Win Tickets to the Ultimate Girls Day Out 2014

It's back and bigger than ever, the Ultimate Girls Day Out returns to the RDS from 22nd-24th of August. Brought to you by Irish Tatler, U Magazine and Woman's Way this year will feature the Gillette Venus Catwalk with a variety of fashion shows styled by Catherine Condell one of Ireland's leading stylists. No7 is the official makeup sponsor for this year's event creating the looks for the catwalk shows and there will also be a makeup masterclass on the main stage each day. 

Other highlights include Irish Tatler Model Search in association with 1st Option Models, the Smart Girls Zone where you can get career guidance from top businesswomen or chat to top Irish authors and the Samsung Zone which will have their own unique selfie area with prizes for the best selfie, a fitness zone and lots of great giveaways. 

There will be massive discounts on well-known high-street brands and competitions throughout the weekends including Best Dressed. The first 1000 people through the door each day will receive a goodie bag filled with discounts, freebies and lots more surprises!

I have two sets of tickets to give away so to be in with the chance of winning, tell me in a comment what your Ultimate Girls Day Out would be.

I will choose two winners next Tuesday so don't forget to leave your contact details so I can get in touch.

You can find out more on the Ultimate Girls Day Out site and Facebook page. Don't forget to follow them on Twitter too!

Emma x

PS. I'll be taking part in the No7 makeup masterclass on the main stage so please pop by and have a look!

Berocca and Havaiana Giveaway

I've been run down for the past couple of days, feeling tired, coughing, sore throat and headaches. I'm definitely in need of a boost of vitamins and I figured some of you might be feeling the same as me as it seems to be going around. Berocca are giving my readers the chance to win €100 worth of Berocca products and a pair of Havaiana flip flops!

Berocca Performance is specifically designed to improve physical and mental performance. It's clinically proven, winning combination of high dosage levels of B and C vitamins and other essential minerals, zinc and magnesium work together to ensure you are at your best all day long. 

Containing Guarana, a natural energiser with a fast onset of action, Berocca Boost provides a fast effective energy boost. It works in synergy with a combination of B vitamins and minerals to create a potent, clinically proven formulation that quickly increases reaction speed and accuracy while decreasing tiredness.

If you would like to be in with a chance of winning, answer the following question in a comment and leave your contact details. The competition will close next Friday July 25th at midnight GMT. Unfortunately this offer is only open to Irish readers. 

In which country was the FIFA 2014 World Cup held?

Emma x

WaterWipes- Review and Giveaway

For today's post I've partnered with WaterWipes Sensitive Facial Wipes to bring you an exciting giveaway where you could win a three month supply of the wipes. First off let's talk about the wipes and what makes them different from every other brand of face wipes. 

I have a confession to make- I don't hate face wipes. Most skincare experts will tell you to stay away from them and that they are bad for your skin and I do agree with that if all you are using is a face wipe. I like them to remove my make up as I always like to take all my make up off and then use a cleanser. I used to use face wipes all the time as it was the easiest way of taking off my face make up however for the past couple of years I converted to a make up remover and cotton wool. 

What got me excited about WaterWipes is that they are made by an Irish company, Irish Breeze and I always like to try out Irish made products and support Irish companies when I can. Secondly their main attraction is that they claim to be 'The World's Purest Wet Wipe'. Looking at the ingredients list on the back, I can see that it's completely true, there are only three ingredients in WaterWipes: 99.9% Purified Water which is done through a mechanical process rather than chemically; Grapefruit Seed Extract, which is a natural biocide that keeps the wipes fresh and Dead Sea Minerals, that are a natural moisturiser. The fact that they are fragrance free and contain only natural ingredients make them perfect for anyone with sensitive skin or skin conditions. 

