be suggesting these black ones to my house pals for sure. And they will say “those are far too big, are you mad” but I won’t care.

kitchen

Chalkboard hearts from Etsy. Tableware from British Home Stores. Carbs sign from Etsy.

Our kitchen is teeny tiny and there is about enough space to play a game of miniature golf. And by miniature I mean ant size. Nevertheless, we have a cute monochrome look going on at the moment (complete with canvasses of a cat and dog wearing hats). We need some matching tableware but unfortunately, most monochrome plates etc are horribly boring and involve polkadots. These are the best I’ve seen, I really love them but I’m not sure if my home gals will!

Stuff

Coatstand from Ikea. Bathe sign from Ebay. Birdcage from Ebay.

We have a little bit of spare room in our hallway and a hatstand is the obvious answer…apart from the fact we don’t own many hats. Which means we have to buy hats to put on it, no biggie. Our bathroom also has a little shelf to put things on. We currently have a couple of candles but want a gay bath sign to jazz it up. Lame? Maybe, but who the hell cares? FINALLY, We have a big gaping hole in our fireplace and are looking for something cute to cover it up, Claire suggested a birdcage and it would look hugely cute fo sho. FO SHO I TELL YOU.

What do you all think of my homeware wish list? Any suggestions??

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Outfit of the Day: How to Wear the Casual Jumpsuit

OOTD 18th N CollageJumpsuit: H&M (old) / Cardigan: Primark / Chain: eBay / Shoes: Primark

Okay, so you know how basically winter comes around and we all just wish we could wear our onesies to work? Well I have cracked how to do this without receiving a disciplinary – a jumpsuit! Of course this is only really a useful tip if you own this exact jumpsuit, which I bought from H&M about two years ago, and I accept that the chances of this are unlikely. Sorry then, can’t help you there.

I can brag, however, that this was one of my comfiest days at work in a long while. The jumpsuit is a loose fitting cotton material – so not exactly as warm as a onesie, but with the help of my current favey Primark cardigan, the chills were kept at bay. I’ve had these gold studded pumps around 18 months now but I still see them popping up in haul posts sometimes, so I think they’re the sort of Primark wonder that sometimes re-appear in store.

Oh, and these photos also give you a little update of the current state of Operation Grey Hair. As you can see,  a wee disaster mishap occurred where I accidentally dyed quite a bit of my hair purple. However, I think this just adds character. Yep. That’s what I’m saying.

What do you think of this OOTD?

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MUA Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation | Review & Swatches

Well, it has happened. I always wondered when I would end up becoming a Jeremy Kyle level of tramp and it appears to be the month of November.

Claire and I decided to do some online shopping at work (er, big surprise there) and ‘invested’ in some bits and bobs makeup-wise from MUA. Read about what we bought here and for a more detailed review of the Pro-Brow Eyebrow Kit, have a clicky here. Out of sheer curiosity, I bought MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation. Which you can buy for £2. That’s right. You can buy foundation for as much as two steak bakes from Greggs.

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I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting much. I do like MUA products, but I have found that some of them have a few drawbacks – which obviously you’d expect when things are cheaper than Katie Price’s face (ooo-er, I’m such a bitch). So, when our parcel of excitement arrived, I thought it would be a fun experiment to give this foundation a whirl rather than it become a permanent fixture in my makeup bag.

And guess what chums… it was actually really good.

In a slightly weird move on MUA’s part, the foundation only comes in two shades: fair and almond. I really love how MUA include swatches in their product information, which is super useful when choosing shades. The almond colour looked really orange (even for me), so I opted for ‘fair’ thinking I could always bronze up if the dreaded pale-face-orange-body issue occured.

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As you can see, it is quite a light shade but it works well on days that I haven’t tanned and I’m using my Bourjois Bronzing Primer underneath on days that I have oranged up to darken things a bit.

I thought that the consistency would be quite watery and a bit pathetic – with no promises of full coverage, I thought it would be more of a BB Cream sort of product. How wrong I was. It’s really thick and I’d say it’s most likely oil based, which is something I prefer with a foundation. The coverage is amazing – I’d say on a par with Estee Lauder’s Double Wear and Rimmel’s Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation, both of which are my go-to base products. It goes on very nicely and you don’t think for a minute that it only cost £2 when applying. For those who prefer a dewy look, it has a lovely finish and only needs a light dusting of powder on the t-zone. I prefer a more matte look, so I tend to go for all over powder, but it still looks grand.

The staying power is also surprisingly good. I wore this to work, to the gym and still came home with makeup on my face (PARDON ME?!). It’s very impressive.

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As always, I do have some issues with it (I am an old woman now and enjoy complaining as well as tense games of Scrabble. Deal with it). The product promises to “keep the shine at bay all day”, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite do that. I always wear a primer and find I need to powder by midday when wearing MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control regardless. SAYING THAT. The only time I don’t need to powder is if I wear Double Wear, so I feel I can overlook MUA’s false promises. I have a discoball face that loves to pester me with it’s shiny nose, so it’s not unusual for me to have to touch up during the day. Rather than shine control and mattifying, I’d say this foundation is better for full coverage and lasting – still really good but

Face snaps

And this is what it looks like on my face – NOT BAD, JA? JA.

What do you think? Have any of you used MUA’s Matte Perfect Shine Control Foundation? 

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