I'm Subtle Like a Lion's Cage

I can't believe it's been three months since I've done an outfit post. The last time we took photos was on Christmas day and unbelievably it was colder yesterday taking these photos than it was on Christmas day. In fact in was so cold I couldn't even bear to take off my coat to show you my boring old black dress so don't worry, you weren't missing anything. 

Coat- given to me by my granny

Shoes- Marks and Spencers

Tights- Penneys/Primark

Beret- eBay

Brooch- Vintage from Etsy

Necklace and Rings- Zara Taylor Hello Sailor Telescope Pendant and Three Brass Rings set

Gloves- Accessorize

Bag- Zara Basic Shopper

Scarf- Ruche Oxford Circus Plaid Scarf (now only $5!)

Nails- No7 Me! Me! Me!

Lips- Chanel Pirate (review coming soon!)

This has pretty much been my uniform over the past three months. Simple dress, warm coat, beret, scarf, gloves and lipstick (of course). I don't think I've ever been more excited about the Summer, I need some sunshine after this 6 month Winter! I just realised while browsing through my Tumblr dashboard the other day that this beret is a similar colour to the one worn by Suzy in Moonrise Kingdom. I was looking for the perfect check scarf since September and finally found this one from Ruche, it was such a good price and their international shipping is very reasonable. I like that it's not the usual red colour, even though I do really like the red ones. I've also been wearing this bag almost non-stop since I bought it in October. 

As you may already know, the past three/four months have been among the most difficult in my life. I've had almost all of my family, my boyfriend and brother in law suffer from varying levels of ongoing illnesses, I lost my grandfather and have had some bad news about the company I work for too. All of these things combined with the atrocious weather (seriously, blizzards in late March?) have resulted in a complete lack of outfit posts and a lack of posts in general. At one stage I was thinking of throwing the towel in and just stopping altogether, but thankfully that didn't last long because I soon realised that blogging, whether it was writing, photographing, reading or emailing my blogger friends, was one thing that was getting me through the tough times and taking my mind off things. Blogging combined with spending time with my family and my closest friends and throwing myself into work have all meant that I have kept positive and stayed focused on the good things, however small they are. 

Thank you for being a part of that.

Tell me how you are, comment or email or whatever, I'd love to hear from you! 

Emma x

Me! Me! Me!

These are what I like to call my Barbie nails. I don't tend to wear pink nails that often but there is something about this colour that brings me back to my childhood and those bright pink boxes I opened at Christmas and Birthdays. 

Me! Me! Me! is one of the No7 Stay Perfect nail colours. These polishes have a large brush which is so easy to use and are opaque enough that you can get away with just a single coat. No7 products are available in Boots in the UK and Ireland and in Target in the US. The nail polishes retail for £6/€9. 

What nail polish have you been wearing recently?

Emma x

Caudalie Skincare

For some reason I rarely talk about skincare here despite it being something that I spend a lot of time researching and using. I wanted to slowly introduce you to my favourite skincare so I thought I would start with one of my most recent discoveries.

If you're an avid reader of beauty blogs you will most definitely have heard of French skincare brand Caudalie. I really like the ethos behind the brand and I love to see a brand that is committed to using natural ingredients. You can read about the vine and grape derived ingredients used by Caudalie on their website. It's a great read for anyone interested in skincare ingredients and what their purpose is in a product. 

I had been reading about their products for a while, the Beauty Elixir being one of the most popular, after being mentioned by Lisa Eldridge in one of her skincare films. They are finally being stocked in selected pharmacies around Ireland now and I was very excited when my mam told me they had started stocking Caudalie products in the local pharmacy in my home town. I picked up a few of the sets after Christmas to try out some more of the products. 

The Divine Oil is another of the best selling Caudalie products. At Christmas they released a gift set including a 50ml bottle of the oil with a 50g Crushed Cabernet Scrub and a mini candle. Divine Oil is a multi-purpose oil that can be used on body, face, hair, cuticles, in a bath etc. It comes beautifully packaged in a glass bottle with a spray nozzle which is one of my favourite features of the packaging. It contains argan, grape seed, hibiscus and sesame oil, shea butter extract, anti-oxidant grape Polyphenols, it's scented with two types of roses, vanilla, cedar, pink pepper and grapefruit. 

