What's in my basket: H&M

I've bought so much from H&M lately, I must have made a least three online orders from them over the last two months.  Despite not really liking their online shopping service (delivery is quite slow, you can't return things for a refund in store and postal returns take weeks) I can't fault their stock lately - there's been so much that I've wanted from them I've hardly shopped anywhere else.

Here's a selection of things I've bought which are still available online right now

Starfish ring - £1.99

Gold toe ballet flats - £14.99

 Sunglasses - £6.99

 Black jersey blazer - £24.99

 Blue jersey blazer - £24.99

 Beige / pale silver shimmer blazer - £29.99

 Pink and gold drop earrings - £3.99

 Beige sequin top - £14.99

 Peach sequin top - £14.99

 Peach vest dress - £7.99

 Stripe vest dress - £14.99

 Floaty green dress - £14.99

I'm loving the vest dresses with the slinky shimmer blazer, even though the boy says it's like chain-mail!

It still drives me mad that I can't refund online orders in store, but as there's been so much I've liked in H&M lately,  I've just been getting an exchange for something else I like.  Even going on there now to get these images I've seen some more things I like from the 'new in' section and now need to back away from the laptop!

What's your favourite store at the moment?

L'Occitane Cherry Princess collection

Possibly one of the most beautifully packaged gift sets I've ever featured on the blog - meet the super girlie L'Occitane Cherry Princess collection

Cherry Princess (or Cerisier Princesse if you're flash and can pronounce French words properly) is a delicate, fresh, cherry fragrenced collection from L'Occitane.  I actually featured a gift set from the Cherry Blossom range in my Mother's day beauty gift guide, so I was delighted to get the chance to try out some Cherry Princess products.

This range just makes the perfect gift in my opinion - not only are the products lovely and the scent gorgeous, but the packaging is truly beautiful to look at.  I love the floral embossing on the bottles of the perfume and the shower gel and body cream - they look so neat on my bathroom shelf.  They're really girlie and feminine products, and quite romantic too, so perfect gifts for lots of occasions and ages - it's the kind of thing I'd buy for my best friend and would love to open myself.  

Now I'm a funny person who doesn't like artificial cherry.  Cherry yoghurt - bleurgh, cherry coal - gross, cherry drops - I'm literally scared of them.  But real cherries, I love, it's a shame they're so pricey in the supermarket that I don't often eat them.  Luckily the Cherry Princess range smells nothing like my personal Kryptonite (Cherry drops) and has the delicate fragrance of real cherries mixed with florals.  It's a lovely scent for the Spring weather we're having right now and I've been wearing it during the day and taking the little solid fragrance around with me for touch-ups in the afternoon.  Layering the body products really enhances the fragrance too and deepens the scent without it being overpowering.  

The hand cream would be ideal for my desk at work, but I think everyone would want to pinch it, so for now it's staying at home on the bedside table.  L'Occitane hand creams really are the best I've tried, and I've used a few of the different ones from their range now.  My Mum swears by them too, and we all know that Mums are always right...!

Here are the prices and links to the products I tried - 

Cherry Princess shower and body duo (250ml each) - £31

Cherry Princess 50ml EDT - £29

Cherry Princess solid perfume 10g - £7.50

Cherry Princess travel size hand cream 30ml - £7.50

Check out the full Cherry Princess and Blossom range here on the L'Occitane site.  Some of the range  is currently on offer right now too. 

*PR sample

Aromatherapy Associates bath and shower oil review

Today's review is on the super luxurious Aromatherapy Associates miniature bath and shower oil collection.  As soon as I lifted the lid on these I was blown away by the deep and complex fragrances and literally couldn't wait to jump in the bath!

I'd never tried a bath oil before - usually I'd use bubble bath or a bath bomb - so I was worried I'd miss the bubbles or pretty colours in my bath.  Well, there was no room for missing superficial colours and bubbles, I was far too blown away by the beautiful smell.  These little vials of oil really pack a pungent punch (try saying that with your mouth full), and completely filled my whole house with a gorgeous scent.  The boyfriend even commented that he could smell it from the front room.  When I first tried one, it was around 10 in the morning before I went out, and when I came back at about 4pm, I could still smell the lovely fragrance as soon as I opened the front door.

So far I've tried the De-stress Mind and the Deep Relax bath oils, and both smelt amazing, but not in a perfumed, sugary-sweet kind of way like you'd get with a bath bomb - they smell natural and uplifting as each one is made with powerful essential oils like camomile, sandalwood, rosemary, geranium, frankincense and others.  Each oil smells different and offers a different kind of therapeutic aromatherapy experience.  I picked the de-stress oil to try first for obvious reasons, and had a lovely relaxing bath.

Bath oils leave your skin feeling really moisturised - I could actually feel a layer of moisture coating my skin when I was in the bath, and it left my skin smelling wonderful too.  This set includes 9 different bath oils to try, and each is enough for one bath, so it works out at a similar cost to using single bath bombs each time.  I've actually shared a few of the oils from this set with my Mum, because I'm nice like that, and I knew she'd love them.

You can buy this gift set direct from Aromatherapy Associates for £28.50 with free delivery.  They also sell their bath oils in full 55ml sizes which some in a beautiful box tied with a bow, and they have lots of other sampler gift sets (like this one) starting at just £12.

*PR sample

Have you tried bath oils before?

ghd air hairdryer review

Meet my new love, my ghd air hairdryer!

