The Video Post | Yankee Candle Collection

I'm back into making videos - yay! I love making videos so I'm so excited to be back into doing these. I decided to do my first video on my latest obsession - Yankee Candles. I take you through my current collection and my views on each yummy scent. Let me know if you'd like to see more home-type videos and content and I'd love to do some for you! Click here to view the video and don't forget to subscribe and give it a thumbs up!

What are your favourite Yankee Candle scents?

The Beauty Post | SEVENTEEN Gel Colour

I do love a little drug store magical purchase. I bought one of these to go in a Christmas game and ended up winning it myself. After trying it out I was utterly amazing at the quality of this budget product, so I went out and got two more colours...

Let me introduce SEVENTEEN Gel Colour's in (t-b) Backcurrent Bomb, Mocha-tini and Azure Amore. At just £3.99 each (or 2 for £6 in Boots as we speak) these little gel colours are, I think, the best drug store gel formulations I've tried so far. They have wide brushes which make it 10x easier to apply. they dry quickly. and the colours are instantly opaque so you only really need two coats (and your trusty top coat). I've had many compliments about how shiny my nails are and also how long lasting these are. They tend to last for about 10 days before you see any significant wear and tear which is incredible to me.

I adore these. I'm finding it hard to pick a favourite colour - Backcurrent Bomb is perfect for our current winter weather, however Azure Amore instantly cheers me up when I'm wearing it. There is quite a wide range of colours to choose from with these - ranging from the autumn/winter to spring/summer spectrum. I'm highly impressed and SEVENTEEN are crawling up my list of favourite drug store brands...

What's your favourite drug store gel formula?

The Health Post | Top 3 Fruit Smoothies

As you know I recently bought myself a new blender to help create some homemade smoothies to help with me new healthy eating resolution. I've tried a fed different fruity ones (sans banana) and have come up with my top 3 (wahoo). I have to admit - all of which are very berry based as I am a bit fussy about my fruit...

When I say cup, I basically mean a standard mug size and that fits in these glasses perfectly. I think it's  US book I was using as inspiration so I think that's why it was all in cups? I basically had a play with different ones and different fruits and ended up with these as my favourites. They are supposed to be "All-Day Fat Burning Smoothies" so they can't be bad!

Let me know if you try any of these - tweet me or instagram (@topazandmay) as I'd love to see what you think!

What smoothies should I try next?

The Beauty Post | Pamper Box

January is a bit ridiculous for birthdays for me. It's two of my best friends birthdays 4 days apart - so thanks guys, very considerate to my bank balance! Luckily we usually have budgets so it's not too bad and this year we seemed to team up on pressies. They got me a beaut butterfly Pandora ring for my birthday in November. For one of them, Amber, we decided to create a pamper box for her. She's recently moved into a house that needs a looooot of work doing to it and every hour she isn't working her and her partner are usually doing something house related. So we decided she needed a good excuse to just relaaaaax and what better way to do that then with a pamper box! It's such a good idea and so easy to put together. We had a total budget of £40 and here's what we put in the box...

Firstly let's all oooooh over this gorgeous box - i found it for 75p in Tesco - BARGAIN! Now let's get to the good stuff...

1. Yankee Candle: Amber Moon Small Jar

Although not quite as obsessed as me yet she is getting into her candles and no pamper evening is complete without one. We couldn't not get her this one as it has her name right there - AMBER moon! It's a lovely winter fragrance and I'm actually quite tempted to get myself one.

2. Lush Bubblegum Lip Scrub

She's always balming her lips or looking after them in some way and I know she's coveted these lip scrubs for a while. Bubblegum is my favourite but I did send a sneaky text asking for her advice on flavours and she said this one so - she got this one!

3. Lush Twilight Bath Bomb

I've falled head over heels for bath bombs at the moment, and if anyone knows how to do them well it's Lush! I love the design of this one, it's so cute and not only that but Ambs has always been a lover of purple - so what better bomb to get her than one that turns your bath purple?

