i love leggings!

Up until last year I hated leggings. I primarily associated them with having to be unnecessarily confronted with strangers underwear in the street, however, after being overly jealous of other people looking amazing in disco pants I thought I should explore the market and stumbled across this fantastic (totally non-see-through) pair. This sparked a love affair with leggings which has seen the original Matalan ones re-purchased and several other pairs bought.

The ones is this photo were picked up in Hong Kong for £6.50 and they are unfortunately designed for someone a tiny bit taller than me, but, as it turns out, I absolutely love them as capri pants. Non-branded shops in China are actually just like the international sellers clothing section of eBay (not even joking, sometimes the stock photo's you see on eBay are even stuck to the hangers in store) so I'm fairly confident that these £3.99 beauties are the rose-print version of these tropical ones. I'm all over garish prints this summers, so I'm just waiting for them to restock the medium size so that I can add them to my collection.

Any other recommendations for cheap (but not nasty) leggings? I'd love to check them out..

Necklace - Matalan | Watch - eBay | Shirt & Shoes - Primark

       

Wonderful Wednesday ♥ Beijing

The joys of completing an English degree is that whilst everyone else is doing exams, you've already lost most of your mind writing 20,000 words. My sleep-deprived deadline day fell a week into an already early exam timetable and I decided to resist the urge to curl up into the fetal position and weep, for the slightly more desirable option of running away for a month.

I'd saved up some money so I booked myself on a tour with a group called G Adventures, took a lot of anti-anxiety pills and got on a plane to Beijing! It was pretty intense; the smog, the crowds, the lack of Westernized toilets. It was also an absolutely phenomenal experience. I'm lucky enough to have been a couple of amazing holidays, but this was my first time "travelling". I ended up going up from one end of the country to the other via the joy of overnight trains and meeting some beautiful people and experiencing some crazy things.

I thought I'd give you a little glimpse of Beijing, and warn you that there will probably be more photo-heavy posts as I wade through the stacks on my memory card. Hope you enjoy! x

   

Revlon Colour Stay Ultimate Suede Lipstick

Whoever it was in the marketing department that came up with having regular 3 for 2 offers on cosmetics should definitely get a promotion as I always end up splashing out when the time comes. I need blush, foundation and a new pot of eyeliner, but since the foundation was reduced in Boots anyway it freed up the space for a cheeky purchase to make up my ‘3’ cosmetic picks. I really wanted a Max Factor Colour Elixir Giant Pen, but the make-up selection in my local Superdrug is rubbish so I picked up the equally pretty Revlon Ultimate Suede lipstick in Preview (whoever named that should possibly not be as high up on the promotion list) which normally retails for £8.99.

I’d not heard anything about this line of lipsticks. They seem to have been released in the US in January; if they were released at the same time here they definitely passed me by. I duly checked out the ingredients and was surprised to see that Ultimate Suede, pigmented as it is boasts the inclusion of Shea Butter, Aloe and Vitamin E. When you first apply the lipstick it does go on like a balm and appears to be very moisturizing, however, after about ten minutes it becomes a very matte, even slightly sticky, wash of colour. I can imagine that a fair few people might find it a bit drying, but what it does mean is that it has very little transfer when eating or drinking. This is the dream for me because, as I have mentioned before, a lot of lipsticks appear to literally fall off my lips a few hours into the day. Paired with the fact that I favor quite bright lipsticks both the prints I leave on mugs and resulting make-up look become absolutely ridiculous. I would say that a little touch up during the day wouldn't go a miss, but if you left the house without it you could easily get away with a 6 hour wear.

Aesthetically the design of the product isn't the best, although the packaging is very ‘handbag friendly’ as it has a click-on lid and is coated in sturdy plastic. I also don’t understand the thought process behind the name, or the tagline (suede and velvet are completely different materials, Revlon!). However, according to the Boots website there are actually 20 shades available in this range and if all the colours in the range have the same staying power as ‘Preview’, I’m definitely sold. Any recommendations as to which ones to get?