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Since everybody and their robot cleaning monkey seem to be doing these IN and OUT sections, I've decided to join in the fun.

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+ Massive Sunglasses ~ Stops the sun from blitzing your delicate eye area AND let's you get away with minimal meltable eye make-up!

+ Straw Hats ~ The summeriest hats of all, they go with everything, and they cover up sea-ruined hair....


+ Scholl Crackling Ice Foot Spray ~ A foot spa in a bottle, this cracking crackling spritz instantly cools and refreshes your feet, perfect for reviving those tootsies after a sunny day in wedges.

 

+ Ballet ~ Since Pineapple Dance Studios was on TV, I rediscovered my dancing shoes and joined a beginners ballet class at the Yorkshire Dance Studios. It's fun, challenging and a really good way to lose weight and tone up - I recommend it to everyone!

+ Road Trips ~ If there's one thing I love, it's setting off in the car with some snacks and a blanket on a sunny day and finding a place in the countryside I've never been to before. Living in West Yorkshire means I'm only 45 mins away from the wild moors or the beautiful dales, and being a country lass, this suits me just fine! Fresh air, exercise and picnics....bliss!
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- Hay fever ~ I suffer from chronic hay fever and rhinitis, which means every year I temporarily turn into John Merrick and sneeze my way through the sunny days. Being allergic to the summer sucks.

- "London Feet" ~ Summer for me means taking as many cheap trips to London town as I can (I hate cities, and it's unbearable in the rain) but the sheer amount of walking around on the most fashionable shoes I can afford means pain, pain and more pain. Somebody hurry up and invent streets made of turf, thanks.

- Credit cards ~ the end of uni has meant no money, no job and serious amounts of wardrobe upheaval. my debt has become substantial.

- Tom Cruise ~ Or rather my growing obsession with the world's smallest weirdguy. It's not cool, it's not clever, but woohoo do I love him. Stop this madness.

- Music Festivals ~ Everyone loves them. I don't. There are a few exceptions - Bang Face, Outlook, Melt, but on the whole I despise being in a field with mediocre music, dressed as a refugee, forced to have dirty hands and pay £4 for a can of Red Stripe. Call me cynical, grumpy, a dick, but I dislike them. I dislike them profusely.

All that glitters...

I've been doing some research into bronzing creams lately, and I've come to a decision.

If I ever buy moisturising cream or lip gloss, or even primer with flakes of a precious metal in it's ingredients list, I'd like to be transferred immediately to a Christian Aid camp somewhere in the third world, so that I can witness the real world, and rethink the way my life has turned.

 NO.7 SUN DRENCHED LIP GLOSS £9.50 BOOTS.COM

Gold leaf was big in the late nineties if Changing Rooms was anything to go by, and after a short stint adorning poached pears at rather posh dinner parties, gold turned to the beauty industry (and Golchlaager) to add decadence to the already luxurious.

This season there are all sorts of creams, lotions and potions infused with gold designed to help you look your glossy best. The question I want to ask is - is it really worth it?

What do you think? Is gold a brilliant and coveted ingredient to have in your lip gloss, or will you be sticking to your Burt's Bees?

Topshop Make-Up - Verdicts

So, it's been on the high street for three weeks or so now, but has it made it into the nation's beauty essentials pile?

Topshop make-up sure does have a huge range of colours, and the packaging is lovely and simple (looks great in a vintage handbag next to a pair of Ray-Bans darrling). The question is, are the products good enough to become a stand alone product, rather than a franchise offshoot?

I'm all for brand experimentation - sometimes, as with Boujois' new minerals range UNE, is can make for some interesting and genuinely worthwhile products. If a company concentrates too much on it's singular brand, they can become stale. Cosmetics need this type of a shake-up every so often to keep things fresh. When was the last time No7 were looked at as a surplus sub-brand? Not for at least five years in my terms, because of their consistently brilliant new ranges of seasonal specials. Remember the highlighter everyone was raving about in Spring this year? Who thought of them as the more expensive spinster aunt of Natural Collection or 17 then? nobody. If anything, the younger brands are being outshone by this once stuffy label, and long may the in-house competition continue.

Topshop Make-Up came as a surprise to me. After reading about the inception of the brand I sniffed and dismissed the idea. "Another high-street make-up brand? Pah. I'll never buy it." For one thing, I thought, the foundation was over my slim budget. A bold move for what is essentially the main competition to Marks and Spencers, George @ Asda and H&M (who despite being cheap and cheerful, are also terrible at making lipgloss. Sad but true.)

While spending the week on work experience at a beauty publication, I became very familiar with the lipstick pencils from Topshop Make-Up - soft, long-lasting, extremely pigmented...needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. This led me to go and pick up some of my own, only to be accosted by Brighton Rock, the best fuscia tone for my skin that I have ever come across.

BRIGHTON ROCK LIPSTICK - TOPSHOP MAKE-UP £7

Highly pigmented and smooth to apply, this lipstick adds a pop of colour to any outfit, and lifting your spirits to something more becoming to summer. Although it wears out and becomes quite dry some time after application, the majority of the colour remains, meaning that emergency applications aren't so important - perfect for festivals or days at the beach where this just isn't feasible anyway. I like to slather on my Palmers SPF15 lip balm over the top for some extra moisture and protection.

I also fell for the lip and cheek tint - I love to make my cheeks as rosy as possible. In my mind, high blood pressure is on a par with prettiness it would seem. The tint comes in a colour deliciously-named "Bitten Berry" and lasts quite literally for AGES. Just rub it into your cheeks and/or lips for a pleasant rosy glow. Great if you're lazy or don't wear too much make-up (or both, like me).

