Top 10 heels for Summer.

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I’m so over platforms. So over them. I’ve never been a shoe kind of girl (I know), but this Summer’s offerings have definitely changed that for me – I’ve found myself lusting after tiny little, barely there soles and ankle straps. You can feel every tiny little pebble and ant through the soles, and the ankle straps are well known for making your legs look shorter – not that I care – but they’re so worth it. Here are my top 10 picks for the moment:

shoes1) Missguided contrast black and red heels – £29.99
2) Topshop blue court shoes – £58
3) Daisy Street colour block black, nude and orange sandals – £24.99
4) Miss Selfridge red and gold court shoes – £39
5) Zara block heeled green shoes – £39.99
6) Zara black leather sandals – £39.99
7) H&M elastic ankle strap heels – £29.99
8) Chockers neutral, black and lilac sandals – £25
9) ASOS white snakeskin strappy sandals – £42
10) River Island ‘barely there’ coral sandals – £45

I want all of these. All of them. I’m really struggling to narrow it down, at all. If I HAD to choose, I think I’d go for the black Zara strappy ones because they’re just so classic and delicate; the blue Topshop ones because they’re a welcome change to the usual black; the green Zara ones because they look comfortable as hell; the black and red Missguided ones because I love them and the colour block Daisy Street ones because I don’t have any orange in my wardrobe, yet these make me feel like I’m majorly missing out.

On a slight side note, I bought these beauties today and I haven’t wanted to take them off! £19.99 from New Look if you’re interested (you should be), and they come in nude and red too.

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How to style Boyfriend Jeans.

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Boyfriend jeans. They’re back. But don’t hold up your crucifix yet, they’ve thankfully been given a bit of an update. No longer will you need to walk around looking like this, because they’re so much more modern – and flattering - now. Not that that was hard for designers to do I’m sure, they couldn’t have gotten much worse. I remember my first pair of boyfriend jeans – they were Primark and definitely a size too big – I’d wear them low slung with trainers, a tight t shirt and a big chunky belt (it pains me to admit this).

Anyway, like I said, they’ve been given an update, and as a result of this you can’t wear the same things you used to with them. They’re now a slimmer fit so you can actually see your figure through them rather than being a baggy mess, and they’re high rise enough to prevent any unfortunate builder’s bum from occurring. Potentially most importantly, they’re just that little bit too short – no more dragging on the ground and getting all frayed – so there’s a cheeky little flash of ankle. I know, steady on there …

Right, these are extremely casual, so whether you’re wearing them for day or night you’ll want to dress them up a bit to avoid channeling a scruff vibe.  Unless that’s what you want to go for, of course. The pair I’ve picked out are great for day or night – they’re only £15 from New Look and have a nice amount of distressed detailing, whilst still being slim fit to prevent them from being overly casual (well, ish). For daytime, I suggest pairing these with a relaxed fit top – a great loose fit tee, one of Topshop’s camisoles, that sort of thing. Alternatively try a patterned blouse – I love really unusual prints or watercolour florals at the minute – and tuck it in, with a skinny belt around the waistband of the jeans. Shoes-wise, I’d go for something a little more dressy even for day – so not Converse (as much as I love them with most things). A pretty, unusual pair of pumps (helloooo Charlotte Olympia kitty flats, yes I still love you) or even a pair or heels if you think you can get away with it – stay away from platforms and go for something really simple. As it’s still freezing cold half the time go for a patterned blazer, or an oversized comfy cardigan over the top of whatever else you’re wearing – nobody wants hypothermia now do we? Accessories-wise, go for a beanie if you’re that way inclined (er, I’m not), a bold patterned skinny belt, and some form of chunky jewellery. I am also a little bit in love with this lilac Cambridge Satchel. Slick on some ridiculously bright lipstick and you’re good to go.

