Leather Earrings at Nickel and Suede

NB: This post is not sponsored (I WISH it was!), I just really like the earrings.

I am a big fan of big earrings right now, but I often find that earrings made of metal can be heavy. So when I came across massive earrings made of leather I thought what a genius idea! I think I first saw the earrings on Audrey of Putting Me Together (my favourite blog right now, by the way) who had been gifted a couple of pairs because she shared a room with Kilee of One Little Momma at a blogging conference. Kilee is also the brains behind Nickel and Suede (and her blog is awesome too – go check it out!).

I wanted a pair of the earrings but I have been stung by shipping and customs charges from the US to the UK before, and on top of the cost of the actual earrings themselves I decided to look around for an alternative in the UK. Now, it turns out that no one in the UK makes anything remotely similar so I decided to just suck it up and buy the originals. I order two pairs (the London Tan Cut-Outs and the Silver Signature earrings, both in size Large. I’m glad I did go for two pairs because I was stung for customs charges, plus an £8 fee from our friends at Royal Fail, just for them processing and holding my mail (I thought that was your job, Royal Fail?).

They are super lightweight to wear and the London Tan pair especially go with absolutely everything. They have had a LOT of wear since I got them.

So I would definitely recommend purchasing if you are in the US (and sometimes there are discounts and promotions available too) but unless I am feeling particularly flush I won’t be purchasing any more pairs (although I do have a birthday coming up, and I think the leopard print pair are especially awesome so you never know…).

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Review: Boohoo Tall Range!

I was so excited to discover that Boohoo has a tall range, and as I had a 20% off code I had to order a few bits and see what it was like! Now Boohoo do state that their tall range is for people 5'7" to 5'11" and as I am on the top end of that at 5'11" I wasn't holding my breath that the lengths would be any good, but as returns are free and I was ordering a standard size top anyway I thought it was worth taking a chance.

To get an idea of how they fair I picked out some jeans (for leg length), a long sleeve top (for sleeve length) and a dress (for length in general). Here's how I got on...

First up, the jeans. (I cut my head out of most of these photos as I was getting sick when I took them and was pulling some kind of weird derp face in most of them.) These are the Tall Hara Ripped Knee Skinny Jeans and I ordered a size 12. I am a 10/12 depending on the store/fit and the 12 was fine in these and they do have some stretch in them. As you can see, they are high waisted and the length is great. I need at least a 34" leg in skinny jeans for them to be ankle length, longer for flares or bootcut styles. I didn't measure the leg but I would say they are 34.5" or 35" inside legs. I did end up sending these back as I felt like the knee rips were cut slightly too high, although looking at these pictures they look OK. And secondly I am trying to be more picky about pocket placement on my jeans and the back pockets on this pair seemed slightly too high, but that just a personal preference for me. The jeans are £22.

Secondly, the long sleeve top. It's the Tall Lora Long Sleeve Basic Swing Top and comes in black and white as well as this burgundy/wine colour. As your can see see the sleeve length is great. The fabric is super soft and hangs really nicely. It is £12. I'm wearing the 10 here.

Finally, the dress. I find that a lot of 'tall' brands still insist on making their dresses far too short so my test for this one was whether I would feel comfortable wearing it with bare legs if the weather ever warms up. Well yes, yes I would. Again, it's a soft fabric and hangs nicely and could we have some warm weather now so I can wear it styled with white pumps exactly like this please? This is the Tall Haidee Oversized T Shirt Dress and comes in black, mocha and grey marl in addition to this khaki/army green. It's just £12 so I'd quite like the grey one too I think. This is a size 12.

And that concludes my round up. This is not a sponsored post, I just think that the tall range is quite new to Boohoo so if I didn't know about it then it's possible other tall ladies out there don't know either. Would I order from it again? Yes I would, as the prices are cheap to begin with and there is almost always some sort of offer on for a discount or free shipping.  The quality is comparable to that of much of the high street and shipping is fast: my order arrived a day before they said it would, even on standard delivery.

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Review: Cloud 9 Original Iron

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Cloud 9 and asked if I would like to review one of their products. I had heard about Cloud 9 and how they were supposed to be better than GHD, bu could that really be possible? I jumped at the chance to find out and opted to test out the Original Iron straighteners (though I'm now wondering whether I should have chosen one of the curling wands, such is the quality). Spoiler alert: these are fabulous! It's no wonder though, Cloud 9 was founded by the hairdresser originally behind GHD, Robert Powls. In fact they are still based in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, where GHD started back in the day. A true Yorkshire brand.

