I'm currently obsessed with all things gold, and this look reflects that. It's just so luxurious! There's something about pairing it with a lilac lip that gives it that little bit more...regality!  (is that a word?!) 

Products:

Face
Milani 2-in-1 Conceal and Perfect Foundation - Soft Beige
Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder - Translucent
Benefit Hoola Bronzer
Nyx Blush - Pink the Town

Brows
Anastasia Beverly Hills Dip Brow Pomade - Dark Brown
Benefit Ready! Set! Brow!

Eyes
Makeup Geek Shadows - Creme Brulee, Cocoa Bear, Corrupt
Colourpop Super Shock Shadow - Kathleen Lights "Where the Night Is" - Telepathy
Ardell Lashes - Demi Wispies
Givenchy Noir Couture Mascara
Kat Von D Ink Liner - Trooper

Lips
Sugarpill Liquid Lipstick - Kimchi

I was playing around with some bright colours and came up with this "siren" look. I wanted it to be mystical, mermaid-like, and almost a little alien. I really liked the coloured brows, they just add that extra bit of sparkle to a look!

Products:

Face
The Body Shop Fresh Nude Foundation - Bora Bora
Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder - Transparent
Nyx Blush - Pink the Town

Brows
Kiko Eyeliner- Blue (can't remember the name, i'll come back to this one!)

Eyes
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Urban Decay - Alice in Wonderland Palette
LA Splash Liquid Lipstick - Livius
Sigma - Glimmer Dust
Ardell Lashes - Demi Wispies

Lips
LA Splash Velvet Matte - Exposed

hey guys! I'm going to be posting a couple more Halloween looks over the next day or so so hope you enjoy!
This one is my take on Alex from a Clockwork Orange. I was inspired by Jordan Hanz, I can't remember the name of the video but she did a look where her mouth was pinned up like I've done to my eye here.
I used makeup geek shadows, Jeffree star unicorn blood for the lips and bloody drip from the nose, anastasia Beverly Hills dip brow, Nyx jumbo eye pencil in milk and Rimmel exaggerate liquid eyeliner.
​

Hi All,

Welcome back to my blog. I'm getting a little more serious with this post as I feel it's something I need to discuss.

As a person who has suffered with depression for more than 6 years after the death of my mom, I hope I am not stepping out of line. 

To non-sufferers (and the non-believers), I can only describe depression using a temperature similie. When, what I call, an "episode" hits me, it feels as if there's a spread of heat radiating down from my head down my body. The heat is a mixture of fear, panic, sadness, intense feelings of self-loathing etcetc. When I first began to notice it, I would spend literal hours, sitting on my bed staring out of the window in a state of catatonia. I couldn't move. I couldn't find reason to move. I started to deny myself food. I replaced these feelings of numbness with alcohol. Being a university student, I would go out a couple of times a week and binge drink until I often passed out, just to feel something. To remember what fun was, only for reality to set in once I had woken from my intoxicated slumber. 
At one point, I had considered ending things. I was going to Reading Festival, and after that, I thought to myself, I don't think I can carry on. However after an great weekend at Reading , it gave me a little more will to carry on. This was 2011. 

Over the years I have had a course of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), which I didn't feel did me much good personally, as mindfulness wasn't going to take away the bad stuff that had happened (however it does work for many people, so don't rule it out!), and more recently a course of EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing), which helped far more in terms of reprocessing the traumatic memories that I feel had largely contributed to my depression. I was there when my mom died. She had a sudden brain haemorrhage from a ruptured aneurysm none of knew were there. We had just gotten a puppy and my mom had bent down to clean up after her, when she had a severe pain in the back of her head. Not long after, she headed up to bed to try to sleep the pain off but within minutes, was screaming for a doctor, before falling back unconscious. I called emergency services and the operator talked me through CPR. The paramedics came, and half an hour of working on her, they carried her down the stairs with no equipment on her, no breathing apparatus even though she was clearly not breathing properly, in a sort of hammock, legs and arms dangling out in the least dignified manner possible. We followed the ambulance to the hospital in the fast response car, and were seated in the relatives room. I knew at that point it wasn't going to be good news. The doctor came in with a nurse and sat us down.
"When Kim was brought in, her heart had stopped. I'm sorry but there was nothing we could do". 
In that moment, my world had fallen apart. This was no exaggeration. Everything I thought I knew about my life, the future, my family etc, was no more. Me and my dad were left to pick up the pieces of a life suddenly departed from us.
It was no secret that my mom was my best friend. We would go to gigs together, listen to music together, watch t.v together, go to the shops together, we just had a bond that was so special, I had no idea how I would cope. In a way, I was dependant on her. 
And that security had gone. 

