Here is a little monthly round-up of wins and favourites for my April in lockdown. It’s been getting a little tough, and I’ve had the struggles this last week in particular, but I’m trying to keep upbeat and focus on all the little things that are bringing me a little joy and keep me moving forward.
Keeping in the blogging and social ‘loop’. I honestly feel this is so important so you have a sense of belonging, people to check-on with and to also keep you motivated for what you do ; and in my case…it’s blogging!
I have been really loving having this extra time to also really go back to reading my favourite blogs and watching You Tube again, sometimes over the last few years I’ve found it hard to find the time. I find that reading blogs of your peers and friends really gives you that much-needed connection, and it really motivates me with my own blog, photography and ideas. One of my go-to’s lately has been Kirsty from the amazing Fashion for Lunch blog. The colour, the stunning photography and her upbeat and positive style ; I really enjoyed her post on the new Diptyque Eau Capitale perfume, and her house decor and Chanel collection is absolute GOALS!
Perfume. I can’t help but have a little spritz in the morning, I feel like it gives me a bit of that ‘normal day’ feeling and just brings me a hint of joy, memories or a bit of a boost. I’m loving my rose-based scents at the moment, maybe the change of season and weather. I’m not really into my floral and sweet scents but when rose is done right it ends up being really fresh, juicy and beautiful. The Byredo Rose of No Man’s Land is possibly the BEST rose scent on the market, and I’ve been around the block my friends.
Beauty. These monthly round-up posts are usually verrrrry beauty heavy but I am only including a few key bits as I think it’s also important to share more of my ‘normal life’ things during lockdown.
I’m still trying all things out from Elemis. I mentioned last month that I had in fact, never tried Elemis until recently so I’m just dipping my toe in as and when I can to the products (they sent me a box!). A few things i’m loving so far are the Pro Collagen Hydra Eye Gel patches , the Pro Collagen Rose Hydro Mist which I’ve already chatted about on here and my most-recent product I’ve tried, tested and loved is the Pro-Collagen Insta-Smooth Primer*. This is a really great face primer for when we are feeling a little lacklustre, perhaps with bad texture/open-pored and a bit…….wrinkly. It smooths everything, doesn’t roll or mess with your base and makes you instantly look fresher and more vibrant. A great one as well for my no-botox forehead at the moment where I can really see my fine lines creeping back and making a very unwelcome appearance.
I’m very much into the new Antipodes Baptise Water-Gel*. This new face cream-gel is absolutely incredible and I’m loving it. It is packed with hyaluronic acid to lock in hydration and smooth the skin, manuka honey to brighten and balance and It smells delicious with a scent of rose.
I have nothing quite like it in my stash of face creams and it’s ticking ALL of my boxes. It’s a pink gel, watery in texture and feels almost like a serum on the skin when you apply : cooling, super lightweight and absorbs in a flash. I think this is perfect for an oily-combination skin, those looking for an extra hydration boost, men will love it and also, I would use it as a second step, after serum and before a richer day cream if you are on the dehydrated and dry side.
Makeup-wise I’m keeping it simple and minimal. The Dear Dahlia range I’ve been really enjoying and their packaging is simply the most beautiful.
I started using their brow Perfect Brow Longwear Sculpting pencil* recently and it’s a really great all-in-one for day-to-day-brows. It has a spoolie on one end for grooming and shaping and the pencil is great for filling in really quickly, yet softly. I am wearing shade ‘Dutch Brown’ which is a medium brown tone. A great brow product if you just need a light bit of help and perfecting for fluffy, natural-looking brows : you won’t get insta-brows, but hey, that’s not a bad thing.
I think I’ve chatted about the Stila Convertible colors at least a hundred times on this here blog, but I simply love them and use them so much! Have been using the shade ‘Lilium’ a lot lately which is a really subtle nudey-peach and lovely on both the cheeks and lips. I’m still a bit twitchy about these being discontinued as most sites have either mainly sold out or very limited stock.