As they are a water based product, I find them best at removing water-based make up. If you use waterproof mascara or long lasting foundations or concealers you may need to put some make up remover onto the wipes and use them as a substitute for cotton wool which is what I've been doing when I'm wearing something like Estée Lauder Double Wear Light foundation and I find it's a great way of keeping my skin from feeling too dry. They are also textured as you can see below which I find helps to remove make up and is slightly exfoliating. 

WaterWipes are available at the very reasonable price of €3.49 in Boots, Tesco, Dunnes Stores and plenty of other retailers and pharmacies. You can find your nearest stockists on their website. 

If you're interested in trying out WaterWipes, the lovely people at Irish Breeze are offering 12 packs (a three month supply) for me to give away to one lucky person. Unfortunately this giveaway is only open to residents of the Republic of Ireland. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Emma x

Win an ASOS Voucher

The generous people at Appliances Online have offered me the chance to give you all the opportunity to win a £40 voucher to spend on one of my favourite online stores ASOS. The competition is open internationally and will run for the next 8 days so check back then to see if you have won. Enter using the widget below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Emma x

Firmoo Giveaway

Today I have a giveaway for you from Firmoo. They are kindly giving me 25 vouchers worth $20 each and all you have to do to enter is Like their Facebook page and leave a comment below telling me your favourite style of eye-wear or sunglasses.

 

You can fin the above sunglasses here and the below ones here.

You could put the vouchers towards some sunglasses as a Christmas gift or just as a gift for yourself or on a new pair of glasses! 

The giveaway will be close at midnight GMT next Thursday the 29th as I want to give you plenty of time to order before Christmas. It is also open internationally. Don't forget to leave me a way of contacting you if you win. I will be choosing 25 people at random and announcing the winners here on my Facebook and by email. 

If you want to find out more about my thoughts on Firmoo, you can read my previous posts here and here. 

I look forward to reading your answers!

Emma x

Being Sick Is The Worst

Hi friends!

You may or may not have wondered where I was this past week and a half. I certainly have! I've been cultivating a rather nasty throat infection since the beginning of last week and I've spent the past 48 hours in bed/on the couch wallowing and feeling very sorry for myself. I should have gone to the doctor on Friday but it wasn't bad enough and of course it got worse and now I have to wait until tomorrow morning to make and appointment and got those sweet antibiotics! 

Donnacha has been the best and has been making me yoghurt and ice cream and lemsip and mushed up fruit anything cooling or with painkillers or that a baby would eat. I've also been watching a lot of Friends and my new favourite cartoon!

Source

Seriously if you haven't already seen Adventure Time, give it a try. It's the cutest/weirdest/funniest cartoon ever. It's the perfect show for parents to watch with their kids, or just 20 somethings to watch with their friends! It's cheered me up a lot. 

We also watched the 1972 film What's Up Doc? with Barbra Steisand and Ryan O'Neal. I used to watch it with my mam when I was a kid and it's still such a funny film. 

So I thought I would give away a Boots 17 Wild Curls mascara as reviewed here because it seemed a lot of you really liked the look of it and I don't think it's available outside of Ireland and the UK and knowing how frustrating it can be to order something from a different country (I'll explain soon) I wanted to send one to one of you lovely ladies as a nice little treat.

Because I'm feeling sorry for myself all you have to do to enter if you want to is leave a comment telling me what you do to cheer yourself up when your sick or a suggestion of something for me to do or a film to watch or whatever you can think of. Also leave me a way of contacting you if you don't have an email address on your profile. I'll leave it open until July 15th midnight GMT and I'll notify the winner by email and in a post. Anyone, anywhere can enter! Oh and if you don't want to enter but just want to leave a comment you can do that too! 

I look forward to reading your suggestions and hope you are all feeling much better than I am!

Emma x

Phoenix Park

The second day our friends were here we went to Phoenix Park in the north-west of the city. It is one of the largest enclosed city parks in Europe. It also contains the residence of the President and the US Ambassador as well as lots of deer and Dublin Zoo AND I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers play there with Pixies in 2004!

