March wishlist

Another month has gone by, which means it's time for another wishlist - let me assure you, #TheDress is not on there*.

I'm no expert when it comes to contouring and general bronzing of the facial area, in my life I think I've owned three different bronzers, but I've never tried out a cream bronzer which is why I'd really like to try out the Bourjois Bronzing Primer**. I think cream would be easier to contour because you can use your finger to guide out where you want it to go and blend it out, plus I find the Bourjois Bronzing Powder a pretty good shade for me even though it's a little bit orange-y so perhaps not one for the paler folks, but I'd quite like to try out a cream product.

I'm also a bit of a newbie with powders, I own the Collection Sheer Loose Powder and it does the job of mattifying and setting my makeup but I find loose powder problematic because I always wear black so when I spill powder on myself I look a little bit foolish, so I'd quite like to try the Rimmel Stay Matte Powder as it seems a less messy and it's recommended by so many people, I don't go for coverage with powder so I'd just get the transparent one.

I've mentioned countless times that I find foundation and concealer difficult to get right, mostly because the beauty industry doesn't generally include black people or mixed race people and if they do go darker than the fifty shades of white they have on  often, it's usually a lovely shade of tangerine. However, the L'Oreal True Match foundation seems to have such a wide shade range and I've seen quite a few people compare it to MAC Studio Fix foundation, and I'd rather spend £10 on a foundation than £20 - mans gotta save money in the recession.

If you're new to my blog or don't read my 'Music of the month' series you may or may not know that I love Rage Against The Machine and My Chemical Romance - I'm not over the emo stage I went through at age 12, will I ever be? Who knows? Anyway, I've only been able to listen to them on Spotify and it gets annoying when I'm out without wi-fi and can't listen to Know Your Enemy or  Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) y'know I'm going to be in a bad mood. I love all of the songs on both Rage Against The Machine and May Death Never Stop You, I'd love to buy all of My Chemical Romance's albums but I'll start with a compilation album, and I've found Rage Against the Machine on eBay and May Death Never Stop You on Amazon for under £5 so it's a win win for me.

What's on your wishlist for March?

*I saw the dress initially as black and blue but then it kept changing from black and blue to white and gold, but it's black and blue, let's shut up about it now.

**I don't understand why the heck it's called a bronzing primer seeming as everyone whose used it has said it's just a regular bronzer, does it prime? This is one of the unanswerable questions of the universe.

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Ten things and ten blogs #1

After seeing a few of these types of posts floating around the bloggersphere, I thought I'd try my hand at it to add a bit more lifestyle and general rambling into fashion, beauty and an existential crisis. I'm thinking of doing these bi-monthly, because I don't do enough in a week to talk about but over the space of a month I've usually done a fair bit so bi-monthly is the way forward dudes.

one.
I learned that some people will never change and will never see the need to change, and with toxic people like that, it's most beneficial just to cut them off.

two.
Plato may be one of the world's most famous philosophers, but The Republic is one of the most hellish books a person could ever study for A level.

three.
I'll never be able to let go of my adoration for My Chemical Romance, and after having a long listen to them on Spotify, I realised that I'll never be over the fact that they've broken up (The Black Parade still hits a nerve in me, right from the intro, the emo inside never dies)

four.
My mock exams went a lot better than I initially thought they would, especially Philosophy - what can I say? Artificial intelligence and the state as an oppressor is just my thing.

five.
I went to see Alt-J at the O2 in Greenwich and it was ahmayzing. The opening acts were Gengahr and Wolf Alice, and they were both top notch too - I've been looking forward to this for so long now, and now I have nothing to look forward too, boo.

Ah a crappy iPhone photo, now that's a real throwback right?

six.
Binge watching the first generation of skins in under a week was not a good idea, you think you're over these characters and storylines after watching it several times but rewatching is like pouring salt on open wounds.

seven.
I found out I have roughly six more weeks until my grade 8 piano exam, which is emotional because that means I'll never see my piano teacher again who I've had for nearly ten years (crazy!) She's a quirky lady and I will miss her, she's like family.

eight.
My birthday was in November as you may have seen if you saw my Birthday haul post but one of my presents from my friend only just came because she ordered it from Japan, and it's one of the best presents I've ever received - I absolutely love Studio Ghibli and My Neighbour Totoro so receiving this book was really lovely!