The iron arrived well packaged in it's sleek black box and I love the turquoise on the inside. I also liked the fact that a fancy carrier bag was included in the shipping box - if I was giving this as a gift I would definitely make use of that. Inside the box was my irons, and a lovely heat proof bag in which to keep them. This will definitely be very handy when I take them with me on holidays and weekends away.

So, on to the iron itself. Could it sort out this mop?

Time to find out. (For reference, I washed and roughly blow dried my hair the night before, then slept on it.) I clipped the top section of my hair out of the way and got to work. The iron has a range of heat settings so you can select the temperature you want. It heats up just as quickly as my GHDs and features mineral infused ceramic plates to ensure a healthy shine to your finished look.

Once the bottom section of my hair was straightened I moved on to the top section, and a few minutes later I had straight, shiny hair.

Overall I am very impressed with this iron. It is definitely on a par with GHDs and so if you are looking purchase a new straightener then consider Cloud 9 to be a very worthy alternative. Now I just need to master curling my hair with my iron!

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Review: Maybelline Big Eyes Mascara

I was looking for a new mascara a couple of months ago and I thought I'd try the Big Eyes one by Maybelline.  I've long been a fan of The Falsies that Maybelline make so I knew I liked their mascaras.

Big Eyes has a double ended wand - there's a little mini brush for your tiny lower lashes and a regular size brush for your upper lashes.  When I'm applying make up without my glasses on (but also without my contact lenses, so I can't really see what I'm doing) I find the smaller the mascara brush the better, so that was one of the reasons I chose this one.

The mascara is great: it doesn't clump and I find a coating on both sets of lashes with the mini brush, then a layer on my upper lashes with the larger brush provides just the right amount of build up.

I would definitely recommend giving this one a go if you're in the market for a new mascara, and selected Maybelline products are currently on buy one, get one half price at Boots.

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Review: Esprit EDC Top

I wore this striped top yesterday and I wanted to post a quick review of it – so excuse the photographs which I snapped late last night. I’ve included the one from the Esprit website too which is much better quality.

I bought this top from Spartoo back in April or May, using my birthday money and a voucher I had for the site. I knew Esprit clothing was good quality and you can never have too many striped tops, right? Turns out that maybe you can as Sunday was the first time I wore this! I love it though – so much so that I wore it yesterday too. The fabric is about 18% polyester and about 5% elastane which means it doesn’t stretch out in that annoying way that 100% cotton tops tend to do. The length in the body is amazing and the ¾ sleeves are actually ¾ length on me, and not above the elbow as is usually the case.

Checking the Esprit website the top is still available but it says it’s 100% cotton, so either the website is wrong or they’ve changed the fabric composition, which would be a shame. Either way, it’s also available in a navy stripe with red print if you prefer.

This post is not sponsored though if someone from Esprit or Spartoo is reading and would like to send me payment or goodies that would be OK with me!

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Review: Xiaomi Mi Band

I don’t know about you, but I need some kind of motivation in order to exercise. When I was doing Weight Watchers earning Activity Points for exercise was excellent motivation because points mean prizes extra snacks/dessert on the weekend. I have the Strava app on my phone and that’s good to a point because it tracks how far I’ve walked or cycled, gives me information about my speed, elevation gained etc but I need an actual target to work to.

I’ve seen various bloggers talking about fitness bands recently: xameliax has the Polar band and Forever Amber has a FitBit. There was no way my budget was going to stretch to either of those (I think both lucky ladies received theirs as gifts) so I had a hunt around for cheaper options. I found the Xiaomi Mi band on Amazon and as it was only around £17 (rather than £70+) I ordered it. As you would expect it is more basic than the more expensive bands, but it counts your steps, monitors your sleep, has a vibrating alarm and you can set it to vibrate when your phone rings or you get a text.

The band itself doesn’t give you any information other than a series of lights that tell your progress at a glance (there are three LED lights which tell you if you are one third, two thirds or at your daily step count target), but once you connect it (via Bluetooth) to the phone app you get your actual step count, information on how much you slept the night before (assuming you wore the band all night), the battery level, a bar chart of your total steps each day you’ve used the band, and a bunch of other information. I never would have though it but I am obsessed with getting those blue LEDs to light up, and I take a daily walk and will it to buzz (which it does when you reach your steps target).

The most motivating thing for me though is the bit that tells you the number of days in a row that you’ve achieved your set number of steps. I’ve had the band 9 days (at the time of writing) and it is currently set to 10,000 steps a day which I think is reasonable from a fitness point of view whilst being fairly easily achievable. I have reached my goal 9 days in a row so far and I really don’t want to break the run.

