When we last visited the story of our house, we had just uncovered soft, wet, mouldy floorboards in the dining room. Remember?



I cannot begin to tell you how utterly sick I felt when I saw this. From the day we walked into the house, I felt horribly overwhelmed. I like to be in control of my situation, and I like to feel like I know at least enough to get by about whatever it is I'm doing. What did I know about houses?! Nothing. Especially not when houses go bad. All I could think was 'this is going to cost more money than I'll ever have in my whole life'. We uncovered this problem on a Sunday, there was nothing we could do. Except probably cry a bit. The house has made me cry so often that its barely even worth noting!

In our survey, damp had been detected in various parts of the house. A national timber and damp-proofing company were recommended as the next point of contact. They offered a free survey. Great! I thought. Lets get them in to see what the damage is. We'd found some woodworm upstairs in the second bedroom when the carpets were up. Although Im not much of a woodworm expert, it looked old to me. Some timbers had been replaced in the second bedroom when the fireplace had been taken out, and these newer timbers were absolutely clear of woodworm holes, so I assumed that whatever had been living in the timbers wasn't living there any longer. But still, the company could take a look at that, too.

Out came someone who poked the walls with meters and bit and peered at the squishy green floorboards. At one point it was wet rot, then it was dry rot. More or less the entire ground floor of the house was deemed to be damp and in need of treatment in the walls. The national company (no naming and shaming, but their name is the same as a well known manufacturer of kitchen gadgets, such as a K-Mix...) said they wanted to send in someone else to have a closer look another day. Out came another fella who lifted a couple of the nasty floorboards, had a peer about, then put them back. After a day or two, we received our report. With a quote. For fifteen thousand pounds. My Much Beloved turned a curious shade of grey. I laughed. Because, when faced with a quote for fifteen thousand pounds when you are literally down to pennies in your bank account, what else can you do except laugh?

The quote was, well, it was quite something. It suggested concreting the entire ground floor, damp proofing every single ground floor wall, including all party walls and internal walls, and treating everywhere for woodworm. But, what did we know? Nothing!

We approached another company for another quote, but it was quite conflicting, although cheaper. In the end, after me googling frantically (and finding that quite a lot of people had had similar quote experiences from this major company) and wondering if there was any way we could just stick the laminate flooring back down, do a bit of painting and sell it on very, very fast, we opted for a better solution.

We paid for an independent timber and damp expert to come out to the house and produce a specialist report. It cost around £200, but in the long run, saved us somewhere in the region of £11K, so was worth every single penny! Our damp surveyor, Jason, doesn't work for anyone except himself. So, he told us what was really wrong with the house and what recommended fixes would be. It was then down to us to get quotes, but we could get quotes based on our report. He said he is often instructed to survey a house when a damp company such as the national company that came out refuse to do work under a guarantee, he will come out and prove that a treatment has ben ineffective which will make them come out to fix it for free. It sounded like people asked him to do that a lot.

Jason's report said we had damp problems in a lot of areas of the ground floor, and at the back of the house this was due to two things: 1) our house sits slightly below ground level, as you can see when you stand in the kitchen and look out into the garden 2) the joists in the dining room were sitting on the earth, there was no gap to allow air to circulate and therefore, moisture was soaking straight into them and this had encouraged dry rot. At the front of the house, it was likely due to the bay window being rotten, encouraging penetrating damp, the front door being useless and leaking into the chimney. When I showed him the quote we'd had, he said that what had been proposed was a fix, but it was like using a wrecking ball to hammer a nail into a wall.

Armed with this report, we felt a bit less terrified. A close friend had said that whenever she's needed work doing on her flat, she's used My Builder to get tradesmen. Having used the site to find a plumber to sort our boiler and our bathroom, we put an advert out with the details of our damp report. And, thankfully, we managed to get a great timber and damp-proofing specialist out to fix our problems for less than a third of the cost of the original survey.

If I can teach you anything from this, it would be that there is no such thing as a free survey. Our independent report was woth every penny we paid, and left us confident in what they problems were and what to look for in the treatment of them. We then lucked out with a great contractor to fix the problems for us. Our contractor really helped me get over how bad I thought the issue was. He understood why I was freaking out but promptly told me that it wasn't a patch on some of the places he's been and some of the work he's had to do. he pointed out that our joists looked original and whilst the floor had collapsed in a big heap, the joists hadn't (although they were wet and needed cutting back and replacing). He pointed out that the house had been standing for over a hundred years and hadn't fallen down, so it wasn't likely to now.

Next time, I'll share some more of the damp-proofing process!

Over the last 16 months, if I had a pound for every time someone saw our house, or heard about what we've been doing and went 'oh, didn't you get a survey done?' I would have been rich enough to pay for someone else to take over absolutely every part of the work on our house. I don't know why people think this is a helpful thing to say. Here is a pictureless, wordy post where I attempt to explain surveys and what happened with our. So, hopefully, nobody will ask me this ridiculous question ever again. (Short answer is yes, of course we got a survey. The most expensive kind. But the surveyor wasn't a clairvoyant.)