Garden Life + Gardening. We moved into our house just 6 months ago and tbh it was a big move, SO many boxes and pretty stressful for so many reasons. I honestly feel like we are still getting on our feet with it all and the garden hasn’t even had a look-in until lately. Mainly because the weather had been pretty terrible until lockdown and we simply haven’t had the time. We are super lucky in that we have quite a big garden and space for planting and fancying it up a bit with flowers, bushes and hopefully herbs. With us spending more time out there with Margot, we have been looking into what we want to do, what we want to plant etc and I’m actually really excited to get that green-finger bug. We planted some laurel hedging last week to separate the drive from the front garden and it’s made SUCH a difference to way the house looks already
Art From the Sofa. I’ve written about this more in-depth here, but it’s a little Art project I’ve been doing over on Instagram. I forgot how therapeutic painting and drawing is. It took me a few weeks but I’ve found my ‘art feet’ again and I’m really enjoying it when I can find time to do it.
Converse. I’m back loving my converse and have finally dug up all my pairs from the moving boxes. I have A LOT of pairs of converse ; I think on last count it was about 17 pairs and I’m eyeing up one more pair, which is these insanely beautiful pink leopard print high-top’s. I think they are the perfect spring > summer shoe and honestly they go with EVERYTHING. I’ve always been a trainer girl at heart and I’m so glad to see so many beautiful styles and colours coming out.
Update : I bought the trainers! They have brought me more JOY than I could have imagined. Say hello to the newest member of the family:
Flowers. My new obsession it seems. I think since moving from London and becoming more house-proud after moving into our first home, I’ve just become floral-obsessed and before lockdown my monthly treat was buying a lovely bunch from my local (incredible!) florist here in Dorset.
I’ve just seen that they are doing non-contact local deliveries now as I think, like a lot of independant businesses, they must be struggling, so I think I may order some flowers this week as a treat to myself and to help them too. Win-win.
Podcasts. As I’ve been slowly ferreting away in my beauty room/ office when Tom isn’t in there (his new office whilst his working from home), I’ve been putting on a good podcast and listening whilst I clean, de-clutter and re-shuffle. Really enjoying Emma Guns at the moment which is surprisingly quite a new listen for me and I also have been listening to one of my old favourites ‘UK True Crime’. I love my true crime podcasts and this is a little more light-hearted than most.
Fun Nails. I have neglected my nails for so, SO long now. I have to say I think it was pre-Margot the last time that I gave myself an at-home manicure so it was much needed and you know what, having that hour-or-so of time alone, just listening to a podcast and having a bit of a hand pamper was so good for my soul.
I had been having a tough week and my fun, bright, pastel nails cheered me up : the process and the aftermath!
Margot’s H&M clothing Delivery. At the start of lockdown we realised she had grown out of 70% of her clothes and coming into this warmer weather we had absolutely NOTHING except last year’s summer clothes! We’ve been fashioning too-small-dresses into tops and cutting the feet off sleep suits but we succumbed and did an online order to see her through this spring > summer. They have so many cute things in at the moment. The highlight for me were these pink leopard print trainers of course!
Batch Cooking. I have always loved to cook, I’m sure if you follow me on Instagram you’ll know this already as I share lots of recipes on my stories. It’s been super tough to get hold of a lot of ingredients over the lockdown weeks and food shopping definitely is one of the bigger stresses of me week BUT I am enjoying making the most of what we have, chucking together leftovers, being thrifty AF and also getting those batch cooking recipes done and into the freezer.
OMG! A major shoutout on Instagram! You may know if you follow me there, I had a really nice and unexpected shout-out from the one and only Caroline Hirons on her Instagram stories the other day. I’m not gonna lie, I was kind of shooketh and I had a huge influx of followers ; over 1,000 in a day. Insanity! I feel like I’m loving Instagram the most at the moment, although as most of us know…..organic growth is so very hard!
10k is my next big goal (and I think *the* big goal for anyone under it!) and I really hope I get there this year.
What have been your wins and favourite things lately? I’d love to know what’s been cheering you up through this time….the small and big!
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