The band is comfortable to wear, lightweight and I have no complaints so far. I’m not convinced that the calorie counting and distance walked are entirely accurate (you tell the app your height, weight and whether you’re male or female when you set it up) but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it’s encouraging me to move more. Even tiny things like using the bathroom that’s furthest from my desk at work, or walking to the kitchen for water rather than using the cooler right behind me will add up in the long run.

All the reviews I read before I bought the band said that the battery lasts for weeks, and that certainly seems to be true. Mine was about 84% charged when I got it over a week ago and it has only gone down by about 10 or 15% since then. I think if you had it set to vibrate for phone calls and text that would drain the battery faster.

If you’re looking for some sort of fitness tracker and are on a budget then I would definitely recommend the Xiaomi Mi Band. The app is free to download and there are versions for Android and iPhone.

This post is not sponsored; I just really like this gadget.

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Primark Jeans Review

I love me some denim and as I just got three new pairs of jeans I thought I’d do a bit of a review of them.

Now we all know that Primark is super cheap but how do their jeans stand up?


Skinny Jeans
 

At just £10 these jeans aren’t the cheapest that Primark have to offer (I believe they have some at £7 or £8) but these are certainly super stretchy and very comfortable to wear. They are well designed and are flattering on the bum, and they come in varying leg lengths – my pair are labelled as a 34” inside leg but as they wrinkle up at my ankle I would wager that they are actually longer than that.


Push Up, Push In Skinny Jeans

These jeans are a little more expensive, but at £13 they aren’t going to break the bank. I love the acid wash of my pair – not something I would otherwise have chosen I don’t think, but I loved how this style fits. The pockets are well placed on the back, there is clever seaming to give the impression that your bum is being lifted and shaped. For £13 you’re not going to get actual pull in denim or internal suck you in panels, but the denim has plenty of stretch and is very comfortable to wear, as well as looking great.


Boyfriend Slim Jeans

I bought my regular size in these jeans and they’re not exactly a boyfriend style on me, but I guess sizing up would give them a more relaxed look if that’s what you’re after. I love that the distressing on these isn’t actually on the knee (although I suspect it’s supposed to be a lot nearer the knee than is on me as my legs are so long). The denim in these is more rigid than the other two pairs, but they are still 1% elastane so there’s some stretch to them.

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Review: Straight’n’Go

Last week I was sent a new product to try out: a Straight’n’Go. It’s basically a ceramic coated, double sided hair brush that you use in conjunction with a hairdryer to pull your hair straight as you dry it.

The Straight’n’Go comes with a little travel pouch and instructions on how to use it.

As you can see, it’s kind of the same shape as a flat iron but it has brush bristles. You pull it though your hair as you would a flat iron (as I’m kind of demoing below) but at the same time you direct your hair dryer at the vents in the brush (which I’m not demoing below as I had my phone in one hand to take the photo!).

It works pretty well and I think you could definitely pack it for a weekend away and use it with the hotel’s hairdryer to save packing your own heated tools.

The Straight’n’Go comes in black or hot pink, and costs just £9.99. You can buy it here.

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New Year, New Hair

It may be past mid-January (how did that happen? January is usually the month that refuses to die, yet here we are, more than halfway through it already) but I still feel like it’s a new year. I decided it was time for a change to my hair, to go back to my roots (as it were) and go dark again. As much as I loved my lighter colour, keeping up with it was proving costly and time consuming so one box of L’Oreal Mousse Absolute in Natural Darkest Brown later and I’m back to something resembling my natural hair colour. A big thank you to my little sister for helping me with the process.

This also means that I can use my hair extensions again (yes, having cut my hair shorter in October I now want it long again…it’s a girl thing) and enjoy the option of longer length hair when I want to.

The L’Oreal hair colour was really easy to use – the colour and developer are in conjoined cans and mix themselves when you press the pump. This probably isn’t a new thing but it was a revelation to me, someone whose only experience with home colouring was back when I was a teenage in the 1990s and you had to mix the stuff yourself, then put a plastic bag on your head whilst it developed to stop the drips… hands up who else remembers doing that!

With the mousse there’s no dripping (though you will need an old towel that you don’t mind getting stained with the dye) and it’s all so much easier. The results, as you can see, aren’t bad for someone who hasn’t coloured her own hair in about 15 years.

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Specsavers Collaboration and New Glasses!