When I left university, I took a lovely job as an administrator at a Chartered Surveyors office in my hometown in Scotland. These surveyors went out to properties and completed surveys and mortgage valuations for purchasers and lenders. The system is/was very slightly different in Scotland, or at least, what the surveys were called was different (I think it has all changed now in Scotland, and a vendor needs to provide a report when the house goes on the market, should I ever move back to Scotland, I'll have to investigate what its like not). Anyway, in my day, there was a Scheme 1 Survey, which was a straightforward mortgage valuation, quick look around, 3-4 page report, lots of standard phrases and paragraphs, valuation for mortgage purposes and rebuild purposes at the end. Boom. A Scheme 2 was a lengthier report, lots of info, plenty of pictures (which were never fun to insert into the template survey without ruining the layout of the report, as an aside!) 10-12 page report which we would staple into a fancy cover. It included the valuations as well. You can also get specialist and structural surveys, but the office I worked in didn't do those surveys. Im so glad I worked there, I learned a lot about how surveyors work and what phrases to worry about in surveys and what to stay calm about.

In England, the survey structures are loosely the same, mortgage valuation, Home Buyer's Report and then a Building Survey are available, along with specialist damp and structual surveys. We went for a building survey as the house was old and shabby looking. We also had to pay our lender to get a mortgage valuation done, which was a stinger, but the lender wanted their own surveyor out, so we sucked it up.

The thing about surveys, however, is this. No matter how much money you spend, no matter how great and experienced your surveyor is, he or she will never find everything. They don't lift carpets, they definitely dont lift up laminate flooring, they don't shift a whacking great welsh dresser to see what the vendor might be hiding behind it, they dont drill into walls, they can't see through plasterboard to see what's underneath, they don't get up a ladder to check out your chimney. There will be caveats about this in each and every survey they complete. They will miss things because there is no choice but to miss things. Unless you are sending them into a vacant property with no carpets, no wallpaper, no furniture, no anything, they will miss things because there is simply no possible way to see everything in a house.

Could we have complained to our surveyor about missing some of the major issues in our house? Perhaps, but its not likely to have gotten us anywhere. Our surveyor found damp in various parts of the house, but was not a damp expert so could only tell us where it was, not why or whether the treatment would cost loads of money - totally standard. Where the surveyor found damp, there was damp. The surveyor would never have found the dry rot we subsequently had 'diagnosed' in the floor timbers and joists, nor would he ever have known the issue is caused by us having no space between the joists and the sub-floor, so damp was drawn up through all the wood till the wood couldn't take any more and the boards fell apart. The surveyor did miss a large crack in the kitchen which, it turned out, was caused by a highly insufficient lintel in the kitchen which probably would have come crashing down in the end (don't worry! We've fixed it now). But to be honest, I missed the crack on my two viewings of the house had I paid attention to it, I would have asked the surveyor his opinion of it. All the surveyor would have said, upon reflection, was that it was worth getting a specialist to check it. A survey will tell you what, if any, problems there are that can be seen. Beyond that, its down to you to get more surveys or more experts in to tell you more about the issues and what can be done about them.

I'm not put off by our experience, we've just been unlucky. Pretty much every hidden problem a house could have, we've had it. It didnt occur to me that the pitfalls of buying a shabby house in need of work might be that people had neglected it so deeply that it carried major problems. Next time around, I'll be more prepared for that, I'll know what I want to look at closely at a viewing and I'll know what I want my surveyor to look at specifically.

Its been a long time. So much has changed in my house since I last posted. Im still trying to keep things in a vague chronological order. Instagram has many, many spoilers of where we are at currently, though!

Today I wanted to talk about scope creep. I spent a year or so working with a business change team made up of project managers and programme managers and the like. A lovely bunch of folk. And one of the things I learned was, when you undertake any change, you need to define the scope of your change project first and stick to it, like glue otherwise you will fall victim to scope creep and you suddenly end up having to change the whole world. Unfortunately, this is clearly not a skill I developed personally from my time there. Perhaps I should have asked one of my lovely colleagues to help me plan all this house stuff out! My house could probably be some case study for project managers in training of just how bad scope creep can be. Seriously, PRINCE2 trainers, get in touch and I'll talk you through it and you can laugh and laugh and laugh and build it into your training courses. You're welcome!


In my last post I said that the plan back in May 2015 was to change the system boiler for a combi boiler. This would let us put in a new bathroom with a shower - once we got the big water tank out of the small bathroom, there would be space to put a shower in. Once these two things were done, we'd move in and put up with everything else and sort it when we could. We were never supposed to paint the house or rip the carpets up but that became essential to making the house feel clean, as cleaning didn't cut it. The downstairs had laminate flooring in the front room and dining room. I really don't like laminate floors. Maybe because my only experience has been in rented houses where it'll be the cheapest flooring imagineable, but its just not for me. I'm a carpets kind of girl. We all have our differences! We reasoned that we'd keep the laminate for the time being at first. We'd noticed that an area of the dining room floor right by the back door was springy when we walked on it. I wondered if maybe there was a hole in the floorboard. We decided we'd take the laminate up.

We took the laminate up in the front room first and were really pleasantly surprise by what we found. The boards were in good shape, someone had sanded and stained them at some point and they looked reasomably good. Hurrah!




