My Easter Eggs Haul & Visiting The Beach.

Happy Easter everyone and hope you are all having a pleasant bank holiday. Today’s post is a short and sweet one, I thought I would share with you a few clips from my weekend and what Easter eggs I received. Most years I get one or two but this year I was spoilt more the usual and received lots of lovely things. We had family over yesterday and it was really nice to spend time with them. They were super generous and brought with them some Easter treats for my brother and I. My Mum bought me some Easter related socks and I was so pleased to get these, I love the designs. On Good Friday my parents and I went to the beach, we went early and were lucky both with the weather and it not being too busy. There were still lots of dog walkers about and we enjoyed soaking up the nice atmosphere. I decided to include one or two photos from that day too!

Sending a message of peace and happiness! Speak soon! :-) xxx

Wilko ‘Fruits’ Shower Gels

Today’s post is a bit of a cheap and cheerful one about a beauty and bath brand by Wilko called Fruits. They do a large range of all kinds of bath bits including shower gels, hand washes, bubble bath, soaps etc. all at an incredibly reasonable price. You can pick most things up for under one pound an item and I decided to experiment by buying two shower gels, I choose rhubarb vanilla and passionfruit watermelon. I really felt like I picked up at a bargain at £0.95 per 250ml tube. I think my favourite thing about these shower gels were the scents, the rhubarb and vanilla being my top pick from the two. I wanted something fruity and tangy to put me in a bright mood.

The formula was lovely, and the texture was gel like plus a little went along way. The fragrances were gorgeous and made my shower experience extra pleasant. I really want to try out other things in the Fruits range, all the different scents sound just incredible. Others such as lime and ginger, lemon black pepper, blueberry grape and coconut sound so tempting!! The bright and simple packaging really catches your eye too. The only downer is I’m not overly sure if the products are paraben free but everything else just ticks all the right boxes. I would recommend these shower gels and I can’t wait to try out the rest of the Fruits range. Click here to browse online.

Hope you are all having a lovely Easter day! Have you seen or used Wilko’s Fruits product range? :-) xxx

Chocolate Orange & Mini Egg Simple Easter Dessert

Hope you are all having a lovely bank holiday weekend so far and are looking forward to Easter day. Today’s post is a cooking/baking one, I was browsing my baking books and deciding how to incorporate a recipe around Easter. I spotted a chocolate ice-cream sundae recipe so modified it in my own way, slightly alternating my ingredients and preferences. It’s one of the easiest yet fun and yummy treats I’ve made and they look really Instagramable if you are interested in that! So my basic ingredients were mini eggs, jaffa cakes, tinned mandarin segments, choc ices and chocolate sprinkles but you can use anything you like really. I added a little bit of natural yogurt at the end in some of the desserts for people who wanted that. I tried to cut down on ingredient costs by using a lot of smart price brands, that’s a nice tip for you!

Once you have all your ingredients at hand, cut things like the jaffa cakes into biteable chunks. Now this is the time to get creative, you can use any type of container, I used wine glasses. You can add things in different coloured layers for effect, i.e mandarins and then chocolate biscuits etc. There’s not a great deal to the recipe, so if you are looking for something quick yet effective, this would work wonders. I tested this on my parents and brother who all gave it a thumbs up. They said they liked the chocolate orange taste coming from the mardarins and jaffa cakes. I enjoyed it too, and with adding in fruit it’s not too sweet but the mini eggs add that essential Easter theme.

So I hope you enjoyed this post, what are your plans for Easter weekend? Maybe baking is on the cards? :-) xxx

Aussie Volume Shampoo

After using the Aussie miracle shine shampoo and loving it so much I decided to test out the volume version. For fine, limp hair this product aims to leave your hair with body and fullness from roots to tips. Unfortunately I wasn’t that keen on it, it did give my hair a bit of thickness but also left it quite dry too, too dry to use every time in the shower. I had to rotate it with another shampoo which was more conditioning. I did actually enjoy using it now and again when my hair needed a good clean or was a little greasy plus the scent was lovely and sweet.

