NOTD: Rimmel Salon Pro Purple Rain

I love this colour and picking this up for £1 makes it even better. It's a gorgeous springtime purple which is opaque in 2 coats and is a dream to apply. This stayed chip free for 5 days. I'm in love and think this will be on my nails a lot during spring and summer.

NOTD: Bourjois and W7.

This nail look is courtesy of Bourjois and W7.  The Bourjois polish used is the Anti-Choc No chip in number 15 and W7 in Multi Glitter on the accent nail. I loved the look of these two together.The Bourjois polish was opaque in one coat.

The Bourjois polish claims to last up to 10 days, I got a day and a half before chipping occurred which is probably why I managed to pick this up in a poundshop.

NOTD: Nails Inc Porchester Sqaure and George at Asda Pink Glitz

Today's nail features Nails Inc and George at Asda. Generally I am not a fan of Nails Inc and think they don't last as long as an £11 bottle of nail polish should. I got Porchester Square in my Boots advent calendar and loved the colour. I had previously worn it alone and it had chipped after just 24 hours wear. This time I teamed it with a Pink Glitz from George at Asda which I love. It looks great over most polishes and with it being shimmer it lasts a long time. This look was on my nails for 4 days before it began to wear off at the ends, no chipping though. 

Porchester Square is a lovely mushroom colour which is sensible enough to wear for work but really good to wear at weekends. Pink Glitz is a sheer polish with pink, silver and blue shimmer running through it, it is best used as a top coat.

Revlon Colorburst lip butter

 I thought I would share my collection of Revlon Colorburst lip butters and my thoughts on them. I have three; Juicy Papya; Lollipop and Strawberry Shortcake.

Strawberry Shortcake was my first purchase, I always tend to go for pink when choosing lip products and this one looked so beautiful when I swatched it in the shop. It's a lovely barbie pink. I'm not keen on this shade on my lips as they are a bit too pigmented for this shade to really work well. I use it lightly to add just a little shine to my lips.

The next one I purchased was Lollipop a vibrant pink with blue undertones. I love this colour so much and is perfect for an evening out.

I purchased Juicy Papaya after seeing Tanya Burr use it in a tutorial and thought it would be a perfect day colour and also something a little bit different for me. This is a perfect peachy orange colour which is lovely, when applied sheer it gives my lips a little perk up and when applied more opaque it's a gorgeous spring time colour.

Overall, the lip butters are a really nice product, they apply easily, last well and are very moisturising.

Review: Graze Box

I love Graze boxes and over the years have had quite a few boxes, usually when they are offering them free or at a reduced price. For those of you that don't know what a graze box is, it's a selection of 4 snacks sent through the post for £3.89 a box. You can choose to have these delivered weekly, fortnightly and monthly. The website allows you to mark products with bin, try, like and love as well as a tick box to send soon. 

When I first tried Graze a few years ago I wasn't too keen as most of the products had dried fruit in which I don't like but in recent years they have developed some really delicious snacks ranging from cakes to beef jerky.  They also have a kids graze box and an upcoming breakfast box.

The box I am reviewing is my third box this year as I got a deal for 3 boxes half price. I received Brooklyn Bites, Cheddar Gorge, Graze Brownie and Vitamin E Defence.

Brooklyn Bites contains poppyseed pretzels, cheese cashews and roasted pumpkin seeds. I loved this one it was so tasty and had a good variety of textures. This is 157 calories for the portion.

Cheddar Gorge is a regular in my box and is most definitely my favourite graze punnet. It contains cheese cashews, baked herbed bites and salsa corn sticks. There is a good mix of flavours with a little bit of heat added with the salsa corn sticks. This is 139 calories per punnet.

The Graze Brownie was a welcome edition to this box, it is split into three small pieces so in the interest of losing weight this can be portioned out, however, at 110 calories for the punnet you may prefer to have it in one sitting.

The Vitamin E Defence was my least favourite out of this graze box, it contained cranberries,roasted hazelnuts, jumbo raisins and  red skinned peanuts. As mentioned I am not a huge fan of dried fruits but loved the nuts that came in this punnet. I was able to share this with my little girl as she loves raisins. The punnet is 177 calories.