I've been meaning to get a really powerful hairdryer for ages, but hadn't really come across one that had everything I was looking for until I heard about this beauty. First things first, it's not a cheap hairdryer at £99, so it's a considered purchase, but it's exactly what I wanted and I'm expecting it to last me a long time as it's a top quality brand.  

The main attraction for me is how powerful the hairdryer is.  I can't stand hairdryers that don't seem to have enough puff!  My old one was a cheapie £20 job, and it took a long time to dry my hair, so the difference when I first used this blew me away - literally!  If you've got a naff hairdryer at the moment you'll really notice the difference in power when you first use this.  It's 2,100 watts, so really powerful, but it's not overly loud and it doesn't feel really hot if that makes any sense.  Even when I have it on the highest heat setting, it doesn't scorch my ears like my old one.  I can't really explain why that is, but I'm sure it's not my imagination!

I'm lazy, and rubbish at blowdrying, so I don't usually use the attachments, but it comes with two concentrator nozzles - one wider than the other - for more precision styling if you know what you're doing with a round brush and all that complicated business.  I'm rubbish when it comes to styling my hair, but have been getting lovely smooth results using no nozzles, my paddle brush and the high heat and speed settings.  

The dryer comes with "ionic technology" built in which I understand to mean it helps your hair dry to a sleeker and shinier finish.  I had an "ionic" product a few years ago, but you had to constantly push a button for when you wanted the effects to come on, so naturally I got fed up of doing that and didn't bother - with the ghd air this effect is automatic and constant, so it's always on.  

Other nifty features include a cool shot, which gives a blast of proper cold air to set your finished style, and it's got a really long swivelly cord, so no annoying tangled wires.  It's also quite lightweight, so I don't get arm ache drying my hair.  

Together with my ghd straighteners I feel like I've now got the dream team kit, and I can get pretty good results despite being pretty clumsy when it comes to styling my hair!  

The ghd air costs £99, you can get it direct from ghd here and delivery is free

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Little updates - birthday week!

Severe lack of posts over the last 7 days or so, but I blame this all on birthday activities.  I should be back to more regular posting from today.  So here's what I've been up to....

I got a Blogger birthday card!

 

Pretty wrap from the bestie

Strawberry margaritas, of course

Dessert of dreams

My iPhone got Kitty clothes - love it

Most exciting nail polish combo I've worn so far this year (see this post)

First munch of mini eggs this year

Flowers from the boyf

Pretty kitty wrap

I like this pretty card - M&S are the best for cards

Chocolate kitty noms 

Birthday face - it was such a sunny day too

Hauling me some Easter Lush

His n Hers Starbucks naughtiness

My delish mushroom starter when I went out with the bf

Followed by a wicked steak

My brother got me this - lol little bro

Butterfly cake!

Best iPhone outfit EVER

Bright bling nails - a lady at work came up to me and named this polish - Nails Inc Baker Street - of all the blue polishes in the world, how the hell did she know? Spooky

A yum gift from my friend in Germany

Another meal, mussels in white white sauce 

Trying to get some volume in my hair with Primark £2 velcro rollers.  Failing at the volume, succeeding at looking like a loon. 

 

These books have consumed my life the past week.  I just finished the third one and can't wait to go and see the film

I had a lovely birthday and got some fab presents - plenty of blogging material for the next few weeks!  I'm so excited about the sunshine we've had this week - I actually sat out in it yesterday (finishing the third Hunger Games book) and came in with tan lines on my arms - in March! Ridiculous!  Although this sudden burst of Summer weather is causing me a little stress in the wardrobe department - other than having three new pairs of sunglasses, I'm totally unprepared! 

I have some great posts coming up this week, and I think it's about time I finally revealed my 1,000 followers giveaway too :) 

If you missed it - check out my Dalani competition here - there's three chances to win either a £50 or £250 voucher!

This week I shall leave you the links to some lovely blogs I've recently found through using Hello Cotton - possibly the best tool I've used for keeping track of blogs and reading new posts.

http://raspberrykiss-raspberrykiss.blogspot.co.uk/ 

http://floral-etiquette.blogspot.co.uk/ 

http://dotty-dolly.blogspot.co.uk/ 

http://www.flawsandall.net/ 

http://www.tami-bee.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Enjoy and have a fab week xx

Gold speckle NOTD

My new favourite nail polish cost less than £2 and look, it's a beaut!

My friend Zara bought me this stunning gold glitter polish for my birthday - I cheekily pointed out to her that I wanted it, along with a few other wish list items.  I'm not sure why I didn't just buy it before as now I've got it, I don't want to let it go and will probably buy a back-up.  It's such an eye-catching polish to wear - even men have been noticing it!

I teamed the multi-sized gold speckles with my other polish love of the last few months - Jack Wills Blush. It looks like this might have been discontinued as it's no longer on the Jack Wills website *sad face* These colours are such perfect partners I think, although this chunky gold glitter will go with some many shades - I have so many combos planned out in my head and not enough hands to try them out on!

The Saffron gold glitter polish also comes in silver, and you can buy it from eBay here for £1.75 and free postage!  It's pretty good for such a cheap polish - there are loads of sparkle particles crammed in, so it's easy to get a good coating of the large and small glitter pieces with one or two swipes.  I did find however that it dried really slowly - so be careful not to smudge!  Even with Seche Vite top coat, this takes a while to dry hard - so worth it though.

I think next I'm trying this over neon blue, can't wait!