FaeriWood

It was a strange series of events that brought this amazing Liquid Mineral Foundation from Youngblood*  into my life. It started when a friend began working at Destination Skin, a beauty clinic based in House of Fraser  in Belfast. She told me about a Botox event they were having and invited me down. I have ZERO interest in Botox (see why in my unedited photographs below) it's completely unnecessary for me but I was considering another treatment and this seemed like the perfect time to book in for a consultation. So off I went and consulted I was (no spoilers). Whilst I was there I was shown this foundation.  Usually you are advised to avoid makeup for at least a day after any cosmetic procedure, you can imagine that with their clinic smack bang in the middle of House Of Fraser's Beauty Hall customers were not exactly thrilled about the idea of leaving bare faced and red after their various chemical peels, IPLs and other whatnots. That's where Youngblood comes in.

For the past few years I've been experimenting with alternative Advent Calendars. I've had Ciaté nail polish advents and challenged myself to use each one each day (that was tough!), I had the Yankee Candle house calendar last year and was left underwhelmed (it's definitely a case of the bigger the better quality where Yankee is concerned). And bar that one year where I was seduced by a Thorntons " The Snowman " calendar I've successfully managed to avoid chocolate! Well done me.  So why Marks & Spencer's?  Well at £25 it was one of the cheapest on the market and I am all about the bargains. Yes you had to spend £25 to get it down from the original £200 sticker price but I already had a payday date with some of the newly stocked  Pixi  products so it was a no brainer to stick this in my basket at the same time . My friend Katrina from Sugafix.com shared the deal and I was instantly sold. It's also one of the few affordable sets

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a massive foodie. If you turned on my tv right now it would automatically open on The Food Network . My Pinterest is heavily decorated with recipes, Food Gawker in my go to for inspiration in finding new blogs and new recipes to fit a theme, and if I ever go to America I will be googling the nearest Triple D restaurant I can find. So you can imagine I was delighted when my friend Sarah from The Sarah Story won two spaces on a night at Belfast Cookery School and invited me! I was doubly excited as it was my birthday week and it gave us a chance to celebrate! I've walked down Castle Street a thousand times and never noticed this little door before. We met at the Castle Street entrance out the back of Mourne Seafood and headed up the three flights of stairs (I am not a stairs person) to find  ourselves in our kitchen for the evening. Each bench, built for two, was fully kitted  out with everything we needed and thanks to the hard

It was as I turned 29, just over a year ago, that I became skin care obsessed. I'm told that it's a normal stage in the run up to turning 30. I was exfoliating, moisturising, seruming, cleansing, oiling like a beast (not in that order obviously). Acids became my best friend. I fell for anything that claimed Glycolic/Salicylic/Hyaluronic properties. I didn't delve into the Retinols thankfully my problems aren't that severe! Over the course of the year I discovered that the horrible dry flakey scaley mess that was my face could be cured. Yes I will always have "Dry Skin" but combatting it became easier. Finding the right products helped. Exfoliating was key! I fell for the Nip + Fab   Glycolic Fix range, in particular their acid exfoliating pads. Rather than simply rubbing a load of hard micro beads across my face and irritating the skin, my skin was renewed through the use of these little acidic potions and I could finally enjoy both wearing and n