The next day, we took up the laminate in the dining room. Sadly, our luck ran out in there. That springy bit of floor turned out to be a huge damp patch in the floor, with a hole in the floorboards where they had just rotted through. There were two patches like this, one by the door and one near the entrance to the kitchen, where we had recently put a giant american style fridge freezer when we pulled it out of the kitchen to give us more space to clean in there. Eeeek! The smell of damp was pretty much awful and I remember being terrified - this looked really major and this was not something my trusty cleaning products or massive tub of magnolia could fix.





We'd found some woodworm upstairs on a couple of floorboards and after some bad rainfall the area below the front window, above the window seat developed wet patches on the walls. The inside of the window seat smelled damp too.

Its not really a spoiler to tell you that the central heating and bathroom refurb were then joined by timber and damp-proofing works. From there, it snowballed. We then ended up doing (deep breath!): structural works in the kitchen and putting a whole new set of units in, boarded the dining room ceiling and had the whole room re-skimmed, fixed damaged chimney pots and replaced all the soffits, fascias and guttering, fitted a new back door along with kitchen and bathroom windows, replaced all the doors upstairs with new architrave and new skirtings in the hallway and fitted new carpets to the whole of the upstairs. And it didn't end there, either!

Whilst everyone else gorged on Easter eggs and roast dinners, we spent Easter Weekend cleaning. Armed with Zolflora, sugar soap, Fairy liquid and my personal favourite de-greaser, Vanish Oxy Action, we cleaned everything. We went through about 3 pairs of rubber gloves each and countless black bags. The house smelled horrible, all full of smoke and like nobody cared about it. Walls,skirting boards,ceilings were scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. We hand picked muck off the carpets,then hoovered like mad. In the end,we ripped all the carpet up and taking it to the dump was the most satisfying thing in the world.

...it's a very good place to start, apparently. I wasn't sure I'd ever make this blog post but being honest, my reader numbers are low anyway and one day, in the very distant future, I will be able to look back on this without shuddering, crying, or being overcome with The Rage, and in these troubled times where we are spending money like its going out of fashion and feeling like nothing's changed, its important for me to remember where we came from. Here's our house story. Warning: contains graphic images of a filthy house.

I can't actually believe how long its been since I last blogged. So much has changed.

On 27th December 2013 I got engaged. My Much Beloved and I have now been together for 8 1/2 years. The proposal was a really beautiful, magical moment. I'd thought I'd make a return to this blog to blog about all things 'wedding' - trying to DIY as much as I could, colour schemes, cake-making, all that stuff. This is what I assumed this blog would become.

But no! Sometime in mid-January 2015, we put an offer in on a house which was accepted. Its a 2 bedroom mid terraced house with a converted loft room. We knew it was unloved before we even went to view it, but from the second I saw it on Zoopla, I knew I wanted it to be mine. And on the 2nd of April, which also happened to be my 30th birthday, it became mine. We had planned to move in and make do with things as they were and do them up as and when we could afford it. You know what they say about the best laid plans? I believe it was Robert Burns who said they 'gang aft agley' (they often go wrong).


I'll talk more about it in detail in a future post, but basically, its been hard. A lot harder than we expected. The house wasn't just unloved, it has been brutalised. Neglected and damaged by foolish people who never deserved it in the first place. We can't even live in it, so we are living with my 'in laws' (who are wonderful, so that isn't really much of a hardship at all). And we're slowly but surely trying to make it what it should always have been, a beautiful, warm, safe home.

My cousin said to me, when she knew we were house-hunting, that it was an emotional rollercoaster. And it is. We've had some awful, devastating moments when we've not known what on earth we're going to do. I've cried so often it isn't even a 'thing' anymore. I just have my cry and get on with it. There's been some good moments, moments where we've felt really positive (usually followed by something devastating happening). We are no longer surprised by anything we find in the house or a contractor finds and has to tell us. We've literally seen and heard it all in these last few months. We're working on this house while both holding down really busy full-time jobs, so we are exhausted and things happen pretty slowly. Plus, we know nothing about anything! We've never so much as painted before we bought this house. This might have been a rather foolish thing we've done, but there's no going back now...

So I guess I hope this blog will document our journey, its helped me to look back on some of the photos we've taken to remind us there has been progress. Hopefully I can share a few tips for people along the way. We aren't blessed with a huge budget, so if I find something good that doesn't cost the earth, I'll share it with you! And perhaps some of you can share your tips back with me too? This will be a very long project, I hope you can stay with me for it.

Firstly, a HUGE thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway. And a massive apology from me for not announcing the winner yet. Don't worry, nothing's gone wrong, I still have a mystery beauty box which is so full of things I had to move it from an old Boudoir Prive box to an empty Lux box in order to fit it all in. I've been absurdly busy now I am back at work and I'm still in that crazy adjusting to my new routine mode. And now I am busy tapping away at my laptop whilst on a train to Scotland to spend time with my Mum who has a special birthday on the horizon, and I didn't want to draw the winner until I was in a position to actually send the box! So, if you could hold out a teeny bit longer I'd appreciate it a lot :) Im only 5 followers away from 50, which will surely mean another giveaway on the horizon as well!

Anyhoo, I have today for you a really old collection of empties. Doing it monthly wasn't working for me. Some months I get overexcited and open so many different beauty products that I don't finish anything at all. So now I'll just collect empties until I have a decent enough stash to write about them, then I'll put up a post. Sounds good, no?



