life | andalucia 2014

HOLA!

I've just come back from a week away in sunny Andalucia in the Costa del Sol. I went with my lovely daddio and sister and we stayed in a little town called Nerja. Today's post is pretty darn picture-heavy, so sit back and enjoy my boatload of pictures from Spain!

NERJA and FRIGILIANA

view from our hilltop villa

GIBRALTAR

RONDA

ALHAMBRA PALACE, GRANADA

Some of these lovely pictures also belong to my dad!

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life | a little life catch up..

I've had another blogging hiatus and it is nearing a month since I last posted on here, and trust me I've missed it - but for some reason June seemed to be the busiest month ever. So much has happened in the past month and yet it barely feels like June even happened!

First things first, in the middle of June I headed down to the outskirts of Birmingham for a week of work experience at a start-up company. It was a company that made recycled plastic scaffolding boards and even though it seemed to have nothing to do with journalism and what I want to do as a career, I learnt so much and was able to really get my head into PR and writing lots of articles and PR releases. Plus, the company liked what I did and they've recently asked me to do some freelance work for them which I am over the moon about and made me finally feel like a real adult!

Then, once I was home I was busy with RAF balls (you can see my lovely dress in a photo somewhere down below!) and some interviews for other work placements, as well as a quick day trip to the Lakes with my dad. The Lakes is one of my favourite places in the world - I love the countryside and all things green so I was in my element. We bought lots of homemade chocolate and then headed out for a lovely italian. 

Then, I headed to Newcastle with a lovely group of girlfriends to spend a couple of nights in a Yurt (super cool little hut/tent). It was so nice to get away from normal life for a few days and just be able to go on long walks around a huge National Trust park (would you believe I'm a 21 year old girl and not a middle-aged married lady with children!). Whilst I was there I also had my first ever experience of barbequeing which was a success - well no one has died yet anyway!

Whilst I was home I also got my University degree results - I somehow pulled a 2:1 out of nowhere and am genuinely so shocked that I got it - I never thought I'd even smell a 2:1 so I'm definitely a little proud of myself ;-) 

And finally, I'm now doing some work experience at a local radio station so haven't had any time at all to sit down and write something that I would be proud to publish on my blog. I decided to do a little catch up instead just so I'd remember everything I had done when I look back on this post in a month or year.

And of course, if all of that ^^ was too 'tl;dr', here's a little photo diary of some snippets of the last month of my life..

So there we go; life update and an apology to my forgotten blog - hopefully I won't have to leave it for so long again but at the moment I just can't make any promises! I love writing on my little blog so much though so hopefully it won't be too long until my next post.

Hope you're all having a lovely month yourselves!

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beauty | eyeko skinny liquid liner 'navy'

Last week in Glamour, I received this free liquid liner from Eyeko. I've heard so many good things about the brand so was expecting a pretty good product. I'm a huge fan of liquid liner and wear it religiously every day. However, I must admit that I've been left pretty disappointed in this eyeliner.

I decided to get the shade 'navy' after a recent blog post written by Essie Button (Estee) caught my eye. She had started using her navy eyeliner from Stila and it got me in the mood for some navy liner myself!

The Eyeko liner comes in a thin silver felt tip, which I always find the easiest to apply. I think the packaging is really slick and definitely caught my eye. The nib of the pen itself is long and comes to a thin point which I thought would be perfect to nail cateye flicks and to create a really solid line.

When testing it on my hand, the colour pay off was so-so. I liked that you could tell straight away that the pen was navy, but I was a little worried that it wasn't as pigmented and wet as it should be. The first few swipes were really pale and it took quite a few attempts to make a solid and noticeable line.

When applying to my eyelid, I had to go over the same space several times to create anything even close to a line, and as you can see from the pictures below it made the final effect look undefined and almost like i had just used a pencil rather than liquid. I was shocked at how dry the pen was - especially as I had only used it previously on the back of my hand - and can't see it having a very long payoff. 

But the colour really is lovely, and is very noticeable in real life. It's something a little different and mixes up basic eyeliner. I'm hoping that if I leave the liner alone for a while it will re-wet (?!?) itself and become a little more easy to manage. 

This pen costs £12  when buying from the Eyeko website and I think that's crazy if the pen is in fact as dry as it seemed for me. I'd rather just stick to my trusty £6 drugstore eyeliner, which works amazingly well is and crazy pigmented.

If I'd bought this with my own money I would be so disappointed so I'm really glad I just got it free with a magazine.

Have you tried this product? What did you think? Is mine just from a bad batch?

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