The Piercing Tag

1. How many piercings do you have?

In total, I have 20 piercings.

2. Where are they?

Left ear: tragus, conch, 4 lobes, daith and 5 helix piercings. Right ear: tragus, rook, auricle and 3 lobe piercings. I have my nose pierced on the left side, my left nipple and my belly button.

3. How old were you when you got them?

For my first lobes, I was 6 years old. My second and third lobes, 18 years old. For my right tragus, the auricle and the rook, 19 years old. I was 19 when I got a helix on my left ear, 4th lobe on the left and my belly button, too. At 20 years old, I got the conch on my left ear and at 22 I got my nipple pierced. At 24, I got the daith, left tragus, nose and 4 helix piercings.

4. On the scale of 1-5, how bad did it hurt?

Lobes: 1/5

Tragus: 3/5

Rook: 4/5

Daith: 2/5 *this one was the most painful to heal. Swelled up a LOT.

Nipple: 3/5 *two years later and it still isn’t fully healed.

Belly Button: 2/5

Conch: 3/5 *this piercing was the easiest to heal of the more unconventional piercings.

Auricle: 1/5

Helix: 2/5

Nose: 

5. Which one hurt the most?

The rook was so, so painful. It hurt more than the nipple did to pierce, and it swelled for like 5 days after which didn’t help at all. The jewellery fell out due to swelling, luckily once longer jewellery was put in I didn’t have any issues after that. The daith has been the most difficult one to heal, the swelling lasted around 2 weeks and still feels painful. (The daith is my most recent piercing).

6. Which one is your favourite?

On both ears, I love the tragus piercing, I think it’s really cute and also quite subtle, it suits a lot of people. But if I was going to pick one of my more unusual piercings, I’d probably say the nipple. 

7. Do you regret any of your piercings?

No, I like all of them. I usually get told that I have too many piercings, but I like them. I’m addicted, haha. One thing I dislike about fresh/healing piercings is that I have to wait to change the jewellery as I prefer gold jewellery.

8. Do you want any more piercings?

Yes I do; I’m interested in getting a forward helix, an anti tragus, a conch on my right ear and a vertical tragus. Now many more to go, haha.

MOTD: Autumnal Berry Lips

Hello again guys; it’s been months since I did a proper Make Up of the Day post on my blog, so I decided that it was time to do another! Somehow over the past few weeks, England has gotten extremely cold so I’m definitely feeling more autumn and winter beauty looks at the moment. Recently I’ve been a bit more minimal with my everyday make up routine, but I today I decided to go all out and do a full face. Starting primer, I used the Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser (£7.99)  all over my face before beginning to apply concealer. I applied the Rimmel Wake Me Up (£6.49) in the shade ivory using a Real Techniques beauty blender around the eyes, nose and any blemishes. Overall, it covers all blemishes and dark circles well, but it is definitely too dark and yellow toned for me, as I’m more pink toned and pale so I wish they would make a porcelain shade too. 

I prefer to do my brows next, using the L’Oréal Paris Brow Artist Xpert (£7.99) in the shade Cool Blond. It is one of the products in my make up bag that I literally use every time I apply make up; it gives a very natural effect to filling the sparse parts of my brows (oops to the occasional overpluck by mistake) and matches my natural eyebrow shade perfectly. I then use the spooly end to brush out the excess product and frame the brows with concealer. My holy grail brow product is the Benefit Ready, Set, Brow! Which for £20 is definitely one of the more expensive items in my make up bag, but I love that the clear gel glides over my brow and sets them in place all day without the need for reapplication. I like my brows to be natural but tame and this really helps me to achieve that look.

I didn’t want to use foundation as I wanted something lighter on my skin; the Bourjois Paris 123 Perfect CC Cream (£9.99) is a great alternative to foundation as it does cover all skin sins whilst allowing your skin to breathe. Sadly, it is a little too dark for me at the moment (the autumn and winter months literally drain all of the colour from my face haha) but I use the shade ivory and as it is pink toned, it does work into my natural skin tone well once it’s blended out a bit using a beauty blender. For Contour, I used the bronze shade from the trusty Rimmel Kate Moss Sculpting Palette #002 (£6.99) and a Real Techniques brush across my cheekbones and across the temples of my forehead. It’s more of a bronzer, but as my skin is so pale, that does work better for me anyway, before applying the blush from the same palette with a different Real Techniques brush across the apples of my cheeks to add a natural flush. 

