Stocking Fillers Under £10

If there's one thing anyone should know about me, I go absolutely mad for Christmas and everything surrounding it. In the lead up to Christmas I go way over the top with charts, lists and graphs of ideas on what to get anyone and everyone I know, however, sometimes the search for simple and cheap, yet fun and amusing gifts can become difficult. So in light of Christmas being right around the corner, here are a few 'stocking fillers' and gifts for all, each under £10.

Let's get started!

Gift #1: I'm a huge sucker for matchbox gifts! Lots of people see them as pretty pointless presents but they're small, cheap and bloody adorable so what's not to love? These matchbox puzzles are perfect as little stocking fillers, and for £3.50, you should buy 10! 

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/nest/product/matchbox-puzzles-little-wood-and-metal-brain-teasers

Gift #2: This men's grooming essentials kit is great for any guy with facial hair, whether they've just started out or if they're well away in beard haven. For £8, this is a very simple, yet perfect present for a moustache! You can also choose from six different scents, which is pretty good if you ask me.

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/mobrospremiumgrooming/product/grooming-essential-trio-kit

Gift #3: Perfect for anyone, this toasted marshmallow kit comes with all the mallow toasting essentials to make a great tasting sweet snack and I think it's a brilliant idea! For under £6 it is an easy stocking filler for those with a sweet tooth.

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/harleysweet/product/marshmallow-toasting-kit

Gift #4: This one's for the ladies, a women's tiny handbag essentials kit, perfect for the one who has to always be prepared. It comes in a cute little bag and has 13 handy items to keep for on the go. Not bad for £8.

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/metalmoments/product/women-s-tiny-essential-kit

Gift #5: A novelty gift never goes amiss with my family so whether they love 'em or hate 'em, you can rely on chocolate disguised as sprouts to make someone chuckle (and make them eat their greens!). This box of sprouts chocolates is £9.95, however if you're not up for breaking the bank on this one, the same company does a smaller version for £6!

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/thechocolatelibrary/product/chocolate-brussels-sprouts

Smaller one's link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/thechocolatelibrary/product/stocking-filler-chocolate-brussel-sprouts

Gift #6: From Newlook, I found these Photo Booth props, perfect for the selfie lover or the vain sibling in your family. They're also a fun alternative to ordinary Christmas photos if your gift receiver wouldn't mind sharing!  There are a couple other prop sets if these don't take your fancy, all for under a fiver each.

Link: http://www.newlook.com/shop/womens/accessories/multicoloured-varsity-photo-pack-_388007399?productFind=search

Gift #7: Candles are an easy gift for anyone, anytime of the year. However, personally, getting a Christmassy scented candle in my stocking brings me buckets of delight, because who doesn't want their home smelling of gingerbread, or a cosy winters night (whatever that's supposed to smell of)? Yankee candles are a favourite amongst all so here are some tea lights for under £7.

Link: http://www.boots.com/en/YANKEE-CANDLE-CHRISTMAS-EVE-TEA-LIGHT-CANDLES_1733747/

Gift #8: What better way to give someone a fiver than to make it really bloody difficult to actually get? This is one of those easy, cheap gifts that can be hours of fun for everyone and can also be used as a nifty little money box afterwards. It's on offer at £3.50 on Asos at the moment.

Link: http://www.asos.com/gifts/money-maze/prd/7107319?iid=7107319&clr=Multi&SearchQuery=&cid=13526&pgesize=36&pge=1&totalstyles=6678&gridsize=3&gridrow=12&gridcolumn=2

Gift #9: One of my faves, a pack of beans with cute little messages on them, such a cute idea! The company that sell them do lots of different packs so they don't necessarily have to be Christmas themed. I love these, and for £3, you can't really go wrong!

Link: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/beecycle/product/beanstalk-magic-talking-seeds

Gift #10: The final stocking filler to tell you about, using a sneaky picture from one of my other blog posts, is Lush. A single bath bomb from Lush is rarely over £4 and  many more of their products aren't over £6. You can find something for everyone in Lush so is a perfect store to shop in. I'll leave a link to their Fun products as a percentage of the money goes to charity every time you buy.

Link: https://uk.lush.com/products/fun

This blog post was inspired by a pretty cool one I saw by https://ninety7blog.wordpress.com, please go check it out!

So that's the end of the overly long list, I hope this could help even one person this Christmas and if not, hopefully you enjoyed the read. Have a wonderful day, week, rest of the year!

