The best advice I've ever received

I'm 25 soon. Although a boring birthday and definitely not a milestone, it is bang on mid-twenties! I always thought I'd have my shit together by 25 (and although I definitely don't), I thought I'd share some of the best advice I've received, so hopefully by 30 things may be different? 

‘’Never, ever expose your bare face to the sun’’

Joan Collins was on Piers Morgan once, and Piers was probing her for her anti-ageing secrets. Although I suspect she’s probably had a little extra help here and there, one thing she said totally stuck with me. She said past the age of 21 she never exposed her bare face to the sun, which is the number one cause of wrinkles and ageing skin. As part of the ‘’sun bed generation’’ I always feel really sad when I see women my age or even younger going into sun bed shops or spending 9+ hours in the sun on holiday. Not only are they putting their skin at risk but the chances of developing skin cancer are dramatically increased if you’re not careful in the sun. Since I heard Joan’s words of wisdom I’ve not gone bare faced in the sun and always buy moisturiser and foundation that contain SPF. Shallow motivations or not – I definitely wouldn’t mind looking like Joan Collins when I’m her age! Sunshine is awesome but there are safe ways to enjoy it that don't put your health at risk. (Plus there's always fake tan, once you get past the stale biscuit smell and your partner accepts your decision to spend one night a week covered in brown paint you're good to go without hindering your health). 

‘’You are what you eat’’

Only when I’d tried almost every diet, eliminated 5 food groups and experienced multiple weight fluctuations did I truly understand this mantra. Aside from weight, what you eat – and the quality of it plays a huge part in overall health and the prevention of various diseases. You can’t swing a cat on Netflix these days without finding a documentary focused on nutrition, which is what completely changed my outlook on food. We live in a society where there’s a pill to solve almost every problem, but actually eating well and paying attention to what you eat can help ease and even prevent these problems. I love pizza as much as the next person, but to avoid a week of having a pizza like face I try to limit these to one a week. Vegetables are the way forward!!!

‘’Intelligence is the one thing nobody can ever take away from you’’

Bless my dad. The wisest person I know who probably holds the world record for most viewed WW2 documentaries. In a desperate bid to motivate me to study for my GCSE’s he threw all sorts of clichés and even financial bribes in my direction. One thing he did say however, that has stuck with me since the tender age of 16 is that intelligence (and by default education) are both things nobody can ever take away from you. You can never really know enough or have enough qualifications. You can lose your looks, your partner and even your job but you'll always have intelligence, which is always the starting block for building yourself up again. At 24 I appreciate this more than ever and try to push myself to learn and investigate things that hadn't occurred to me before. For example - ''Koala bears'' aren't bears at all. Interesting.
 (Plus all this is useful when you NEED to beat your boyfriend at the annual Christmas quiz, see smug face below. There is no such thing as useless trivia).

‘’What you put on the internet is written in pen not pencil’’

This is by far the best bit of advice I would give anyone! I remember a teacher telling me this at school and me thinking what a lame way to look at it - but how true. Social media is great and dominates a lot of our free time these days but as someone who regularly over shares sometimes I have to stop myself and think whether or not a post could come back to bite me…the last thing anyone wants is a potential employer/boyfriend Googling you and seeing what you got up to in Ibiza in 2012…ahem. Even after something is ''deleted'' it can still be accessed, haunting you and ruining job/relationship/life prospects! Ultimately - if you're gonna be an idiot on holiday, don't put it on the internet :). 

App Happy

Can you even remember life before smartphones? A time before being able to access Facebook on the bus and instagram photos of your dinner?! I know I can’t. And with the life changing brilliance that is smartphones come various apps that aim to make life a little easier for us. Over the past year (and since upgrading my phone to an iPhone that actually allows space for various apps AND all the best/worst songs of the nineties) I’ve become aware and quite reliant on a few. Here are a few of my favourite apps…

Mobile banking has changed my life. No longer can I continue to buy things and be blissfully unaware of how much I'm spending. Nope. Now I have constant access to my bank account, which helps with budgeting and making sensible financial decisions ahem. As a Halifax customer I check my bank account daily on my phone, which allows me to keep track of direct debits and how many more days I have to have Weetabix for dinner before pay day. If like me you struggle with managing money I highly recommend downloading your bank's mobile banking app. Massive game changer.

God I’m sorry to keep bleating on about Fitbits. I feel like the Fitbit whisperer in that I’m consistently talking about them. But they really are so awesome they warrant a mention in every single blog post I promise. One of my favourite features of Fitbits has to be the phone app. Having an app on your phone that your Fitbit can communicate with directly via Bluetooth is a very easy and motivational way to keep an eye on your activity levels. Had a lazy day? Just check your daily steps via the app – and then walk the long way home. For me, as someone who seems to have been on a diet my entire life it takes the guess work out of calorie counting. By being able to see at the touch of a button calories in VS calories out I can decide whether having 2 portions of lasagne for dinner is a good idea or not…

And on that note, how bloody brilliant is Myfitnesspal?! It seems to be like Marmite in the sense people have either loved it and seen amazing results or hated it and think its overrated. Either way, I fall into the ‘’loved it’’ category. I don’t see how anyone can fail to lose weight by tracking their food intake using this app and then adjusting their activity levels accordingly. It even allows you to scan food packaging via your camera, and will show you the calorie content of whatever you’ve scanned! As someone who’s becoming increasingly more aware and interested in nutrition WHATS NOT TO LOVE?! You can also keep track of how much water you've drank - not to get all Derek Zoolander about it but water truly is the root of beauty and a focused mind at work.  If you’re a fellow Fitbit whisperer it gets even better in that the two apps can talk to each other, and thus make losing weight literally fool proof. Monitor what you’ve consumed via Myfitnesspal and monitor how many calories you’ve burned via Fitbit and ensure the latter is higher. Voila!

