My three favourite perfumes

Hello and welcome to a new post, this week we’re talking perfume. 

I've only recently gotten into perfume but I have three which I love and wear one every day. 

I don’t tend to have a distinct scent which I go for, for me it all depends on how the scents are matched up. However, I don’t usually like anything too strong and really love fruity scents and adore musky base tones.

Below I'm going to show you each perfume and list what the key scents are, for this I'm going off the perfume shop website (just because it seemed most informative) and will list the best price I can find for them. I bought two of them from boots and the other was a gift, but I'll search for the cheapest price I can find, as I know perfume can be expensive!

Amazon

This is One Direction's first fragrance and one which I LOVE! Whenever I wear this I get a compliment on the scent and people are always surprised when I say that it's this scent. I got this as part of a gift set alongside a body lotion and the roller ball (handy for your handbag).

Top notes: pink grapefruit, red currant

Heart notes: Jasmine petals, fresh freesias, frangipani

Base notes: musk, sheer woods and white patchouli

Amazon

I had my eye on this perfume for a while when it finally went on sale! I love this scent, it's my favourite out of the Marc Jacobs range and is an easy to wear fragrance which is really pretty and floral but has a great base tone.

Top notes: red berries, dragon fruit and honeysuckle

Heart notes: jasmine, coconut water and orange blossom

Base notes: vanilla, driftwood and musk

This final perfume is a scent I'd never tried before receiving it as a gift and absolutely love it! It's again easy to wear and doesn't carry a heavy tone but is different from the other two, as it is more citrus-y and doesn't carry the musk undertone. I love the gold bottle and this one is easier to travel with as the glass is protected by the plastic outside.

Top tone: aquatic iris, citrus

Heart tone: barringtonia, peony, violet and jasmine

Base tone: sandalwood, cedar, amber and vanilla

I hope you liked this post, comment to let me know your favourite perfumes and I'll be back next week with a post all about bedroom decor! Stay golden, Gracie xo

June Favourites!

Hello all welcome back! Sorry for the missed post last week, I was so busy that blogging slipped my mind, however this week I'm back on track with my June Favourites, I've tried to include a little bit of everything and I hope you enjoy it!

First up, fashion! June has been a month of all seasons in North East England (where I live), with some days being hot sunshine and other days just being wet and windy. However, there have been a couple opportunities for me to get out my summer clothes and dust off my sandals!

L: TKMaxx, £19.99 // R: Tu Sainsbury's on sale £8

I seriously love both these pairs of shoes and they were both such a great find that I've been wearing them as much as possible this month. The sandals on the left are the Tropical Print footbed sandals from White Mountain available from TKMaxx. I got these while on a hunt for a pair of Birkenstock sandals, they've been in fashion for a while now and I've had my eye on some big time. However after trying a pair on, decided that these were more comfortable and for £30 less I couldn't say no! I love the tropical print, it gives a bit of colour to my more boring outfits.

The loafers on the right were a real bargain from Sainsbury's as I got them on 1/2 sale for only £8! I love pairing these with ripped jeans and a simple tee or my black dungarees. 

Casio unisex watch, TKMaxx, £6.99 // bulldog clips, New Look, £3.99

I've never been one for wearing a watch but saw this one and couldn't resist, I love how simple it is and the plain black doesn't clash with anything I'm wearing. I got this from TKMaxx for the bargain price of £6.99 but it's also available here.

As the weather has been a little bit warmer I've been really enjoying letting my hair air dry. If I'm in a hurry I use a diffuser, however I find my hair curls nicest when I let it do it's own thing. To keep it out of my face I've been loving using these bulldog clips from New Look. The top clip in the image is one I've been using for years, but any little clips are great for keeping the front sections of my hair neat and tidy!

Next, beauty! I've been all about glowing skin in June which sometimes even meant ditching foundation and reaching for a great face scrub!

