Bills, bills, bills. You can't escape the cost of living crisis right now. Everywhere you turn, costs are spiralling, from fuel to the weekly food shop. So what's a beauty addict to do?
Luckily, drugstore beauty products have come a long way since I first started experimenting with makeup as a teen. Back then, the quality gap between 'counter brands' and those you could pick up at the supermarket or pharmacy was huge. You really did get what you paid for.
That's ancient history now as the quality and range for formulations at accessible price points has boomed. In a lot of cases, drugstore products are as good as or even out perform high end. It's genuinely possible to get some great stuff without paying out loads.
Guess who has some new season loveliness to share?
There’s been lots more sunshine lately, technicolour blossoms everywhere and it really feels like we’ve turned a corner into spring. My life has also had some new beginnings lately, so it felt like time to hit the reset button on my wardrobe too.
This edit is workwear focused. After a long autumn and winter swathed in thermal tights and polo necks, I felt a bit lost about what to wear to the office and work events now the weather has warmed up.
If you feel the same, hopefully this edit inspires you to make a change too.
And just like that, we were halfway through March…
I can't believe how little time I've had lately. My job seems to have expanded to fill every available minute during the day as well as bleeding into my evenings - restructuring the team has been intense and we're so short-staffed we just ricochet from one thing to another, with the weeks blurring by.
Add to that the incredible amounts of lifemin and all the kids' activities and the weekend are just as busy.
Sometimes it feels like there just isn't a minute to ourselves, and my blogging has really suffered. Still, here I am, typing away on a Sunday morning in bed to share some of my current favourites making this whirlwind a little brighter…
Christmas is a time when we want to look good and feel even better.
From spending time with family to seeing friends we haven't caught up with in a while - plus, all the extra parties and socialising, it's a season where we crave a little extra boost and some added sparkle to counter that midwinter feeling.
So I'm sharing my thoughts on those beauty bits that are adding extra gloss to my life right now - a couple of old favourites alongside some newly launched items.
Tis the season to get glam - and after all the cancelled celebrations and lockdowns last year, we are ready to make the most of Christmas for 2021.
Opportunities to dress up have been limited for a lot of us, and working from home means casual comfort is still top of the agenda most of the time, so I couldn’t wait.
Getting ready is definitely one of the most fun parts of the night for me.
There's a special pleasure in taking the time out to do skincare, a full glam make-up look and something different with your hair, accompanied with a glass of pre-game fizz and a mood-elevating playlist before slipping into an Uber to drink and dance the night away somewhere.
It's the decadence we're all so ready for right now.
Sometimes we only recognise an icon in hindsight.
And if you happened to be an 11 year old girl in 1996 - like I was - then there were no greater icons than the Spice Girls.
They crashed into our lives on platform trainers screaming about girl power and pinching the bums of royalty. It was powerful stuff for impressionable pre-teens and I fell for them, hard.
From my precious copies of their albums to the Impulse spice world body spray I doused myself in, I loved them. And my very favourite of them all was always Posh Spice - Victoria Beckham.
