Happy New Year!

Hey Guys!

Welcome to 2015, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are recovering well from your last night antics. Now every year you see all over social media people talking about "new year new me!" and about their resolutions which induces many eyerolls but personally I don't see it as the detriment people make it out to be. Yes you should constantly strive to improve yourself and yes life doesn't change in the space of a few minutes, but if it puts the motivation back into people I'm all for it!

The previous year without a doubt has been a hard one for me that I'm so happy to see the back of. I've had to come to terms with a lot of things mainly health related, I've had to switch jobs, I had to temporarily abandon my studies because of how ill I'd become and I've learnt a valuable lesson that people may not always be who they first seem. In contrast this year is going to be huge for me and I'm already accepting of the fact it's not going to be easy either, I'm finally starting a new chapter of my life and moving away from the town and people I've grown to love with all my heart. I'll be honest I've not been overly thrilled by this concept and previously have been filled with dread if I dare think about it for too long as I'm such a homebody. But hey, I guess we all have to do it at some point or another.

So much love for this picture - Source LoadingArtist.com

So in true cliche blogger fashion I'm going to make some new years resolutions and then next year I can look over them and see how many I've actually achieved and how many I've forgotten about and will inevitably end up on this list next year!

• Finally fly the nest and move out to university to pursue my passion. If you've been with me for a while you'll be aware that I had to postpone going to university for personal reasons but this year I want to change that and become a fine ass scientist.
  
• Be more open about my health. For the past five years i've been very private about my health issues and in ways embarrassed about it. This year I want to be more open about it with people and accept that if it's something I've go to live with then it's going to make my life so much easier if I just explain to people why I might have to leave early etc. People are more understanding than I give them credit for.
  
• Lose weight. Cliche resolution that needs no explanation, get rid of the christmas podge for good!
  
• Worry less. I'm a super anxious person and I don't deal well with people not liking me and have a tendency to fret over the smallest of details. This year I want to take a step back, let life happen and not get myself in a state about things that won't matter in a few weeks time.
  
• Do things that scare me. From being ill I've managed to convince myself that I can't do things that are perfectly normal and my social life's really taken a hit from it. So this year I'm going to force myself out of my comfort zone and reclaim my life.

That's all I've got for you today guys, what are your new years resolutions are are you against the idea and think goals shouldn't depend on the first day of a new year and roll your eyes at claims that "this year will be better". Either way I hope 2015 is full of wonderful things for every single one of you.

Love & TubTubs

Lush Review - Phoenix Rising & Lord of Misrule

Hey Guys!

If you follow me on twitter or instagram you will know that recently I had a bit of a splurge in Lush, spent far too much money, but now have the nicest smelling room in the world! Now I have far to many products to put into one post so I'm going to do a few separate posts over the coming weeks to review and share all of this amazingness with you lovely lot!

So the first product I'm going to talk about is a staple favourite of mine from Lush's permanent collection and that is the Phoenix Rising bath bomb. I would definitely say that I'm more of a bubble bar than a bath bomb person but this is an exception to the rule and something I will continue to buy until the end of it's days (which I solemnly hope isn't until after mine). This product is a beautiful metallic purple colour with a dusting of gold over it and once in the bath fizzles into a wonderful deep purple before fading into an as equally beautiful green colour.

The thing that completely wins me over with this product though is the scent of it! It's scented with cinnamon which gives off a perfect warming spicy scent that you only tend to find in Lush's Christmas products. This is a complete winner for me as I tend to stock up hugely on the Christmas products and it's nice that there is at least one staple spicy sent within the permanent collection to keep me ticking over once my christmas stash runs out. This bath bomb currently retails at £3.35 which is middle of the range for lush bath products and I think you could definitely get two baths out of this were you to chop it in half.

Final verdict 5/5, completely adore this product and will repurchase at every opportunity!