For nighttime, you’re going to want to dress it up even more. If you have cracking abs, go for a tight little crop top but know that I will hate you a little bit and be very jealous. I had to feature the Topshop cami again because I just love them, but go for one in a brighter colour for evening. Over the top try a black blazer – it’s a little dressier than a patterned one – or some form of pretty embellished kimono if you can find one for a reasonable price. Keep it relatively loose fitting and oversized, whatever jacket you go for. When it comes to shooooes, you want heels obviously. I’m so over platforms so I love a sleek looking sandal with an ankle strap – they look fab with the casual jeans. I also like typical stiletto court shoes with a nice pointy toe. But if you still love a comfy, solid sole try something in a bright colour with a peeptoe (I just feel peeptoes make it better). For accessories, stick to simple metallic jewellery – I LOVE gold plate necklaces but can’t find one anywhere – bag-wise, go for a massive clutch bag, as always.

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You still want to dress the jeans up slightly for day, so go for pretty flats or simple and sleek heels. Loose fit tops are always best (make sure they still show off your figure or you’ll look drowned in fabric) along with oversized jackets or chunky cardigans. Stick to chunky accessories too generally.

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Dress it up, up, up. Sleek, ladylike high heels, figure-flattering tops and dressy jackets – be it a simple black blazer or an embellished number. Simple metallic jewellery and the usual oversized clutch finish it off nicely.

And finally to finish it off, here are a few of my favourite looks at the minute, from the ever-inspiring (and bank balance battering) Lookbook.nu.

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Make up I need but can’t afford: Round 2.

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Remember last time I did a post like this? And I ended up buying it all, despite the very clear title? I’m really hoping I’ll exercise a little more self control this time, but lets be honest – it’s not very likely.

However, I have good news – I finally have a placement! It’s working for Boots Head Office – I KNOW, could it be more perfect for me? – and is paid, so I might just buy all this stuff anyway. I’ll have money soon.

beauty products

Anyway, this is quite a summery little wish list. My aim for this summer is to try and get my red skin under control once and for all so I can wear lovely light tinted moisturisers instead of having to slap on 2 foundations. I want to change up my make up routine for the upcoming (unlikely, but we can wish) warmer weather, with a focus on glowiness rather than my usual ‘MUST CONTROL ALL OIL’ mindset, and most of these tie in with that. With the exception of a couple of lovely colourful purchases – everyone needs some more colour in summer.

1) Clarins Gentle Exfoliator Brightening Toner – £25. My skin’s such a pain, my forehead skin is completely different to my chin skin, which is completely different to my cheek skin, and don’t get me started on my nose skin. This toner claims it ‘brightens, smooths and softens skin’, and I have high hopes that it will even out my skin overall (IF I get it).

2) Bourjois Cream Blush in 01 – £7.99. I’ve never actually tried a cream blusher – I use powder foundation and loose powder so I can’t picture how a cream product would go nicely over those. However if I achieve my aim to just end up with a tinted moisturiser, I think this newbie from Bourjois would work just nicely. 01 is a nice peachy colour, a bit different to anything I’ve tried before.

3) Barry M Gelly Nail Paint in Guava – £3.99. Again, I’ve never tried any of the Gelly offerings from Barry M – since I stopped getting my nail extensions my talons have been SERIOUSLY neglected (they’re so jagged I managed to scratch a pesky itch and draw blood yesterday – cue lashings of Sudocrem). This one is enough to single handedly convert me though, it’s a beauty! It makes me think of the Caribbean. And that’s enough to persuade me to buy it.

4) MAC Lip Paint in Morange – £14. I’ve wanted this for SO long. But I kept telling myself it was too much of a summery colour to buy it, that it would be too orange for me, that it was expensive, etc etc. However: it’s summer; I recently bought an orange toned lipstick and it looks fab; and £14 is really nothing for a good lipstick, is it?

5) Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencil in Graffiti – £14. It’s green. Green! It’s the colour of the year and I can just see it looking fab with blue eyes. My school uniform was green (yep) so I thought I’d never like it again, but I actually really want this eyeliner. A little subtle line across the top lashes, and a floral summer dress – pretty or whaaaat?