Goodbye.x

Amazon Makeup Brush Kit Review

When scavenging Amazon for items to buy, I always come across sellers with brush sets of twenty or more for ridiculously small amounts of money... so I decided to give them a go and buy a pack.  For the most part when shopping cheap, you will absolutely get what you pay for, however,  I can tell you that in this case that is not true.

The brush handles all have a smooth black surface and the metal part is a dark rosy pink colour that appeared lighter in the pictures of the advert, however, the brushes are still very pretty. The brushes were a set of twenty, although three of them were double sided giving twenty-three brushes in total.

There was a large array of brushes through size, shape and purpose, making the set even better as there was a lot to play around with. This includes a foundation brush, angled brushes, blending brushes, a mascara spoolie and more. However, a couple of the brushes were, quite slyly, nearly the exact same. Sometimes this was a bonus and sometimes not so much.

The application of product from the brushes obviously weren't the same sort of quality as Real Techniques or Zoeva, and honestly I could probably get a thicker, faster application with my finger however the brushes applied eyeshadow evenly and very precisely. The brushes didn't pick up much product either although wasn't too much of an issue for me.

A couple of the brushes were those awful sponge applicators which I won't be using any time soon however most of the others were definitely usable and pretty handy to have in your brush collection. Three of the twenty brushes were double sided, as though twenty wasn't enough and were nicely made.

When washing the brushes, there was no fall out or any other problems with them which is a bonus as  I know from experience that it is pretty common with cheaper brushes to not secure the bristles?strands? Whatever. To not secure the brushy bits to well. The only real problem I had was a breakage of the foundation brush, however, even that wasn't a huge problem as I just glued it back together.

All-in-all, I give these brushes 3 1/2 out of 5 stars as although I had a breakage, a couple of duplicates and the coverage isn't perfect, they are aesthetically pleasing in my brush collection, there are so many for the ridiculously small amount that you pay for them, they work, and they're perfect as easy extras to practice your super makeup talents with! I absolutely recommend them just to try, you're only loosing out on £5 if they aren't right for you.

The brushes: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01ABQTG3O/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0

Thanks a whole bunch for reading my review on these brushes, if you have a comment, opinion or good or bad experience with these brushes, pah-lease share, I really would love to hear!

Thanks again, goodbye!x

Finishing with Sprinkle of Glitter

Around six years ago, I came across two YouTubers named Louise Pentland and Zoe Sugg, better known as Sprinkle of Glitter and Zoella. At that time I was pretty young, however their content was funny and very open in how they spoke to their viewers. I eventually started to religiously watch these two inspiring ladies become popular on their ever-growing channels.

Five or so years later, I was still watching my two favourite Youtubers, all their friends, and then some, making a real living from what they were doing. I'd known from the beginning that I wanted to display my pretty makeup and clothes, make silly vlogs and voice my thoughts on this website, however, I didn't expect so much to evolve from these two women I'd laugh at through my laptop screen. 

Recently, Louise uploaded a video named 'Finishing with Sprinkle of Glitter', which I was very intrigued to watch. Throughout this video, Louise spoke about how for a long time she'd been keeping so much from the camera as she was scared to ruin this pristine image of herself. As I have grown with these Youtubers, I have become very close to bored of watching the same type of videos each week. After becoming so popular, Youtubers have had to tailer their videos to the young viewers subscribing to their channels. We've all watched these people become brilliant role models but they've not been able to let their channels grow with them. When Louise finally let out that she wants more for her channel, I, and lot of other ladies my age, were relieved at how we can watch these videos that are really suited to us. 

Louise has now added to her channel videos on body image, sex, politics and religion that I can now enjoy and really listen to as an adult who has been watching her videos from a young girl. I'm not saying I'd be happy for all her funny collaborations, videos with Darcy, and other 'old' types of videos to stop, but it's just nice to have some fresh new ones in the mix that I can really engage in.

If other Youtubers were to follow in these footsteps, add more of an array of content to their channels and do more of what they want, I think that a lot of us would be extremely grateful and supportive.

I'm not sure who might read this or what kind of a response I might get, but if there are any other views on the topic of Youtubers moulding their videos into what deems acceptable for younger viewers I'd love to hear your opinions! 

Thankyou so much for the read, goodbye.x

Slightly Outdated Lush Haul

If you ask me, there is nothing more delightful than settling down and relaxing after a day of being on a little bit of an overdrive. Whether that's work, school or just a busy day of running around doing nothing, sometimes we just need something to take that edge off and that something for me is usually a good ol' bath with a bath bomb from Lush. However, no bubble bath is complete without a blogpost to read or some YouTube videos to catch up on, and my favourites on each are most probably hauls. Now bear with me while I try to smoothly transition this longwinded, overdrawn paragraph into the showing of treasures I have gathered into my pretty little box of magic.