Not a huge amount for this post, but I get the feeling I have other empties photos lurking around so I'm sure another post will be along soon.

• The Sanctuary Luxury Bath Foam - this was part of a gift set. nice and bubbly, with a slightly different scent to what I would choose myself.  I probably wouldn't buy it again but at the same time, if I am given any as a gift I will be more than happy.
• Balance Me Super Moisturising Body Wash - I went off Balance Me for a bit after the beauty box market became a bit saturated with the products but in all honesty, that's very unfair on the brand. I enjoyed using this shower gel a lot, it was nice and moisturing and I felt lovely and clean after using it. I would buy this again in the future (this one came in a beauty box).
• Dead Sea Magik moisturiser - I got this in an early beauty box, used it all up and then popped the empty into a drawer in my bedside table. Classic hoarder behaviour. This was a nice sample and it was moisturising but didn't especially wow me. I probably wouldn't buy it again but I'd be interested in trying more products in the range to see what they're like.
• Korres rose SPF6 moisturiser - I've had a couple of samples of this through beauty boxes. Its no good for me as a day cream, but not bad as a night cream/intensive moisturiser/makeshift hand cream. Im not a huge fan of rose-scented things so all in all, this wasn't really for me. I wouldn't buy this in the future.
• Batiste Dry Shampoo - love these mini cans, so useful for travelling. Dry shampoo is the best at taming my fringe if I was to spruce up my slightly wild hair during the day (my hairline etc is not really formed in a fringe friendly way, I have a bit of a widow's peak and a whopping great cows lick, but a fringe is cheaper than botox for the lines on my forehead, so I find a way, oh yes). I buy the ginormous dry shampoo cans for home and the minis for travel and handbag (and I've had plenty of minis in beauty boxes, which is fine by me). Batiste probably isn't my most favourite dry shampoo but it does a fine job at a good price. I'll be buying again (and have probably half a dozen times over since taking this photo!)
• Balance Me face moisturiser - its been a while since I took this photo and I wont like, I don't remember anything remarkable one way or another about this moisturiser. My skin is very picky, so it was unlikely to be a resounding success. Most of these types of products work best for me at night, as my skin tends to get greasy otherwise. Wouldn't purchase again.
• Body Shop Passion Fruit body butter - passion fruit things are my absolute favourite. But not all body butters were created equally and I find this body butter leaves a bit of a greasy residue on my skin that others have not. Still, if you buy when there's an offer on you cant go wrong with slathering a load on after a bath or a shower to help your skin feel soft and smooth. I'll buy body butters again but not the passion fruit one. Woe.
• Witch skin clearing primer - helps prevent breakouts and primes your skin for foundation? Brill. This primer worked reasonably well on my skin, I didn't see any extra breakouts when I used this. I haven't purchased it again since as I've been trying out different products, but I would give this one another whirl for sure.
• TIGI Rockalot dirty secret dry shampoo - you might be able to see from the price sticker on this that I picked this up in the clearance at TK Maxx, along with the dry conditioner. Its not a bad dry shampoo, leaves your hair looking slightly less powdery than bastiste will. I'd buy it again if there was an offer on.
• Korres Mint Tea Body Milk - picked this up from TK Maxx as well (I love going there to look at beauty products. Sometimes you can find some amazing things!) and I really liked it. The mint made it slightly cooling on the skin which was great in the heat (I did say these empties were old!) as I'm prone to heat rashes etc (delightful, eh?). Would definitely buy this again. 
• Boots Botanics 3 minute deep conditioning hair mask - I've been using this for years and it doesn't disappoint. About a fiver for this big tub, no matter how overly generous you are in scooping some out it lasts for ages and I love the scent and the effects on my hair. Would definitely buy again.

And that, my dears, is another one of my empties posts. Not a bad mix of things I liked and things I didn't. I didn't actively hate any product, but some weren't best suited to me.

What products have you been using up lately?

Recently I hit 25 followers on Google Friend Connect. I know I also have a few other followers who keep up with my blog by other means, so there could be a few more of you out there, following by mythical ways I don't quite understand! I'm really grateful to have any followers at all, and its nice that so many of you have added me to Twitter, etc as well to keep the conversation going.

I wanted to do a little giveaway as my way of saying thanks to everyone for reading my blog and for commenting and chatting away with me on Twitter. I've long thought that I wanted to put together my own beauty box for the giveaway, but to make it a little bit more special than the ones we receive in our subscriptions, and add in a few other bits and pieces too! The only mandatory entry into the giveaway is to leave me a comment. I've suggested you say what sort of posts you'd like to read but honestly, leave me any comment at all, I like receiving them!

I don't want to give away (no pun intended!) too much about what's in the box as I think it might be nice to make it a surprise! What I will say is there's definitely more than 5 items Its more like 20!) and hopefully there's a range of products to keep any potential winner happy! Maybe if you are dying to know  more you can let me know in the comments and I'll reveal a spoiler or two? Perhaps you'd like to know some other information, like a couple of the brands in the box? I will tell you I have recycled a Boudoir Prive box to put the prizes in (yep, I've had this box a long time! But I haven't had the contents for as long, I promise)

This particular giveaway is open to folk in the UK for this round, sorry to any of my international chums, maybe we can organise a box swap or something to make up for it?! So, without further ado, click the link below and enter via Rafflecopter, good luck!

