Hunting for Treasures

When we drove past the Exmoor Antique Site at the roadside I actually almost screamed in excitement, I love watching shows like Kirstie's Homemade Home where she regularly visits these magical places, I thought it was the stuff of dreams but here I was about to wonder round one. This was an indoors and outdoors set up and they had just about everything you could ever want for setting up a home full of antique gems. I have never felt so inspired! This really made me want to buy a run down place and turn in into something special with my own stamp on it. You could pick up anything here from a beautiful front door to an antique sink. I mean just look at that amazing green free standing bath with it's little feet!

Do you like the vintage interior look or are you more of a modern gal?

Take me back now please!

Nina's Got It Nailed

There are three things I look for in a nail polish, long lasting formula, wide brush for easy application and a wide shade range, Essie deliver on all three but not many other brands I have tried have done, until now, Nina is a brand that you can find in Sally's. Like Essie they have a wide shade range and the formulas are brilliant but best of all the brush makes painting your nails so easy.

I picked up three shades, all of them had adorable names. Spun sugar is a lovely warm neutral shade with a hint of pink, this really suits my skin tone and is the perfect colour for work. Ladies who lunch is a bold bright salmon pink, its like a bright coral shade just without the orange, this suits a nice tan and looks great with turquoise jewellery. Lastly is Call the coppers, a glitter lacquer that gives an opaque glitter finish covering the whole nail, this one is my favourite, although it is bold I find it so wearable, it is a very glamourous copper colour. I cant reccomend the Nina Ultra Pro nail poilshes enough and at £2.99 each they are such a steal.

Have you tried this brand yet?

Beach Babe

Lets talk haircare, I always stick to the same routine when it comes to shampoo and conditioner, up until recently I have been using the Headmasters Brunette range, after having my hair coloured I noticed that its current condition was looking a little unloved, after searching for a repairing duo I came across L'Oreal Elvive Triple Restore shampoo and conditioner, the packaging said that if your hair has a tendency break then this would do the job, so after using it for a couple of weeks I thought I would let you know how I got on. The shampoo lathers up really well and leaves my hair feeling super clean after just one shampoo, my favourite of the pair is the conditioner, I have definitely noticed a real difference in how my hair feels after using this, it is now alot softer and feels much stronger than before. Once my hair is washed then I get down to the styling...

Most days I like to rock the beach babe look as it is by far the easiest to achieve, I have naturally wavy hair so that helps alot, I like to apply the Wella Ocean Spritz onto towel dried hair and then rough dry with the hairdryer, next I neaten things up a little with my GHD straighteners just on the very ends and around my hairline where things can look a little wild. And there you have it, sexy, undone, tousled beach hair.

What is your favourite everyday hair look?

Soap Inspiration

On our recent trip to Somerset we went into a lovely little independent soap shop that sold all sorts of bath time treats from sugar scrubs to bath melts, I picked up some inspiration for different scents and combinations as well as designs, some of the bath bombs we made to look like ice cream! I bought a cinnamon and orange bath melt which smelt so good I wanted to eat it, and I also picked up a strawberry sugar scrub which I can't wait to use.

What is your favourite bath time indulgence?

Bourjois Happy Light

I could not contain my excitement when I read that Bourjois new foundation does not contain any SPF, obviously I am all for taking care of my skin as far as sun protection goes but when it comes to nights out when the SPF in your foundation gives you the dreaded flashback face I would rather not go there. The only foundation without SPF I have previously tried is the Giorgio Armarni Luminous Silk foundation which I love but it does come with a rather large price tag so a high street non SPF foundation was needed.

The Bourjois Happy Light foundation ticks all the boxes for me, its lightweight, gives me a satin finish, covers my imperfections and looks great in any light, I picked up shade 53 which is what I am in Bourjois Healthy Mix foundation, this looks so natural on my skin and it is also nice and buildable if I ever need a little extra coverage. During the day time I pair this with a moisturiser that has SPF in it to keep my skin protected. The foundation retails at £11.99 but it is currently only £7.99 as it is in the sale in Boots.

Lets move onto concealer, the new Happy Light concealer looks like the perfect beauty item for an on the go touch up, its in a really handy compact along with a little mirror, the consistency is really creamy and it claims to cover and illuminate, but for me this product just does not work, it is far too heavy for my concealing needs and I find it just sits in any fine lines I have around my eye area.

Bourjois have really impressed me with this foundation and since buying it I haven't used anything else.. must be a winner. Have you tried this yet? Did the concealer work for you?

A Stroll around Dunster

As you read in my previous post I went away last weekend, I fell in love with Dunster, a beautiful little town in the country side that had the most stunning houses and lovely independent shops.One of my favourite was an open art studio and gallery of artist David Deakins, an oil painter that works with palette knives to create paintings of boats and buildings, he works in really bright and bold colours and gradually builds it all up on the wooden canvas, we were lucky enough to see a painting in action which was great, he even let me take a few pictures. We also picked up some yummy fudge from an old fashioned sweet shop, I chose chocolate honeycomb and chocolate explosion which was a mixture of fruit and nut.

If I needed any more convincing that I am destined for country living then I certainly went to the right place.

Weekend Happenings

We spent last weekend visiting family down in Ilminster, we had such a lovely time and as usual I took my camera with me to capture our travels. One of the things we did was visit a sweet little town called Dunster, it was very picturesque, the little garden by the church was so beautiful I thought I would post all the photographs onto my blog, we also had a very tasty lunch here which was too good to wait and take a photo of so you will just have to imagine cream teas and chocolate cake.