What I should probably mention at this point is that this wasn't my first experience of a traumatic event. Two years earlier, we had a call that my dad had been in a severe car accident on his was to work and he was on a ventilator. After a few days on an ICU, and a surgeon"putting him back together", the relief was palpable. It took nearly a month for him to get back home, but he was alive, relatively well considering and home in time for christmas. A few years before that, my nan, who we lived with due to her declining mental health, passed away after she had fallen down the stairs and contracted septicaemia. The death certificate stated "septicaemia and alcoholism" as the causes of death. Alcoholism. I may have only been 10 years old, but the woman had fucking dementia. She was shitting on the floor, picking it up and asking what it was. She would try to turn the television over with her nebuliser. I am still so furious about that. 

But I digress. 
I guess these events led up to my depression first taking hold. In some people, there simply is no obvious reason or event. It is often forgotten that depression is a physical illness. It is an illness of the brain. This delicate and fine network of neurons aren't always biologically perfect (Quite frankly, it amazes me that they work so well most of the time), and if there is a chemical imbalance, this can cause depression in someone who is normally positive and hasn't been through a major event in their life. 
A lot of us who suffer with depression, and other mental health issues, are prescribed medication to help correct these imbalances. As much as people want to believe that "thinking positively" and "thinking about how others have it worse" will snap you out of depression, it's simply not the case. The brain is a complex organ. When things go wrong, it can override the body's survival instinct and starve a person to death. It can make people see things that aren't actually real. A simple positive mantra and a bit of empathy can't snap you out of mental illness.
How many of you have had a phobia? A phobia is usually without reason and defined as irrational, and yet your brain is telling you that you are in danger, even though realistically and in most cases, you aren't. It is the same with depression. Your brain forces you to feel sad. It makes the numbness hang over you like a dark cloud ready to rain down and ruin everything at any moment. I guess the difference is that phobias are temporary reactions, whereas depression, although it can be temporary, is often a chronic condition, whereby you cannot avoid the overwhelming sadness.
For anyone who questions someone's need for medication, ask yourself - remember the saddest moment of your life. Now imagine that feeling for weeks... months... years. Can you imagine being sad for that long? Now imagine someone offers you a pill. It isn't an "upper". It wont "make you happy". But it will take the edge off. Instead of facing a project with a feeling of inevitable doom because you lack so much self esteem thanks to your depression, you tackle it. You still struggle. But you put the effort in, and do it more positively. Rather than dragging yourself out of bed reluctantly and not bother with a shower because "what is the point", you get up feeling relatively neutral. You get in the shower and your energy level is okay. You don't feel as exhausted just moving one foot in front of the other as you usually do. This gives you a bit of pep. It gives you a boost to go and make yourself a nice cup of tea and breakfast. You go to work. Instead of hating every bit of your job, you arrange your desk and make a plan of how you will tackle your tasks. You maybe even do it without fear, without panic and with the hint of a smile on your face. This is why medication is necessary sometimes. You can plead with someone to think positively and try to make an effort with themselves, but unless whatever is going on in their head is corrected, they will suffer, just for you to sit on your high horse and berate anyone who turns to anti-depressants. How is it up there? Relatively happy huh? Lucky you. 

I am aware some of this post is rambly, and boy is it long. But this is what is going on in my mind at the moment. Occasionally incoherent, often rushing, forgetful and negative. 
I guess you could call me lucky though.
I can get out of bed in the morning and have a shower. I will put effort into my food, my clothes, my makeup, my hair. I will put on a happy face at work as best I can. I am fairly high-functioning for such a chronic depressive. I take 40mg Citalopram (Celex) daily. This keeps me on the straight and narrow for the most part, to the point where I almost feel like a fraud because I don't have a major depressive episode with constant use. 
It is notoriously difficult to get a doctors appointment less than a week in advance of when you want it, so if you run out and you can't get an appointment, boy are you in for a ride. Within four days of being without, the withdrawals start to kick in. My head starts to spin like a top and if I turn my head, the roof of my mouth goes numb (does anyone else experience this?!) and I feel sick. Almost like a hangover. 
So there are downsides to medicating depression, but there are downsides to many treatments. 
At the time of writing, I am struggling somewhat. I'm quite teary, quite miserable about the future, irritable and panicky. I have just picked up my latest prescription of citalopram and hopefully I should feel better in a day or two. 

