ZARA sales bargains!

It was a gorgeous sunny day in London on Saturday which meant shorts and singlet weather! I picked up this gorgeous emerald blue silk top in the ZARA sale a few weeks back so I thought I’d quickly show you a picture of my outfit of that day wearing my new top. This singlet was hiding in a jam-packed sales rack and I was stoked to find it was my perfect size and only £4!

Silk top: ZARA

Denim shorts: VERA MODA

Gold greek style sandals: ZARA

Gold and Turquoise earrings: H&M

Aviator sunglasses: RAYBAYS

Such a great colour!

I actually managed to control myself in the ZARA sale this year; the only other item I got was this silky black and white printed dress for onlu £16. It's perfect for work or going out for dinner or a few drinks on a weeknight.

Did you find any great bargains in the sales this summer? xoxo

Healthy Sun with UNE BB Cream Bronzer

We all want a bronzer that is going to give us a natural looking healthy holiday glow and recently I have been loving UNE's BB Cream bronzer to give me just that!

In June UNE released a new addition to their cosmetics foundations range in the form of a BB cream bronzer. Their Healthy-Sun BB cream bronzer is the first compact 'BB' bronzer on the market. For more information about BB creams and their benefits, you can read an older post about that here. 

The BB cream bronzer comes in a re-fillable compact and like other UNE products it has 100% natural ingredients and the packaging is made with recyclable materials. I also love that the front of the compact (after removing the top sticker) is a mirror!

The BB cream bronzer is available in 2 shades: Golden (S05) and Coppery (S07)

The BB cream bronzer has a unique cream-to-powder formula that is blend able, water-resistant and provides you with a long lasting, natural tan that is actually good for your skin!

Some of the ingredients that make this happen:
Organic Shea butter to nourish and hydrate the skin.
Organic beeswax which lends softness and glide to the formula.
Jojoba seed oil to protect the skin and to help it maintain its natural moisturisation.

The BB bronzer swatched (quite heavily) on my hand.

The BB cream is creamy yet non-oily and it just feels incredibly light and comfortable on my skin. It has such a soft texture which means you can easily apply it with your fingers; in warm touches on the cheeks, forehead, bridge of the nose and chin, for that 'after-a-stroll-on-the-beach-healthy glow"

However for an even more fully tanned look I love sweeping the BB cream bronzer all over my face and neck with my favourite Ecotools Kabuki brush (link)!

Other products used for this FOTD:

VICHY Dermablend Ultra-Corrective Stick (review here)

Estee Lauder Invisible Fluid Foundation (review here)

Topshop Neon Rose cream blush (link)

Estee Lauder Bronzed Dunes Eye Palette (review here)

Bourjois 3D Effet Lipgloss in Corail artistic (53) 

The UNE BB Cream Bronzer is available now at your local Boots or Superdrug for £14.49. What are you loving to give you that perfect summer bronzed glow at the moment?

VICHY Dermablend Ultra-Corrective Stick

One of the items that was in my June GlossyBox was a small starter kit for the VICHY Dermablend Ultra-Corrective Foundation Cream stick.  The handy little kit contained 6 sample shades so you could find out what shade would provide you with perfect coverage.

The VICHY Dermablend stick is marketed as a ‘corrective foundation’ to provide the most complete, natural looking coverage for face and body imperfections. It contains 40% pigment concentration which makes it ideal for camouflage of skin concerns such as dark circles, acne marks, scarring, bruising, redness and dark spots. It promises to be long lasting (up to eight hours) and it is fragrance-free, waterproof and smudge resistant.

I think this would be a great foundation for someone with problem skin or if you prefer quite heavy coverage to block out any redness or pigmentation on your face. However for my complexion it seemed a little too heavy and creamy to apply all over my face so I decided to start using it as a concealer instead. And boy am I glad I did, this immediately became my favourite concealer! After trying a few of the shades I found that Nude (14) and Light (13) were most suited for me as a concealer to cover under eyes dark circles, spots and pigmentation; which I (unfortunately) get a lot more of during summer time.

So once my sample kit started running low I decided to buy the full VICHY Dermablend Ultra-Corrective Foundation Cream stick in Nude. It retails for £19 which is a bit more expensive than my usual MAC Studio Finish concealer (£14.50) but the Vichy stick is 12grams in comparison to 7grams for the MAC one so it will last me a lot longer!

It retails for £19 which is a bit more expensive than my usual MAC Studio Finish concealer (£14.50) but the Vichy stick is 12grams in comparison to 7grams for the MAC one so it will last me a lot longer!

Swatched and below blended out on my hand...

I normally just glide the stick under my eye and dab it in gently with my finger (you should never rub too much on the delicate skin area under your eyes) plus I apply it to any other small spots I might have and around the side of my nostrils. I am really happy I found this product so this does show the benefit of beauty box subscriptions like GlossyBox because otherwise I probably would never have tried the VICHY Dermablend Ultra-Corrective Stick.

VICHY products are available online here or you can find it at your local Boots store or Boots.com.
If you want to try the sample kit first to play with the product and to find your perfect shade you can actually buy the little starter kit for £4.99 online, which I think is super handy! (link).

Have you ever tried any other VICHY products that you'd recommend?

Birthday Celebrations =

Instead of moping about turning yet another year older, I decided to just embrace it by throwing a party to celebrate my birthday with some of my closest friends in London. And when I think celebration; I think of champagne or bubbles! So when I found out about a company that could provide cold flowing Prosecco (Italian sparkling wine) by the keg making it available on tap in the convenience of your own house; the idea of my birthday ‘Prosecco Party’ was born! So me and my flatmate ordered two kegs to be delivered to our house and it was set up with a cooler and tap to allow the bubbles to flow all night long.....

Here you can see our own 'Prosecco bar' attached to two (20 litre) kegs!
 Fore more information on how to rent-a-keg of Prosecco, click here.

My birthday celebrations officially kicked off already on Friday when I received a lovely bunch of flowers from a friend of mine delivered to work. Also it is a Dutch tradition to provide cake or sweets to your office to treat co-workers on your birthday so the night before I baked a delicious (if I say so myself) Lemon Syrup Cake. It was super easy to make and disappeared rather quickly at work :)

The recipe is from Nigella Lawson and you can download the recipe here.

The girls at the office also got me this amazing birthday card.....

Appropriate much? :)

On Saturday was the night of the party; where the drinks flowed, the music pumped and the laughs and chatter was all around. It continued on until the wee hours of the morning and I loved spending my birthday with some of my favourite people! I didn't end up getting many pictures because when 'hosting' you tend to get so busy mingling with everyone but here a couple of shots from the night!

I treated myself to a new dress for the party! I wanted something fun and colourful and this turquoise knitted panel bodycon dress from Lipsy fit the bill perfectly. It was £48 and you can buy it here.

Many many people crammed into our house!

And then my wonderful friends even surprised me with hummingbird cupcakes, candles and singing me Happy Birthday! I feel truly blessed to have so many amazing friends in my life ♥  It was the best birthday ever and I am excited to see what my 28th life year will bring me :)

Happy Hump Day! xoxo