Zoe's Musings

Hi everyone! As you may or may not have seen on my twitter or instagram, I finished my first year of university on Friday (June 19th). I'm going to do a few university related posts as bonus posts over the next couple of months before people start going off to uni themselves, which will hopefully help those of you with the same worries as I have. This post is just an end of year review, telling you my experiences and thoughts on my Freshman year of university.

I started this year at the end of September, and was extremely anxious for it. While I was excited to move out and experience new things, I was also scared of being away from home & having to learn how to look after myself. I was nervous about the people I'd be living in, and if I'd chosen the right course. I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

I was so scared for my first day of uni, having only linked up with a couple of the people I'd be living with on Facebook, but we hadn't said more than hello, so I didn't really know anything about what they'd be like. We all ended getting on pretty well, but we did have our problems! I'm going to go over the pros & cons of communal living in the coming weeks so look out for that if you have any worries!

On the one hand, I wasn't sure if I was the right kind of person for uni, I struggled in my last year of school, but on the other hand I made some great friends this year that I know will be part of my life for a long time, and also I met my amazing boyfriend, so I do think overall that I made the right choice going to uni!




So this is just a little post to introduce the uni series, I'll let you know when my future posts are going up!


Love,
Zoe xxx

For the first time in a long time I'm sitting down to write a favourites post. I've had lots of things I've been enjoying this month so figured I'd share them with you!

Beauty/Skincare

My first beauty favourite is my trusty Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation. This foundation is truly standing the test of time, it's one of my all time favourites, and it's now the only foundation I'll reach for when I'm doing my makeup. I've reviewed it here if you'd like to have a look!

Next up is the NYC Individual Eyes Palette in Smokey Blues. I was never one for wearing eyeshadow as I feel like I always make myself look like a panda and it's never a good look, but this month I've been trying to be more adventurous with my makeup, so I dug this palette out. I'm so glad I did, as I've become more confident in eyeshadow and realised how much dimension it gives to my face. This palette is specially designed for blue eyes to make them pop, and I really love how the colours look on my skin tone. The shades are suuuuper pigmented, but you do have to watch out for creasing, as they do tend to shift after a few hours. I most often reach for the taupe colour on lazy days, and when I'm *attempting* some sort of smokey eye that shade acts as my base and then I use the purple in the outer corner of my eye & bring it down my waterline also. The highlighter on this palette is decent, it does tend to get really messy with eyeshadow fallout which is pretty annoying, and the primer isn't that great but who can complain for £3.99?

Fashion
I've been loving my dresses this month, especially this one from New Look! It's black with a white peter pan collar, and it's really flattering because it comes in at the waist and flares out at the hips & bum.

TV

I don't watch much TV at uni, but in may I was loving catching up with The Bachelor, and this month it's all about The Batchelorette. I'm a few episodes in, and it's so addicting. I've also tried to get back into OITNB because it seems I'm the last person to have jumped on that bandwagon, but it's been really hard to make time to watch it, so hopefully now my summer's actually started I can watch to my hearts content. Since finishing exams, I've been binge watching crap TV and have become completely hooked on Love Island, how sad is that? Honestly it's so cringe it's good!!

Food

My favourite food of the month is Chinese takeaway, which I've been eating loads over the last few months. I absolutely love it :P

I also made these cookies the other day, which are super duper tasty, and even though I'm still trying *and failing miserably* to be healthy and make better choices with food, it's nice to have something sweet in for those times when you just need a little pick me up!

Music

My favourite song at the moment is Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon. It's so catchy and fun to sing along to, and it cheers me up!

Film

Has to be Pitch Perfect 2 doesn't it?! I absolutely loved it, and would definitely recommend it to everyone if you've not seen it. My favourite scene is when Das Sound Machine sang Fall Out Boy, I freaked out so much and sang along to it in the cinema, much to my boyfriend's amusement!!

Book

I've started to read All I Know Now, which I'm really enjoying so far! I definitely want to get back into reading this summer.

Shop

My favourite shop this month is Paperchase. They have really gorgeous cards, and I love having a wander round and picking up little bits.

Person/people

So I've added a new category for my favourites, which is my favourite person/group of people of the month. This month's favourite people are the SacconeJolys, because I watch their videos every day and they never fail to make me smile. I really enjoy seeing what they get up to, and Emilia and Eduardo are so cute!!



Something else I've been loving is taking photos, especially of flowers and plants. There's something so summery and lovely about going out for walks with my camera and capturing the beautiful colours of the flowers in my neighbourhood!