I do enjoy receiving my Graze box but I am currently taking a break as there is always something I don't like sent no matter how hard I try to weasel out all the dried fruit ones. I would like Graze to introduce a service where you could choose a couple of the things you would be sent.

Try yours at www.graze.com

Banana and Pumpkin Seed Flapjacks

This was a recipe I found in the Weight Watchers magazine which I changed up a bit. The first thing I did was use real butter instead of low fat margarine as I don't like the chemical taste of low fat margarine, secondly because I didn't have enough oats I used 90g less and thirdly I didn't add muscovado sugar as I forgot. However, these little beauties are amazingly good.

Ingredients

140g butter
140g golden syrup
260g oats
2 mashed bananas
2 tbsp of pumpkin seeds

How to make the flapjacks.

1. Preheat oven to 140c
2. In a saucepan melt butter and golden syrup together until it is a nice smooth sauce.
3. Add mashed banana, oats and 1 tbsp of pumpkin seeds.
4. Combine ingredients together and press into a greased tin and sprinkle the remaining pumpkin seeds on top.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden on top.

March Birchbox

My birchbox arrived this week, so here is what I received.

dr brandt Pores no more

Aromaworks Serenity body oil

Benefit Stay Don't Stray 

No7 for her by English Laundry

Molton Brown Rhubarb and Rose replenishing hand cream

Lulu Guinness rock

I was disappointed in this months box. The Lulu Guinness hype which started in last months box was a massive letdown, the stick of rock was a bit pointless as was the sleeve that covered the box. I would have preferred a specially designed box. I would've also liked to have seen a full size item.

The dr brandt Pores no more looks interesting but sounds exactly the same as Benefit's Porefessional which I received in last months box.

The Aromaworks body oil smells nice but I'm not a fan of body oil.

Benefit Stay don't stray is the product that excites me most as I have been looking for a new eye primer.

The No7 for her by English Laundry is a lovely smelling perfume, it's fresh but sophisticated.

The Molton Brown hand cream smells divine, I love Molton Brown products so was happy to receive this.

NOTD: OPI I Have a Herring Problem

Another NOTD from the pack of OPI nail polishes I picked up from TK Maxx. This time it's I have a Herring Problem.

This is a lovely dusky blue with silver glitter running through. I needed two coats to make this opaque. This colour is going to be perfect from spring, it is understated so is great for when you want something subtle but different. This did chip within 24 hours on me but I am thinking it's more the base coat that I used.

NOTD: OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to pick up 3 full size OPI nail polishes from TK Maxx for £2.99. Gouda Gouda Two Shoes was one of the shades which I tried for the first time last week. The colour is a little hard to describe as it is an orange but not too bright and wouldn't fall into the brown category. I also feel that it is almost like a dusky pink colour in some lights. It reminds me of the colour of terracotta plant pots. It has a lot of lovely gold shimmer running through it. 

It applied really nicely and needed two coats to be opaque. This lasted 3 days on me before the ends started to chip but I didn't use a top coat and maybe with that it would have lasted longer. It's an unusual colour and is lovely for the days you want to paint your nails but you want something a little bit conservative.

Family Day Out: Pennington Flash

Pennington Flash is one of my favourite places to visit. It is a country park located in the North West of England. It's a gorgeous place to walk, feed the ducks, bird watch, play on the park and to take stunning photographs

Before Charlotte arrived we used to go for walks, to feed the ducks and on a few occasions I took part in the Race for Life which is held there. When Charlotte was a baby I used to go for walks with the pram and sometimes we would be joined by my friend and her little boy.  Now Charlotte is walking it's lovely to take our time to walk with her without being hindered by the pram.

On this particular trip we took bread to feed the ducks, this was Charlotte's first time feeding the ducks and she loved it. She loved walking after the ducks pointing at them and throwing bread into the flash for them to eat.

If you are looking a for a nice, family day out for the cost of car parking (£1.50) definitely give Pennington Flash a visit.