My (N)Ever Changing Hair

Good evening to you all,

Hope you've had an event free Friday 13th. I have made myself giddy by talking/making plans for this weekend. It should be immense. Meaning full of jaegerbombs & dancing like a crazy person. It's gonna be old school!!! Yeeeeee! Right, sorry about that, really must get a life.

So what will be today's topic on a day that's bought us Korea rocket failures & blatant homophobic adverts only just being left off London buses? The important subject of hair.

I do not have fashionable hair, never have never will. I have a ridiculous amount of hair on my head, that sends itself into unruly frizz curls. It's natural colour is the epitome of mousey (sexy!) which goes platinum blonde  around the temples. Oh and the hair at the temples never grows so I am forever stricken with poofy horns of hair.

I find it very hard to find someone who can cut hair for us curly girls. What looks good straight does not necessarily look good curly, especially layers, which really spring up with a curl. I have spent years begging hairdressers for long layers, and they just don't listen, so I always look like I'm wearing very bad hair extensions.

But no more. I have found the most perfect hairdresser. She is called Jess (not only an awesome hairdresser, but she's sooo lovely & gorgeous), and she works at Charles Worthington in Percy Street. This is a lovely hairdressers: You get a goody bag on your first visit, they are constantly doing good deals (most recent upgrade from half head highlights to full head for only £10 more), and for £2 you get unlimited glasses of champagne (yes I have got tipsy), and sandwiches, and the most delicious brownies ever. I can't rate this hairdressers any higher and would really recommend it to anyone.

My hair throughout the years (can you spot a change!?)

So as you can tell I have never been adventurous with my hair. I basically just like it big & blonde! I sometimes wish I could do something drastic, but I know it just wouldn't suit me. Le sigh.

Which London hairdressers do you recommend? What do you think I should do with my hair?

Kat x

I need a (valid) excuse to eat cake!

Hello world,

I'm sitting in my room, snuggled in my dressing-gown listening to the thunder outside, talking about cakes whilst eating a cake. I have never felt the need to exercise more. Oh well, as ever, the diet starts tomorrow.

But back to the topic in hand. Cake. I found this when wedding cake window shopping with my friend.

How amazing is it? She refuses to get it, but I need this in my life. It combines 2 of my passions, musical theatre & cake (oh God I'm going to die alone aren't I?).

So can you find me a reason to get this/attempt to make it? Have you seen any amazing cakes?

Kat x

Pictures lovingly borrowed from here

May as well be in Scotland

Hello all!

Hope you all had a good Easter (or just Bank Holiday weekend) I had a lovely but tiring time as I was stuck cooking for everyone. I ate waaaaay too much, and have been regretting it for days now. Have to be good now though as have an op coming up & need to be fighting fit for it!

The really sucky thing about uni ending is that all your friends move all over the country. The good thing is that you get to go to places you'd never normally go to visit them.

Classic example was a few weeks ago I went seriously up North to see my friend who has moved to Carlisle. Unfortunately I had to go on a Virgin train (seriously have they ever not been delayed), but at least they have chargers so I could entertain myself for hours on end.

Carlisle is definitely somewhere I would never have gone without a reason, but it's a really cute town (wait. Is it a city? I have such a warped view on qualifies a city status coming from central London. I think everywhere is a town!). It's a really cute town, and everyone speaks with a Scottish accent, which is slightly surreal! There's not much to do there so my friend suggested we go on a day trip to Newcastle. 

I was expecting a quick jaunt, but it took 90 minutes each way! (that's like my friend coming to see me in London, and I take them to Brighton, mental). And we went there on the ricketiest little train that was absolutely crammed. But bonus was that it took us past the Angel of the North! Newcastle is a lovely town, we walked along the Tyne & went to the Baltic Centre. I  had a lovely time but bloody hell there are a lot of stairs. We had to run to make it to a train, & I had to go up & down at least 4 sets of stairs. And all the girls there were in full on stilettos, how on earth did they manage that?

So here are a few snaps (would be more but  spend quite a lot of my time tipsy - Seriously we arrived went straight to Tesco & spent over £80.)

Carlisle Citadel, Carlisle's Gay Bar!, Newcastle Baltic Centre, River Tyne

Newcastle Opera House, Millennium Bridge, I can't remember! Never ending staircases!

I can't wait to go back up again, for more drunken frivolities!

What do you recommend next time I go up North?

Kat x

Pictures my own or from here

In the County of Swords

Hello peeps,

About a month ago I left the safety of London & got taken away to the scary streets of Essex to party with a couple of uni friends. The weekend involved copious amounts of booze, friend food, dancing, injuries, abandonment and laughter.