It has a rich natural scent and I can imagine it would be amazing to spritz some of this into a bath and just inhale the aroma (sadly I don't have a bath in my apartment so this is but a dream to me!). I've been using this quite sparingly because it is expensive. I've used it on my hair by spraying it into my hands and rubbing them together and then smoothing it through the lengths and ends of my hair where there is still some dryness from when it was coloured. I've used it as a body oil too but I have yet to use it on my face as I haven't needed to.

I love body oils and have used the Palmer's Cocoa Butter Oil for years and years so it's nice to try something a bit different. I will definitely repurchase this but it is something I will save for when my hair and skin really need it because it's too expensive to use every day. 

The scrub smells unbelievable too as does the candle. The scrub contains six anti-cellulite and draining essential oils and leaves my skin soft and smooth but still really moisturised due to the oils. The scrub retails at €26.88 for 150g and the oil is €33.75 for 100mls. 

The Lip Conditioner and Hand and Nail Cream came in a little gift set too. It took me a few uses to really love these. I adore the lightly vanilla scented Lip Conditioner, it's so handy for keeping in my bag now that my NUXE stick lip balm has run out. It has 99.5% natural ingredients, it repairs damaged lips so it's great for when my lips are feeling dry and it's also anti-ageing so it's an all round winner for me. The hand and nail cream is perfect, apart from the scent which I am just not crazy about, it's a bit too sweet for me but nothing that would stop me from repurchasing it. This is again a nourishing and anti-aging hand cream with grapeseed, orange pulp, shea butter and grape oil. The lip conditioner is €6.88 for 4g and the hand cream is €15 for 75mls. 

The Beauty Elixir is a product people seem to either really love or really dislike. I am definitely one of the former, although it did take me a while to fall in love. This is the first Caudalie product I tried and after using it for the past year I honestly don't ever want to be without it. When I first tried it the scent caught me by surprise. It contains grape, orange blossom, rose, balm mint and rosemary and if you can imagine all of those scents together that is really what is smells like. It's very invigorating and calming and it is the perfect finish to my cleansing routine. It's also great to spray on during the day for a pick me up or to set or refresh make up. Caudalie say that it is a treatment that smooths away fine lines, tightens the pores and gives the complexion a boost of radiance and I completely agree.

I try not to use this every single day because I don't want my skin to get used to it, but if my skin feels dull or I'm having a bad skin week I will use this to brighten it up. It comes in a gorgeous little glass bottle and is €14.38 for the 30ml and €40 for the 100ml. Feel Unique are doing 10% off all of these products at the moment and they can generally be found cheaper in pharmacies. 

I've also tried the Instant Foaming Cleanser and the Shower Gels which I have loved. If you're looking for some great quality skincare, I can't recommend this brand highly enough. I will definitely be trying out more products and repurchasing the ones I have. 

What skincare brands do you swear by?

Emma x

Five TV Shows...

...I've been watching recently.

The Walking Dead

I liked the first season, I didn't love it but I thought there was a lot of potential. I was completely let down by the second season, it was just boring. The third season however has been amazing! It is filling the tension gap until Breaking Bad returns later in the year. It has had me gasping and watching through my fingers on many occasions this season. I also love watching Talking Dead afterwards and seeing interviews with celebrity fans of the show and cast and crew members. Daryl has to be my favourite character, isn't he every girls favourite?

Dawson's Creek

Where do I start? My love affair with the Creek started many years ago. I watched DC when it was first on Irish tv and it's remained one of my all time favourite TV shows since. I think this is my first time properly re-watching it from the beginning and I'm about to start the third season which is my favourite (fans of Pacey Witter will know why). If you preferred Dawson to Pacey (like my friend Simon) I don't want to hear about it! ;)

Girls

I started watching Girls before all the hype/controversy on a whim. Donnacha and I have found it very hit and miss and it's hard to pinpoint why. One thing I noticed and Donnacha agreed was that all of the female characters on the show are stereotyped to a certain degree whereas the male characters aren't and that bugs me. I like Adam and Ray best and I don't have any major issues with the other characters except I cannot get over why Zosia Mamet's character talks like something out of an Amy Poehler sketch on SNL. I don't love it or find it as amazing as people are making it out to be but there is something that keeps drawing me back every week.