This recent horsemeat scandal is pretty horrifying, isn't it? It makes me enormously glad I rarely, if ever, eat pre-prepared food. I really enjoy cooking and one of the main reasons is I like knowing what's in my food and controlling what goes in. Sure, I ate microwave meals as a student, who didn't?! But I never find them very tasty or satisfying.

I'd like to show you that making your own meals is infinitely more satisfying than reaching for a plastic tray from the fridge or freezer. My lasagne recipe isn't quick, it can't compete with 4 minutes at 800W, but its 100 times tastier and satisfying and whilst its not a healthy recipe per se, it's got to be better for you than horsemeat which may or may not have been injected with vetinary drugs that make it unsuitable for human consumption! If you're organised in the kitchen and willing to prepare in advance, whilst it takes a while to cook, you don't have to be in the kitchen watching everything like a hawk.

I've spent quite a lot of time at home in the last few months and have become a bit of a housewife. Don't get me wrong, I'm still horribly disorganised at home. My home will never be perfect, but I've found some good products and tips along the way that I'd like to share with you, and hopefully you'll have ideas to share with me too!

The first flat we lived in was lovely, but it was cold. It had 2 storage heaters in the whole place, one in the front room and one in the hallway. Our bedroom had an oil filled heater and there was an electric fire in the front room too and that was it. It also lacked good insulation so condensation mould was a major problem. This made drying clothes a nightmare. So we invested in one of these:



The Lakeland Dry Soon 3 tier heated tower airer. This helped enormously, I can't begin to tell you. We used to stick it in our hallway to try and help heat the bathroom too. Things still took a little while to dry as the flat really was freezing but it chopped the drying time in half for sure.

2 years ago we moved to a house with gas central heating and better insulation but we still use this airer all the time in the winter when we can't put our laundry outside to dry. Its quite expensive but totally worth it. Its a lot cheaper to run than a tumble dryer (which we couldn't fit in our house even if we wanted one!) and totally silent. One trick I've learned with it is to maximise the heat, throw a sheet over the airer once you've put your wet laundry on it, this will help keep the heat in around the damp clothes/towels/bedsheets and help them dry quickly. It has the added bonus of keeping the room you use it in lovely and toasty. I'd advise opening a window when you use it to help moisture escape. As I said, in the summer we get all our clothes outside on the washing line whenever its not raining because nothing is as good as line-dried clothes, they're the best aren't they?!

The only issue I have with the airer is it is quite big and so gets in the way a little. However, you don't have to pull all of it out, you can easily just use one side of it. And if you do your laundry more regularly than me and have smaller loads, you could buy the two tier one which would help a bit. The Dry Soon is great for drying towels. Ok, its not as good as a tumble dryer but much better than them hanging around on a non-heated airer for days on end.You can also dry items flat as well like jumpers, which makes it versatile. It also goes without saying that in warmer months you can use it without plugging it in if you just need to give clothes a little more airing time.

Lakeland are one of my favourite companies and their customer service is second to none, so I'd always recommend their products! I bought one of these for my mother and hers arrived damaged and Lakeland replaced it immediately with no questions asked. Mine has now lasted for 2 1/2 years with pretty heavy usage and shows no signs of giving up. If it does, I'll be right back to Lakeland to buy a replacement.

This is the first in a series of domesticity posts. Over the next few weeks I want to continue sharing my tips in the hope of us all having an easier home life! What sort of tips would you like to see in the future?

This is not a sponsored post. I have not been asked by Lakeland to provide this review and paid for the airer myself over 2 years ago. I simply want to share a great product with you all!

In September my partner and I went to Belgium for a few days. We stayed in Brussels and took a day trip to Bruges. One of the many things that's famous over there is speculoos biscuits. Crunchy spiced biscuits that are completely delicious and moreish. Over in the UK you can buy Lotus biscuits from supermarkets, which are a massed produced version of the same yummy biscuit. Ever since we got back we've been buying a packet here and there to enjoy with coffee.

Lotus have also produced speculoos spread. All the yummyness of the biscuit in spread form. I'm reliably informed its like peanut butter (I don't eat peanut butter so I wouldn't know). A quick scout on google seems to suggest its sold in the US as biscoff spread. I brought back two jars from Brussels (along with a jar of caramel sauce and chocolate spread, om nom!) and spent a long time scouring the internet for recipes and ideas. The first thing I decided to try was making a cheesecake. I love speculoos biscuits, I love cheesecake. This idea could never fail, really! I've previously experimented with cheesecake recipes as can be seen in my blog post here, although I decided to go for a baked cheesecake this time rather than a no-cook one.

Yesterday I was near an Asda store, I'm not normally up that way so I thought I'd pop in for a browse as I'd heard good things about their beauty products, specifically nspa. Here's what I ended up getting:

• Melting Cleansing Gel
• Jojoba and White Vanilla foaming bath milk
• Jojoba and White Vanilla warming salt scrub
• 5 minute magic mask
• Jojoba and White Mask Dry Body Oil
• Jojoba and White Vanilla scented candle

Last night I was a football widow and with little interest in watching a bunch of fellas kick a ball around some grass on my TV, I decided it was time for a pampering session so I tried all of these products out in a luxurious bath. I loved the scent of the jojoba and white vanilla products, it smells really luxe and much more expensive than the price tags. The bath milk gives a good amount of bubbles and you're surrounded by the delivious scent.