Right, that's it from me, I'm so excited to be back, but I'm struggling a bit to find inspiration so please bear with me while I get back into the swing of weekly posts. I've got a haul post coming up soon, and a July goals post which I'm pretty excited about, so look out for those!

Thanks for sticking around while I've had a bit of a break, I'm happy to be back!
Love,
Zoe xxx

Hi everyone! As you may or may not know, I'm back from uni now, having had my last exam on Friday. So, I'll be getting back in the swing of blogging again starting this Saturday!

Thanks so much for sticking around if you did, I'm sorry my blogging got completely put on the side, but exams had to come first.

I'm so excited to get back into blogging!


Thanks,
Zoe xxx

So, it's June. How on earth have we already gone through half of June? It feels like it was Christmas the other day, yet here we are.

Something I like to do is set goals for myself. I find it gives me motivation to succeed and exceed my own expectations, and it gives me that little push I need in order to get things done. So I thought I'd start a new thing where I outline all of my hopes and goals and dreams for each month, keeping in line with my resolutions that I posted at the beginning of the year.

1. Push myself to study & learn as much as I can

2. Kick it up a notch

3. Just let things happen

4. Take some time off

5. Save up a bit

Source

I've taken a break in my room cleaning and revising in order to talk to you about BeautyCon London, which happened last Saturday (May 23rd)! BeautyCon is an American event that had it's international debut right here in London

I won two tickets for it which was really exciting, and I managed to fit time in to go between work and revision. I decided to drag my boyfriend along for the day since he was in London anyway, and it meant he could help me find the exhibition centre as navigation is not my strongest point!

I had work the night before until 2:30am, which meant that when my alarm clock woke me up at 7:30 in the morning I was extremely tired, and nearly crawled back into bed and didn't bother - but I'm so glad I hauled my ass out of bed!

When my boyfriend and I went inside the BeautyCon hall, I was immediately super excited to see the huge balloons spelling out BeautyCon. Unfortunately I didn't have time to get a picture with them, but they were seriously cool.

The first thing that greeted me after the balloons was a massive queue at a station labelled "Meet and Greet 1". I'd had a bit of a look at the itinerary but thought I'd have a look at who was round the corner. It was Estée from Essie Button! I quickly joined the queue, and queued for a little under an hour. There were about 20 people in front of me, when suddenly the organisers cut us off and said we couldn't meet her! I was so upset because I'd queued for so long and I really like her, but she came past me walking down the queue and luckily I managed to grab her for a selfie, so I was happy! I was just disappointed I didn't get to properly chat, but never mind.

The next thing I did was wander round and explore parts of the exhibition room, but I wasn't too interested in queueing for ages to get my nails done or eyebrows done or anything, and my boyfriend definitely wouldn't have stood for that!

After a little while I wandered back to the meet and greet area, and who was there? Only Fleur deForce! I had a mini freak out because I didn't even know she was going, and hastily joined the queue (much to Justin's delight). I met two lovely girls in the queue who I had a chat with, and then I was first in line and walking towards one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. And Fleur was honestly one of the nicest people I've ever met, she gave me a hug and chatted about Beautycon and took a photo with me. It was so cool to meet her as she's such an influential beauty guru, and was even more stunning in real life than she is in her videos.



Then I wandered around a bit more and noticed Niomi Smart just wandering around doing a bit of shopping, so I immediately went over and asked if I could get a photo. She looked so pretty, and was really nice about it and took a photo with me, which was so lovely of her.



After having a bit of a break and another wander I noticed a large group of people clumped around a barrier, and just joined it. I had a little suspicion that they were waiting to start a queue for meeting Tyler, as he was going to be there in about an hour. Nobody around me really knew what we were queuing for until finally someone asked the organisers and they told us it really was the queue for Tyler! Everyone immediately went nuts, and then the organisers organised us into the Pro ticket holder queue and the regular ticket queue. And then we sat and waited. And waited. And waited for an hour until FINALLY one of the organisers said he was there. And then everyone went crazy again. Unfortunately as I just had a general admission ticket I had to wait for all of the fancy all included ticket holders to meet him before I could, but when I saw him I didn't even mind that I'd been waiting over an hour and a half. I walked over to him, and he said "Hey, how are you? What's your name?" and I told him, and then he said "Oh my gosh you're so cute".. AAAAAAAAAA. Tyler flipping Oakley thinks I'm cute. He gave me loads of hugs, and then we posed for photos, and then I told him it was great to meet him and that I loved him on Ellen DeGeneres. And then, just like that, it was over and the next person was meeting him. It was absolutely incredible to meet him, I've watched his videos for years, and watched him grow into the most incredible human being. He was so lovely, and didn't just stand there and take pictures like some people do, but instead he made sure to have a chat with everyone who was there *and believe me, there were so many people queueing up to meet him!*


***Photos from instagram, come follow me here! I'm nearly at 200 followers! I'll check out all of my new followers and maybe give you a follow!*** 

I also got to see a bit of a panel with the likes of Lily, Anna, Samantha and Lucy&Lydia on!



