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Beauty: Recent Post

Introducing Noble Naturals

by Jayne | Sep 18, 2016 | Beauty

Something I love about blogging is discovering brands I’ve never come across before. I love reading other bloggers posts about products they’ve tried, and trying out new products myself too. Blogging has not only opened my eyes to a whole load of other companies and brands that I’d never heard of or come across in my tiny local Boots store, but also to ingredients that these products contain.

A brand I’ve not come across before, Noble Naturals, got in touch about something I’d never heard of before was the nano minerals concept, which are apparently something our bodies need and can do a whole load of super amazing things. What are these super amazing things they do? I hear you ask, well their product Nano Silver, is described as being a uniquely formed mineral water which contains silver particles, and the said particles kill bacteria and fungus within minutes. Not only that, but it can be used for a range of issues, including burns, skin conditions and bug bites – and the handy 15ml spritz is perfect to take on holiday with you for those pesky mosquito bites.

Noble Naturals also have another interesting product, the L’Ords des Pharaons Face and Body Mist. This also contains no allergens or chemicals, but has purified and revitalised water with added nanoclusters of pure gold, platinum and pure zinc in instead. This is to be applied on the skin before any of your make-up or skincare, so that the ingredients are absorbed deep into the skin layers. This way L’Ordes Pharaons can combat visible signs of aging at cellular level, helping to rejuvenate your skin and defying the effects of time – pretty great right?

Something else interesting about this that I didn’t know before, was how gold is used in skincare. Gold used to be considered a gift from the gods, and if you go back to the times of ancient Egypt, the gold of the Pharaohs would be used to create face masks to help preserve the skin, which was used to rejuvenate and extend the lifespan of a human.

I think this sounds pretty interesting, and I’m pleased blogging can bring to light products like this to me! I’m interested to see what else Noble Naturals come out with!

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Fashion: Recent Post

Memories With My Mum

by Jayne | Mar 14, 2016 | Fashion

One of my youngest memories of my mum was back when we were at our old house, and my mum was getting ready to go out and I was sitting on her bed while she sat at her dressing table putting on her makeup, I must have been about 4 or 5. My mum didn’t wear makeup much, and I just remember thinking she looked so glamourous. She had this blue brush that she used to apply her blusher, and I remember sneaking into her bedroom to rub it on my face every now and then because it was so soft. I then remember as she finished doing her makeup and put on her heels, she looked so different from the usual mumsy way she looked, and I always loved going to look at her shoes, she had some really lovely pairs.

I think this must have been the first time I learnt about beauty and fashion from my mum, and I remember as I got older watching her get ready for parties and her talking to me about the makeup she was using, what dress she was going to wear, or how she was going to do her hair. As it was Mother’s Day last week, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my memories I have with my mum, and how over the years she’s taught me about fashion.

Growing up I had some very urm, questionable fashion choices. I remember when I was 11 I was obsessed with these combat trousers with bits of string hanging off them, and I thought I was seriously cool. Then when I was 12 I went through my goth phase, refusing to wear any colour other than black, and lots of studded belts and chains. I even found out that my mum had her own goth phase and still had some of her old studded belts, and even a belt made from bullets which I thought was pretty cool, and I begged her to let me have them but she never let me. For my 13th birthday I had a big disco at the local village hall, and still very much in my goth phase, I managed to convince my mum these black pointy boots with lots of studs and zips on for my party, and I was pretty horrified that my mum bought herself the same pair in red too.

Now that I’m much older, and my fashion choices have improved quite significantly, I’ve found my style is very similar to my mums. And in fact in the past I’ve even pinched some of her clothes, and we’ve often given each other clothes when one of us doesn’t want it anymore. It’s not that my fashion style is mumsy, it’s just that my mum is a pretty fashionable lady. She has some amazing clothes, and some of her party dresses are simply amazing. My mums fashionable opinion means quite a lot to me, and whenever I’ve had to buy a dress for an occasion, I always take my mum shopping with me. When we went shopping for my graduation dress she helped me pick out loads of dresses to chose from, and we took over the changing rooms until we found the one.