The second product was a limited edition product for Halloween and goes by the name of "Lord of Misrule", First impressions of this product are that it's huge, it's so much bigger than i expected it to be and you could probably get three baths out of it should you figure out a way to cut it, alas it's very solid in texture so cutting it could be a difficult and hazardous task. It's light green in colour with flecks of pinks and yellows throughout and when thrown into the bath gives of a beautiful unexpected rich ruby colour.

According to Lush's website it's scented with patchouli (had to give this one a google, it's a herb) and black pepper oil. I had someone pick this product up for me as I'd read this description online and thought it sounded right up my street. In my opinion it's not as spicy and peppery as I was expecting but instead has more of a fresh smell (I'm assuming that's the patchouli) combined with the smell of a lush store (even if you've never been inside a Lush store there's no getting away from the distinctive smell that invades your nostrils as you pass one). All that being said I do like this product, the scent isn't too heavy and the colours are breathtaking, it retails for roughly £4.35 (had to currency convert from the US site). However, as I said earlier it is one of the biggest bath bombs I've seen from lush and therefore I would say is worth the money.

Final verdict 4/5, not what I expected but still beautiful, smells divine, though I really wish it was easier to break up!

So that's all I have for you guys today, let me know which products you'd like me to review next and what are your favourite lush products? Until next time!

Love & TubTubs

Weightloss Wednesday : Week One - I Want Biscuits!

Hey Guys!

So today marks the first week of my weightloss journey and it's been a tad unconventional to say the least, had some really good days and some not so great days so here's to hoping it's all balanced out! By that I mean events such as Saturday when I was unfortunately taken into A&E which resulted in me not eating anything but a chicken sandwich all day due to not being able to hold down food. However, Friday I gave into my cravings and ended up having a curry with my family so definitely a week of highs and lows, not the best start to my journey but a start none the less.

As with the start of any diet my cravings have been through the roof lately! For some reason I have developed a strong affinity for tea and biscuits which I've only managed to control by either having to put calories aside then exhibit expert self control by only having one or two, or not allowing myself to leave my room once I've reached my calorie goal for the day. Smooth. I've also gotten the stomach pains and nausea from hell due to the change in my eating habits but I'm hoping that should settle down within a week or so and I'll start to feel less like I'm at deaths door.

So here's the part you actually want to know, how much weight have I lost since last Wednesday? Well I'm happy to report that despite the discrepancies I've actually managed to lose 4lbs this week!? Now my goal is 2lbs a week but as some of you may know you tend to lose more weight the first week of a diet due to water weight and things like that. I realised after publishing last weeks post that I actually didn't give any sort of indication to numerical goals at all after deciding not to publish my weight... which was stupid. So my current goal is to lose 25lbs at around two pounds a week, which means I should hit that goal by the 11th of February if all goes to plan. However with Christmas just around the corner I'm not expecting that to be the case and will try not to be too hard on myself if it takes that little bit longer.

Now I've also been thinking as to how I can make these posts a little bit more interesting and ways to further convince myself to keep going, so I've decided to start setting weekly goals to try and keep myself motivated. Now I'm not a gym bunny nor do I have the healthiest of lifestyles (obviously or there would be no need for Weightloss Wednesdays) so these goals are very much start small, dream big. However, they will hopefully keep me going in the right direction! This week my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day which I'll be keeping track of using one of my favorite apps (review coming soon!).

So that's all I have to fill you in on this week guys, four pounds down and only twenty one to go...because that doesn't sound daunting at all! One final thing I would like to say is I have enabled Google+ followers meaning if you use Youtube, Blogger or any other google owned site you can now follow me using that account. So please do go give the icon a click as it's looking all lonely at the moment, thank you for reading and I'll talk to you all soon!

Love & TubTubs

Nailene Ultra Quick

Hey Guys!

So recently I was in London and whilst shopping in Camden I picked up some of the elegant touch false nails. For those of you familiar with this brand you will know that some of their nails come with adhesive tabs as opposed to the traditional nail glue for mess free application. Personally I prefer to adhere my nails using glue, so I also picked up a bottle of the nailene "ultra quick", which as I will come to explain now I thoroughly regret.