The one thing I was sad about was that Louise (Sprinkle of Glitter) wasn't able to make it, as I'd have loved to have seen her :(

So overall I had a fantastic day, although I had work that night starting at 8:30pm so I was absolutely exhausted on Sunday, but it was completely worth it!

AND that's not all!! When I posted the pictures Fleur liked my instagram photo and Tyler liked my tumblr post with the photo in which was so exciting to me.

So yeah! That was my Saturday, what did you all get up to at the weekend? Did any of you go to Beautycon? Who would be your favourite celebrity/youtuber to meet!?

Lots of love,
Zoe xxx

Hi everyone! Today I have a mini haul for you of a few things I've picked up over the last little while.


The first thing I picked up is actually not in this picture, it's Carrie Fletcher's new book All I Know Now, which I've not managed to read yet, but I've heard great things about it so I can't wait till I have a spare moment to give it a read!

I'd been eyeing up the 'big cup for a rainy day' in Tiger for ages but hadn't bought it because I didn't want to carry it all around town with me, so I went back into Tiger and got it a few days later. I'm obsessed with tea and have quite a few mugs now, it's becoming a bit of an addiction!

The other mug I got on the same day, and it's from Robert Dyas. As well as tea I'm obsessed with camper vans, so I just had to have this mug. It's a perfect size for evening cups of tea, and I love it.

I then went into Primark to look for some summery clothes and found these shorts. I'm not really one for wearing shorts as I'm really self-conscious of my legs (yet I wear skirts & dresses no problem... go figure!) but these I thought were really cute and I could use them as workout shorts or just lounging around shorts if I didn't want to wear them out. They would look really cute in the summer though if I was going to the beach with some nice sandals. They only costed £4, so were a proper bargain!

I also got this cheap little makeup bag on the way to the tills in Primark, it only cost £3 and is a decent size & is pretty structured so will hopefully protect my makeup when I go travelling. I've been on the hunt for a makeup bag for ages, and I think this will do me just fine.

I then headed to Boots, and *finally* got around to replacing my powder which had shattered. I've found recently that my skin has been good enough to get away with not using powder most days, which is something I never used to do because I'd end up looking like a shiny mess a few hours into my day. But this powder (in translucent) is great for those summer days when things can get a bit sweaty and shiny.

I went to the Barry M counter in Boots and saw they had a buy 1 get 1 half price on the nail polish, so I picked up 2 colours: 'Grapefruit', which is a Gelly Hi-Shine polish, and 'In A Heart Beat' which is a Quick Dry. The Quick Dry formula has only been out a week or two, and I really like it, although some people have complained of the formula bubbling on their nails. Mine slightly bubbled on one nail but it sorted itself out, it wasn't anything major. I love the pastel shades, the pale pink is so nice and summery, and would look gorgeous with a tan (not that I ever tan!). The darker shade is nice too, I absolutely adore Barry M nail polishes, they're hands down my fave brand for nail polish.

And that's everything I picked up! I might do a separate post on all of my Barry M nail polishes in the future, if that's something you're interested in. And I'll soon be writing a May favourites, but it may be a little delayed as I have exams in a couple of weeks.

Have you guys bought anything recently? Do you have any recommendations?
Lots of love,
Zoe

Oh, and by the way I'm attending Beautycon live this year, I won tickets this week, I can't bloody wait!!!

So a few days ago Justin and I were really bored and wanted to go explore something new, so we went to Guildford castle.

I'd been past it before but had never explored the grounds, and I was pleasantly surprised by how lovely it was, so I took some photos (they're from an iPhone so not as good quality as my camera, sorry!).

I think it would have been even nicer last month when all the daffodils were out, but it was still really pretty. Hope you enjoy! If you like this post, come check out more of my photography here, and my instagram here where you can see more of my photos :D










I'm currently writing a haul post, so that'll be up in the next week or so!

Lots of love,
Zoe