Although me and mum are similar dress sizes and I can get away with pinching her clothes, it’s annoying that we’re not the same shoe size for me to also pinch some of her shoes. In fact next to my mums shoes, mine look like boats, she just has such tiny feet. My mum has some of the cutest heels I’ve ever seen, and I remember when I was around 11 trying to stuff my big feet into this amazing pair of heels she had, and failing miserably. Despite being different sizes, we still have very similar tastes in shoes. Recently Wynsors Online offered us both a pair of shoes in any style we liked, and without talking to each other about what shoes we wanted, we both picked a very similar pair! Although we both like different colours and patterns at times, it’s nice to see that mine and my mum’s fashion styles are pretty much the same, she’s clearly had a big influence on me!

I hope that as I continue to grow up my mum’s still there and influencing me and my fashion choices, especially as I love a good excuse to go on a shopping trip. Do you find that you have a similar style to your mum? Or do you have any style related memories of your mum’s fashion choices from when you were younger?

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Food: Recent Post

Busaba St Albans Restaurant Opening

by Jayne | Nov 1, 2016 | Food

I live about 20 minutes away from the town of St Albans, a gorgeous city full of adorable coffee shops and amazing looking restaurants, all of which I want to explore more of. And last week I was invited along to experience one of St Albans newest Thai restaurants, Busaba, and was invited to their launch night, doesn’t that sound fancy?

Enjoying the perks of being the boyfriend of a food blogger, I brought along Chris with me to the opening of Busaba, where we were both greeted with a glass of bubbly. Looking around the restaurant you could see it was full of hussle and bussle and excitement for the opening, with a DJ playing music, and an artist creating art work to be displayed in the restaurant.

Once we were shown to our table we were greeted by the head chef who presented to us a sample of four dishes to try from their menu while we decided what to eat. The dishes were designed to be sweet, sour, salty and spicy and were a great sample to the food we were about to taste at Busaba.

As it was the opening night they had a sample menu available for a few of their dishes, as well as a few signature cocktails. For my starter I decided on the Thai Calamari, which came with ginger and green peppercorn, and gosh did it taste amazing – a nice twist on a normal calamari dish.

Chris, who’s a little more adventurous with spicy food, picked the Som Tam – green papaya salad, dried shrimp, peanut, cherry tomato and lime. I’m not one for spicy food, but Chris loves it so it wasn’t a surprise he picked out one of the spiciest things on the menu. It was fiery dish, with lots of flavour – perfect if you like something a little hotter.

When it came to picking a main there was no competition from me, I had to pick the Tamarind Grilled Duck. As a big lover of duck dishes I was excited to see what the Thai take on this would be, which came with Chinese broccoli and sticky rice. The duck was cooked absolutely beautifully, and the tamarind sauce really complemented the flavours of the duck.

Chris once again decided to pick out the spiciest dish, and opted for the Pad Kwetio – flat rice noodle, smoked chicken, king prawn, shitake mushroom and sweet potato fries. As it’s another spicy dish, and I’m a wimp with spice I didn’t pinch any of Chris’s dinner, although I may have pinched a few sweet potato fries, which were oh my, amazing.

All in all it was a lovely evening, and the whole atmosphere of the opening night was wonderful. If you looked around the restaurant you could see tables of people enjoying the food and cocktails on offer, and overall looked like it was a successful opening night. Not having experienced proper thai food before, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the food, but I feel like I know a little more about the flavours from a Thai dish now, and I’m looking forward to heading back to Busaba to try some more soon!