I’m always on the hunt for a great volume shampoo as my hair is generally quite fine. I don’t think I will be repurchasing this product but I still have high praise for Aussies miracle shine because I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever come across, it leaves my hair nourished and super shiny. The brand is a bit more expensive than your bog standard shampoo, for the 300ml volume shampoo it’s priced at £4.19 on Boots. The miracle shine shampoo is £5.99 for the 500ml.

Do you like Aussie as a brand? What are your thoughts on their shampoos? :-) xxx

My Current Favourites, Feb/March.

Today I’m back with a current favourites after a short break from blogging. These items are what I’ve been loving from mid February to mid March and there’s a lot of things I have been impressed with. I’ve been really into reading at the moment, and I’ve been lucky enough to have read two books that I would give five out of five stars. The first is ‘You Don’t know Me’, by Sophia Bennett and although its more aimed at girls in their teens, the message of friendship and themes of social networking and reality shows really resonated with me. The book is centred on a group of girls who start a band and enter Killer Act, a reality TV music contest. I just flew through the pages, it’s such a good book!

#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso is the second book I’ve read and there has been quite a lot of hype around it so wasn’t sure if it was going to live up to the fuss. I found Sophia to be very insightful and likeable about her success in the fashion business. It’s an autobiography mainly, but there is elements of advice for other entrepreneurs out there. It wasn’t over serious though, her humour shone through, I would recommend it if you haven’t read it already.

This favourites has a bit of an entertainment theme and I’ve been getting into watching DVDs. I praised Avatar and Paddington in my previous post but just wanted to share a new purchase, The DUFF. I don’t think I remember it coming out at the cinema, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it at home, it was a lovely feel good film about Bianca who is labelled as a ‘Designated Ugly Fat Friend’. I was surprised at how much I liked this film, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was. It’s kind of Mean Girls meets Bridesmaids and hilarious but heartwarming!

Also I’ve been using this Autograph ISIS Pink perfume since Christmas which is a fruity floral scent and it’s a beautiful. This Matrix shine cream, I’ve had for ages now and it’s maybe past its sell by date but it’s one of the best hair products I have ever used. Unfortunately I think it’s been discontinued now! I’ve been reaching for these Pacifica coconut wipes every day, I can’t wait to review them for you, and they are gorgeous! There has been a few chilly days so I’ve been popping on this beret, I just adore the pearl detail. And lastly to help me doze off on a night I’ve been experimenting wearing this eye mask, its perfect and found it cheap at Wilko!

So do we have a favourite in common? What have you been loving at the moment?! :-) xxx

Info & Links

You Don’t Know Me by Sophia Bennett Book (buy here)

#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso Book (buy here)

Avatar DVD (buy here)

Paddington DVD (buy here)

The DUFF DVD (buy here)

Autograph ISIS Pink Perfume by M&S (buy here)

Matrix Nourishing Shine Cream

Pacifica Purify Coconut Water Cleansing Wipes (buy here)

White Pearl Detail Beret by M&S

Wilko Varsity Eye Mask (buy here)

Movie Night & Trying New Film Genres.

The Martian, The Wolf of Wall Street, Paddington and Avatar were my film choices and all bought just recently especially for a movie night. I figured I would treat myself to the film experience at home with some Butterkist toffee popcorn too. I normally opt for a girly chick flick but these films seemed to have been really popular and wanted to experiment with what I watch. I actually went to see The Martian at the cinema with friends and thoroughly enjoyed it, the film was pretty epic and very memorable! I’ve heard rave reviews about The Wolf of Wall Street, but regretfully it just wasn’t my cup of tea at all, not something I would want to watch again. Paddington surprised me actually and I was really impressed, the bear’s character was done remarkably well and the effects were brilliant.  Avatar is a bit of an oldie yet something I’d never got round to seeing, this was nice to watch too!

I would really recommend a movie night and trying new genres like I did. I bought the DVDs from Amazon and most were around the five pound mark except for The Martian which is a new release. I find I don’t always have the opportunity to go to the cinema so this for me is a nice alternative sometimes. I have a few more films to watch on my bucket list including a horror film which is not in my comfort zone at all. Do you like any of these films? Or do you have any film recommendations for me? Helen Xxx