4. Lush Strawberry Feels Forever Massage Bar

I've never actually tried one of these before but I LOVE the idea of one of these and this strawberry one is incredibly cute and oh my god it smells bloody amazing.

5. Bourjois Magic Nail Polish Removed

Every girl should own one of these. She was fascinated with my one of these when I first got it so we decided to pop on in. Not entierly sure if she already has one or not BUT you can always do with a spare!

6. Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

She does like doing her nails but with all girls, hates how long they take to dry. Voila! I've spoken to her about the magic of this before but she refused to pay £9 for it (fair enough) so we got it for her, it's utter magic, I promise.

7. Soap & Glory Hand Food

As long as I can remember she's loved Hand Food so a handbag sized version was always going to go down well.

8. Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Buttercream

This is my personal favourite S&G fragrance - and my absolute favourite body cream. She's smelt it before and loved it and I cannot recommend this stuff enough. This is a 50ml version so a mini size but good to test to see if you like it.

9. Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Wash

I really hope she does like the scent of this stuff now... Teamed with the buttercream they do make the perfect body duo.

I now feel like we should have gotten something else to make it an even 10... Hmm. Oh well :( She seemed to love this box and I think it's such a nice idea as well. I'd love a little pamper box for a gift.

What would you put in your pamper box?

The Style Post | Shorts in Winter... Of Course!

Jumper: Topshop | Shorts: ASOS | Necklace: Accessorize | Boots: Topshop

I honestly forgot how hard it is to actually take good outfit photos... Especially with a boyfriend who doesn't particularly want to be doing it. But hey! I wore this outfit on Sunday when it was a bit chilly but I'm in a complete and utter avoid jeans if I can head space at the moment. Saying that, my new outfit post will most likely end up including jeans...

Anyway - this is definitely a "Oh, tree in my garden - let's pose awkwardly by you" post. Saying that, I do like the tree though. I got this jumper in the Topshop Black Friday sale and I've worn it sooo much since. It's pretty much been attached. It's so comfortable and goes with pretty much everything. I love the detailing on the shoulders which take it from boring to something special. The shorts I got last year for summer and I still love them. I've styled them for summer here but I wanted to give them a wintery feel as well. 

Now for the little details. The necklace is a hefter from Accessorize and I adore it. I bought it with some birthday vouchers and it's turned into my most worn necklace of all time probably. It's quite heavy but it makes any outfit look incredible. Now the shoes. Sign, I love the shoes. These are brand new from the Topshop sale and I haven't really taken them off my feet since I bought them. So comfortable and I love the buckle detail.

How would you style shorts this winter?

The Health Post | Duronic Sports Blender

This is my year for getting really healthy and one way I'd like to do that is to have a smoothie a day - home made, of course. To do that I needed a smoothie maker. I scoured the internet for one and was a touch overwhelmed by choice, but then I came upon this one on Amazon for £15. 

One thing I liked about this one is that it comes with two travel cups, both of which you use to put onto the blender so your drink blends inside the cup - minimising washing (always a fan of minimising washing). The travel aspect was really important for me as I wanted to be able to take one to work with me every day and not have it spill all over the inside of my bag.

This is so incredibly easy to use as well. I was worried that at only £15 it would be a case of cheap tat, but it's very robust - the blades haven't faltered once - and again, super easy. Just put your fruit or whatever you choose in the cup. Put on the lid (with the blades) and put on, turn on and voila. You can also push down to increase the liquid consistency. 

I actually couldn't champion this enough. It's really encouraged me to make a smoothie everyday since I've had it and they reduce the fruit enough so I'm not gagging on bits and pieces. It's perfect for me and I couldn't be happier with it.

I found it here on Amazon in case you'd like to know more or read more reviews. I will be doing a post soon with my five favourite smoothies to make as well so if there's any you'd like me to try just pop them in the comments below!

What smoothies would you recommend for me to try?