The melting cleansing gel was quite interesting. It comes out as a peachy-pink gel which you rub all over your dry face. Then you wet your finger tips and massage the gel over your face again and it turns into a cleansing milk which you then wash off your face. It took all my makeup off with ease and didnt leave my skin feeling too tight after which is what I was worried about.

The salt scrub was a teeny bit disappointing as it wasn't very scrubby, but it did feel nice to use and made my skin feel really soft after using it, I just wasn't able to get a proper scrub of my skin like I wanted to first.

The 5 minute magic mask was a pink creamy consistency. You apply a layer across your face and  massage in to release the beads of Vitamin E which are suspended in the cream. You then leave on for 5 minutes before washing off. After using my skin felt smooth and soft and this morning, having applied some serum and night cream after my bath my skin still feels soft and smooth and doesn't feel greasy.

The dry body oil initially smells of alcohol when you first spray it and is a little unpleasant in that respect, but once you rub it in the alcohol evaporates and leaves a dry oil that absorbs quickly into the skin leaving the skin really soft.

All in all I was really impressed with these products. There was an offer on for 2 for £8 for the mask and cleansing gel and the foaming bath milk, scrub, oil and candle were about £3-4 each so they are good value for money. I can't wait for my next pampering session!

Have you used nspa before?

Well hello to you. For the first time in ages, I'm here with something crafty rather than beauty related.

For Christmas my lovely Mum gave me a 3 month subscription to Crafty Creatives. Crafty Creatives operate a monthly box service not dissimilar to the beauty box subscriptions. Except, of course, that rather than beauty samples they send you some lovely crafty bits to get your creative juices flowing.  My first box arrived yesterday!

This is an odd thing for a beauty box/beauty product obsessive to say, but, my favourite face cleanser is one I make myself and the main ingredient is something you would normally cook with. I remember reading about the oil cleansing method (or OCM for short) through a forum or through Livejournal. I have greasy skin that sometimes tends towards combination skin and am prone to breakouts and throughout my teenaged years I assumed face washes specifically designed for greasy skin were my best bet. I now realise that's not true. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that every single foaming face wash I've ever used has been quite damaging to my skin, in terms of drying it out, or making me overproduce oil on my face to compensate, or giving me horrendous breakouts. Some have even stripped so much from my face that its been left red and sore (and I don't have sensitive skin or any particular allergies to products that I'm aware of). If a face wash makes your skin feel dry, you'll end up piling on moisturiser to compensate, and you'll probably end up a greasy mess a few hours later.

When I first read about OCM I'll admit I thought it was lunacy. My skin is already oily, why on earth would I pour more oil on it?! But if you think about oil, it dissolves in other oils, and not in water. You can break it down with detergents (so soap and soup like products) as anyone who has done the dishes will know, but that will take every last bit of oil away. If you do that, your skin won't have anything, and will freak out, and will produce masses to compensate for its loss. And there you have it, the vicious cycle begins. I was still skeptical though, but when I first read about it, I figured I had nothing to lose. I tried it and I was really impressed with the results and anyone I've recommended it to has said the same.

Im so behind in blogging. So I thought I'd lump together as many beauty box reviews as I have photographs for from September till the end of 2012.  I'll try to do them according to the month they came out but I can't quite remember the order. Oops!

How-do? Its been basically forever in the blogging world since my last update. Quite a lot has happened to me and I lost my blogging mojo in a big way. Truth be told I lost my mojo full stop. This isn't the place where I'd ever really want to talk that personally but rest assured, its been a rough few months but I'm hoping that all the unpleasantness is over. With that in  mind, I feel ready to come back to being a mediocre blogger! I've been really impressed with how many page views I've had despite no updates since the end of August and no attempts to advertise my blog anyway. So thanks, friendly readers. I have accumulated a few things to do as giveaways but I think I will wait till after Christmas as its always a frantic time, no?

I thought I'd return to blogging with some less than fascinating photos of the last few months of my life :) I'm on Instagram here so feel free to follow me if you like.

A whole month has gone by! I can't quite believe it. Its been a little cold the last couple of days which says to me that autumn is coming. I do love autumn (if we could just have one with very little rain, I'd be extremely happy!).

I've been trying to zip through all my half-used beauty products still and I think I'm making reasonable progress. My progress would be a lot better if I stopped buying more things, of course, but we won't worry ourselves about that.



Here's my empties this month. I still think I Must Try Harder.

Given that I'm ever so behind in blogging, today you're getting my round up of all the beauty boxes I received in August! So expect this to be a long post with a lot of pictures. Its not like anyone uses dial up anymore, thank goodness.

First up way back at the beginning of the month was a Latest in Beauty You Magazine collaboration box. The 'In Flight' Box. This box had lots of goodies in it considered useful for those off on holiday. Ahhh, holidays.