We walked around and saw the Wellington Monument, the Papal Cross (where the Pope gave an open air sermon in 1979), and the Magazine Fort (I have no idea what  a magazine fort is, all I know is it was built in the 1700s ).

The Wellington Monument which is 62 metres tall

Draping 

The Magazine Fort

The black container in the photos above contained a Geocache list, we added our initials D-Lakes

The Papal Cross

Donnacha couldn't resist rolling down the hill

Ice Cream Van!

99s!

I had a lot of fun exploring Phoenix Park, to be honest I've never really walked around it before (except the zoo which isn't great). 

I hope you enjoyed my tour of this little (big) part of Dublin.

********The giveaway winners are Amber and Lucy as chosen from my trusty hat!********

Please check out their blogs if you get a chance as they are both the loveliest of girls! I will contact you both soon. I'll also be doing another giveaway next month!

How is your week going?

Emma x

Soft Hands and A Giveaway

I love hand creams, especially when you find one that really works, smells amazing and doesn't feel greasy. I've amassed quite a collection of various brands and sizes of hand creams since over the past year, as gifts or ones I've repurchased again and again. Read on for my thoughts on the five pictured below!

Burt's Bees Thoroughly Therapeutic Honey and Grapeseed Oil Hand Cream, 75ml, £9.99 

It contains jojoba, cupuacu and macadamia butters, antioxidant-rich grape seed and sunflower oils. (I looked up Cupuacu, which is a tropical rainforest tree related to cacao). I'm always interested in what ingredients are used for certain products (eg. exfoliators, facial cleansers etc.) There seems to be a pattern with certain ingredients. I got this as part of a set because I wanted to try out some more Burt's Bees products because in general I love their stuff. I'm not a huge fan of the scent of this, I love honey scented products so I'm blaming it on the Grapeseed oil (I looked this up too, it's a carrier oil which means it is used to dilute other oils and is used in cosmetics for the control of skin moisturisation. Grape seeds themselves contain anti-oxidants). The formulation is a bit too rich for me, it can be greasy, although I put it on at night so that the greasiness doesn't affect me. I wouldn't put it on during the day. That being said it definitely makes a difference to my hands, it's very moisturising and makes my hands very soft the next morning. 

Laura Mercier Creme de Pistache  Hand Creme, 50ml, €19

This also contains Grape oil as well as Olive Oil, soy proteins which are rich in amino acids and help in the repair process. The Crème de Pistache fragrance captures the essence of creamy pistachio nuts, almond, praline and hazelnut with freshly whipped cream. This scent is my absolute favourite. I can't get enough of it. Having said that I know it is probably not for everyone. At €19 for 50mls it is the most expensive of the five, but it makes a great present (my family know it's one of my favourites) or if you feel like treating yourself. This also comes in a body wash, scrub, lotion and eau de toilette (which I am dying to get!) You really get what you pay for here, I love the formula of this, it's not greasy, it sinks into the skin easliy and really moisturises your hands.

Clarins Hand and Nail Treatment Cream, 100ml, €19

Clarins has been a long time favourite brand of mine. It started with me "borrowing" my mother's Clarins products. She has been a fan for years and uses their cleanser, toner and serums as often as she can. They are one of those brands that just make the most quality products and at prices that are not completely extortionate. I've had this hand cream at different stages over the years, this particular tube was given to me as a gift for my birthday last year so it really does last a long time and I think €19 for 100mls is pretty good for one of the best hand creams on the market. This seems to be a bit of a secret in that it's been around for ages but never really gets talked about, well that I've seen anyway. It contains sesame oil and Japanese mulberry which are supposed to form a protective "glove" around the hands to shield from the elements, it also reduces the signs of aging AND strengthens nails and conditions cuticles. What more could you ask for? It's just a damn good hand cream! Oh and it smells really natural and Clarinsy (if you've ever used Beauty Flash balm you'll know what I mean). 