Sun cream, Boots, £7.50 (full size) // Cleansing lotion, Boots, £2.79

These two products have been top of my list throughout the month, first up is this handy travel size sun cream from Garnier. I try to wear SPF all year round however I amp it up in the summer to protect my skin even more. I am super pale which means carrying round sun cream on a sunny day out is a must. This one is from the Garnier range 'Sensitive advanced' and is specially formulated for people with 'fair, sensitive and sun-intolerant skin'. This is SPF 50+ and protects against UVA and UVB rays. I love this because it's light on your skin and doesn't leave you feeling greasy at all.

Next up is this cleansing lotion from Boots. It's colour and fragrance free and enhanced with aloe vera. Despite its cheap price I find it removes my full face of make-up (inc mascara/eye liner) really well and leaves my skin feeling clean and soft.

Finally non-beauty! Some random non-beauty favourites for me this month range from plants to music and I thought I'd share a couple.

My boyfriend and I recently took up bouldering. For those of you who don't know, it's basically the same as indoor rock climbing but you're not attached to any ropes or harnesses. We had a lesson at our local centre and have been loving it! It really works your whole body out but doesn't leave you feel gross and sweaty. Plus, climbing up 12/17 foot walls really gives you a sense of achievement!

I also have been buying things to add to my university room once I go back in September. Last year I had a few personal touches but I really want to add to that in year two. One thing I really wanted was plants to give a bit of colour and life, but didn't want anything which I was going to have to care for properly which is why I've opted for succulents! They're perfect to keep in containers and are really hardy (especially the varieties I've chosen).

I've been all about girls when it comes to music recently and have been catching up on albums I've missed out on such as Taylor Swift, 1989 and Little Mix, Salute. But I've also been listening to Beyonce's self titles album (still) and really enjoying more pop in my iTunes playlists!

Let me know what you think of my favourites in the comments below and I'll be back next week with a new post! 

Stay golden, Gracie xo

The Top 5 Books in my To-Read List!

Hello all and welcome back! Today I thought I would share with you the top 5 books I've got waiting in my ever growing to-read list! I tend to buy books faster than I can read them (especially if I find a sale..) which means that I always have stacks of unread books lying around my room. I've managed to sort them into an order to try and inspire me to read some more and thought I would share my top 5 with you!

My most recent purchase is 'this book will save your life' by A.M. Homes and I found this in Sainsbury's for £1.99! I have heard of this book before and the blurb sounds really interesting, I was looking for something a bit different to read and this sounds like the book I was looking for!

The next on my list is a recent release and is 'Us' by David Nicholls, as the cover says Nicholls also wrote 'One Day' and 'Starter for Ten' both of which I've read and seen the movies for so I'm pretty sure I'll like this one too. One of the things I like about Nicholls is that he writes the scripts for the movie versions of his books which means there aren't many changes. I found this on sale at Morrison's for £3.99 and couldn't resist.

This next book was a gift from my mum who gave it to me after she and her friend read it and that is 'one small act of kindness' by Lucy Dillon. It's an easy read chick-lit style novel and my mum has told me it's a really lovely story which won't make me cry, so I'm hoping it'll be more uplifting than some of the books I've been reading lately.

The next book is called ‘Skeleton Cupboard’ by Tanya Byron and is a book all about patients that Byron experienced during her training and career as a clinical psychologist. I'm studying psychology at university at the moment and really want to work with people with mental illnesses when I'm qualified which means I'm super interested in reading this. I bought this from a small, local bookshop for £7.99.

The final book on my list is 'The Rosie Project' by Graeme Simsion and is one which has been on my list for ages! This copy actually belongs to my boyfriend who recommended this to me months ago after reading it himself. I've read and heard so many good reviews about this book so I'm excited to start it, hopefully very soon! This copy was bought at Waterstones for £7.99.

I hope you found this post interesting, as I live in England and study in Scotland, these prices are all UK based and bought from UK stores but I'm sure they're all available online if you can't find them at your local bookshop!

