What's your style? | Bon Accord Summer Style 16

Hello Again!

The other week I was invited along to the Bon Accord Centre in Aberdeen with some fellow bloggers to see what the stores have in for their Summer Style 2016! It was great walking around the centre just us and getting to have a chat with the different brands.

My favourite clothing store New Look was there and I enjoyed seeing what they had in store for Summer. I love their sunglasses so much so that I have a pair of the green bug eye lens. They also have some great handbags and cute little backpacks.

Monsoon is a shop I like to have a gander in mainly for accessorize and for some bits and bobs for April but they also have a beautiful Wedding range. April is going to be a flower girl for the first time so it was good seeing what they had on offer.

This little blue dress really caught my eye for her flower girl dress and this colour block skirt in Lovely - what?1 I need an outfit too!

Onto some beauty brands, we got to see the new collections from Dior, Clarins, Clinique just to name a few. Some that really stands out for me is the scent that was politely hovering around the Dior table and that was the smell of their new perfume Poison girl - I am obsessed! No. 7 also have these really bright lip balms - the coral - peachy one looks really beautiful!

It was really good being able to see these sticks in the 'flesh' because I've heard so much about them swatched on the back of my hand they are a good formula and pretty good coverage! Chubby in the Nude is also a fantastic name! 

Benefit also had a table full of goodies and I got to see the new Hoola instant tan and I have to say even for not being a tan lover, it looked pretty good! 10/10 for the packaging too, it's got it's own hoola skirt! (sorry there is not a photo the table was pretty crowded).

One of my favourite skincare brands was there and they have their new Rose and Cedrat fragrance of their Cleanse and Polish hot cloth cleanser and I can't wait to get my hands on it!

We then headed upstairs where John Lewis put on a little fashion show for us. The girls were great, wearing clothes from all different brands even whistles. It was great t see a different variety of clothing, from Cutlottes to Coats - In this weather you never really know how to dress, especially here in Aberdeen. They all had their make up done by Bobbi Brown and they either had a smokey eye and a nude lip or a subtle eye and a bright lip! They were all also sporting a bag by Coach. My budget doesn't really go that far, I bloody wish it did because take a look at this beautiful backpack! Isn't it just lovely?! 

Thank you to the team at the Bon Accord Centre for inviting me along, it was a great night - I now have a lust list as long as Union Street! Also thank you to all the brands that participated as they made us all feel very welcome!

If you're in or around the Aberdeen area you should head to the Bon Accord and see what the different stores have for this summer, I'm sure you'll find some beauties!

Your 5 - Fashion and Beauty | Union Square Aberdeen

Hello Again!

I hope you're all doing great! Today's post is all about the Your 5 - Fashion and Beauty event at Union Square Aberdeen. I was invited along to have a 10 minute consultation with either a Beauty stylist or a Fashion stylist so I chose Beauty. A lovely girl from Benefit asked me what kind of make up I would like, my choices were dewy, smokey eye or a bold lip and I went for dewy - always trying to catch that glow! (sounds like some sort of pokemon, I'll be the pokemon master of the dew).

I have never used any of the products before but being a beauty blogger I have obviously heard a lot about them. The makeup was good (sorry no photo, I completely forgot) but it did sit a bit heavy as it was put on top of the makeup I was already wearing but it was still good. I even went and bought Girl Meets Pearl and I love it, Hoola and the Rockateur and next on my list!

Union Square have an app which is available on Android and the App Store and on there you can see what's new, upcoming events and there's even discounts and competitions! If you'd like to find out more just download the App, "Union Square".

Thanks to the Team at McFrank PR for inviting me along and to the girls at the makeup counters. I enjoyed speaking about our little ones together. 

Body Confidence featuring my necklace from Trinkets Jewellery | Also all about Fiona's Campaign

Hello Again!

Today I want to speak to you about my journey trying to find body confidence and I also want to talk about a campaign all about #EveryBodyInAds.

Body Confidence. It's a pretty big subject these days and I think that it has taken me up until now on my 24th year in this world, to actually like myself and the skin I'm in. I find it hard as a mum raising a little girl because I know just now the pressure on young people not only girls, is so much and there's a certain category that society want you to fit in and if you don't then you should be disgusted with yourself and should change to fit in. Why is it this way though? I think that social media plays a HUGE part in this and pretty much everywhere you look you can find the 'perfect' body. As a bigger girl this has made me very depressed and I'm not using that word lightly, I have went through spells where I hate to look at myself in the mirror because what I saw was horrible. That is why I stopped making YouTube videos, I hated looking at myself when editing because all I saw were my flaws and that made me immediately delete that footage! 

But recently (and I literally mean like the past few weeks) I've noticed that I am really hard on myself. I don't look exactly how I'd like to look and yes I'd like to lose a little bit of weight but if I do I'll be doing it for myself and not because some magazine says that I should! I am in a happy relationship with a man who loves me for me. He doesn't look at me and see my flaws he looks at me and loves me. I have a little girl who looks up to me and loves me because I'm her mummy, I shouldn't be showing her that I hate myself because I don't want her growing up and hating herself!