Last week I was invited to go along to the Specsavers store in Leeds to pick out some new glasses and to try out the service they offer. I have worn glasses since I was 8 years old, but Specsavers is not somewhere I have ever gone for an eye test so I was excited to give them a try. Plus, I’ve had my present glasses for almost two years now so it was about time for an update.

I was greeted at the store by several friendly staff members and was treated to a very thorough eye test, which included an eye health check. The optician, Chandra, took photos of my eyeballs and then I was able to view them on her computer screen. Pictures of my eyeballs are not something I have ever seen, and I’m not sure I would be in a hurry to see them again frankly, but Chandra explained that they take the pictures so that next time you have an eye exam they can compare those pictures to the previous set and check for any changes.

Once my prescription had been confirmed it was on to the fun part: picking out some frames! Specsavers have specialist frames stylists on hand to help and advise you and a lovely lady called Annette was assigned to me. I learnt something I didn’t know before: the numbers on the arms of glasses frames are to do with the size of frames and, as my measurements had been taken, Annette was able to ascertain whether a particular frame was the right width for my face. I was keen to try on lots of styles and was hoping to pick out something a little different from what I’ve had in the past. As you can see, there were a lot of options to choose from!

They have a tablet type device on the wall that takes photos of your so you can compare your shortlisted pairs side by side and see which you like the best.

Eventually I selected two pairs I was happy with and, after checking with the on-site lab that they would work with my super complex prescription (being so short sighted is bane I tell you) Annette took down the details and placed the order.

The frames I chose were both from the £99 designer range. First up is these fabulous turquoisey-teal pair by Firetrap. I love the retro inspired cat eye shape and the colour, well, the colour is just amazing and unlike any glasses I’ve ever had before.

For the second pair, I went with a similar shape but slightly larger lenses in a burgundy-pink colour. This pair is by Gok Wan who should know a thing or two about wearing glasses as he wears them himself.

Two days later I got a call to say my new glasses were ready for collection: that is a very impressive turnaround time! I went to the store to pick up my glasses and a staff member in the designated fitting area checked the fit of the frames and provided me with cases. I was a little enthusiastic when asking for adjustments to the arms though, and found that they were digging into my head behind my ears. This isn’t a problem though as Specsavers will provide free aftercare for the life of your spectacles. I was able to pop along to a store near work the following day and have further adjustments made so that the fit is more comfortable.

The Leeds store staff are very friendly and I met the Retail Director Louise Harvey too who chatted to me about my blog.

If you are looking for new glasses Specsavers currently have a range of offers available including 2 for 1 on their £99 designer range and the £69 range. Check out their website for more details.



Disclaimer: I was provided with vouchers by Specsavers to cover the cost of two pairs of glasses. I was not paid to write this post and all opinions are my own.

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Bras & Honey Review

If there’s one thing I don’t buy very often, if at all, it’s nice lingerie. Obviously I buy lingerie, but it tends to be of the five-pack-briefs-from-M&S variety more often than of the lacy-silk variety. So when Bras & Honey got in touch and offered to let me pick out something from their website I was excited.

I chose the Elle Macpherson Dentelle set, which, despite sounding slightly like toothpaste, is a very pretty black and pewter lacy affair. I love it!

Bras & Honey was not a site I’d heard of before, but they stock a range of top brand lingerie such as Wonderbra, Freya and Curvy Kate. They also have swimwear, nightwear, shapewear and sports bras. Sizes range from A to K cups and bands 28-48 so there should be something to fit you. They ship worldwide and there is a next day UK shipping option if you just can wait to receive your new undies!

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Review: Boots from tReds

I was contacted last week by a company called tReds to review their footwear, in exchange for a free pair of shoes. Never one to turn down free shoes, I said yes please.

I have an abject fear of being without a pair of tan boots in the autumn/winter/spring/wet or cold summer – basically all year round, so I chose the Kaitlyn boots from tReds own brand to add a(nother) back up pair to my collection.

The boots have leather uppers and are currently in the sale for just £19.99, which I think is a real bargain. There are plenty of other bargains to be had in the sale section too, so go and check it out.

tReds started as a shoe store in Weymouth in 1996 and has gradually expanded along the south coast, moving north with a total of 33 stores today. Their furthest north store is Nottingham though, which would explain why I had never heard of them.

Their website is available all over though, and alongside their own brand shoes they stock big names such as Blowfish, Dr Marten, Hunter and Fitflop, to name just a few. They also stock a small range of clothing.

With prices as low as they are, and free UK delivery on all orders over £29.99, this is definitely a website to keep an eye on.

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