Review: Garnier's SkinActive Green Tea Range for Oily Skin

I'm on the hunt for good, reliable, affordable skincare. Aren't we all?

Recently my search brought me to Garnier's new SkinActive range so I thought I'd test it out for a full 10 days and give you my full and honest opinion.

The main selling point of Garnier's new SkinActive range is that a whopping 96% of the
ingredients that make up the products are natural and free from silicone, parabens and synthetic colourants. I'm no dermatologist, but that sounds like a winning formula to me!

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining and Mine's Blogging.

As many of you may (or may not) know, I'm currently doing my Post Graduate Certificate in Education. In other words I'm training to be a teacher and doing masters level work side by side and therefore have no time, no life and basically spend my evenings planning lessons and crying into a tub of ice cream.

When people said the PGCE year would be the most stressful year of my life they were spot on!

Unfortunately, things recently took on a whole new stress factor when I was told by the placement school I'm currently training in that I needed to delete my Youtube channel. It was as if someone had asked me to give away my dog. Not that I have a dog. But, you know, I can imagine.

Last weekend I tearfully set three year's worth of videos to private. The positive is I can reactivate everything in 10 weeks time when I finish the course. The negative is I'm pretty sure they're going to be the longest ten weeks of my life! So far it's only been three days and I'm already having withdrawal symptoms. It's only a matter of time before I start narrating my makeup application in the morning when I'm alone in my room.

The good news is I can spend the next 10 weeks showering my blog with the love and attention it deserves. Ever since I graduated from university and entered the world of work, my poor little blog has taken a back seat. After all, after a hard day filled with rush hour traffic, mountainous workloads that will never be conquered and computer screen induced headaches, it's a lot easier to plonk down in front of a camera and ramble on incessantly than it is to try and put together a witty and coherent blog post. Most days, by the time 4pm hits I can rarely put together a logical sentence.

But suddenly I have a bunch of unexpected free time on my hands (you know, if you ignore the 8,000 word essay I have due) so it's the perfect opportunity to show my poor little neglected blog a little bit of love. You know what they say: every cloud has a silver lining!

So I'm going to get over the writer's block and get back into the swing of things. I'm a little rusty and a little short of jet-setting adventures to write about since I graduated, but I'm excited to catch the blogging bug all over again!

"If it's not baroque, don't fix it." Beauty and the Beast 2017.

Like many hard-core Beauty and the Beast fans, I spent the last year in emotional turmoil, switching back and forth between excitement and dread. When I first found out Disney had a live action remake of my all-time favourite in the making, my initial reaction was indignation.

How on earth were they going to improve on perfection? Were they or were they not going to include that naff filler, 'Human Again'? Who could they possibly find to play a convincing Belle?

And, as snippets were reported here and teasers were released there, I continued to view the whole thing with trepidation while simultaneously counting down the days like a child waiting for Christmas. Did I hate the idea? Did I love the idea? Who knows? I just know I had a lot of feelings about it!

But last week I finally got the see the film I'd been both longing for and dreading.

Photo: Disney

Beauty and the Beast Themed Goodies you Need in your Life!

Beauty and the Beast is my favourite film. Not just my favourite Disney film, mind you. My favourite film of all time! My goal in life is to be Belle (enchanted castle and all), which several realistic boring people in my life keep pointing out is kind of a pipe dream.

But since the new live action remake is set to be released in less than a month, (cue hysterical shrieking) I can at least take advantage of the surge of Beauty and the Beast themed merchandise that's suddenly flooded the market.

My bedroom is about to look like it belongs to a five year old girl and I don't even care!

Gaston's Tavern Wall Sign 

The Disney Store US $70

For all his misogyny, ignorance and deep-rooted evil, no one parties like Gaston and I wouldn't mind a trip to that tavern for a few tankards of beer and a sing-song. Or, at the very least, with this sign I can turn my own kitchen in to Gaston's Tavern...minus the antlers.

They're Real! Benefit Talbot Green Blogging Event

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to go to the launch of Benefit's They're Real Double the Lip two-in-one lipstick and lipliner, and the They're Real Duo Eyeshadow Blender. Kristie and Hannah (aka the lovely ladies from the Benefit counter at Boots, Talbot Green) put on a lovely evening with some live demonstrations, a chance for us to play with the products, and some delicious snacks (#priorities).

First let's talk about the new eyeshadow range because I can't contain my excitement about it! The eyeshadows come as a duo with a little spherical applicator. All it takes is a few swipes back and forth across the eyeshadow and a few strokes across your eyelids and ta-da!

I'm a Crazy Bird Lady!

I decided 2017 is going to be the year when I cut down on time-draining activities and get out there and do things the make me happy instead. How many hours did I lose to social media, re-runs of Friends and general procrastination in 2016? A half hour of vegging out in my pjs here, 20 minutes of browsing Pinterest for nothing in particular there...it all adds up!

When 2017 hit, I deleted my Facebook app. Instead of sitting through every soap opera my mother insists on putting on the TV in the evening, resisting the urge to gouge out my own eyes, I've started using that time to get into a good book. Time that would have been spent scrolling through websites, building imaginary shopping carts of clothes I know I'll never actually buy is now spent heading out for a walk.

I'm spending my time on the things that make me happy and recently I realised that one of those things is birds.

Big January Giveaway!

Happy New Year one and all! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and are ready to tackle 2017.

I want this year to be an amazing one for all of us so, to kick things off with a bang, I'm hosting a Big January Giveaway on my Youtube channel! I thought it would be a great way to lift those January blues and to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to subscribe to my channel.