 

Enlightened

Enlightened. I cannot recommend this show highly enough. It's on HBO as well as Girls and if you had to pick one to watch, this is the winner by far. Although it's just finished it's second and possibly final season it just blew me away. I am a huge Laura Dern fan so when I saw she was in this I immediately wanted to see it. It's written/created by and stars both Laura Dern and Mike White (who also wrote some Dawson's Creek, some Freaks and Geeks, Dead Man on Campus, School of Rock and The Good Girl etc.). Luke Wilson, Diane ladd (Laura Dern's real life mother), Timm Sharp (Marshall from Undeclared), and Dermot Mulroney are all in it too as well as lots of other familiar faces. That's all I'm going to say because I would love you all to watch it. Two stand out episodes are the ones centred on Diane Ladd's character and Luke Wilson's character. It's the most unique and original television I have seen in a very long time. 

Home Movies

Donnacha and I have been re-watching this in the evenings. It is the cutest/weirdest show about Brendon Small and his friends Melissa and Jason and the movies they make together. Jon Benjamin of Archer and Bob's Burger's fame (one of it's creators Loren Bouchard also created Bob's Burgers) does a few of the voices. It's seriously hilarious. Jason and Coach McGuirk are my favourite main characters but I also love the weirdos Walter and Perry. This won't be for everyone but the subtle humour is amazing. 

Have you seen any of these shows? What do you think of them? What are you watching at the moment? Do you have any recommendations?

Check out my last Five post here.

Emma x

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Smoked Peach

I've wanted Revlon's Super Lustrous Matte lipstick in Smoked Peach for ages and was always put off buying it thinking it might not suit me, but I've been really loving paler lips over the past few months and I was looking for something along the vein of a '60s lipstick but that would be really nice for Spring. I got this for half price with a Revlon promotion and I've been wearing it almost non-stop since. I'm expanding my make up boundaries!

Other Make Up:

Benefit High Beam Liquid Highlighter

Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in Fair

Essence Liquid Ink Eyeliner

Estée Lauder Double Wear Light in Intensity 1

MAC Well Dressed Blush
Natural Collection LashCare Clear Mascara

No7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in Translucent

Revlon Photoready 3D Volume Mascara
Revlon Rich Sable eyeshadow (brows)
Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin and eyeshadow in Sin

I think I must have been subconsciously influenced by all the recent Hitchcock biopics because this really reminds me of Tippi Hedren's lipstick in The Birds, although I think I'll skip the blue eye shadow for now.

This is my seventh Revlon matte lipstick, but the first I've reviewed here. I love the Revlon matte range. They are among my most worn lipsticks because they feel really comfortable on the lips once I've prepped with some lip balm and they have great staying power too. The colour range is not as extensive as some of the other Revlon lip products but there are some really gorgeous colours, some of my other favourites are Wine Not, Really Red and the sadly discontinued Strawberry Suede. I might actually do a post on all the matte shades I have, if anyone would be interested?

What are your favourite products for Spring?

Emma x

Let's Never Come Here Again Because It Would Never Be As Much Fun

Lost in Translation blew me away the first time I saw it. When I was thinking about this post I realised it is now ten years old which means I saw it when I was 16. I honestly couldn't get over the fact that it's ten years old. I saw it with my friend from school one afternoon back in 2003 when I was in fourth year and we were meant to be at a college open day. I can't remember if we went or not and then saw the film after, but watching the film it's one of those amazing cinematic moments that I can just remember so clearly.

I think what made me fall in love with the film was that despite no real similarities to the lives of Bob and Charlotte, I could relate to how they were feeling, both at a crossroads/crisis in their lives where they didn't know what do to next, or where they stood in their lives, in regards to their respective careers and relationships. I was having trouble in school at the time and was having a bad year with friends who had abandoned me and teachers who didn't know whether to treat me like a child or an adult. I was deciding what I wanted to do in college and with my life really and for those reasons the film resonated with me. 

It's my favourite performance by both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson and my favourite Sofia Coppola film. I love the look of the film, the colours, how it looks like a series of postcards from Tokyo (apparently Sofia Coppola actually based a lot of the shots on photos taken in Tokyo). I was reminded of Lost in Translation when I watched Drive for the first time and how there isn't that much dialogue but the actors demonstrate the character's growing relationship through body language and facial expressions. There is something about those kinds of relationships in films that I just adore. 

Just look at Bill Murray's face in some of the shots, he is such an underrated actor. I love this performance.

It was difficult to choose my favourite shots from this film because honestly I love the whole thing. If I was to ever to have made a film, I would have wanted it to be Lost in Translation, more than any other film I love. 

Have you seen Lost in Translation? Do you like it? What films did you relate to in your teenage years?

If you liked this post, you can read my first two on Wizard of Oz and Gattaca. 

Emma x