The Beauty Post | Commuting Defenses

Commuting in winter is one of the worst things I've ever put my skin through, it's not great. However, two parts of my body really stand out when it comes to dryness at the moment and that would be my hands and my lips. My hands are usually okay but at the moment they are so ridiculously dry I needed to combat it. My lips are usually bad all year around, but this winter they seem to be worse then ever - so much so that my lipstick obsession has had to take a back seat. 

For Christmas "Santa" very kindly put a little Body Shop set in my stocking which had two skin-saving products inside. One's that I would now find incredibly hard to live without. But you know one of the best things? They are an adorable handbag friendly side - on the go defences indeed!

Strawberry Hand Cream

I usually hate handcreams due to the greasy left over residue and the fact that I usually can't touch anything for a good few minutes after application, however this one is so light it absorbs pretty much instantly. I can continue working without any problems and the fragrance is subtle enough to go undetected. 

I think this may be a relatively new addition as I've wanted to try their handcreams before but have been put off by the options so I'm so glad they've released a Lisa-friend fragranced one.

Strawberry Lip Butter

Now I'm not a lip balm person, especially ones where I have to use my finger to apply it. Hmm, not my thing. However, this one is so light it doesn't leave a residue on your fingers and is so nourishing it's really surprised me. It does leave a slight tint on the lips which looks very natural, it just makes them look a lot healthier. It's taken me a few days to see a big difference but I'm definitely seeing one.

I am very pleasantly surprised by these products, I wasn't expecting to love them quite as much as I do. I do think £4 for a lip balm is a touch pricey but it does really work so I'd be happy to repurchase. 

What products are saving your dry skin this January?

The Life Post | My 2015

Happy new year everyone - welcome to 2015!! 2014 was such a busy and rollercoaster year for me, I'm a little sorry to send the end part of it go - however I am excited for 2015. Last year came with so much pressure in terms of finding a new job and moving out etc and now that's all done it really feels like 2015 can really be a bit of a relaxing year. This just so happens to be my main resolution...

Last year was SO serious, my emotions were all over the place all the time, I was stressed and it just wasn't a fun few months to begin with. So this year my resolution is to just relax and have fun. Enjoy my year! Nothing huge or big is scheduled to happen this year so it's nice to know we have twelve months to really enjoy that fact that we've started our new life together, we can focus on us. That being said I do have a couple of things in mind...

1. Redecorating

Now we've moved in we are planning to decorate... We're so lucky that our house is all white and basically a blank canvas so we can literally do what we want with it. We know what we wanna do in a round about way so that will all be starting very soon and also comes with a new kitchen... nice!

2. 3 Peaks Challenge

In May I am going to be taking part in the 3 peaks challenge for The Princes Trust. I've never done anything like this before but it means training - which will mean improving my fitness which I can't wait to do. I think it will also be the most amazing experience as well. If you fancy donating (cheeky plug) click here and I'll be incredibly grateful!

3. Back into Blogging

Yeah, so I neglected poor little T&M in the last half of last year as I'm sure you're all aware so it's my big mission to get back into it this year, really start to enjoy it again and really find an identity for T&M. If there's anything you've ever really loved about my blog I'd love to know as I will definitely love to do more of what you guys enjoy seeing. I also really enjoy doing videos, however bad I may be at them, so I want to get really into YouTube this year as well!

4. Health and Fitness

Over the past few years this hasn't really been a priority for me and because of this my confidence in terms of appearance has really fallen. This is something I really want to rectify this year and get back into a head space, and health space, of liking how I look again. If you guys can recommend any health blogs/vlogs etc I'd appreciate it!

5. Friendships

I'm one of those people that has a very small group of incredibly close friends as opposed to someone who has loads of different friends. Nothing wrong with the later of course, but where the past couple of years have been so intense and busy I've not been able to commit to some friendships as much as I'd like to... This year is one where I hope to rectify some of that and definitely make up for this.

I guess they aren't really resolutions, just some lifestyle adjustments really! I am really looking forward to this year and to really get stuck into it. If you want to see my progression with fitness and health, or even more to do with the 3 peaks just let me know and I'll do what I can!

I'd love to hear your 2015 resolutions... Pop some below!
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