Try to spot the Doctor Who badges (forever fangirlin', even in blog photos)

nine.
Life can get dark, really dark, and other people may misunderstand and belittle your feelings, but your feelings are valid - try not to forget that.

ten.
Whilst I've realised recently that some people who claim to be your friends are actually massive arse wipes, I do have some pretty cool friends. On Friday, I went to see a friend with one of my other friends and we had a massive catch up and it was just generally really lovely, and on 31st January, it was my friend's birthday and we were doing a treasure hunt around London, this company sent the clues via text message but unfortunately we didn't finish it - it was cold, and we wanted pizza from pizza hut so y'know, but overall it was a top notch day.

blogs.
Throw me something beautiful
Qworterlifecrisis
Kayla Hadlington
Sweet electric
All that shimmers
Milk bubble tea
Merry musing
Yingcbeauty
Deaddsouls
Francesca beauty

What's been the best thing you've done over the past couple of weeks?

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Music of the month - June 2014

Hello there readers, I hope you're all well!!

This post in the beginning of a new installation on this blog, which as you can see by the title, it is called 'music of the month'. I think it's fairly explanatory what this series will consist of but just in case you want a breakdown I'll just explain what I intend to do.

On my old blog I used to do a segment called 'music Monday' and I would do this on any random Monday whenever I felt like I hadn't posted anything in a while or if I had some new music that I wanted to talk about, it was one of my favourite types of post to do so I thought it would be something fun to bring onto this blog. It is essentially a non-beauty favourites type of post that is entirely focused on music, if you don't know I am quite pretentious when it comes to my taste in music. I was raised by parents who are pretentious when it comes to music so it was quite inevitable, this means that music is a massive part of my life (including the fact that I'm a musician but that's irrelevant) and I sometimes feel a little blue that I don't have many friends who share my taste in music, up until the last year or two I had no friends who shared my taste in music but over the past year I have met some cooler people. Anyway before this turns into the most rambly post ever, I am going to share with you my favourite songs of the month of June (in no particular order):

1. Honey - Swim Deep

I'm quite late on the bandwagon, I have a couple of friends who quite like them but it was this song that got me into them. Someone reblogged this on tumblr so I listened to it, then I proceeded to listen to everything they've ever done. This song is so catchy and the overall message of the song is quite positive, I love listening to Swim Deep when I'm doing work because they're quite chilled and relaxed and I am able to concentrate on what I'm doing whilst having fun which is pretty cool

2. King City - Swim Deep

I listened to this song for the first time about half a year ago, I remember liking it but not thinking much of it but after listening to Honey and loving it, I listened to practically everything Swim Deep has ever done and this made it up into the rankings this month. It's catchy and fun, it's still fairly relaxed (in comparison to some of things I listen to) but you could also get up and dance to it (if I danced, which I don't, imagine Hugh Grant dancing in Love Actually and there you have an accurate representation of how I dance), but this is a really good song - I promise this is the last of Swim Deep in this month's post!!

3. Charmless Man - Blur

I am ridiculously late on listening to Blur, I had obviously heard Song 2 and it was one of my favourites from when I was younger although I didn't know it was by them (it is also known as the 'woohoo' song..) but other than that I never really tried Blur, since the dawn of the 90s it has been Oasis versus Blur so seeming as I liked Oasis so much I felt like I wasn't allowed to like Blur hence I never listened to them. However my Dad really likes Blur, and my brother is getting to that age where his music taste is becoming quite mature - he's 14 this year and his favourite bands at the moment are Blur, the Style Council, the Jam, and he also likes a few Morrissey songs which myself, my Dad and my Mum are quite chuffed about. Anyway, whilst having a Britpop argument with my brother (he does actually like Oasis though) he made me listen to this song, and it's just so catchy. My first thoughts were 'is this a direct reference to The Smiths?' which caught my eye, but the actual song is really good, and honestly I've listened to Blur a lot more since discovering this song - I'm part of the small population that likes Oasis and Blur, if you are as well please comment down below so I know I'm not alone!!