Tonight's blog post was going to be a nail of the day featuring some Halloween nails, unfortunately when I got home after sorting which nails would fit my minuscule hands I went to apply them, and no glue would come out of the bottle. Now I'm not a particularly strong person so I waited until my dad came home so he could get the glue out for me (because dad's can do everything right?). No such luck, after a solid half hour of squeezing and even biting the tube until both sides of the bottle touched no glue was coming out.

This leaves me with two possible conclusions. Either the nail glue had dried up during the manufacturing process due to a fault in the packaging -or- there was no glue in there to begin with. Whatever the reason I'm not a happy bunny. I would like to put emphasis on that this was a bottle straight out of the cardboard packaging and not something that I've had out on the side, I even took a picture of it in it's packaging earlier today because I wanted to review how well it worked as a nail glue which you can see above!

Now I know a lot of people use nailene myself included and have had really good experiences with it in the past and I'm in no way bashing the quality of the glue itself. However, this is only the second bottle I've ever bought and when 50% of purchases don't actually contain the product you paid for, you're going to be a bit pissed. This glue retails for about £4 which I believe is a perfectly reasonable price, should you actually receive the product. After looking at other reviews on amazon it's also been brought to my attention I'm not the only person to have this problem so please do leave a comment and let me know if you've had a similar experience. I'm waiting for payday to come around again so I can pick up some more glue and finally get these nail pictures out to you guys because they are beautiful beyond belief so don't panic I haven't given up on that front.

On that note if anyone has any nail glue recommendations do leave them in the comments below and I'll talk to you guys next time!

Love and TubTubs

Weightloss Wednesdays : A Confession

Hey Guys!

So as the title indicates I have a bit of a confession for you all. As some of you will know the start of last year I went on a weight loss mission and was successful in losing 35lbs and dropping down to a UK size 10. Recently following stress, comfort eating and a few to many nights out I have managed to gain back 25lbs which I am not overly pleased about (to put it mildly) so here begins my mission to re-lose the weight, and to keep me motivated I'm going to check in weekly with you guys!

For those of you who are new here and don't know me (and were likely lured in by the promise of pug pictures) hello! Quick rundown of what you've missed! I'm 5"4 so any extra weight I gain is not carried well, I'm currently a size 12/14 (previously a size 14/16), I gain weight in weird places (who has rib fat anyway!?) and I have a strong affinity for baked goods and my bed. Any questions?

Taken just before hitting the -30lbs mark in Spring

I made the realisation this needed to occur whilst struggling to get the zip done up on the dress I bought for Christmas (and having to face the reality this wasn't just a "shitty primark sizing" problem), And therefore I decided to weigh myself, then promptly wished I hadn't. Now originally I was planning to put my weight and measurements on this blog so you guys could keep tabs on my progress but as we all well know the internet is full of trolls so why add fuel to the fire. Sorry to disappoint guys it's just not something I feel comfortable doing at this moment in time.

As with any plan of action I need some goals, and as great as be a size 8 with wonderful boobs would be it's not the most obtainable of things for me to aspire too. I think my focus on this journey is to get back into size 10 clothes, by that I mean comfortably and not in a way that gives the impression of a sausage about to burst out of it's skin. I also want to be healthier as a general rule and not collapse into a gasping heap after climbing three flights of stairs to my labs or have stomach pains for days after eating something I probably shouldn't have. As to how I'm going to attempt this momentous task? I'm a student, I can't justify gym memberships and quick portable meals are a staple part of my existence so just as last time I'm going to put the focus back on just eating better foods, exercising more and generally stop having the approach of a hobbit when it comes to food.

Although the main idea of weight loss Wednesdays are for me to update you guys on my progress over the coming weeks I also want to throw in a few extra bits on the weeks that are a bit barren. I've already got reviews of the app and books that helped me lose weight in the first place but if there's anything else you guys want to hear about leave a comment and I'll give it a go! You're the ones supporting me by reading this so the least I can do is try and make things interesting!

Thanks for reading and I'll catch up with you all soon

Love and TubTubs