Smooth transitions are apparently not my forte so we're going to cut to my first babthbomb on the list - now this haul will be slightly outdated as many of these I have kept myself from using for picture taking purposes and although I have had more piled up ready, I had given in to temptation and used them before working up the determination to write this blog - please try not to judge me too much!

Yes, so, Luxury Lush Pud is a Lush Christmas special that has a scent very close to the twilight bathbomb which usually fills my closest Lush store with the most potent fumes. Although, the lavender scent that this is laced with is not the reason for my purchase, as the neon bottom half and the pops of colour in the large spots all around it give the pud a fun and intriguing appeal and watching this ballistic fizz in the water is a sight I'm sure I could never stop being mesmerised by - beautiful. 

Second up is one of my favourite purchases from Lush which is consistently bought throughout the Christmas months - Candy Mountain. The bright, girly look of this bubbler is almost as sweet as the candy-like scent it releases when in my bath. The amount of foamy bubbles created from this bubble bar is far beyond any I could ever dream of and relaxing in the hot water with one surely takes me to a land of candy wonder. Seriously, go sniff Lush's Candy Mountain...

Now, Dragon's Egg is one I could not possibly allow you to pass up without buying at least once. Although it looks like nothing special in the store, watching this release the beautiful gold hidden inside the white shell for the first time is an experience in itself! And the potent citrus scent it leaves you with makes this bathbomb a must have in your collection all year round. 

Intergalactic is another fun one that I love to watch fizz into a colourful nothing when dropped into the bath. The beautiful space-like picture this paints into my tub is out of this world!...haha... But really, along with its popping candy surprise and refreshing mint scent that slightly settles and changes after bubbling for a while, it becomes difficult to bring yourself back to orbit.

Butterball is one of those bathbombs that just makes your skin feel loved, so once I was told by the nice man at my local Lush store that this smaller Butterbear could accompany another one of their bathbombs and give my the same skin-loving feeling mixed with pretty colours too, I wanted to buy twelve! I haven't tried this whole bathbomb mixing before so I can't really say a lot, although, from what I can imagine, this can only turn out wonderfully! If you'd like to pick up the Butterball during any visit to Lush I'd highly recommend it as the replenishing feeling you're left with is spa-like.  

Any bathbomb with popping candy hidden inside is a winner for me and fizzbanger is most definitely a winner! The scents that release from this thing throughout the bath time after crazy as the smells centred around apple change from an awakening citrus fruit to a comforting warm cinnamon apple pie. The colours that come out of this thing is pretty cool too, as if it wasn't great enough already!

So White is another Christmas special filled with the awakening aroma of fresh citrus apples. There is a small pink pit at the centre of the white exterior that adds a beautiful soft look to the frothy white sheet of snow that already settles on the surface of the water, this bathbomb has a delicate aesthetic to the delightful scent released in it, trust me and grab twenty while around Christmas time, you won't regret it!

So just a few more products to be added to the end of my already long list of reviews, Dream Cream is my favourite body lotion to use over any other when my body just needs a little bit of tlc. The smell is an odd one to grasp and I know some are not so keen, however I love the way it feels on my skin and how the odour sets on my body. For the price it is, dream cream is one to grab!

Fresh Pharmacy soap bar is an experimental purchase made slightly more recently as for an average girl, who was not born with a perfect complexion, needs everything she can get to keep the nasties off of her face. This has a very mild smell and doesn't sting my face when in use. Although, I couldn't say whether this has worked yet or not as I haven't used it enough to tell. However, for what it is, I'd say it's worth a try for any skin types. 

I love massage bars as an easy, at home spa treatment that relaxes my body and gets me ready for a calm evening ahead after my baths, I've tried a lot made by Lush in the past and loved most, although never the Yes Yes Yes bar. I'm not really one for floral fragranced products as I prefer many other scents although this had a soft kind of odour that I'd be happy to smell of. From what I've used so far, the massage bar melts very well and the oils are extremely nourishing on the skin, ticking all the boxes a massage bar has. 

I hope everything here is reviewed to an in-depth-but-not-too-boring extent and I'm over the moon if you're still reading to this point. Did you read this in the bath? I'm thinking probably. . . 

Thanks for the read, goodbye.x