2014 Winter Beauty Edit

PAINT BOX BLUES

Combining a simple smudge of a single bright eye shadow with a nude lip makes for an easy yet statement look to impress and intrigue.

How to Rock Winter Crops

Who said crop tops should be strictly summer wear! In this post I've put together a few crop top centered outfits that are absolutely perfect, even though the days are getting colder! Check out my favourite winter crop-top looks!

Nail Colour of the month: Essie - Raspberry

This is a slightly new concept but let me know what you think: Nail colour of the month! It might work out, it might not, but we're just gonna roll with it for now. This month's colour is 'Raspberry' by Essie!

Keira Knightly bares all in protest of image manipulation

In a recent shoot for Interview magazine, actress and star of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle adverts Keira Knightly partook in a beautifully minimalist topless shoot in a bid to stand up against body manipulation. 

In a recent interview with The Times newspaper about the shoot, Keira claims that she has 

Style Diary 08.11.14

It recently occurred to me that has been a very very long time since I uploaded a style diary post! I am absolutely loving my A/W wardrobe this year, and this is one of my favourite outfits. I seem to be wearing pretty much all monochrome this season, but hey, why the hell not!

Dr Frank-N-Furter Inspired Makeup (Halloween makeup series)

Welcome to my second Halloween makeup tutorial! If you missed my Black Swan inspired look click here to check it out! I'm back with a second look from one of my all time favourite cult films - The Rocky Horror Picture show! I thought it would be a good look to do as Rocky's been very big this year what with Mac doing their own Rocky Horror inspired makeup collection (which I really regret not purchasing some of!) Dr Frank-N-Furter is the film's fun main character played by Tim Curry (AKA the master of playing dress up) This look, like my Black Swan look is a toned down version and just 'inspired by' not directly copied. However I think this one's pretty easy to connect!

So Here's how I did it..

Black Swan Inspired Makeup (Halloween makeup series)

I don't believe how ridiculously quick this year has gone, Halloween already, wow! I decided that I would create a little 'Halloween makeup series'. All these make-up looks are super easy to do and can easily substitute for lack of costume (I swear Halloween costume prices go up so much each year!) Here we go! For my first makeup look I've picked 'Black Swan'.

RIP Oscar De La Renta - A True Visionary

In very sad news for the fashion community today, legendary designer Oscar De La Renta has passed away aged 82, after loosing his ongoing battle to cancer.

To me, De La Renta has always been one of my favourite designers. I put him in my 'Fairy-tale' category next to the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen.

MAC Please Me - Review & swatched

Today I realised it's been a while since I've done a beauty post so I thought I give a little review of my all time favourite MAC lipstick 'Please me' complete with swatches, enjoy!

Technology Vs Reality

In an ever changing technological environment, our generation has become particularly reliant on technology and instantaneousness. We expect everything on a plate for us; every text to be replied to, every tweet re-tweeted and every instagram post liked. It seems as though we have developed so far into a technological sub-universe and stopped really living!

I recall a recent event at which I was in the audience of a traditional moroccan show; a varied mix of the country's traditional culture. For the first half I was captivated; by the beautiful belly dancer, traditional war horses and their battle dances and wonderful acrobats performing acts that I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around. That's when I decided to turn and look at the audience. Apparently not everybody was enjoying the wonderful show as much, or at least it that's the way it seemed. For rows and rows, all I could see were iPhones. It baffles me how people would rather be living through their screens rather than actually experiencing their surroundings, taking in the culture and reveling in the wonders that the world has to offer.

Photo Diary: Cosmopolitan #fashfest 2014

As you may have seen if you've been following me on twitter or instagram, on the 18th of September me and the wonderful Emma went to Cosmopolitan's #fashfest event: 'From Catwalk to Cosmo'. The night kicked off with an incredible array of free beauty treatments such as manicures from Barry M and spray tans from Sienna X. Emma was even lucky enough to receive a full hair of hair extensions (styled and all) from American Dream! 

I thought I'd put together a little photo diary to give you a little bit more of an insight into the magical night. It truly was a wonderful experience and we will definitely be returning next year, enjoy!

Illamasqua Lipstick in Fable - Review & Swatched

A few months back I bought the Illamasqua lipstick in Fable online. I decided to do this after seeing it raved about by one of my favourite bloggers with similar colouring to my own. I did a bit of research and decided it would be a good purchase!

I thought I'd do a little review with some swatches of Fable, enjoy!

Down to Earth Kensington

The other day me and my friend Laura were in Kensington and decided after a long hard day of shopping we needed a tea break! We were walking along looking for somewhere a little more exciting than your average Costa or Starbucks and came across 'Down to Earth'.