6) Laura Mercier Radiance Primer – £28. Laura Mercier, the creator of the original primer. Need to try one really, don’t I? The radiance offering  supposedly has a ‘universal pearl tint’ which diffuses imperfections nicely to create a soft-focus finish. It’s not cheap, but you can buy a smaller one from Selfridges, for £18.50 so I might give that a go. Guess I’ll look into the iconic LM tinted moisturisers next …

7) Origins Mega-Mushroom Skin Relief Advanced Face Serum – £44. I’ve just realised I’ve posted the wrong photo – this is the lotion, and I want the serum (more hardcore, innit). But the bottles are identical so who cares, really? I went onto the Origins site earlier and ended up on the live chat to a very helpful adviser, who recommended this – along with about £200 worth of other products. But this appealed to me the most, despite the fact that it’s from the Mega-Mushroom range (mushrooms are the devil’s food, you see). This range is designed to be good for redness and sensitivity, and it seems to have a whole load of natural and complicated ingredients which you can read about here, so I just trust it for some reason. The serum has great reviews though and seems to be a bit more effective than the other products in the range – it’s expensive, but Origins fortunately have a satisfaction guarantee so at least if my skin isn’t saved, my bank account will be.

8) Clarins Liquid Bronze Self Tanning – £18. This was recommended to me by Jo from Joannaloves, who loves this stuff as much as I hopefully will do. You apply a little bit to your face before bed – though it’s apparently fast drying enough to use before make up too – and when you wake up in the morning you just look lovely and glowy rather than obviously tanned. I’m super pale, but my skin always looks better when it has a bit of colour to it so I’m hoping this stuff fits in with my aim for faaabulous skin.

9) The Body Shop Sweet Lemon Body Scrub – £12.50. I love scrubs which actually have an adequate amount of scrubbiness, and the Body Shop’s offerings definitely fit in this category – you’re left feeling like you’ve been exfoliated by a porcupine (in a good way). It smells amazing too, so fresh, and the oils in it help moisturise your dry, sun-starved skin. I had a good sniff of it last time I was in-store, and stupidly left without it. I won’t make that same mistake next time.

What are you lusting after at the minute?

11 trends I can just seriously not get on board with.

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So, this Spring/Summer I seem to have expanded my clothing horizons a little bit. I’m embracing crop tops (mentally, I’m sure I’ll invest soon), patterns and I’ve been eyeing up a neon orange maxi skirt lately. However, there are certain trends which seem to be making an appearance this season, which I am really not happy about.

trends1) Just realising I should probably have numbered the clothes in the image. Lets go with bullet points instead, shall we?

  • Dungarees. Jesus Christ, why? I can accept pinafores, they are quite cute. And I totally love playsuits. But dungarees are like a horrific combination of the two and they look good on nobody. Especially the long ones, they’re even worse.
  • Dip hems. I didn’t like them when they first came out, I still don’t like them now. I don’t like them on tops, jumpers, dresses or skirts. They’re just unflattering: ‘ooh yes lets all wear tops which flash our vaginas (sorry) and yet cover up one of our best assets at the back’. Don’t think so.
  • Long shorts. I wore these when I was about 12 and thought I was the height of cool. I wasn’t. And neither are the people who wear them now.
  • Garishly patterned leggings. If they’re tight trousers in an on-trend, acceptable print then it’s fine. But these particular ones I so carefully selected are shiny graffiti print. Need I say more?
  • Beanies. It was 18 degrees today, and you look like you have a condom on your head: sort it out.
  • Super high platforms. I’m over platforms now, it’s all about the mid heel court shoe. So super high one are not cool with me. I like being able to feel the ground through my shoes, and not being taller than my 6’4″ boyfriend.
  • Ridiculously large floral headbands. I bought a really cute headband the other day – it was half price in the Sainsbury’s girls’ hair accessory section. It has a daisy on the side; it’s the size of a normal flower, and not larger than my head so it’s okay.
  • Circular sunglasses. I just hate these sooooo much. So much. I wish a law could be passed to ban these utter monstrosities.
  • Neon animal prints. I don’t like neons, and you have to be careful with animal prints anyway. Sometimes combining two lots of tackiness magically makes things okay: in this case it doesn’t.
  • Mom jeans. They’re unflattering, and should be left in the 80s where they belong.
  • Denim skater skirts. Okay, I really want to like these, I honestly do. But when I was about 15 I bought one from H&M and had to get in in about a size 16 before it would do up – nothing wrong with that if you ARE a size 16, but I’m a 10. It’s scarred me for life and I don’t think I can ever love them again.