4. Whatever - Oasis

Is putting an Oasis song straight after a Blur song a little insensitive to the die hard Blur or Oasis fans who refuse to have anything to do with the other band? Maybe, but that's called living life on the edge. I've loved Oasis for a long time, obviously I wasn't really around when their songs were released for the first time and they're a band I had to research into and all that jazz, but I hadn't heard this song before and I think it's so relaxed and I think the message is quite reassuring at the moment because I'm in my first year of sixth form, picking universities, choosing courses and deciding what to do for the rest of my life - it can all be very stressful, if you've been there then well done for coming out the other side, if you're about to come to this stage I wish you luck, live long and prosper my young friends. Anyway, this song chills me out whenever I feel anxious about all of this future-deciding-existential-crisis-invoking-decisions is brought up, I think it can also be applied to when you're feeling generally sad - 'I'll sing the blues if I want', if you are sad then you shouldn't have to put on a happy face (I watched a video by Carrie Fletcher recently who discussed this if you want to go and watch her videos). Anyway, that's enough rambling for one song.

5. Cancer - My Chemical Romance

Blast from the past anyone? A part of my life which I tend not to tell people is that I was once a massive wannabe scene kid, I dressed in all black, listening to My Chemical Romance and Paramore all the time and wore heavy black eyeshadow (at home that is, my Mum used to make me take it all off before leaving the house - thanks for that one Mum even though it annoyed me at the time). Anyway, I've rediscovered these bands and I've really been enjoying them, especially this one because this wasn't one of my most listened songs when I was younger so I never overplayed it to the point where I disliked it.

Thanks for reading!

What songs have you been loving this month?

Book review - Autobiography by Morrissey

Hello there readers, although I'm sure there aren't many of you as this is my first post on my new blog. As you can see by the title of this post I am starting off with a book review of a book that caused quite a hoo-ha a while back because it was made a penguin classic, but enough on that. I am a massive Morrisey/The Smiths fan so when Morrissey came out with his autobiography I knew I had to read it (after my Dad read it of course being the ultimate fangirl). Anyway, keep reading if you want to hear my thoughts on this book and if you're interested in what I read and my 2014 book challenge then please feel free to add me as a friend on goodreads :)

Look at Morrissey's little face aw - the book is a bit battered whoops

Synopsis: 

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982 - 1987). Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.

Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others.

An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest norhtern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv.

It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'

My thoughts:

I think this book is beautifully written in some parts, the description Morrissey gives is astounding, it literally sounds like song lyrics. I do recommend this book for a super fan of Morrissey or the Smiths but I would say that unless you are a fan and a big fan at that, you will find this book to be rather tedious. I'll be honest, I was let down by this book. Parts of it were very interesting for me, like how he met Johnny Marr and how he felt about growing up in Manchester, his musical influences and I enjoyed the mentions of David Bowie too. However, I found parts quite dull to read and truthfully when I finished it, I was relieved that I could move onto something else because I found the last section to be a bit difficult to get through. Again, if you're a super fan do give it a go because then you can say you've read it and it gives you an insight into Morrissey's life.

The thing that annoyed me the most about this book was the total lack of structure. Firstly, there are no chapters whatsoever so it makes it difficult to know when to stop reading and put the book down. Secondly, sentences and sometimes even words are divided over pages making it even harder to know when to put the book down. On the other hand, most of the events in the book do flow into each other so I suppose it would be difficult to divide it into sections but it still really frustrated me.

Overall rating:

I would give this a 3/5, I feel terrible about that rating because I love Morrissey so much but this book was just frustrating for me to read because of the lack of structure and the detail in events that I wouldn't have thought to be necessary to mention, but if you are a fanatic do give it a go.

Have any of you read Morrissey's autobiography or planning to read it?
Do you like Morrissey or The Smiths?