Is Millie Mackintosh's new clothing line the best thing ever? (yes)

As you may know if you have been reading my blog, the wonderful Millie Mackintosh is my September style icon! If you missed that post and want to know why, you can check it out here. This month Millie launched her much anticipated clothing line on her website www.millie-mackintosh.com and in truely fabulous manner, modeled all the clothes herself ('information desk person' emoji). Not only are the clothes unbelievably beautiful but they're actually pretty affordable too! I am loving every item and I couldn't think of a more stylish and effortlessly chic person to release a clothing line. I thought I'd share with you a few of my favourite pieces from the collection! 

Bonded Scuba Prom Dress - £125

What a beautiful alternative to the traditional prom dress! This Marilyn-esce prom dress features the popular scuba materica and looks absolutely stunning!

September Style icon: Millie Mackintosh

Millie Mackintosh first graced our screens as the glamorous and charmingly ditzy star of reality TV show Made in Chelsea in 2011. Since then she's quit the show, found herself a superstar husband (Professor Green), started her own clothing line (launches 10th September) and continued to dazzle the world with her ever stylish outfits. Millie regularly uploads style diaries on her website http://www.millie-mackintosh.com/ She also gives us a sneek peaks at her other daily outfits via her instagram and twitter accounts

But what is it exactly that makes this beautiful starlet my style icon of the month? To answer that I've selected a few of my absolute favourite Millie moments and popped them in this post so you can see for yourself, just how wonderful she truly is!

What's in my bag? - September 2014

I've seen these posts floating around a lot and so I thought I'd do a little 'what's in my bag' post myself!

10 times David Bowie was very fabulous ϟ

As you may or may not know, I am a huge David Bowie fan. I appreciate his ability to NGAF at any point ever. As you probably did know, he is fabulous. So I have compiled a list of the top ten David Bowie fashion moments of all time ever, enjoy!

The time Bowie was an element 

CULT BEAUTY GIVEAWAY | Win Benefit, Liz Earle & Lee Stafford ♥ | CLOSED

If you are following me on twitter or read my cult beauty products post you may have already known about this rather exciting giveaway! If not, well you do now! I have decided to giveaway my six absolute favourite cult beauty products (tried, tested and loved by myself!)

CULT BEAUTY GIVEAWAY | Win Benefit, Liz Earle & Lee Stafford | CLOSED

If you are following me on twitter or read my cult beauty products post you may have already known about this rather exciting giveaway! If not, well you do now! I have decided to giveaway my six absolute favourite cult beauty products (tried, tested and loved by myself!)

Tried & Tested: Cult Beauty Products

Cult beauty products, the ones you read about everywhere. Everybody's loving them and you probably really want to try them out too! I decided that I would give a few mini-reviews of my absolute favourite cult beauty products! I will also be giving away three of these products in a post later this week so stay tuned for that!

The Best & Worst Fake Tans of 2014

I am a major sunless tanning addict. I love my skin best when it's bronzed, I feel so healthy and exotic and I-just-got-back-from-holiday-honest-y. So I thought that I should do a few mini reviews on my fav (and not so fav) tanning products of 2014, enjoy!

Style Diary 25.08.2014

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: from the Sidewalk to the Catwalk

This weekend I took an exciting trip to the Barbican to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition. The exhibition entitled "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: from the Sidewalk to the Catwalk" (breathe) has been travelling around the world and enchanting audiences from all continents. I had wanted to see the exhibition for quite a while, so when I found out that it would be closing that weekend I just had to go!

Gaultier is the type of designer that you can see in his creations. The type that you could pinpoint an exquisite piece of couture to without even being told who it was by. He has a very unique and prominent style that captivates the minds and questions the norms of whomever lays eyes upon his work.

Taylor Swift "Shakes off" the haters in new music video

The forever genre swapping queen bee of pop Taylor Swift recently released the music video her new single 'Shake It Off'. Taylor has been known to fall into the spotlight on numerous occasions for various different reasons, many negative and gossip fueled. This song is basically one big (and still modestly polite) middle finger to the media's perception of her. In previous songs, Swift has included spiteful messages to ex-boyfriends in her lyrics, however her latest single directected specifically at the 'haters', featuring lines such as 'I go on too many dates, But I can't make them stay, At least that's what people say'.

Skincare Routine - August 2014

Recently I realised I haven't done a beauty post in quite a while, so I thought I'd do a little post on my daily skincare routine. I've titled this August 2014 as my skincare routine is always changing and I can update it in the future, enjoy!