Now I need to know your opinions on these trends. And let me know if you think I’ve missed out anything vitally important – I’m sure there are some more complete shockers out there.

 

World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

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Okay, so I was planning on writing up another ‘How to wear…’ post, but that can wait. This week my very expensive and more-valuable-to-me-than-my-arm phone was stolen, and me and the boyfriend also got a bill from N-Power for £500. Combine this with my usual placement stress and the fact that deadlines are rife at the minute, and this week has not been a fun one: as a result, comfort food is very much needed.

Comfort food in the form of these.

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According to the New York Times, they’re the world’s best chocolate chip cookies (I obviously needed to capitalise it in the post’s title), and you know what? I think they might be right. I’m not really a cookie kind of girl, but these badboys are out of this world. They take a couple of ingredients which you might need to buy specifically, and you DO need to chill them for a while, but it’s worth it. Just trust me on this. They’re crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and are the perfect combination of salty, sweet and chocolate-y. Perfect for those weeks when EVERYTHING just seems to go wrong (and lets be honest, those weeks when it all goes right too). Those photographed were my second batch – I’ve just made a third which are probably my best, but as I have no way of taking photos now, you’re stuck with these! The ones in the photo didn’t have enough butter in, so they were a bit drier – normally they’d be a lot flatter and less chunky, and look more like this.

Anyway, here’s the recipe. You need to make them sooner rather than later. It is the New York Times one but I halved it, and also converted it into grams for us accurate UK folk.

Ingredients

  • 140g butter (I use salted)
  • 140g light soft brown sugar
  • 110g granulated sugar
  • 1 large free range egg
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 120g cake/sponge flour
  • 120g white bread flour
  • 0.75tsp baking powder
  • 0.75tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 0.75tsp salt
  • 250g chocolate chips

Okay, bit of an explanation. You need both types of sugar – one adds grit, one adds a caramel-like taste. You need to go free range on the egg, for reasons which should really be obvious. If you use vanilla flavouring rather than extract, I’m coming after you. You need both types of flour – the sponge flour is lovely and fine, and the bread flour has gluten in it. Baking powder AND bicarb – yes. If you use salted butter you could probably forego the salt but I like it. And yes this is a lot of chocolate chips. Yes, it’s vital.

Method

1) Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s all combined, and nice and fluffy. Same as always.
2) Add the egg and beat until it’s completely incorporated. Do the same with the vanilla extract.
3) Add all the dry ingredients together, and mix until it’s just combined. Don’t beat it – it’s not a cake, people. You want to make sure the ingredients are just incorporated into eachother and it’s no longer floury.
4) Add the chocolate chips, and stir them in until they’re all distributed evenly.
5) Okay, now for the tough part. You need to chill this mixture, for quite a while. Wrap it in clingfilm or foil and whack it in the fridge – for this reason, I like to make up the dough just before bed, then by the time I’m finished with uni or work the next day they’ve had a good 18 hours or so to chill. The chilling is important – it helps all the flavours develop and meld together – just believe me when I say that it makes a big difference. You need a minimum of 4 hours (the dough needs to be cold before you bake it, and it’s very dense so takes ages to get to this stage), and a maximum of 72 – I like them best at around the 24 hour mark, but 36 is pretty good too.
6) When you’re ready to bake them, preheat your oven to 170c. Line a baking sheet with baking/greaseproof paper. Roll your mixture into balls – I like mine about the size of a v. small plum. Place them on the sheet, about 6 per time because they’ll need lots of room to spread. Don’t flatten them at all – the ball shape is what ensures the outside gets crisp and the inside stays really soft. They’ll flatten while they bake.
7) Sprinkle with a little sea salt (I like Maldon).
8) Bake – for my oven it takes around 13 minutes, but you’ll need to keep an eye on yours to determine the best time. Take them out when they’re light golden around the edges only – the middle might still look raw but they’ll continue to cook and harden after you’ve taken them out.
9) When you’ve taken them out the oven, leave them alone!
10) When they’re almost cool, demolish them.

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You can thank me later.