I want to conclude this post with what my aim was with it in the first place. I wanted to make people more aware of how depression feels. I wanted this to be a reminder not to berate someone who needs medication. If you are suffering, I wanted you to know that medication is an option. As is therapy. I want you to know that just because you have "no reason" to be depressed, that doesn't mean your illness is invalid. I want people to know that just because I appear to function quite well, I am still struggling. I want people to know that if someone is visibly struggling to function, they should be helped. I want you t know that comments like "other people have it worse" and "you just need to think positively" are unhelpful the majority of the time. I want you to know that depression is a real illness, it isn't "feeling sorry for yourself" and it most definitely isn't wanted, cool, or to be romanticised. It is debilitating and painful and time-consuming and NO ONE would want to spend their life feeling this way. 
​
Sending all the love to anyone reading this and feeling the same way. It will get better for us. I know it. We just need to get over this hurdle. 

L xx

Hi all! 
So at the end of July/Beginning of August 2015, we spent 10 days in the lovely Maltese Islands. I wanted to do a post about Malta so that people thinking of their next holidays might consider it. I can't recommend Malta enough for many reasons, which will follow in the blog post.

We booked our holiday as a package through Cosmos online, but it's easy enough to do it without an agent, flying from Birmingham Airport with Air Malta ( as opposed to East Midlands with Monarch like last year). There's a decent amount of flights to Malta during the summer, although not as many as other popular destinations. A lot of the cheaper flights involve connections through other European countries which greatly extend you travelling time so I suggest paying extra and getting a direct flight. I highly recommend Air Malta, ticketless, nice clean planes, a bottle of water and a sandwich included in the flight price and an option to choose window or aisle seats at check-in! Our flights were late night which meant we arrived into Malta around midnight. "I hate night flights!" you say? Bear in mind that the island isn't very big, meaning short transfers, allowing you a sleep at your hotel before commencing with your holiday! ;) 

We opted to stay for 10 days in a small town called Mellieha, to the north of the island. It has one of the best beaches for sunbathing, snorkelling, access to the ferry port in Cirkewwa and a regular bus service. We stayed in Mellieha last year and fell in love with the beautiful church, the bay overlooked by the main street atop the hill, houses and apartments creating concrete valleys down to the coast... One thing I would point out is that, with the village being on a steep hill, it may not be suitable for those with reduced walking abilites as, especially in the summer months, it takes some exertion to walk up the street or down to the beach. 
However, as I have already mentioned, the bus service in fantastic. There are buses every half hour/hour or so down the hill to the beach, and to various towns around the island, including the capital city, Valletta. We decided to purchase the "Tallinja Card", which is a prepaid oyster-like card that you can top up as and when. For €21, we had unlimited bus travel around Malta and it's archiplego. We had to pay the bus fare (€2 each) to get to Bugibba bus station in order to buy the cards, but I recommend making the trip, a) because of the saving on the buses, and b) because Bugibba is a lovely little town, but I will come to that later. 

Mellieha is a modestly popular tourist destination, but still has rustic charm. At the bottom of the hill, there are a number of restaurants, bars and shops on the beach front, as well as hotels if you like to be right on the beach. At the top of the hill in the main town, there's a wonderful church, with a courtyard overlooking the bay. Along the street, there's a good choice of restaurants and bars, gift shops and clothes shops and supermarkets. We stayed in the Maritim Antoinine Hotel and Spa, which itself has 3 restaurants, a cocktail bar, rooftop pool, indoor pool, spa, garden pool and poolside bar and free wifi throughout the hotel. We had breakfast included, which consisted of a decent buffet of cold and cooked food, fruit, yoghurt, rolls and pastries and drinks. Our room was a studio with tea making facilities, a lovely modern bathroom, and a door overlooking a small courtyard (no views or balcony, just a railing, fine for us as we spend most of our time out of the room!). 

