Estee Lauder French Nudes- Nudité Review

Anyone following Spring Summer '13 beauty trends will know that the nude or "your own nail but better" look is big at the moment. I'm thrilled that this is in fashion as I love nude nail polishes. Estee Lauder has released a lovely nude collection and I decided to try the Nudité colour. Now apart from perfume, I've never tried Estee Lauder cosmetics so I didn't know what to expect when I picked it up from the makeup counter this morning. At £14.50- available at all Estee Lauder makeup counters nationwide- this is pricier than OPI or Leighton Denny so I hoped it would be worth the money. The packaging is undeniably gorgeous and glamorous and makes you feel very grownup when you apply it. My only quibble is the brush, I don't think it allows for perfect application. There was a bit of streaking that was sorted out with a second coat. I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite for shine and to minimize chipping. I have to say I absolutely love the colour and is extremely flattering to my rather pale skin tone. It looks very sophisticated and basically I couldn't stop looking at my fingers the whole night! Other nudes include a milky pink in Ballerina, a chocolate colour in Bittersweet and So Vain, a sort of shimmery taupe.

Graze boxes-totes amaze.

I love Graze boxes. They are soooooo cute and my particular package gives me the perfect mix of healthy snacks mixed with a few sweet treats. If you are health conscious (like me) but would still like to snack on yummy things then Graze is perfect. A weekly box gives you four little punnets which you could take to work or class and would greatly reduce the temptation to buy chocolate or crisps. My favourites at the moment are Bounty Hunter- a lovely mix of dried cranberries, coconut flakes and chocolate, Vanilla Seeds- which I like to mix with breakfast cereal or organic yogurt and Copacabana- a mix of dark/milk chocolate buttons with brazil nuts. Graze has also inspired me to make yummy dark chocolate, fruit and nut mixes, myself for when I run out of my weekly supply. I love how good nuts are for you but find them difficult to eat. So I usually have nut butters like almond but now I find brazil nuts slip down better with a teensy bit of Green&Blacks dark chocolate (70%). A good thing too, since brazil nuts contain healthy doses of mono-unsaturated fats which are great for your hair and skin and are a good source of protein. Snacks containing fat and protein are ideal as the protein combined with the fat promotes satiety and therefore (hopefully) you will be less inclined to make bad nutritional choices!

No Meat Challenge Day 6- Trying New Things

Although we said good riddance to veganism on day 3, I'm awfully glad that we are still veggies for the rest of the challenge. It has made us more adventurous in the kitchen. I love food and cooking but can get set in my ways. This week we opened one of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook and tried a kidney bean curry. It was pretty good. However my favourite curry by far was one that we ate today. It was Madhur's hard boiled egg curry in a dehli sauce. It contained cream, chilis, tomatoes and yogurt and was very filling. I wish I had taken a picture. I'm pretty sure that if we hadn't tried the challenge, we would have never discovered how delicious egg curries could be!

Vegan Challenge Day 4.

Ok... So the vegan challenge didn't work out. Well it did for three days. We are switching to vegetarianism for the remainder of the challenge. And believe me, it will be a challenge. I absolutely adore red meat and chicken and fish... I have decided that while eating loads of fruit and veg is great and nuts and seeds and beans..... I believe that eating only those things is just too restrictive. On top of that I think there is substantial evidence to suggest that meat should be part of a human's diet. For example although dark leafy green vegetables are a great source of iron, meat sources of iron are more readily absorbed by the body I'm not saying we should eat meat by the truck load in fact quite the opposite. I've never thought it healthy that a lot of people have meat as the main focus of the meal but I do think it should play a role in our diets once a day, a few times a week. Why still keep up the challenge if I think meat is so great? Because you can have too much of a good thing. We were eating too much of it, especially red meat, not to mention we nearly always choose organic meat. That IS expensive. So it will give our bodies and our wallets a welcome break. Hopefully after the challenge, we'll be able to have a few vegetarian days a week and not see meat as the main part of the meal.

Vegan Challenge- Day 1

For two weeks my fiancé and I are going to follow a vegan diet. To reduce the chances of me breaking the challenge I am going to post my food intake and thoughts here. We are mainly doing this for health reasons as a sort of cleanse. We both eat rather too much meat and want to give our systems a rest as well as see if we feel any better. I also would like to see if we lose weight. My stats for Day 1 are 54.85kg, I'm 5ft 5. I will post his later. Today's diet will be: BREAKFAST Banana with peanut butter. Fruit smoothie. LUNCH Houmous with vegetables Gluten free oatcake with marmite. DINNER Chickpea curry made with lentils spinach cashews and coconut milk. Drinks: Herbals teas, such as Yogi and Pukka. Won't be drinking much black tea as the tannins hinder the absorption of iron

Essentials: Nude Nail Polish

I love dark vampy nail colours like Rouge Noir, they look sexy and classic however the maintenance is a nightmare. I'm not blessed with the most steadiest of hands which means I don't really follow nail colour fashions and I make a lot of messy mistakes when I paint my nails,

except when I use nude colours... For me, they really are the best. Nude colours are not as much maintenance and since I'm normally quite busy and like to be lazy, this suits me fine. Nude nails go with any outfit and they are quick way to look chique and groomed! My personal favourites are pictured here. OPI in Passion and Revlon in Sheer Blush

Denim Hot-pants with Black Opaque Tights: Just NO!

I'm from a rather cold country, Scotland, to be precise. If you are not from Scotland, you may imagine that the opportunities to wear hot-pants are few and far between. Yet it seems the more north one might go, the less the girls seem to wear, but that's another story... So anyway it is now Spring in Scotland and we have been blessed with a few sunny days. Some girls made the most of this and ventured out bare-legged BUT some chose and are still choosing to wear black opaque tights with their hot-pants. It drives me crazy,I work in a shop, so all day I have seen girls in denims and thin black tights teamed more often than not with plimsolls (white). To me, at least, it looks terrible, either wear hot-pants bare-legged or not at all! Is it only me that it bothers?!