A night spent in London

From time to time Danny and I like to treat ourselves to a nice hotel room in London for the night, the first time we did this was last February and we stayed in The Cumberland just next to Marble Arch, it was a great experience and the breakfast was ah-maze-ing. 

Back in July I booked tickets for us to go see Bloc Party at Earls Court on 22nd February, which I was quite looking forward to but dreading the potential crush there could be at an arena gig. I just assumed we'd get the train home afterwards, until Danny suggested we stay overnight. After scouring lastminute.com for a reasonably priced, but nice hotel I stumbled across this beauty. This is The Grosvenor Hotel in Victoria. It is a really nice hotel, in keeping with the area and we were utterly in awe of the building - they had to give us a map, yes a map, to find our way to our room as they have two wings of the hotel. 

The room was amazing, the bathroom was lovely too - although it had a magnifying mirror which I definitely wasn't prepared for. I don't need to see in magnification how large my pores are thank you very much.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bloc Party, it wasn't anywhere near as busy as I thought it would be. I was expecting to be squashed and be thoroughly miserable as is normal when my height in a large crowd of people. This meant there was space to breath, unfortunately there were some guys acting like total idiots to my left which was pretty irritating.

This was the second time I'd seen Bloc Party in my life, however I was fortunate enough to see Kele in a small gig in Berlin, I was standing about two people away from him the entire time. Quite a stark difference to be standing on the opposite side of an arena.

I leave you with a video compiled of lots of peoples footage from that night on their phones of their latest single "Truth". I still love them as much as I did when someone first told me to listen to Helicopter back in 2003 or so.

Kate x

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Soap & Glory Thick & Fast Super Volume Mascara

I've never really thought of makeup when browsing what Soap & Glory have to offer, I've always considering them to be purely a skincare brand, however, after buying Soap & Glory's christmas bundles (Best of All and Big Splendour) I have come to acquire a couple of their makeup products.

Having run out of my world favourite Clinique High Impact Curling Mascara just before pay day I turned to Soap & Glory's Thick & Fast Super Volume Mascara in my hour of need. Admittedly, I may have gone into this with a slightly negative mind of "it's not MY mascara"

The first time I applied this, I was impressed with the size of the brush - it's nice and big, which I've always associated with volume but it's not something I'm used to so I struggled a little with my inner lashes. I didn't find this mascara to be clumpy or cause spider lashes which is always a positive. 

I found this to add very little volume and I struggled to build this up. By the end of the day this had also run quite substantially.

Overall, I wasn't overly impressed with this Soap & Glory offering and after asking what others thought on Twitter, I found that nobody really had overly positive feedback - it was fairly neutral verging on negative.

I continued to use this and looked ahead to payday. I then remembered that I used to wear mascara primer on a daily basis so I decided to give that a go in an attempt to give this mascara a second chance. 

Has it made a difference? Yes, it has. Application has been a lot easier although running has still been an issue, but less so. My main pet peeve is the fact that this mascara won't hold a curl. I love having a curl in my lashes, and I absolutely cannot be without my eyelash curlers. The inability to hold a curl is what lets it down the most in my eyes.

Unfortunately this product hasn't given me any reason to think that I would repurchase and given the price I would much rather try another brand. 

Soap & Glory Thick & Fast Super Volume Mascara retails for £10 and can be bought online or in Boots stores nationwide.  

Kate x

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Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion

The Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion is a beauty product that quite literally speaks for itself, if you've heard of it, you probably already know how great it is - if you havent, where have you been?! 

My first experience with this was when I purchased the Naked Palette in 2011 for my birthday. Previously I wore eyeshadow, and while certain eyeshadows I didn't worry about creasing, there are some that were problematic.

When coming out of the tube, this is a nude colour that blends in so isn't noticeable and can therefore be worn just under foundation (which I have found to crease too on occasion). It is soft and blends to quite a silky finish.

When wearing the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion under my makeup, I don't really have to worry about creasing eyeshadow anymore, when touching my makeup during the day I no longer have to carry eyeshadow around with me (which would be a big inconvenience when using a colour from either Naked palette). It is especially noticeable with the matte colours which seem to be more prone to creasing.

Many of you will be familiar with the updated packaging which I agree is much more user friendly especially with regards to half the product being left inside the tube of the old packaging. I will highlight one issue I have had with the new tube however - it has split inside but still has the outer clear plastic in tact and now when I squeeze some out, some is also forced out under the plastic but not in the sense that it leaks. It's a little difficult to explain.

Overall this is a great product, and a little goes a long way, so this tube has lasted me for a long long time and is only just beginning to show signs of being less than half full. If you love your eyeshadow like I do, then I would highly recommend picking this up the next time you're near a UD makeup counter.

The Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion can be picked up at Urban Decay counters across the country and retails for £15.00. It is also available in different finishes.

Kate x

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Travel Plans #1

Following my post last month about the plans my boyfriend and I have to go travelling this summer we went to STA Travel last weekend (while on an overnight stay in London) to find out a little bit more about flights and get a rough cost of how much it will cost us as prices advertised online are "from £x.xx" and bearing in mind that we are looking to leave in July we knew that there may be an additional cost for flying peak time.

After discussing multi-stop flights and destinations etc we have a rough idea of the flights we'll probably take, which fit in nicely with where we'd like the visit:

01. London - Bangkok

02. Kuala Lumpur - Melbourne

03. Sydney - Christchurch

04. Auckland - Bangkok

05. Bangkok - London

Our idea is to go around South East Asia first (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and possibly Cambodia) and then go on to Australia with the working holiday visa, and then on to New Zealand afterwards. Ideally we'd like to fit Fiji in there too somewhere, but that will be something to investigate while we're out there. The price for flights cost the same in the estimate we got to fly from Auckland to London or to have a stop off in Bangkok again, we think we'll probably stop off there again especially if at time of booking it costs the same. 

We're going to go back to STA Travel later this month to book flights and get the ball rolling. I'm getting increasingly excited about our plans. There are still a couple of questions we have to ask before booking but speaking to an advisor in STA has definitely gotten the ball rolling. When we go up to London to book our flights, we're also going to drop by the Berghaus store in Covent Garden at the same time to buy rucksacks. There are two I have my eye on:

Berghaus Women's Torridon 60L Rucksack

Berghaus Women's Cuillin 60+10L Rucksack

I thought I'd go for something a little 'girly', and also I always find it easier to spot my luggage on a carousel at the airport if there is something slightly different about it.

We went into the store while in London and a member of staff mentioned fitting the rucksack to our backs to make sure they are comfortable etc, so we've decided to go in store rather than buying online (for probably only a difference of £5 or so) if we'll get that service.

Once our flights are booked (together with a couple of nights accommodation) we'll really start looking into everywhere we want to visit town wise, and start applying for our visas!

Kate x

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