If you’re female you have periods. Sorry guys – it’s a fact of life. (If however you're in denial and would rather not acknowledge that we all get periods feel free to skip this paragraph.) Unfortunately however our monthly bill isn’t always on time, which can lead to a whole host of worries and concerns…Clue is an app that tracks your periods via the information you put in each month about your previous cycle, which over time can provide estimated dates and info about future cycles. It can even alert you when you’re about to get PMS, which I know is my personal favourite function (buys cookies in bulk, boyfriend goes into hiding).  It’s also pretty awesome at tracking when you’re likely to ovulate, which for anyone trying to conceive has gotta be useful right? Free to download from the app store Clue is an app I definitely wouldn’t want to be without. Its also added insurance that you’ll never be caught short without a you-know-what again. God I love technology.

Finally, my newest recruit is Headspace. This is a meditation app that aims to improve your mental well-being by encouraging mindfulness. Now as a miserable cow who is sceptical of anything like this I didn’t think this was something that would work for me, or something I’d stick to. The mere thought of me sitting cross legged for 10 minutes with my eyes closed was laughable. But there’s something very calming about this dude’s ability to make me focus on my breathing, and I’ve slept incredibly well since starting this. Initially the app consists of 10 steps, that are 10 minutes each which aim to get the listener to focus their thoughts in the moment, not that they forgot to feed the cat or how much ironing needs doing. This has become part of my night time routine and something I look forward to doing before I sleep. Currently on step 4 I still have a long way to go, but can honestly say I feel the benefits of this already in that I go to sleep calm, and wake up calm (which for anyone that has lived with me will know is a revelation). The recommended time for meditating is first thing in the morning, which makes total sense, however I prefer to use my 10 minutes in the morning sleeping/slapping on makeup/both.  I recommend this to anyone really, but especially anyone that feels they get stressed quite easily, or would like to find ways of learning to focus their thoughts. It's not as easy as it looks and science buffs have also declared meditation as being good for overall health and brain function. Hurrah.

Honourable mentions go to O2 Priority (£1 lunch from Boots on Mondays!) and the ASOS app making shopping on the go dangerously easy.

So there we have it – my top apps. Obviously Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al. are also up there with my most used apps but these are a few that I believe are actually beneficial, rather than a total waste of time and something to scroll through in awkward situations (I’m looking at you, Snapchat)

What are your favourite apps?

2015 beauty favourites

Ok so as it’s now 13th of January it’s definitely no longer socially acceptable for me to say Happy New Year so instead – I hope you’ve not fallen off the diet wagon and into a plate of biscuits yet and have at least tried to be a better person the past 2 weeks. if not don’t worry nor have I.

Working in an office full of women for the past 6 months has reignited by desire to discuss beauty products endlessly. As another year has now been and gone I thought reflecting on the products I loved from 2015 is a decent way to satisfy that urge. As you can see from the photo below I got ALOT of new products for Christmas, word has clearly got out that makeup is the way to my heart!

2015 was the year I got a bit obsessed with highlighters. I went so crazy with the highlight on New Year’s Eve I look like a disco ball in some photos (fail! This is why I always do my makeup before pre drinking!!)  However most of the time I manage to keep it subtle. My absolute favourite highlighter and one I will continue to purchase over and over again is the bareMinerals Love Affair/Shining Moment duo. With one gold toned side and a slightly warmer peachier side this duo is just amazing and when applied lightly on the cheekbones gives the most gorgeous glow I’ve seen from any illuminator. If you want a healthy dewy glow and prefer powder highlighters to liquid ones like me give this baby a try! Candlelight by Toofaced is a close second in the highlighter/illuminator race and as pictured here has cuter packaging but they essentially give a similar effect. if there's one thing you should introduce into your makeup bag in 2016 its a decent highlighter. 

Better Than Sex by Toofaced is fast becoming my new favourite mascara despite the cringeworthy name. The wand is huge (!) but manages to give volume and length to my lashes. I’ve been using this for about a month and half and it doesn’t seem to be running out any time soon (which is pretty impressive given how much mascara I use) so I suspect this’ll be a product I continue to use daily in 2016. The tube is metal and kind of heavy so even the packaging feels expensive. 

Stop the press. I have found a new fake tan. As a diehard tanorexic and someone that takes being safe in the sun very seriously (almost vampire status) the idea of a new fake tan is very exciting for me! Slightly more expensive than my trusty St.Moriz (which I’ve been using religiously for the past 4 years) Bondi Sands is my new tan of choice. At £14 a pop it’s definitely pricier than St.Moriz but I have to say I feel it gives a more natural colour once developed and smells like coconuts, with only a slight hint of stale biscuits. As with all the fake tans I try this does come out the pump very dark so makes application a doddle as you can see exactly where you’re putting it. Perfect. 

 My Fitbit (last year's Christmas present) is by far the product I used, relied upon and felt lost without the most in 2015. If you're interested in fitness, want to make sure you're getting in your recommended steps or even want to track your sleeping patterns I cannot recommend these enough. I used my Fitbit almost every day in 2015 and will continue to do so for the year ahead. Ultimately as much as my inner couch potato hates to admit it health and wellbeing play a huge part in beauty and the healthier and more active you are the less makeup you'll need anyway!

Although I have hundreds of products I love and could mention these were the ''breakthrough'' items. What were your favourite products of 2016?