I'd never been to Essex before, and was really up for a TOWIE experience. My friend's from Leigh-on-Sea which apparently is a nice area, so we were having none of that, thank you very much. But tbh the people relaly didn't disappoint. They are an amazing laugh, and so friendly, it's just like being up North. Thught I almost started a fight with the cabbie when I asked him to teach me how to "speak Essex", unsuprisingly he thought I was being a condescending bitch and stopped the cab till I apologised (whilst trying to teach him to speak Northener!).

So I thought I'd do a brief unnecessarily long photo montage of the lost weekend:

Our dinner, which was basically just 4 different types of cheese

Our table water, which we thought was beer,
but not before flagging down the waitress to complain.

Reunion!

Dirty Martini - with extra olives (can you tell I love them?)

Bagels for breakfast

Hangover sunglasses

Frozen sea

Chips cooked in peanut oil, so I couldn't eat them


So I had a lunch of ice cream & Bloody Mary

Typical Essex interior decoration. Doggy style ornament

And so the night begins

Cue tipsy floor dancing

Dinner

No idea where we were

There are no words

So there we go. It could be used as a warning against binge drinking.

I absolutely loved Essex & really want to go back soon as my friend is moving to London in a few months & then it'll be lost to me forever.

Can you recommend any parts of Essex I should go to?

Kat x

All photos my own

Don't Put It Off

Hello all,

Bit of a random post, but one that I think is very important.

This year I am turning 25, which to all girls (well those of us in England at least) means the beginning of the dreaded Smear Test.

I am not the first of my friends to hit the big two five, but I am the first one to have my smear. I think this is shocking, we are so lucky to have the NHS providing us with free health care & even more to have routine screenings thrown in to check up on us. I think it's absurd that people don't go in for them. When I asked my friends why they said it was cause they "dreading it". Well ladies I have to say it is absolutely fine. It's over incredibly quickly (10x fasted than a wax) and really is not as awkward / invasive as you would imagine. I think another thing putting us off is that our mother's generation had it much worse than us. I don't want to go into too much detail, but they had to put up with much more uncomfortable (and cold) instruments than we do. I was in and out in 5 minutes, and only on the actual bed for 2. 

The results for the test come incredibly quickly (I got mine within a week). Hopefully you'll get the all clear, and then won't need to worry about another smear for 3 years. However, some women will get an abnormal result. I was one of these women, I got a letter saying I had mild dyskaryosis.

I was not worried about this as I have a lot of knowledge in this field. This is a really common occurrence and all it means is that there were a few cells which had gone through some mild changes. However the letter came with a pamphlet with a massive word saying cancer (which would have really panicked me if I did not know this). I really think they should rethink sending this out! 

So I had to go into hospital for something called a colposcopy. This is a very simple procedure where they examine your cervix with a big magnifying glass, and depending on what they find they may have to perform a biopsy. This is obviously a little longer than a smear test, but you can watch along on a TV so it's very interesting. I got this appointment within 3 weeks and didn't need a biopsy. Yay! But I do have to have another smear in 6 months.

I hope I have shown that the smear is nothing to worry about. It's not stressful, painful or embarrassing. All the health care professionals I encountered were amazing, incredibly professional, and listened to all my concerns. It is very important to go for your smear as the risk of being exposed to HPV (a virus that can lead to cervical cancer) is incredibly high. So please don't put it off, and just get it over with.

Sorry to bang on about such a serious topic, I promise it will all be shallow and light-heartedness again!

Kat x

Bright Eyes, Burning Like an Attention Seeker

Hello interweb,

We're all still sniffling along down my end, but on the up & up, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to my relatively healthy self.

I'm sure you've all gathered by now that I'm a girly girl. I like make-up, pink things, super high heels, anything even slightly sparkly... you get the idea. But if there's one thing that lets me down (actually two things if you include my complete ambivalence towards handbags), it's my sunglasses collection. But this is due to my skin type (my mum's ginger so I react to the sun the same way as the vamps from True Blood) and the boy I tend to hang around with (army rugby type). So my holidays tend to include hiring a quad bike and roaming around doing outdoorsy things. Therefore, however much I may love them, the beautiful oversized round beauties that every other girl wears are just not suitable for me. Though if I did, these would be the ones I want:

Source I think I love them mainly for the Tiffany Blue legs

I basically spend my holidays living in my skiing sunnies (proper sporty types), and when I am going round a town or something I tend to go for cheapo ones. Enter exhibit A:

See quite normal, barring the purple & leopard print. I would have happily worn these all holiday, but the boy took them (he shares my belief on blending into surroundings), so I was forced to wear these beauties for a month:

Now, whilst I don't mind wearing heart shaped glasses, if you wear them day in day out you do get heart shaped tan lines, and I looked ridiculous. 