I hope you have a good week, please feel free to leave a comment and stay golden! Gracie xo

New Purchase: Pastel Nail Varnish!

Hello and welcome back! This is a shorter post to talk about two new nail varnishes which I've been loving! I was going through my nail varnish collection and realised that I didn't have many bright colours and had no pastel colours at all. One shade which I did have was Cyan Blue by Barry M (an amazing bright blue) which made me add a pastel blue to my collection.

Linked below // £2.99

Surprise, surprise I ended up with two shades rather than the one I went for, however I am very happy with the colours I got and would recommend them heavily! They’re both from the Rimmel London collection by Rita Ora and are both shades named after music festivals; Peachella and Bestival Blue. Peachella is a really easy to wear peach which is nice and summery without being too imposing if you worry about your nails clashing with your outfit. Bestival Blue is similar to a light cornflower blue shade and looks super pretty for spring/summer. Both lasted really well on my nails (I have short nails so they don’t chip as easily and had on this top coat/base coat) and were opaque with two coats.

I hope you enjoyed this post, feel free to comment below with your favourite summer nail varnishes! New posts go up on Sundays!

Stay Golden, Gracie xo

2015 Reading challenge: Update!

Hello all and welcome back! Since finishing my first year of university I've been reading like mad and that means that this week’s post is an update of the 2015 reading challenge I'm taking part in. Now, I’ll stop babbling on and let you guys decide for yourselves whether these three books are good or bad!

If you want to catch up on my reading challenge, check out THIS and THIS.

Reasons To Stay Alive by Matt Haig

(A memoir)

Reasons to stay alive is a book written by fiction author Matt Haig, it's different from what he usually writes as this is a non-fiction book and is kind of a memoir. The book is all about the authors struggles with mental illness, more specifically depression and anxiety. Haig starts the book when he was a teenager and goes right through to present day, the story is incredibly well written and really lets you understand what it must have been like for him to suffer from such illnesses. Despite the topic of the book being something you would usually associate as being bad, somehow the storytelling is still funny and the way it is written makes the content interesting. I think that everyone should read this book as it really does make you think differently about not only mental illnesses but life in general.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

(A book that made you cry)

I originally bought this book before Christmas but have only just gotten round to reading it, and I'm so glad I did!

It's set in 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska and follows the story of Eleanor, who is the new girl at school and Park who is just a regular kid, he's not super popular but isn't cast out either. Eleanor comes from a big family and lives with her mother, step-dad and younger siblings but has just returned after being kicked out. Eleanor's mother doesn't have a lot of money and is abused by her step-dad, it's through Eleanor's life that the author brings to light lots of issues which aren't usually talked about, especially not in YA novels. I really loved this book, you learn a lot about the characters especially as it's written from both of their points of view which let's you learn information about them and their backgrounds. I wasn't expecting to cry, however in the last few pages I really did, but don't let that put you off reading this, if you like other YA novels like those written by John Green, Gayle Forman and E. Lockhart then you'll enjoy this.

Paper Towns by John Green

(A book set in a different country)

I've been meaning to read this book for ages and with all the buzz surrounding the movie eventually got round to buying myself a copy. I've read Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars and really enjoyed both of those so I already knew this was going to be good. Despite really enjoying the characters and the plot of this book, I couldn't get into it as much as I have done with other books which meant it did take me longer than usual to read. That being said, I thought that it was really different from other YA novels and it was really really well written. I love John Green as an author, he always writes in a way that makes me want to just carry on reading his books forever and I really could of with Paper Towns. What I liked most about this book is that it wasn't all focused around Q and Margo as a possible couple, and instead portrayed Q as almost obsessed with the idea of Margo he had inside his head. I would really recommend this book if you're looking for something slightly different to read.

I hope you enjoyed my Reading Challenge update and if you have any comments about these books then please leave them below, I love getting book recommendations so leave those too! I'll be back next Sunday so please come back! Stay golden, Gracie xo