Covent Garden Adventures

 Hey m'lovlies! So if you follow me on twitter you'll know that I recently took a mini adventure up to London to catch up with an old friend who's studying there (that's that Lexy fellow in the pictures below). It feels so nice to be able to start doing things again and making memories with the people dear to me as two years ago my health deteriorated and stopped me doing things like taking trains. Boo! However, now that I'm recovering I'm making up for lost time and getting out to see the world! Well South England, we all have to start somewhere right?

So after the long ass train ride and a quick catch up coffee (not to mention the chaos that is trying to find a single person in Waterloo station) we decided to take a trip down to Covent Gardens. Now you may or may not know that I am a huge (obsessive maybe?) fan of the Moomins, for those of you who have no idea what these fabulous little creatures are go and look them up right now, seriously you're missing out big time! Quite coincidentally there is also a Moomin shop in London, even more coincidentally Covent Garden! So straight off the tube we decided (well I can't really say Lex had to much of a say in the matter) to go hunt down this shop, we soon gave up on Apple Maps after it telling us we were in Hertfordshire but my expert navigation skills got us there in under ten minutes. Expert Moomin radar right here I think!

Now I could go into expert detail describing my experience in that one particular shop and the pure joy that overcame me but firstly I think that's only interesting to me and secondly we wouldn't want you all thinking I'm a little odd now would we? So after an hour of gawping at everything I eventually went to pay and got talking to the lovely guy behind the till who signed me up to the newsletter and then casually told me that there would be a giant Moomin making an appearance at 12:30 later on that day. So obviously I set my alarm to prepare to rush back for such a monumental event and we eventually left the shop.

So whilst preparing myself for a key moment in my life (I did warn you it was a mild obsession) we wandered around and Lex introduced me to the wonder that is Forbidden Planet, now being a fan of Lord of the Rings & Big Bang Theory amongst other nerdy things this was probably one of the most awesome shops ever! After that delightful experience I realised it was 12:25 and ran back to the Moomin shop in my heals (this proved to be a huge mistake when I was later hobbling about London), I will save you another Moomin obsessed paragraph and narrow it down to I met a giant Moomin and brought more stuff...It was the best thing ever!

The plan after this was to travel down to Camden to look around the market, grab some food go and watch Insidious 2. However, once we got to the cinima it turns out that the viewing that we were planning to see didn't actually exist & three cinemas later we gave up and just decided to head back to Waterloo and generally act like tourists before I had to dash off and get the train home due to having a 8am class the next morning.

So enough of my ramblings I shall leave you with a few pictures from the day, I apologize for my tragic face/hair/existence in the picture of me and the giant Moomin I was very excitable and had just ran from the other side of Covent Garden haha!

Love & TubTubs (& Moomins!)

Ombré Hair Care

Hello m'lovelies! So as most of you are aware about two months ago I gave in and got on the ombré hair bandwagon. That in itself was an experience and a half as sticking bleach on the ends of jet black hair is never too advisable, but surprisingly it kinda worked and my hair didn't snap off (always a good sign in the land of hairdressing I assume)! So other then a couple of slightly ginger low lights my hair is actually still holding up well due to a few extra haircare steps I've put in place that I thought I'd share with you lovely lot.

So the main bulk of this blog post will be the products I've been using on my hair, as much as I'd love to tell

you all that having healthy bleached hair can be achieved through no heat styling and silk pillowcases alone we all know that's just not happening (science can do wonderful things now though so maybe it'll get cracking on that soon!). However, I'm also a student so alas I don't have £200 to spend on the finest of hair masks so here's my little combination that I've got going that isn't going to completely obliterate the bank

• Tresemmé thermal creations shampoo and conditioner
• John Freda frizz ease serum
• SP Luxe oil
• Tangle teaser
• Batiste dry shampoo

 Now I'm going to answer the obvious two questions. Firstly, why use shampoos designed for heat damaged hair when you're not actually using heat on your hair? The simple answer to this is that products formulated for heat damaged hair are almost identical as ones for dry hair, in short, they put much needed moisture back into your hair. Secondly, Luxe oil is expensive you said this wouldn't break the bank? Okay now I know to some people SP products aren't expensive but to me they cost a little more then I'd like to be spending on my hair. My oil was actually gifted to me by my mum but it works so well I will go out and repurchase it once I've used up the bottle. If this product is out of your price range however don't panic as this step of the routine can be replaced with a hot oil treatment every now and then (I highly recommend the VO5 ones).

Right, I'm not going to go on describing how to use these products or this will become a never ending post, besides it's shampoo and oil...pretty self explanatory. Saying that though would you guys be interested in a full review of the Luxe Oil  as I have plenty to say about it, let me know in the comments! As for other general things I do to reduce breakage is by brushing my hair with hairbrushes designed for thin and tangled hair and also minimizing the amount I wash my hair. I will warn you guys though, we're not in the festival season anymore & batiste will only get you so far so there will come a point where you need to actually wash your hair!

The bottom line is that ombré will damage your hair and contrary to popular belief you can't repair your hair once it's split. However, you can minimize the damage by taking good care of your hair with products suited to it and generally being more careful when it comes to your hair. So please stop yanking your hairbrushes through wet hair...please?

Love & TubTubs

2013 Summer Dresses

Hey there m'lovlies! Today I'm going to give you a little incite into the kind of clothing I've been wearing in this really hot weather. My style is a little odd, think glam rock meets bows and lace and I mainly wear black so as you can imagine summer is quite the nightmare for me but so far this month I've found a few little gems I thought I'd share with you!