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Lifestyle: Recent Post

Kobo Aura One EReader Review

by Jayne | Oct 24, 2016 | Lifestyle

Once upon a time you would always find me with a nose in a book forever reading. Then as I got older I fell out of love with reading a bit, particularly when I went to university when I had to read a lot of journals for my dissertation, reading for pleasure just wasn’t enjoyable anymore. Recently I’ve been trying to get back into reading again, particularly as I have a bookcase full of books that are just sitting waiting to be read, so I set myself a goal to read a book in September. Not only did I read one book, but I actually managed to read two, and something that helped was the Kobo Aura One.

The Kobo Aura One is a revolutionary waterproof ereader, designed to help you enjoy a good book and relax. I’m terrible at staying up all night watching Netflix or looking at phone, and I’m sure as a result of this, I have problems sleeping. I’m not very good at taking time out to relax, so while I had the Kobo Aura One for a two week trial I made sure I spent my evenings reading rather than staying up all night looking at pictures of cats on the internet.

The first thing I noticed about the Kobo Aura One is how nice it is to hold. I know that might sound a little strange, but it was really comfortable to hold so you know you’ll be comfortable sat reading away. It was also really easy to use, once you’ve unlocked the screen you’re greeted with a dashboard which shows you the books you’re reading, as well as a selection of related, and recommended books. What I liked is how it told me how far through a book I was, and how much time was left in the book, I just like to know these kind of things so this really pleased me! It would also give you awards as you went along reading, which for someone like me would definitely encourage me to read more! I used the Kobo Aura One with the default settings as these worked for me, but you could adjust the settings with over 50 font sizes and 11 font types. You’ve also got the option to bookmark certain pages that you want to go back to, and you can even share quotes and comments from the book onto your Facebook timeline which was pretty nifty.

What was nice to know as well was just how much storage the Kobo Aura One had available, 8GB to be exact, that’s around 6,000 books! I remember when I used to go on family holidays many moons ago and I used to pack a whole suitcase of books to get me through the holiday, imagine now only having to take away this small eReader instead! It’s also got a battery life of one month, and I used this quite a lot over the two week trial and the battery had only just made it past the half way point.

One of the great features of the Kobo Aura One is that it includes an enhanced front-light technology, meaning you can stay up and read without the blue light of a screen affecting your sleep quality. You could set the light settings to your own preference, or what I liked to do is set a bedtime hour and the device would start to fade itself. This was great for reading just before I went to bed, as the light would dim on the Kobo Aura One it would help to make feel sleepy, helping me to drift off to sleep.

I’m terrible that once I’ve finished a book, I don’t know what to read next. I can scroll through Amazon’s recommended lists for hours, but I can never settle on the next thing to read. The Kobo Aura One has a recommended for you feature, where it can recommend books to you based on other books you’ve read. There’s also the option for you to connect your Kobo Aura One with local public libraries and search through to borrow or buy new books.

I really enjoyed my two week trial of the Kobo Aura One eReader, especially as it got me back into reading again. I got through two books in two weeks, when that’s probably all I’ve read for the last year! It retails for £189.99 which is slightly more on the pricey scale of eReaders, but I can say after using it for 2 weeks I thought it was worth that price. It has many great features, and is even waterproof so you could escape and read in the bath for ultimate relaxation. I’d certainly recommend this if you were looking to buy a new eReader, I’ve even stuck mine on my Christmas wishlist to hint to the boyfriend!

* I was sent the Kobo Aura One for a 2 week trial, views are all my own

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Introducing Noble Naturals

by Jayne | Sep 18, 2016 | Beauty

Something I love about blogging is discovering brands I've never come across before. I love reading other bloggers posts about products they've tried, and trying out new products myself too. Blogging has not only opened my eyes to a whole load of other companies and...

Welcome to My Blog

Beauty: Recent Post

Introducing Noble Naturals

Fashion: Recent Post

Memories With My Mum

Food: Recent Post

Busaba St Albans Restaurant Opening

Lifestyle: Recent Post

Kobo Aura One EReader Review

Recent Posts

Categories

Introducing Noble Naturals

Memories With My Mum

Kobo Aura One EReader Review

Busaba St Albans Restaurant Opening