For my eyes, I wanted to create a glowy, sparkly bronze look that swept across the whole of my eyelid. I’m definitely getting in the mood for festive make up and recently I’ve been loving the Sleek Make Up iDivine Eyeshadow Palette - All Night Long. For £8.99 you definitely get your money’s worth as it contains twelve different shadows and the packaging includes a large mirror which is great for travelling. There’s a mix of vibrant shimmers and neutral matte shades which are excellent to use as a base. I started off by using a Real Techniques brush and a neutral light brown all across my eyelid as a good base for the shimmer shadows that I planned to use. I then applied a coppery bronze shade across the outer corners of my eyes before adding a gold shimmer across my inner corners. Once that was done I then blended out any harsh edges using a clean brush and added some of the MUA Undress Your Skin Highlighter across my browbones, cheekbones and cupid’s bow in the shade Pink Shimmer. The highlight is so pretty and stands out nicely against the rest of the skin but I could’ve built the highlight up a little more to make it blinding; that’s something I’ll definitely do come Christmas time. It’s also super affordable at £3, it’s such good value for money and lasts for a long time too.

I decided against applying eyeliner as I’m not the best at it; I hate it when I have a perfect base then mess it all up when mismatched eyeliner so it wasn’t an eyeliner day. In fact, the eyeshadow was fairly bold and shimmery so eyeliner wasn’t really necessary anyway. However, one thing that I love is volumised, bold, spidery lashes and to create that without using false eyelashes I use two mascaras. I start off by using the Maybelline Volum’ Rocket Express from the roots of my lashes to the tips and it really volumises and lengthens the lashes well. It’s my favourite drugstore mascara and really worth the £7.99 that it costs. To complete my eyes, I used the L’Oréal Paris Miss Baby Roll mascara to make my lashes more thick and curly; it’s actually the same price point, £7.99 and is equally amazing, although I find it works best on top of another mascara, rather than on its own (excessive, I know ahaha) overall, I love the effect that these mascaras give my lashes without the need to apply false lashes, which is amazing. It’s much easier to use your natural lashes and mascara.

Lastly, I applied the Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Lipstick in the shade Plum This Show all over my lips; it does take two or three coats to become full opaque, but that’s not a massive surprise for such a dark lip. Priced at £5.99 it’s great value as it is affordable and the formula of the lipstick is actually really nice, it’s not drying on the lips which is a nice touch. I wanted a berry lip as I feel like the darker toned lip suits the change in the weather; I always associate darker lip colours with winter and the festive season. I’m really happy with how this look turned out and I’ll definitely be recreating it for nights out with friends over the coming months. Let me know in the comments if there’s any make up looks that you’re loving for autumn and winter as I’d love to hear; until next time :)

November Moodboard

Hello again guys; I’m actually really looking forward to the end of this month as I’m going to Amsterdam with my boyfriend and some our friends, which is super exciting. As much as I’m not a fan of flying, it is only an hour and the city looks absolutely beautiful. There’s so much to see and do that I doubt I’ll be able to fit it all in, but we’ll see, haha. All of the images below are from Pinterest using the tags Amsterdam, November and Ear Piercing. Just a little disclaimer: I don’t own any of these images. It’s definitely getting a lot darker and colder, which can be a bit stressful in terms of mental health, but in the other hand, having a lie in snuggled up under a warm duvet feels like heaven in the colder months, so sometimes it’s about finding the little things that really matter. At the moment I’m really inspired to revamp my earrings and have a kind of set style; I’m in love with dainty gold jewellery so I’m on the hunt for some, fingers crossed I’ll be starting with my rook as it doesn’t match the other jewellery at all. I’m also debating what to get for my next piercing, Pinterest is amazing for finding inspiration for a variety of things. What kinds of things are inspiring you this month? Let me know in the comments! :)

25 Goals for 25 Years of Age

 

Hey again! I actually did a post similar to this before I turned 21, although that was something that I posted as a one off almost; it was before I really started blogging as a serious hobby. However I did enjoy writing it and I feel like blogging is a fantastic way of documenting the high (and low) points of your life. 25 feels like such an important number; it's the kind of age that when you're a child you think you'll be 25, married with kids and a house etc etc. Basically when you're small you believe that 25 is seriously old and your life will be all sorted! In reality, none of these things will be happening for me, but that doesn't mean that I don't have a huge list of things that I'd like to achieve before that age! So here is 25 things that I'd like to achieve before 25! (Or least within my 25th year of life!) That said, I don't have long to plan as I'm already 24, but a girl can dream, right?

1. Get a piercing. (What and where, I have no idea).

2. Visit at least three more countries in Europe that I've always wanted to explore and make the most of every minute. In January I'm visiting Copenhagen in Denmark and Oslo in Norway, so that's a start, but I'd like to see more of the world over the next year if possible.

3. Stop talking about getting more fit or losing weight and actually start making the change to see it through. Join the gym and actually go on a regular basis.

4. Rediscover my love for photography and take the time to document my life and what I see; buy a camera and create the kinds of images that I love, rather than just using my phone.