Ode to Wine

Dear wine,
This love affair between us has been going on for a good few years now and has only grown stronger with age. You are an appropriate date for all occasions, my friends like you as much as I do and you always look good by my side. Sure at first we had a few bumps, specifically caused by incidents of falling over, but we very quickly found our feet. I think it's fair to say we have a love-hate relationship and it can be somewhat confusing how you can simultaneously make me feel both better and worse about myself. Sure when I'm with you I have been known to make rather rash decisions and my deepest secrets suddenly seem like fun trivia but I think that people find that enchanting and quirky, or at least I do at the time. You make me feel sophisticated and classy like no other beverage. All in all you make me a better person. For one, I am never wasteful

The 10 best Sex and the City moments

If you know me well, you'll know how much I absolutely LOVE Sex and the City! I have watched every episode at least four times now and I don't even class it as a secret pleasure, I am a fully committed, unashamed FAN. So I thought I'd put together a little list of my all time favourite Sex and the City moments! 

Liebster Award

So this morning I woke up to see that I had been tagged in my very first tag! (V. exciting stuff) I was nominated to be a part of the 'Liebster Award' which is a sort of introductory tag for bloggers with under 200 followers! I was tagged by the wonderful Amie at www.dimplebug.com (who you have to check out!)

The idea of the tag is that the person previously tagged will ask you 11 questions to answer about yourself, in turn you then get the chance to ask 11 questions to 11 bloggers of your choosing, so here goes!

Real Women Have...

Ever hear the saying 'real women have curves'? Of course you have, because it is shoved down our throats by just about every modern media platform around. If you were to comment on somebody's weight claiming that they were 'fat' or 'overweight' it would be considerably rude, but the media seem to be constantly shunning the skinny without a hair of a thought.

L'Oréal Préférence Glam Highlights Review

Like many other cautious ladies, I'm the kind of girl that likes to know all about a product before I go within an inch of it myself, even more so with hair dye. When the L'oreal Preference Glam Highlights came out I got insanely excited, especially as the poster girl for the campaign was the beautiful Blake Lively (aka my hair idol!).

Highlights are genuinely quite an expensive luxury to keep up when done by a hairdresser, but since the release of this product all I could think was 'well if I can do it myself, why the hell not!' So like always I leapt to my computer in search of a review. No review. Youtube? Yes, there were videos, but all were in foreign languages, not much use to me. Surely someone must have uploaded a photo to twitter or instagram? Nope. This was my basic nightmare. But my interest in the product wouldn't go away, so I decided to buy it anyway, this way I could write a review so other curious ladies could have all the information about the product that I so desperately yerned for! (If you're not a big reader I also posted a video on youtube here)

Pharell Williams pays hommage to older women

After the release of his single 'Marilyn Monroe' in April paying tribute to 'different girls' all over the world, Pharrell Williams (aka the feminist whisperer) has done it again. Far from a young pup himself, Pharrell Williams, 41, has released his new single 'Come Get It Bae' in which he once again pushes the idea the different is good.

The video opens with the lovely expression 'Beauty has no expiration date' which is exactly the message that he is trying to put across throughout the entire video. The video features beautiful women of all ages dancing to Pharrell's upbeat tune, proving that no matter what age you are you can still be SEXY. I don't know about you, but I prefer this to the many other current popular music videos featuring young girls in barely-there bikinis dancing provocatively to songs literally based entirely on how great butts are. um.

So, Pharrell, thankyou for spreading the important message that there are many different ways to constitute as beautiful, that it's not just about age, looks or skin colour, That everyone can be beautiful, we love you.

Abigail x

Things Western cultures could learn from Morocco

Recently I took a rather interesting trip to Agadir, Morocco. Although a less traveled tourist destination, Morocco is full of colour and culture and many things to see. The Moroccan culture struck me as very different to my own for several reasons, mostly positive. During my stay several mannerisms and customs stuck out to me as both extremely beneficial and impeccably opposite to our society's own! So I decided to narrow them down to a list of just five, things Western cultures could learn from Morocco:

Blog: RELAUNCH

So you might have noticed things are looking a little different around here, specifically.. everything. This is because I have decided to relaunch my blog (V.exciting stuff!) In doing this I've redesigned, renamed and re-just-about-everythinged! This is however going to be the same type of blog as it always was; 'Beauty, fashion and lifestyle from the eyes of a light-haired, quauter-life city-mouse!' I also aim to write more motivational posts focusing on success, body image and life lessons (if I happen to learn any!) and also post a lot more frequently. Let me know what you think of the new layout, design and blog name!

before

after

Best Foot Forward

Nike Roshe Run - Bright Pink

Click read more to see other shoes I've been wearing and loving this summer!

July Favorites 2014

 Today's blog post is going to be my first favourites post! Seeing as it is my first favourites I've chucked a few items in that I didn't purchase in July (however most were purchased last month!) To my knowledge everything in this post is still available in stores, enjoy!

Beauty...