L'Occitane Cooling Hand Cream Gel, 75ml, €19.95

L'Occitane products are a recent enough discovery for me. I got a free hand cream in a magazine and ever since I've been hooked. I love their Honey hand cream, the Lavender and the plain ole Shea Butter. This cooling hand cream gel with Organic Verbena extract (what the heck is that you might ask?!) It comes from a flowering plant in Corsica apparently. All I know is it smells citrusy and I love that! It's supposed to refresh hands by leaving a powdery finish on them and reduces feelings of moisture and swelling. Personally I don't find this moisturising enough for me but I suppose that's the point. I'd imagine it would feel very refreshing for someone who works intricately with their hands or perhaps suffers from joint pain or arthritis. I highly rate L'Occitane hand creams in general, but this isn't for my particular hand needs.

Soap and Glory Hand Food, 50ml €3

This is by far the best "drugstore" hand cream. At €3 for 50ml it's six times less expensive than the Laura Mercier one and to be honest is just as good. I absolutely love how this smells, it has that Soap and Glory 'Original Pink' scent which according to them has orange leaf, lemon, peach, sweet strawberries, summer rose, gardenia blooms and jasmine. Wow! It contains shea butter, macadamia oil and marshmallow. Yes, marshmallow! It comes in a 125ml tube too, but I like the 50ml because it's the perfect handbag size. 

So there you have it! My opinions on some of my favourite hand creams. Click the links above to find out more on the brands websites. 

What hand cream are you using at the moment? Do you have any suggestions for me to try?

Now for the fun bit, I'm going to giveaway two of the 50ml Soap and Glory hand creams! So there will be two winners who will receive one tube each. To enter just leave me a comment and tell me what your favourite scent is ( I'm so nosey about these things) and an email address ( if you don't have a blogger profile/blog) for me to contact you if you win!

The giveaway will close at 12am GMT on Tuesday the 17th.  *** Open Internationally too!***

Hope you're all having a great week so far!

Emma x

A Personalised Giveaway

Well that was fast! I didn't expect to reach 99 followers so soon but now that I have I'm excited to share with you a special giveaway as a thank you to my readers for their constant support and friendship. 

I'm not doing this in any way to gain more followers, to be honest I'm quite happy with the relationships I've formed with the small number of loyal readers who are so generous with their kind and thoughtful comments. I look forward to interacting with you and it's what makes this a great hobby to have. 

I greatly and sincerely appreciate my friendships with you guys and the idea of this giveaway is to get to know you a bit better and to say a huge thank you for sticking with me!

The prize, if you want to call it that, will be a personalised package of things that are specific to the winner. I will email the winner upon their name being chosen out of a hat and ask several questions (I'll need a bit more detail for more recent readers who I maybe don't know as well) and I will be sending you a little thank you present based on the answers you give me. 

To enter all you have to do is leave me a comment telling me something about yourself that I probably don't already know, it can be anything you want! AND please leave me a way of contacting you if you don't have a blog on your profile page. 

It's open to international readers and I'll close the entries in a week's time on the 26th. I will notify the winner via their blog/email and announce it here next Friday the 27th. I'll also let you all know what the present is once I know the winner has received it for anyone who might be curious ( I know I would be).

So that's it. I wish I could get you all a thank you present but unfortunately my bank balance doesn't  agree. This is my way of showing you all my appreciation. 

Hope you have a great Thursday,

Emma x

Love Like a Sunset

This day two weeks will be Christmas day! This month is going by so fast, I'm finding it hard to keep up with the time. This week in work we really noticed the shop getting busier. I think everyone went crazy from being snowed in and decided to make up for lost time Christmas shopping this week. We were also supposed to have a visit from head office on Thursday (that never happened in the end) and our managers were going crazy trying to make the place look perfect for inspection and all the little things that normally go unnoticed by management suddenly become a huge deal and they run around the shop like a hurricane destroying everyone in their path. One of my co-workers and I got blamed for things that were completely not our fault and instead of ratting out the person to blame we kept our mouths shut and just fixed the problem ourselves.