The box contained:

• A tin of Barkleys Cinnamon mints. So useful for that post travelling funk mouth we all get. Have to admit, I haven't plucked up the courage to try these yet, haha. Cinnamon I only like in small quantities...might try these on my other half first.
• Jurlique Rosewater Balancing Mist - this is so nice and refreshing when you spray it on your face. I tried a couple of sprays worth but I'm saving it for my upcoming holiday!
• Garnier BB cream - three sample sachets. I've tried this once before and I didn't love it, so I tried another sachet and, well, I still dont love it. But then I did find my favourite high street BB cream in Maybelline so nothing's really lost. I'll pop the other sachets into a giveaway box I've been gradually building up.
• Stri-VectinSH Age Protect SPF30 - I have very fair, pale, Scottish skin. Although said skin is cov ered in freckles, I still have to be very careful in the sun and I use factor 30 in the UK (don't laugh!). So I'm always happy to receive SPF30. This also came with a wrist band which changes colour when you're exposed to UVB, very helpful.
• Batiste Dry Shampoo in Cherry - I have quite a few of these handbag sized cans now and I'm grateful. At the moment I'm fighting a losing battle with my hair, brought on by the mad heat we've had and my recent foray into exercise, which makes me sweaty, which makes my roots look greasy really quickly. I also plan on getting my fringe cut back in soon, and I use dry shampoo to help keep it tamed and in place.
• Xen-Tan Dark lotion - I've been a bit scared to use this as it's 'Dark'. And I am, well, super pale! But according to the blurb that came with the box, it can be mixed with moisturiser, which might be a better bet for me. That being said, I find it really hard to get tan to take on my legs, so maybe dark is the way forward there?
• OPI Nail Polish in William Tell Me About OPI - Apparently, this isn't the nail polish I should have received, it should have been one of two limited edition Muppets colours. To be honest, I don't really mind. I remember thinking I REALLY didn't want to get one of the polish colours, and I'm very happy with this deep purple colour. And I love the name.
• Acqua D'Alfresco Insect repellant - unfortunately my holiday this year wont be to sunny climes where bugs will be a problem. But there's always next year! Otherwise I'll use it against the dreaded Scottish midge when I go home :)
• Urban Acai Powder Sachet - Acai is one of those superfoods, I do believe. I'd probably not drink this while on holiday but as part of a build-up detox!
• L'Oreal Mythic Oil - I'm a big fan of hair oils and use various different ones, so I'm pleased to get to sample this one too.
• Good to Go Anywhere wipes - fab for popping into a handbag. I've been doing a lot of travel in and out of London and always feel so grimy on the tube! This will certainly help.

As ever, a great box from Latest in Beauty.

Second in the month for me was GlossyBox. My box gets sent to my in-laws house, as the postman over there is better at hiding packages/handing them in to neighbours than mine is down here. So I always end up seeing other people's spoilers before I get my box. Unfortunately, this month, I wasn't terribly excited. The theme was International Superstars, which could have been amazing.






I received:

• All for Eve- Eve's Balm - I have no idea where this is from, actually, and it didn't say on my card either. Anyway, its a multi-purpose balm. I do like a good balm in the wintertime.
• DHC Deep Cleansing Oil - I love oil cleansers and am a big fan of the Oil Cleansing Method, which I've always meant to blog about. This one has mixed reviews but as I know my skin gets on well with oil cleansers, I'm excited to try it.
• Lipcote original lip sealer - I've never tried this before but always meant to pick some up, so that has saved me the trouble. I have heard it makes your lips sting though, which puts me off a lot!
• Pro-White Original whitening nail varnish - I learned in a chemistry lecture at school from a guest emeritus professor of chemistry about how specks of blue makes things look whiter and brighter and how, before the days of optical whiteners, blue powder called Rickett's Blue was rubbed into white clothes to make them look whiter (in fact, people who used to keep birds and show them at shows would rub it into their white chests, apparently. I dont condone rubbing a bird with blue powder, though). Fun science facts! I must surely have carried that nugget of knowledge around with me for 10 years, waiting for the day when I could explain to people why this polish has a blue tint to it! Its there to combat the yellowing effect using lots of nail polish has on the nails. I struggle with this a lot so I'm really pleased to have this. And as its German, I'm hoping when I go to Europe in 3 weeks I can pick a full sized one up!
• THAT eyeshadow palette. To be honest, there's no point even naming it. Its pretty vile. You can buy better eyeshadows in the pound shops, the sponge applicator is the worst I've ever seen (I know they're all bad, but this is EXTRA BAD) and the shadows basically have no pigment in them. One for the bin.
• Glossybox lipstick. This is a nice colour, looks like it'll suit most colourings and would be good for every day wear. Here's a swatch:

All in all, I really wasn't that impressed with the box. I hope next month's is better. We'll see.

Next up was the Selfridges beauty box. I don't know that I've ever worked harder to buy something in my entire life. I meant to get up early to buy it online, but slept in. Then I figured they were all sold out and I'd missed my chance. Then Selfridges announced the release of more via twitter. The the site went into meltdown. I must have spent an entire hour trying to buy it. Im not the most patient of person, but I somehow managed to not throw the mother of all hissy fits and finally, it was mine!