So, now to the point. I needed new sunglasses, that had enough protection for skiing, and yet still looked interesting enough to be worn for the rest of the year. Enter Oakleys.

Yes I do realise I am very late to the game but Oakley's have done a fun limited edition their classic Frogskin shape, called Blacklights. We have been eyeing these up for ages, but seeing as the boy just bought some sunglasses recently we just couldn't justify the £90 price tag. But hello 2-for-1 offer so we went for it. Disclaimer: The colours of these glasses are extremely hard to capture in pictures, but it's the effort that matters. Right?

As you can hopefully tell the lenses are super reflective (you can't see my eye through them) and very gold in colour. The frames are neon pink and the legs are neon yellow. They are proper raving glasses! But what's even more awesome is that the legs detach and you can change them with other coloured legs from other glasses. Stupidly enough for some reason Oakley aren't selling the legs separately (they really have missed a trick there). But I am constantly interchanging them with the boys glasses. He got the ones with a bright orange lens & orange frames.

I absolutely love these sunglasses (and really want to get them in every colour). They provide great sun protection (well duh they are Oakleys afterall) and they just demand attention, wherever you are (I am constantly getting radoms coming up for conversations, and have been bought 3 drinks becasue of them - I've spend alot of time in beer gardens recently). But the next ones one my wish list are:

They don't look like much, but the lenses are the most gorgeous pinky purple colour, and my resistance is waning as we speak. Sigh.

So all in all, I have to say, in the most objective way: Get them before they are discontintued. They are amazing.

What colours are you favourite? Where do you get your sunglasses from

Kat x

Photos my own or from stated sources

Look at my Sheeny Shiny Face

Hello Inter-highway!

I am poorly. In fact everyone in my house is poorly. So today was spent lounging on the sofa reminiscing  about better times when we had full use of both nostrils. Good times. This seems to be going round everyone at the mo, so hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow feeling glorious. But obviously I will not be posting any photos of my face, because no-one deserves that. So photos below are from a few weeks ago.

So today's post is about the wonderful world of highlighters.

If I am wearing proper make-up in the daytime (i.e. not for work), I tend to go all out. I figure I only have a few years where I can get away with it, so I may as well just go for it. So a problem I often face is how to change it up for the evening. Highlighters are my answer. I don't wear them in the day, because really what's the point? There's too much light around to appreciate the affect so it's something I save for 'going out' make-up. So, somehow it's got into my mind, that it's not a good night until I am a sheen on my face! I surely can't be the only one out there who thinks that?

I have used many different ones over the years, never having a definite favourite. I guess I'm saying I was a highlighting slag. Just flipping about from one to the next never developing any strong emotional attachment to one in particular. That was however until 1 month ago. I fell in love, and now I am never without it. So what is this magical product I hear you ask?

Obviously it's from Mac & it's Belightful

This is in a special snazzy box as they don't make it in the normal format anymore (bloody typical).

It's called: Packed to go 4 lips & pressed powder. It came in a lovely cardboard box (which I really don't want to throw away, even in recycling, it's just too pretty). Actually I love the packaging of the product itself as well. It comes with 4 solidified lip glosses in the top:

Clockwise from top left: Riviera Ready, Poetic License, Quick Change,  Rosehips

And you push these aside to reveal the Belightful underneath.

It is a lovely powder highlighter, which mac describes as a "Gilded Peach Bronze". On first inspection it appears very glittery, but this is just the top layer, and a quick sweep of the brush reveals love bronzey gold powder. I apply it to with mac's 227 brush to the top of my cheek bones & brow bone and when the light hits it gives a lovely, not too in your face sheen. It photographs like a dream too.

As I said before I did not want to photo myself tonight, so I trawled through old photos of me on Facebook to find a suitable shot. I am a posing fiend, so this is a really tricky thing to do, but I tried...

Relax, this was just after application,
thus before any type of blending!

Oh dear, but this is all I could find.
Sigh

...And failed. Oh dear, I blame the alcohol.

But yes, photos may let me down, but the product itself is amazing. The cutesy box costs £29.50, which for the highlighter + the 4 lip-glosses is actually quite a good deal. I am definitely going to repurchase Belightful when it is re-released in another collection, and I never think like that, so it must be good.

Which highlighters would you recommend?

Kat x

All photos my own