I got so mad at my manager for being so horrible to us especially because we had been working so hard for days trying to get an entire section of the shop changed over ourselves and it looked really well in the end . She didn't even say well done or thank you. She just picked on us for something neither of us did and wasn't even that big of a deal. It's so frustrating working hard on something and getting no thanks, she is so rude and such a nasty person for no apparent reason it's just so hard to even look at her anymore. I just have to be thankful that all my other co-workers are so nice and remind myself that she's just a bitter woman who likes to make everyone else feel inferior to her and she should be pitied more than anything. Sorry about that rant! I just had to vent. I'm sure you've all experienced working with someone similar at some stage. I have to keep reminding myself to take the high road and not lower myself to her level, it's the harder thing to do but if it means I don't become a bitter person like her then it's worth it!

We went to see the new Sofia Coppola film Somewhere in the cinema today. I'm a big fan of hers even though I wasn't mad about Marie Antionette (which I've been meaning to watch again because I haven't seen it since it was in the cinema) but I love The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation is one of my all time favourite films, I've seen it so many times, I love it! I wasn't disappointed with Somewhere and even though it's slow moving, something that can either make or break a film for me because I have such a short attention span, I found that I was never bored and couldn't look away from the screen. What I love about Sofia is that she's not afraid to try something different (and her soundtracks are always awesome!)

Here is what I wore to the cinema today. It feels like ages since I've posted outfit photos!

Do you like the big pile of ice that I'm standing in front of in the first photo? And the white reindeer made of wires and lights?

I got the red trenchcoat last year in work, the purple beret is from accessorize, I bought the scarf from a market in Florence when I was there with my family in January of 2006, almost 5 years ago! That's how long it's been since I've left the country! The mink gloves are from Dunnes, my boots are Clarks and my bag is an early Christmas present from my mam from Marks and Spencers Limited Collection, it was the last one left and I kept looking at it every time we went in to M&S so she got it for me as part of my Christmas present. Thank you mammy!

I was thinking a lot this week about what to do with my hair. I hated my roots but couldn't afford to go back to the hairdressers again so soon. I also wasn't ready to go back to my natural colour yet so I decided to go for a home dye job to tide me over until I decide to commit to red or go back to brown. To be honest I'll probably have to go back to brown because I can't really afford to get my hair done as often as it needs to be done in the salon and I can't justify spending that much money dying my hair when I do like my natural colour. I'll keep you posted on what I decide to do, but I'm happy with the way it is for now with no roots!

So my giveaway closed last night and with only 7 entires (one of which was my sister who decided it wasn't fair to be included and opted out) so there was only really 6 entries. I wrote all the names down and they went into my birthday hat and I asked Donnacha to pick out the winner for me.

And the winner is...

Congratulations Róisín! Your package will be sent to you this week!

I'll be going to a fundraiser on Tuesday night for Donnacha's two feature films. He's asked me to do the costumes for them, so wish me luck with that!

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Here's one of the songs from the soundtrack to Somewhere by one of my favourite bands;

Love Em xx

Six Month Anniversary Giveaway- These are a Few of My Favourite Things

*** Giveaway now Closed!***

So I told you at the weekend that I was planning a giveaway soon and that I was trying to think of a reason for it and decided I would do one for no reason at all. Then I remembered it is six months since my first blog post today! I figured that was a very good reason to have a little giveaway.