BITTEN BERRY LIP AND FACE TINT - TOPSHOP MAKE-UP £6

Finally I want to rave about the crayons Topshop have lined up in a pretty rainbow row all over their make-up stands. Aptly named "crayon", these little beauties can be used to doodle all over yourself should you be so inclined - although they are meant for your eyes. Expect lots of pictures over the summer of me with varying amounts of fake glittery tattoos all over my face and arms. My favourite is the brown crayon, which has little flakes of golden glitter worked into the creamy formula.

BROWN CRAYON - TOPSHOP MAKE-UP £7

Fashion Against Aids @ H&M

The festival season is just around the corner, but whether you’re up front and against the barriers at Leeds, or chilling out with a Pimms at Green Man, you’ll need to go prepared.

As much as the nation crosses its fingers every year for a belter of a summer, there’s always the more-than slim chance of a few semi-torrential downpours. Team unfortunate weather outbreaks with sleeping in a field, and the problems start. Luckily, H&M have got this year’s festival-happy campers sorted, with their range of stylish camping essentials.

The best part? The entire modestly-priced range has been created as part of their Fashion Against Aids campaign. This means that for every item you buy, 25% of the purchase price goes towards AIDs and HIV education and prevention.

Bold prints are splashed across tents and sleeping bags, and this summer’s most coveted trouser shape – the peg pyjama pant – refreshes itself in bold red leopard print. There are even limited edition headphones hanging alongside more usual H&M fare. For those who like to sleep well no matter where you are, the girl’s festival survival kit includes a cute mask, so you can get some shuteye.

Now, without much further ado, I will spend the next 1000 or so words declaring my undying love for this range of 'stuff'.

Being that I've been on work experience for the past week in Lon-Don Ci-Tee, my lunchtimes have involved skipping gaily down to Oxford Circus and spending various denominations of irreconcilable credit card debts in cafes and trendy shops. I am a high street hoore at heart, and so seeing a lovely big sprawling H&M was probably the most welcome sight my lickle eyes could have strafed to. 

I came across the Fashion Agains AIDs campaign when I was trawling my extensive subscription list for fashionable camping garb. I'm travelling around Europe under tarpaulin with my boyfriend next month for as long as economically possible (you will hear about it when I set up shop in Norway - I swear I won't be able to leave) and I needed a sleeping bag. As useful and long-lasting the Vango range was, they were all rather expensive, and not too brilliant in the style department either. The sleeping bag I ended up buying was a delightfully multicoloured pixel-paisley number, and I love it so much that I have in fact stripped the bed of it's sheets and duvet and am sleeping in it for the rest of the week.

The problem with discovering this wonderful rail of bargains in the centre of the shop is that I've returned every lunchtime since and bought various other items in varying degrees of usefulness. The headphones I acquired today are so designtastically gorgeous that I doubt I'll ever regret shelling out for them, especially since it means I can now type enthusiastically all day with MIA raving down my earholes in excellent quality. God I love her.

Pictures will be presented on Monday, once I return home and have full use of a camera and d/l facilities.

A New Want

I was looking for a new perfume to replace my now extinct old favourite (Apparently Avon haven't sold my brand in over 3 years....who knew?) and I came across this little beauty.

Apparently it has "Red English Roses, freesia, Florentine Orris and Tobacco flowers iburnum flower - a fresh, sparkling note never before used in perfumery, with french marigold, it creates a feminine harmony with Turkish rose, iris and the spice tones of cardamom, coriander and cinnamon."

Sounds yummy, no?

Cinnamon, roses, cardamom, freesia.....all my favourite smells in one spectacularly ridiculously opulent bottle.

We do love our Viv so...

Millies Leeds Voucher Giveaway!

Millies Leeds is a gorgeous little deli/beauty parlour in the centre of town, catering for every whim might take you. Cup of tea? Millies. Organic produce? Millies. Cupcake and a makeover? Yeah, it's Millies!

You heard me - they don't just sell delicous delectables and tasty treats, they also have a fully kitted out beauty parlour upstairs, ready to make you look and feel scrumtious too. (I'm booked in for a make-over next Friday, check in to see how it goes!)

This week is the last week to take advantage of their money-saving vouchers that'll get you in the mood for summer!

VOUCHER ONE

Half Price Sienna X spray tan - get this paraben, alcohol and SFS-free knockout bronzing treatment for only £10! How can you say no?

VOUCHER TWO

A half leg, bikini, underarm and eyebrow wax at Millies for only £25!

So get down there and get beautiful!

6 of the best...

Culottes! They're not shorts, and they aren't skirts, culottes are that half-breed menace that lurks behind every summer clothing collection. What I want to know is, having had hareem pants and batwing sleeves take over our lives for the past year or so, are we ready to embrace the comfy albeit unashamedly nineties world of culottes?

Well, this year, otherwise questionable fashion decisions have been made a lot easier to pull off due to the fact that Nineh Cherry-esque clashing styles and M.I.A patterns are absolutely MASSIVE this summer. Which is fantastic for me, because not only is M.I.A my own personal icon, I absolutely love the big bold prints sprouting up all over high streets up and down the country.

Here then, is a collection of culottes (and one pair of shorts that were just too good to leave out) to get you excited about the world's most misunderstood item of clothing. Wear with sky high wedges and as many disgustingly huge wooden necklaces as your little necks can hold.

 ASOS silk.printed.culottes £30

RIVER ISLAND floral.embroidered.shorts £24.99

MOTEL @ TOPSHOP parrot.azalia.shorts £29

DESIGUAL @ HOUSE OF FRASER turnap.shorts £89

BY JOHAN @ URBAN OUTFITTERS floral.culottes £35

MISS SELFRIDGE floral.printed.skirt £18