July Favourites

Hello my darlings! I hope you've all enjoyed your weekend despite the weather. I worked nine hours today so I am absolutely exhausted!
Today I'm going to share with you my July favourites. I originally planned to do this post as video and I did film it, along with favourite videos from months ago but after trying four or five times and them never turning out how I wanted them to I decided pictures and words would be better for everyone. So...lets begin!

First on my list of favourites are these beautiful Birkenstocks, I LOVE these sandals. I bought them from TK Maxx for only £24.99, yes you read correctly, only £24.99! I've wanted some Birkenstocks for ages but never bought any because I couldn't quite bear to part with £40 so when I saw them in TK Maxx for £25 I just couldn't say no. I chose the black patent ones although in the shop they had black patent, black leather and then red, green and pink patent ones as well. There were loads of them in all sorts of sizes so if you want a pair but don't want to fork out nearly fifty quid, get yourself to TK Maxx and get on it!

Next are these two brilliant items, the latest album by Kings of Leon, Mechanical Bull, and John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. Lets start with music, this album is amazing, honestly I am obsessed. It is an amazing album for summer, the songs are either really soft and gentle or really fun and catchy. I find myself either singing or dancing along to pretty much every song. If any of you guys are rock fans or like any of their singles you may have heard on the radio from this album, seriously check out the rest of the album I have it on nonstop! And now onto the book, the extremely popular The Fault in Stars. My best friend Sophie lent this to me all the way back in September but I put off reading it for a while because I was a little bit sceptical. The whole of the internet was obsessed and I unjustly assumed that it would be just another craze like Twilight or The Hunger Games. Now I haven't read The Hunger Games so I can't pass judgement, but I did read Twilight and that was pretty terrible. I usually only read classical literature these days anyway so modern books don't really appeal to me but this one I was pleasantly surprised at. I really enjoyed reading it although it wasn't quite as heart breaking as everyone made it out to be. Obviously I did tear up a few times, it would be impossible not to, but I wasn't bawling like everyone said I would. If you haven't read it I would seriously recommend it, its not one of my favourite books but it was a lovely yet emotional read.

Moving on to beauty, this is Burberry's Effortless Mascara in Midnight Black. I was given this product in a beauty prize from Burberry which I won whilst at the Vogue Festival in March and I have used it to death over the past month. I tried not to use my Burberry products and to save them for special use, but when I ran out my usual mascara and didn't have any money to go out and get a new one I had no other option. Annoyingly, I am now obsessed with it, it really is fantastic. It takes half the time for me to apply it than my other one and is so much easier, it gives me lovely long lashes that are perfectly formed and not at all spidery or stuck together. It really is effortless and looks so natural. I am now dreading the day I run out of it though because I was given this mascara and when it runs out I won't have the money to go out and buy it again, I will be left with second rate mascaras and it might just break my heart.

Now for another beauty favourite; The Body Shop's Aloe Eye Defence Cream, it has been my life saver this month. I have suffered horrendously this year with my hay fever, it has been a nightmare! If any of you also suffer you will know how bad it has been this year and it is driving me insane. I don't sneeze at all with my hay fever, my eyes just stream and stream and stream, I can't take a step outside of the house at the moment without crying my eyes out. Because of this I've been rubbing my eyes day after day and they have been ridiculously sore recently, to combat this I have been using the Aloe Eye Defence Cream and it has worked wonders. I usually use it each morning and night after I've put my moisturiser on and it has completely restored the skin around my eyes. It cost only £11 and it has worked so well, if you have had the same problem as me with your hay fever this year I would definitely recommend this product, it won't break the bank and it works wonderfully.

This is another favourite of mine from The Body Shop, their Seaweed Pore Cleansing Facial Exfoliator. Again, this product is amazing. This is the first product from their seaweed collection I've tried and I really love it. The seaweed collection is designed for oily/combination skin which I unfortunately suffer from. I use this product three or four times a week, usually in the morning to exfoliate my skin and keep it clear. I would usually use a Lush face mask to do this but I haven't bought one in a while and at the moment I don't need to because this is doing the exact same job to the same effect. It smells amazing and is currently working really well with my skin so if oily skin is something you have to deal with too, go check out the seaweed collection at Body Shop, its fab!

And that is the end of my first ever favourites post! I've really enjoyed writing this post and so I will definitely be doing another for next month. If you have enjoyed this post and you think it works well as pictures and words let me know or if you'd prefer to see it as a video tell me in the comments and I'll try my best to do one for next time. As always I hope you're all well and enjoying yourselves, I'll see you all very soon with a new video.
Love Holly x

London Photo Diary

Hello my lovelies! I hope you're all happy and healthy. Its now over a week since I returned from London and I haven't shared any of it with you guys yet! Thats pretty rubbish of me so today I'm gonna tell you all about it.
Last Saturday the family and I took a five day trip down to London to show Will (my brother) around the city as he hasn't really seen much of it since he was four. This meant we had five wonderful and sunny days exploring the city taking him to see things such as Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and Shakespeare's Globe. The trip also meant that because I know London quite well now I was able to visit lots of amazing places on the fashion map such as Regent Street, Liberty and World's End. As you can see from the title, here's some of the pictures I took whilst we were in the city, enjoy!