To be honest with you, Selfridges single handedly raised the bar with their offering, which I presume is a happy little one off, but still. No tiny perfume vial! Amazing products! Amazing value! None of that sizzle stuff in the box! The box contains:

• Antipodes Organic Avocado & Rosehip Divine Facial Oil - Anything with the word divine in attracts my attention! And I love facial oils, as I have documented well in this little blog.
• Bio Effect EGF Serum - I've heard a lot about Bio Effect and I'm excited to try this. Second to my love of oils is serums!
• Aesop Parsley Seed Anti-Oxidant Serum - I've been wanting to try out Aesop for ages and ages and now I can. Thanks, Selfridges!
• Estelle & Third Lip Balm - I like to have a lip balm in every handbag becase I'm forever licking and biting my lips.
• Philip B Katira Hair Masque - My hair seems to be permanently split at the ends, so all hair masques are good for me
• Stila One Step Correct - Known as a 'Fashion Week Favourite' this primer looks amazing in the tube, can't wait to try it out.
• Omorovicza Deep Cleansing Mask - perfect for pamper days.

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to get this and receive it (I got called to a meeting the day of delivery, so sulked all day, then came home to find it had been delivered to a neighbour, so I danced for joy, but they were out, so I sulked a bit more. Then the neighbour dropped it off in the morning and I was happy once more!). I wouldn't like to tell you how many people I bored with tales of this box, of the ordering process, the waiting process, the delivery, etc. Excellent. I loved this box.

The final box I received this month came only today, which was good timing for this post! Back to my old friends at the lovely Latest in Beauty. They've launched the Collections boxes which means even more boxes even more frequently. My bank manager isn't happy, but I'm delighted! The first one was an Editor's Picks box, with Aveda products in it. I've never tried Aveda but I always hear good things.





The box contains:

• Smoothing Body polish - this smells really nice!
• Sun Care Hair and Body Cleanser - excellent for a beach holiday methinks
• Caribbean Therapy Body Scrub - there's something about body scrubs that screams pamper session to me, probably because of how I feel after using them. Hooray!
• Damage Remedy Shampoo, conditioner treatment and daily hair repair. Amazing! I have very dry brittle ends on my hair, and no amount of cutting seems to be helping at the moment!
• Caribbean Therapy Body Cleanser - unfortunately, this wasn't in my box. But Latest in Beauty being as wonderful as they are, within minutes of me e-mailing, they said they'd pop it in the post for me. Hooray!

Besides the Sun Care product, which I'm going to save in the hope of a winter sun holiday next year, the rest are being set aside for a few upcoming pamper sessions. Amazing.

So, those were my beauty boxes this month. The GlossyBox was a bit disappointing and I could have lived without it, but the others more than made up for it. Im already excited at the prospect of next month's boxes!

Did you get any of these? Have you tried any of the products featured here already? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Im very very behind in blogging. I basically have no excuse! My usual routines are totally shot to pieces at the moment and although I have lots of free time, I just end up forgetting. Its true what they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person!

With that in mind, here's some super old Instagram pictures.



MUA shade 19 nails, some MUA purchases, simple outfit to have the in-laws round for dinner, essential hangover cure Dominos.



I ♥ NY and coffee in equal measures, my excellent Primark trousers which are like PJ trousers, leftovers of the amazing passionfruit and white chocolate cheesecake, mixing it up with a hot chocolate rather than a coffee.



Big fringe, big lips, silly face, new Ikea bedding, new Ikea storage jars, a meal out at my favourite chinese restaurant round these parts.



Old enough to need to try Garnier Ultralift, one of many insane things I buy on Ebay when I can't sleep, waiting for my work laptop to shut down was killing me, after finding grey hairs in my fringe, it was time to colour it again.



Yummy lunch, samples through the post, my beautiful Cala lillies, my favourite flower, doing the ironing, a job I actually enjoy (I know, I know!)



Keen to go home, went out on one of those baking hot days and quickly realised my legs would burn, baking hot day to be on a train, one of those cute 'end of the line' train stations that time rather delightfully forgot.



Best GlossyBox ever, gorgeous flower than sprang up in my garden, amazing sushi lunch, FBI cocktail in place of dessert, one of my favourites!

Not perhaps the most exciting post ever but then my life isn't exactly the most exciting at the moment!

I've been following the lovely Kia's blog MAKE me UP  for a few months now and she's been quietly but diligently launching her very own beauty product. At the start of the month she announced her product, Moonie! Moonie's are natural muslin face cloths in a big round full moon shape. Kia even has her own face of the brand, the lovely Neil!

I couldn't resist buying a pack of Moonies. Kia sorted my order immediately and they arrived super quickly! I love the packaging, and now I have my very own Neil, which I'm super excited about!




Like I said, I loved the all-natural, recyclable packaging!




You get three large Moonies for £5.99, which I think is a really great bargain :)




And here's a Moonie unfolded. I love that the muslin is unbleached. The white commerical ones go grey and grubby looking so quickly, no matter how diligently you wash them.

The cloths feel really good on the skin, rough enough to exfoliate and wake your skin up, but gentle enough not to damage your face. I like to use these on days I don't use an exfoliator but still need a skin pick me up. Kia also has some helpful tips for other ways the Moonie's can be used so be sure to check out her blog post!

As for the lovely Neil, he is now the guardian of all my muslin cloths. I keep them in a glass jar I picked up in a charity shop for the bargain price of £1.75, gotta love charity shops :)



Moonies cost £5.99 for a pack of 3 and for a limited time include free super speedy delivery to the UK! You can buy them here.

Big congratulations to you, Kia, on the launch of Moonies, and I wish you every success in your business!