After a refreshing sleep, we awoke for breakfast, (which was ok, not exactly gourmet but fairly good) and then headed down the beach. We were experiencing the full effects of the heat by this point, which was mid-thirties by 10am! As we hadn't bought our bus cards yet, we decided to walk down the hill to the beach. The walk down isn't so bad but you still work up a sweat as there's little shelter along the road down. After 10 minutes, we reached the beach. There's lots of sunbeds, beach space, rock pools and a jetty of sorts, which is ideal for sunbathing and swimming from. We jumped straight in, leaving our belongings on the jetty. We discovered last year that it was fairly safe to do so, but use your own judgement as there's pickpocketers everywhere! 
The sea is clear and clean and you can still touch the seabed by the time you reach the bouys sectioning the beach off from the marina. It's worth grabbing some snorkels around here as there's lots in the way of fish and crabs, especially round the rock pools! 
As the heat was increasing, we spent about 2 hours by the beach and then headed to the bus stop to get back up the hill. Buses are fairly regular but make sure you lotion up and bring a hat as there's little shade around the bus stops and the midday heat can leave your blood boiling. 
We hopped on the bus back up the hotel, stopping off at a little pastry shop on the street for some homemade pizza and doughtnuts for lunch, and headed to the rooftop pool in our hotel. Plenty of sunbeds available meaning no need for towel-reservations! You could order food from the bar to your sunbed or sit at the tables, overlooking the bay. We had a dip in the pool before heading for some shade to enjoy a chilled day after a busy couple of days. 

For dinner, we went to our favourite restaurant, Tosca. They do the most incredible fresh pizzas and pasta and the service is great! Between us, we polished off a Pizza Fresca, with rocket and mozzarella and a funghi pizza, packed full of mushrooms! Feeling full, we headed to 120 Bar, owned by the Maritim hotel (which seems to have the monopoly on half the street!). Disaronno and Coke for €2.80? Don't mind if we do! After a couple here, we went to the cocktail bar in the hotel. The barstaff were experts in cocktail making and also very friendly, offering us cocktails to try and to make us a different one if we didn't like. Happy to say, we discovered some new cocktails that have made their way into our favourite poisons! 

We headed out the following morning to the town of Bugibba, a coastal shopping and restaurant hub! First stop, the Malta National Aquarium which is a 10-15 minute walk along the coastal road. The aquarium is probably a bit smaller than the Sealife Centre in Birmingham and is home to a number of Maltese and more exotic specimens including Rays, Sharks, Eels, Lobsters and Octopodes. There's lots for the kids to do and lots to learn about, and also has a nice gift shop chokka with cute marine life toys, t-shirts, glassware and other sweet things, as well as a large cafe/restaurant. 
Lunch consists of our favourite waffle place, where we have amazing milkshakes and chocolate covered waffles!

The evening was spent enjoying the most delicious mushroom risotto at one of the smaller restaurants in Mellieha. The portion size was very generous, but even so, the risotto was so good, I could have eaten two lots! After a sunset walk around the church grounds and some photo opportunities from the edge of the hill, just past a small cemetary next to a playground (odd choice!), we headed back for some cocktails for a nice chilled evening. Even after dark, the temperatures are still pushing late 20s, if not 30s!

The following day, after breakfast, we headed out for a trip to Valetta, Malta's capital city. The city has a very rustic feel to it, with small cobbled streets filled with little pastry shops and small market places, but it is also undergoing some development, bringing a little bit of the modern to meet the old. Walking through the town, there are lots of fashionable shops, book stalls, market stalls, museums and old buildings, and as you walk through to the old harbour, you find the beautiful Barakka Gardens overlooking the waterfront. 

After only an hour or so's bus ride, we find ourselves back in Mellieha, where we stop off for a bite to eat at Debbie's Cafe.

As the evening draws in, so does "Mellieha Nights", a highly popular annual event which marks the celebration of Council Day. The events consist of a concert, Monster Trucks, A 300ft long Strudel, artists, street food, magicians, dancers, vintage cars and various crafts. It is an incredible event, where thousands of locals and tourists pass through to enjoy the entertainment on the pedestrianized Mellieha streets and Parish square. 

This night, the WWII shelters were open, so we took a little meander through the old tunnels. The tunnels contain a number of models to illustrate the shelters when they were in use, as well as information plaques, which will no doubt appeal to the wartime enthusiast in the family (as every family has one, surely?!).

The following day, we took a boat trip from Mellieha bay to Comino, one of Malta's sister islands. Comino is famed for its crystal, turquoise waters and snorkelling, and it does not disappoint. This is our second visit to this wonderful lagoon. The first time, we visited Gozo also, and had an open top bus tour around the island and to the famous "Azure Window" (you may recognise this, Game of Thrones fans!). 