Firstly I went into New Look to browse their sale and I found two beautiful summer dresses! The first is a black and white polka dot chiffon dress with an elasticated waist and ruffled sleeves and the second was an identical style dress only it was black with white hearts on, a bit more girlie then usual but lovely none the less. I really love the style of these dresses, especially as one of the dresses they didn't stock in my size so I went up by one and it still fits really nicely and doesn't look odd or misshapen. Oh yes, the best part of these dresses? They were only £12 each!

 

Another dress that I'm loving this summer is one that I ordered from ASOS after seeing the lovely Zoella wearing it in one of her videos and it is the pug print dress. I'm fully aware this completely goes against my previous statement about mainly wearing black and having a rocker style but anyone that knows me will know that I also have a huge soft spot for pugs. It is a white skater style dress with a black pug print, again very flattering and although a slightly thicker material then the New Look dresses are still cool and light for the summer. This dress was slightly more expensive at £25 but ASOS offer 10% off to students so I took full advantage of this and now I've received it I can safely say it's high quality and well worth the money.

I'm going to finish of with this adorable accessory, I know the blog title is summer dresses but I thought these were to amazing to not include them. They are these adorable square framed sunglasses with a red bow detail on the corner, want to take a guess at where I got these from? Poundland. Yep I got these for £1! Granted they'll probably only last me a few weeks but for a price like that I figure you can't really go wrong!

Until next time, Love & TubTubs

Ombré Adventures; Part One

Hey there m'lovelies! So today has been a bleh day in England and after weeks of glorious sunshine the good old English weather has returned and it is chucking it down outside! With no plans for the day and not wanting to go outside in the torrential downpour I decided to do the obvious thing and ombré my hair! Now I've had a few bizarre hair colours in the past from pink to an accidental mouldy green situation but since entering the world of employment the crazy hair had to go out the window and I returned to my regular black hair that I’ve sported on and off for the past seven years.

As you can imagine seven years of black hair dye build up isn't going to be the easiest thing to get out so I knew I was going to be in for some hair torture, however I don't have the best attitude with my hair that being "It'll grow back if something goes wrong" so with that mindset off I went!

The final slightly ginger product!

So my tactic for this was pretty unconventional, i.e. there wasn't one and I just made it up as I went along. I'd used powder bleach before so I mixed it up the powder and developer to a good consistency loaded it up onto my brush and slapped it onto the ends of my hair. My main goal was to avoid the dodgy straight line effect so after I painted the bleach onto the front and back of my hair (and across my shirt) I used my fingers to massage the bleach into the hair blurring out the line then just left it on for 20 minutes. After that time had passed I noticed it had little effect on my hair so left it on for a further 25 minutes before washing it out, when I washed it out I couldn't even see the lighter sections of hair but once I'd left it to dry my hope was restored as I had a ginger tinge to the ends of my hair.

On goes the bleach!

I then repeated the process later that evening to lighten the hair further (not advisable if you want lovely healthy hair) for half hour and this lifted it to a distinct brown/ginger which I'm happy to go around with for now and have decided to give my hair a break for a while before I try and lighten it further. My main points for anyone considering this is to definitely blend out the lines when applying the bleach and also ensure you're using and old towel to dry your hair as after finishing mine looked like this...

So I hope this post has been insightful for some of you for a less conventional way of achieving the ombré effect, because you know there clearly aren’t enough blog posts and videos on the subject... I'll keep you guys updated when I lighten it further and put the purple in and we'll see if my hair stays in my head aha!

Until next time, Love & TubTubs

Legoland Summer Ball

So I've officially finished college for the summer and it feels great! Now to celebrate the end of a year of hard work we have an annual summer ball, this years one just happened to be held at Legoland Windsor which is the place where many of my happiest childhood memories were formed. Shortly after this was announced though my tutor was quick to point out that the park itself would be shut and therefore there would be no late night rollercoster riding in heels and dresses, which although a slight disappointment, it was to be expected and was completely made up for by the fact that the next day there was an announcement that it was going to be masquerade themed this year!

Now due to a lack of time and money I couldn't go out and buy myself a new outfit but I recycled some bits and bobs from my wardrobe, borrowed a mask from a friend and I think it all worked out rather nicely. Also me being the pillock that I am forgot to take a full body shot of my outfit but luckily there are a few pictures from the evening that are full body so all is not lost. So without further ado here's a quick OOTD featuring my good buddy of five years Sam!

Dress: Hell Bunny. - Shoes: New Look. - Mask: Naughty but Nice. - Bag: Next

Now I did ask Sam where his suit was from but after getting the response "How the hell am I meant to remember that!?" I take it men just don't really care about these things aha. Moving swiftly along I must say the hotel was amazing; the outside was like something out of a children's TV show complete with moving Lego dragon,  but the inside was breathtaking and so elegant (minus the Lego lion but we'll let them off on that one). Honestly it was a fabulous night with some of the loveliest people I know, even managed to end a few long standing disagreements and trap our headteacher in the middle of a dance circle so you can't go too wrong with that one! I'll leave you with a few pictures to end the post now, some lovely before ball shots and maybe a few not so flattering indoor ones if I'm feeling particularly lovely.

Quick side note before I vanish for the evening, the heels I wore that night were honestly the comfiest heels I've ever worn. I know they're wedges so that's to be expected but I managed to keep them on for most of the night, which is an achievement for me as my feet have a longstanding disagreement with shoes, so to end a night with no blisters or twisted ankles is rather wonderful. Saying that though I did trip slightly getting out of Sam's car late at night and cut the top of my foot open on the studs from the other shoe. Owp.

Love & TubTubs