The giveaway contains:

A Box of Maltesers
Feathery Fake Eyelashes
Maybelline Line Definer Liquid Eye Liner
Benefit 'Wild Card' Full Finish Lipstick
Catrice 'The Devil Wears Red' Nail Lacquer
Accessorize Jewellery Box Heart Pendant


These are some of my favourite beauty products, one of my favourite necklaces and my favourite candy! I have been collecting these things for a while and I finally bought the necklace yesterday which was the last thing on my list. The fake eyelashes and eye liner are because I wear liquid eye liner almost every day to work and the fake eyelashes just give your eyelashes some extra fullness if you're going somewhere special. The lipstick is one of my favourite colours for Winter. I love Benefit products and these full finish lipsticks feel so nice on your lips. The nail lacquer is one of my favourite new brands for nail polish in one of my favourite colours, a dark cherry red. It is a very good quality, inexpensive nail polish in a gorgeous colour for Winter. And of course some maltesers, my favourite chocolate treat, lovely with a glass of cold milk or a hot cup of tea on these cold Winter days!

So there you have it, my anniversary giveaway. If you would like a chance to win these things, here's how;

• Leave a comment telling me about a few of your favourite things- 1. Your favourite beauty product(s), 2. Your favourite film and why it's your favourite and 3. You favourite fictional character (TV, Film, Literature) and why!

• Leave a way for me to contact you, preferably an email address.

The giveaway is open to international readers and non-followers, but please follow if you can! I don't have a huge amount of followers so whoever enters has a very good chance of winning. Heehee!

*EDIT- The giveaway will be open for a week, so it will close at midnight on Friday the 10th and I haven't decided yet whether I'll be using the trusty pulling a name out of a hat method or the more up to date random.org method to find the winner. I will let you know!


Hope you're week was better than mine! I'll tell you about my day of horror in the snow tomorrow. After a week of crazy weather, the ice and snow here are finally starting to melt, but who knows how long it will last!

Hope you have a nice cosy evening,

Emma xx

The First Snow

It's been snowing here very heavily for the past 2 hours and the snow is about 3 inches on the ground. Donnacha was out making a snowman by himself and got help from some drunk people walking home and a car pulled over to take a photo! I took some photos which I will show you tomorrow. As much as I'm not a fan of the cold weather, there is something magical about snow falling. We actually had the first snow of the Winter last night at around 4am aswell as a thunder storm.

This was the park beside St. Patrick's Cathedral today

It has been so cold these past few days but I managed to get some more Christmas shopping done. I'd say I have about a third of it still left to do, and that's all the people who I find very difficult to buy for like my grandparents. I have to admit, I do love Christmas shopping, not the crowds and long queues but getting someone something you know they will love. Oh and wrapping the presents, I love that too!

Today after doing some shopping we went to see Robert Rodriguez's Machete. I love his other films so I was looking forward to this and it was pretty good, not his best but I enjoyed it.

So here are the unedited funny face photos from the other day that I promised you, you'll get to see my goofy side, which if you know me well is a big part of me!

I can be quite the messer when I want to be, just as Donnacha!


So I got my hair done again yesterday. It only took an hour for the semi-permanent colour and blow dry and it cost less than I thought it would so all in all a good experience! It's great to have my colour freshened up and to have the vibrancy put back into it. I probably won't get in done again until the end of January and hopefully then I'll be able to get it lighter (that's if I still want to). Here are some photos just to show you the colour now;

This is a bit darker than the actual colour, it's hard to tell what it's like indoors at night with a flash




The hairdresser blow dryed my hair curly with Morrocan Oil, it smells amazing and makes my hair so shiny!

I told you about Donnacha's dog being sick during the week and unfortunately he had to be put into a permanent sleep last night. Donnacha is just happy that he got to say goodbye and that Snapper isn't in any pain anymore, but it's not going to be the same in his house anymore without him. It's amazing how much an animal can become part of your life.

On a happier note I have been planning a special treat for you guys! I've been collecting some items for my first reader giveaway! I'm very excited, so much so that I was going to wait until I had reached either 50 followers or my 100th post to do it but I couldn't wait. Heehee! I'll tell you all about it soon when I've gotten together the last few items so keep an eye out for the special giveaway post which should be within the week!

Well I hope you're all having a great weekend with less snow and more warmth than mine!

Goodnight,

Em xx