Ode to Broad Shoulders

I for one have always had very broad shoulders in comparison to my frame, it could be nature or you could put it down to the trapeze lessons that I partook in my childhood and early teen years (don't ask). Either way, they are most definitely there.

 During the majority of my teen years I spent endless hours fretting over them, totally self conscious that they made me look masculine, I would style my hair big with extensions to make them appear smaller, never tie my hair up and for the love of god, always avoided shoulder pads! However in the past few years I have learnt to love them. As the forth wave of feminism is in full swing, recent fashion trends have been all about the strong shoulder look with spaghetti sting and halterneck tops bracing the catwalks and high-streets, a modern take on the 80's shoulder pad movement perhaps. Big shoulders are quite literally, BIG. Some of the sexiest and most powerful women in the world, Kim Cattrall, Michelle Obama, Miley Cyrus, Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox to name a few, were all blessed with the broadness, would you consider them masculine?

So, broad shoulders, yes, sometimes you do make me afraid to wear kimonos and cardigans in fear that I may look like a square, but you are truly fabulous, fun and feminine, and I will continue to rock you with confidence and style.

Happy Songs for Sunny days

Over the past few weeks I've really been getting into creating spotify playlists. I have had spotify premium* for about half a year now but until recently I just defulted into saving all my favourite songs into one playlist rather than sectioning them off into their own playlists organised by moods, genre etc etc.

*you do not need a premium account to listen to my playlist!

Inspired by the beautiful weather we have been getting recently I decided to make my first intentional playlist 'Happy songs for sunny days' This playlist combines my current favorite upbeat songs that are perfect for any summer garden or pool parties, barbecues, or just walking along the street with your headphones in and your favourite vintage levi shorts on!

here's the link, I hope you enjoy this playlist as much as I enjoyed creating it! http://open.spotify.com/user/1120958826/playlist/0X4AnTicvGZKOkJlN4qjrM   

 to give you a brief idea of the type of songs featured on the playlist, here are my top three picks....

Quote of the Week - 13.06.2014

'So much to do, so little done, such things to be' - Elizabeth Taylor

Desert Island Beauty Picks

So I've seen this question bouncing back and forth like Binky to Alex on made in Chelsea (this reference probs won't be relevant next Monday who knows man #independentwoman) so I thought I'd give a go at answering it myself. 

The question itself being 'if you could only take three makeup items to a desert island, what would they be, and why?' Aka slight twist on every job interview I have ever had. This question of course is a bit ridiculous - I think if I was stuck on a desert island the last thing on my mind would be makeup and the first thing would be absolutely nothing because it's a desert island. Idk I'd just hang out with my pores out but whatever.

So, in short. If a message in a bottle beached itself telling me that some crazy beautiful and totally lost Olympic swimmer was gonna rock up on my island and I had the option of getting three products sent to me (I would send a letter back asking for a plane ride outta there but that's no the point okay) this, I what I would request.. enjoy.

Nars Sheer Glow Foundation Review

My shade: Mount Blanc/light 2

Finding the perfect foundation can be a troubling task for any woman - skin varies greatly through age, weather, time of year, general skin type and even odd factors such as the amount of pollution in the area that you live in, so surely it should impossible for any woman to be able to find this 'wonder foundation' that will remain their make up best friend no matter what troubles their skin might face - right? Well yes, that may unfortunately be the case, but I'm proud to say I think I've come close! *This is a post taken off my old blog. I have now repurchased this product 6 times so it has definitely served me well - would recommend to anyone!

Makeup wish list - June 2014

1. Bobbi Brown  Nude Glow Nail Polish - Pale - £11
I am loving the nude polish craze for summer polish! This colour is just beauuutiful.
2.COLOR WOW Brass Banned Mousse - £16.50
I seem to be slightly obsessed with just about every brass-neutralizing hair product. Being blonde can be a total mission sometimes!
3. NARS Blush - Orgasm - £22.50
I have literally wanted this product for at least a year but have never got round to purchasing it, but a total must for summer! The peachy pink colour is lustfully infused with with gold shimmer undertones aka my ideal blush and also a lot like all the other blushes in my collection (Bobbi Brown Shimmer Blush in Coral and MAC Shimmer Blush in dollymix being a few - should probably chill on the peachy pink blushes)....

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Style Diary - 20.04.2014

EASTER CHIC

Top: M&S
Denim Jumpsuit: Miss Selfridge
Watch: Michael Kors

Style Diary - 19.04.2014

GRAND OPTIMIST

Top: M&S 

Patterned Trousers: Dorothy Perkins

Bag: DKNY

Watch: Michael Kors

Shoes: New Look

Style Diary - 18.04.2014

GREY NOISE

Leather Jacket - New Look
Tutu Dress - Topshop
Chain Necklace - H&M
Black Bag - Topshop