For dinner that evening, we took a bus into St. Julian's, which we found out was the 18-30s party hotspot (not exactly Ibiza, Ayia Napa or Malia, but still has a buzz!), and went for something a little more familiar to the palate... Hard Rock Cafe! 

Concluding our busy couple of days, we headed out to "Popeye Village", the original movie set from the Robin Williams' Popeye Film. This was without a doubt a highlight of the trip. Having not seen the film itself, I was a bit dubious that I would find anything interesting about it, but the fact that the houses, shops and other such village amenities are still standing, well maintained and highly amusing made up for my lack of film knowledge. Complete with its own little lagoon, to swim and snorkel in, including a water obstacle course, the village is a proper little hidden gem. From Mellieha, the bus took around 15 minutes, and to be honest, in less scorching weather, you could walk it in an hour or so as it is straight across the narrowest part of the island. 

So, that concludes my not-so-little post about the wonders of Malta. I hope you have enjoyed reading it, and I sincerely hope it influences you to visit this wonderful island, it has so much to offer, and although it is still an up-and-coming destination (as you will notice a significant amount of developments in process, but don't worry, it isn't one huge building site!), it is probably worth going soon, before everyone catches on! ;) 

Good Evening all!
Tonight I am going to a party so I decided to go glam!
Using Colourpop x Kathleen Lights "Where the night is" Quad, I created this golden smokey eye and finished with a sweep of Rimmel exxxaggerate eyeliner and Ardell Demi wispies! On my skin, I used milani conceal and perfect foundation, Rimmel stay matte pressed powder, Benefit hoola bronzer, Nyx pink the town blush and The Balm Mary-Lou Manizer highlight. Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow on the eyebrows and liquid lipstick in "Crush" finish this look!

I love makeup. I love playing around with different colours, styles and techniques, and what better time to do it than the season of all things spooky! 
I'm not really sure what I would call this look but I wanted to go for a sparkly-pumpkin style with the colours, adding that little bit of the glam-macabre in the form of crying glitter, courtesy of Sugarpill's Junebug pigment. I used a combination of Kiko eyeshadows, Urban Decay's Alice in Wonderland Palette (2016) and Nyx eyeliner for the eyebrows to create this look on a base of The Body Shop's Bora Bora foundation and Stay Matte Powder by Rimmel. Hope you like this look! 

We started off our trip with a short visit to Bath and the roman baths. 

A couple of days later, we spent the day at Longleat. It took us around 4-5 hours to get round everything in Longleat, so you definitely need an entire day. For the ticket price, you get so much for your money - the safari drive through, the zoo area, a boat ride around to see the seals and the Gorilla colony, a train ride and entrance to Longleat house!

I'm still not entirely sure what this little fella is, but he's super cute! 

On our final day, we took a trip to Stonehenge, something I have had on my bucket list for quite some time and it didn't disappoint!

A quick apology for having not updated in nearly a year, a busy one it has been! I moved into a new flat this time last year and have spent most of the year sorting things out, gathering household items etc and we're finally settled and looking forward to saving up for a house! I have been travelling to a number of places since the last update including wales, torquay, fuerteventura and dublin so I may upload a few photos from these trips! 
Please see my DeviantArt page for more recent photos as well!
Take care!
Lauren x

The weather was threatening aggression yesterday, but I took a lone walk along the River Severn regardless. I encountered a large herd of cows, and also two small insects in the throes of passion on a thistle. 

This weekend, I acquired a Nikon D5200 and we took a few friends down to Bridgnorth to roadtest it. As of yet, I like these raw, unedited photos and am still mastering the dslr functions, but I am please with the outcome of these photos! More to come!

I found these little cuties while trawling Bridgnorth's thrift/charity shops. It reminded me when I collected a couple of the teddy bear collection magazines, which came with this bears, each with their own distinct style/occupation. The top one is a golfer, the second is a climber and the third is, obviously, an artist. Reminder to self to dig out my "Edward the Explorer" bear and the other one I collected, which I cannot for the life of me remember what his name or job was... 

Took a walk in some wildflower fields and then re-potted my own flowers.

I have about four pairs of shoes to my name, so I treated myself to a couple of pairs of cute pumps for work. It's not easy to find size 7s in women's shoes.