So what I'm trying to say is that whatever skin you're in, whatever shape, size, colour or age you should love yourself because you are you. You only get to live once, live your life how you want to! Before hand I would never have put photos of myself like the ones below online but now I am not even thinking twice about it because why should I?!

Now for the campaign, Fiona De Buitlear is a jewellery designer for Trinkets Jewellery, from Ireland and she has a campaign called #EveryBodyInAds. Let's have Fiona tell us a little about how to campaign came about.

Where are the pictures of real women?

I was looking for some stock photos because I updated the website recently. I wanted to show some real women on the website. I could not find any pictures of "real women" on the stock photo sites. I don't know about you but I am a little bored with seeing all the same type of women and shots in websites, magazines and other ads. What I mean by this is stick thin highly glamorous women in their twenties or younger in very obviously "posed" shots. I do not have anything against such ladies but they only make up a very small percentage of people. There are almost no pictures of real women used in advertising. 

As Fiona has said she's not against any body type but she just wanted to see more of a variety so that's what her campaign is all about.

The faces of Trinkets jewellery

I do not have vast resources but at the same time I want to do something about this if I can. This is my idea: I am launching an initiative to find the real faces of Trinkets jewellery.  I will send a free piece of jewellery to any women who volunteer to allow me to use their pictures on my web site. They do not have to be models – I want to use pictures of real women!  I will just ask for a promise that she will send me some photos of herself wearing the piece and I will ship a piece of jewellery to her absolutely free. I will use these pictures on my website to show off my products. If the thought of your picture being used on a website to promote jewellery makes you a little queasy then please ask yourself why? This is a call to the women out there to take a step towards reclaiming their individual and collective self esteem. I know it's not a lot but I think that if enough of us start to make a change then together we can change the world!  

I think this is fantastic, Fiona's pieces are stunning and I love the piece that I got. It goes with so many outfits and I've been wearing it with pride!

If you like the sound of this campaign and would like to join then email Fiona: fionadebuitlear@gmail.com

Also go and have a look at Fiona's Website and her blog. Also check out her on Social Media.

www.trinketsjewellery.com

twitter.com/trinketsjewelry

www.facebook.com/trinketsjewellery

I'd like to say a massive thank you to Fiona for letting me take part and for my lovely necklace. I love what you're doing and don't give up!!

North Hop Aberdeen | Craft Beer Festival

Hello!!

So when an email from the PR Goddess herself about a craft beer festival popped up in my inbox I knew it was going to be a good day! North Hop was coming to Aberdeen! North Hop was created to raise the awareness and love of craft beer among other things such as gin (yes, there was lot's of gin). I was allowed a cheeky plus one so Sam happily came along with me but we didn't really know what to expect but it's safe to say we weren't disappointed.

When we walked in with our North Hop glass we were taken aback by the size of it. There were long tables in the middle of the AECC surrounded by barrels of hay and around all that was a huge stage, stalls and stalls of different beer, gin, wine and cocktail stalls. There was even a Photo Booth, temporary tattoos by Rebel Tattoo and even a little camper van that was selling crème brulée! 

Once we had a walk round we settle on trying some Thistly Cross Elderflower cider and I wasn't a massive fan of cider but I can honestly say now after trying the Thistly Cross ciders I am a big fan - especially of their Real Strawberry Cider!!

Later on we tried some Brewdog beer which was definitely different, I went for a blackberry beer which wasn't my favourite but Sam helped me drink it! There was also a Mango beer by DryGate which seemed to be quite popular. 

A few others were Eden Mill, 10 Dollar Shake and solid liquids that were offering two bars specialising in gin and rum. 

Brew Dog had a really big truck at one side of the arena and there was such chilled vibe. You could get your beer, relax on a bean bag and listen to the love music or watch the live art that was being created just at the side of the truck.

I obviously don't recommend drinking on an empty stomach but all the street food vendors had taken care of that for us! There was so much selection from the Bay Chipper all the way from Stonehaven (their fryers broke down just after the second session on the Saturday and they had to get someone up all the way from Glasgow to fix it but thankfully they were up and running again by the end of the night). There was Real-Food that was selling amazing sausage rolls, my friends from Cue Barbecue were there making incredible burgers. There was nachos and tacos - basically everything that you could want you could get.

 If you still had room after all that which I definitely did there were deserts!! Crème Brûlèe made in a camper van, delicious popcorn by poporopo (I picked up some Gin and Tonic caramel popcorn which was incredible). I also have to mention by favourite food of the night which came from Stew 'n' Drews!! These men have some seriously good ice cream! We got to sample their whisky ice cream, Elvis juice and jet black heart which was made with some Brewdog beer then Drew asked us if we liked to try new things, we said yes and he handed Sam and I a spoon each with some ice cream on it. Guess what? The weirdest thing happened, the Ice cream went from cold to hot!! It was green apple flavoured which was the cold and then wasabi which made it taste hot, that was one of the weirdest things I had tasted but it was great. I settled on the Humbug and Blondie Brownie - they were great!

It was such a great night spent with friends and plenty of beer, cider, gin and glorious food! The live music was spot on and even Alice in Wonderland made an appearance (a hen on her hen night). It's their second year in Aberdeen and I certainly don't think it will be their last! Absolutely great job by all! Thank you to the North Hop crew for inviting me along - it was a blast!