Saturday
We arrived at Kings Cross around lunch time on Saturday and met up with my Mum's best friend in the entire world, my lovely Godmother Auntie Jo and her family as they were also in town on their way to see Billy Elliot at the theatre. It was so lovely to spend an hour catching up and having lunch together before headed our separate ways across the city. My family went to our accommodation to check in whilst I headed to the V&A to see the Glamour of Italian Fashion exhibition before its closing day on Sunday. The exhibition was amazing and covered all areas of their amazing industry from their leathers to their wool. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside the exhibition which is really irritating because you guys can't see how amazing it was, if you did get a chance to see it, the D&G Sicilian dress?!

After I'd finished at the museum I set off for the Southbank as we were staying in one of the accommodation buildings at LSE which was located just behind the Tate Modern. Once my parents had checked in they headed off for my Mum's high school reunion and left my brother reading in the sunshine outside the Tate. I went to meet him and took him up to Leicester Square for some food and the cinema. We went to see How To Train Your Dragon 2 (because even though I'm 19 and he's 17 we are both massive children) and it is genuinely a really good film!

Sunday
We spent the morning on the Sunday exploring the Southbank and went up to the walkways across Tower Bridge. The views were pretty amazing and there was also a really nice little exhibition on about the Sixties.

We then headed back down the Southbank towards Shakespeare's Globe as we had tickets to see the Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra. It was a dream of mine to see one of Shakespeare's plays in his Globe so it was a very big thing for me and I was in no way disappointed. It was one of the most amazing theatre experiences of my life and was truly exceptional. The actors were fantastically cast and the show was very funny, Cleopatra at one point grabbed a man in the audience and kissed him causing him to blush like crazy and get all embarrassed, the entire theatre was in fits of laughter! The show was utterly heart breaking as well though, they struck the perfect balance and at times you could hear a pin drop throughout the whole theatre. It really was amazing and I would seriously recommend going to see it or any of his plays there because it really is something else.

We then headed round the corner to Porky's BBQ for some dinner and it was really delicious. Mum, Will and I all opted for the Porky burger and it was gorgeous! We then wandered over the river towards Covent Garden so Will could see the street theatre performers. I didn't get many good pictures of that unfortunately because by the time we got there it was far too dark to take any!

Monday
Obviously, I could not go to London and take advantage of the amazing shopping! So on Monday the family and I caught the tube to Oxford Circus and had a wonder down Oxford Street, Regent Street and Carnaby Street. We went in Hamleys, Liberty and Selfridges and I made a vlog that day so that will be going up on my Youtube channel in the next few weeks and I'll make a post on here with the video too so stay tuned for that!

We stopped off for some lunch just off Carnaby Street at an adorable little pub called The White Horse. Mum was happy cause she got to have some real ale and I tried an Orchard Pig Reveller cider which was so good.

I then dragged my family into Selfridges to have a look around and then go up to the roof garden for a drink. I really wanted to go because in my first project at university I designed an installation for Mulberry which was inspired by The Secret Garden and I chose to exhibit it on the roof of Selfridges so I was intrigued to see what it was really like up there.

We then walked down Oxford Street to the Marble Arch and had a wander through Hyde Park.

Tuesday
My Mum turned 50 this year and decided that she'd make a list of 50 things to do that she'd never down before in her 50th year which is a pretty good idea. On that list was to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace so on Tuesday that's where we headed.

I then managed to convince my family to go have a look at Knightsbridge and so to Harrods we went!  We then explored Chelsea and walked down King's Road to Vivienne Westwood's World's End which was originally SEX which she ran with Malcolm McLaren during the punk era. We also visited the Saatchi Gallery which had the creepiest but amazing ant installation ever.

After the museum Mum and Will decided to catch the tube to the Science Museum and Dad and I caught it to Nottinghill Gate and took a stroll down Portobello Road where we saw George Orwell's old house (both Dad and I are big fans of his novels) and the iconic Rough Trade Records.

Wednesday
Unfortunately we didn't have much time on Wednesday as our train home was booked for about 1 o'clock so we wandered over to the other side of the river and saw the Tower of London and did a bit more sight seeing before heading back to Kings Cross.

It was a brilliant trip, Will got to see London and some of its most famous attractions, Mum got to cross some things off her 50 for 50 list and I got to go on a fashion pilgrimage. We all had a lot of fun and I've got more to show you guys of the trip so expect to see a small look book, a haul and a vlog in the next few weeks from the trip. Have you guys gone anywhere exciting this summer? Unfortunately this was the only escape I get this summer as I'm working a lot over August but I hope if you guys are going anywhere you have a splendid time!
As always I hope you enjoyed the post and leave me a comment of your holidays or your favourite spots in London, I'd love to hear where you guys are going or where you like to go! I hope you all have excellent weekends and I shall see you all soon!
Love Holly x