5. Learn (or at least try to learn) another language.

6. See the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Play.

7. Learn the names and locations of all of the countries of the world.

8. Visit the Harry Potter Studio Tour and relive my childhood dream of attending Hogwarts!

9. Have a romantic dinner on a rooftop, or high up where you can see the world from above, somewhere like the Shard, whether that's with a friend or with family, I want to feel on top of the world for a while.

10. Do an ancestry DNA test and find out my family history, as I know that there is definitely some Welsh, Irish and German but I want to know for sure.

11. Learn to relax and stop constantly overthinking; let go of the past and move on. Cut out all of the anxious thoughts and feelings and just live in the moment.

12. Get a second tattoo. (Where, or what I'm not 100% sure, oops).

13. Start a scrapbook and document all of the good times and memories I've had so far in my life. I have countless photographs printed out everywhere that I want to collate them all somewhere and so scrapbooking looks like a good hobby to start up.

14. Buy a ticket to somewhere, anywhere on a whim and see where life decides to take me for a day (or more, depending on my mood). Over the last year I've definitely become more relaxed and I'm trying to be open to spontaneity.

15. See a fortuneteller; ever since I was a child I've been interested in the spiritual world and I've love to see what a professional could tell me about my past, my present and my future.

16. Start saving. It's taken a while to get to the point where I can even contemplate the idea of saving money as I've had some financial issues over the past couple of years that were genuinely not my fault. Now I'm sorting my life out, I want to start properly having a savings plan and think about about the future.

17. Spend more time having fun and less time stressing out; I want to make an effort to see my friends more regularly, especially those who I've definitely neglected recently. I have a good bunch of friends and I need to remember to take some time out and spend time with them as memories don't get made otherwise! I want to spend a lot of time with my best friend as she's been so consistently supportive of me over the last few years.

18. Read at least 50 books that I've never read before; that's not a difficult task, but I really want to keep up with reading as a hobby and blogging has definitely helped that. I've found reading to be a fantastic way of relaxing.

19. Get back into dancing; from 4 years old until I was 17 I used to go to dancing lessons, my absolute favourite was ballet and I really want to get back into it. I used to dream about being a professional (was never going to happen, ahaha) but I’d love to rekindle my love of dance, especially ballet. I definitely want to look into some adult lessons.

20. I’d love to see the Northern Lights; simply because the world is a beautiful place and I don’t need an excuse to find a way to enjoy the natural sights of the world so hopefully over the next year I’m going to see a lot of the sights!

21. Go to a Christmas market; I’ve been to many different markets but I really want to go to a traditional Christmas market and get super festive with trees, decorations, food and drink. I’m not obsessed with Christmas, but after being ill this year I want to enjoy having time off and spending time with family and friends. Plus, there’s something magical about Christmas time.

22. Go on a boat tour, whether that’s in London, or England, the UK or abroad; I love seeing how cities look from the water and it’s the best way to take landscape photographs without crowds of people everywhere. I like the idea of having afternoon tea or a dinner on a boat, watching the world go by in good company.

23. I’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel for a while now and that is definitely something that I’d like to have at least tried to do in the next year. I have a feeling that I’ll still prefer blogging as writing comes more naturally to me than speaking does, but I want to push myself and really try and give it a proper chance.

24. I want to rediscover my creativity; I always used to draw constantly in a sketchbook and I haven’t finished a sketchbook since I finished university two years ago. So, in the next year I would like to see myself finishing a sketchbook and reminding myself just why I loved being creative. My favourite thing used to be filling up a sketchbook and I really want to start doing that again.

25. Go to a concert of a band that I really like, regardless of the ticket price.

Life Update // Blog Goals

Hello again guys; you may or may not have noticed that I've been posting a little less often on my blog and there is a reason for that... The 'Happy Things' posts were a fantastic way of looking after my mental health by finding the positive in the everyday, however that can't always be how I live my life. Mental health is something that you have to constantly work at and although it was a great way of improving my life for a period of time, I'm now stepping away from forcing myself to be happy and I'm trying to be naturally happy. At the moment I'm concentrating on finding happiness without active searching for it; I guess a more accurate description would be that I'm determined to find contentment. I've decided to limit the posts to a single Happy Things post each month which will be a reflection of all of the good things that have happened throughout the month, instead of counting of the perfect amount of positivity. It was a great idea and it worked really well for months, but at the same time, I spent too much time dwelling on whether I would, or could find the perfect amount of Happy Things each week and that's not a way to live.

I mentioned on my twitter the other day that I'm considering starting a YouTube channel to work alongside my blog and other social media. For me, this is absolutely crazy; I honestly never thought that I'd even think about starting a YouTube channel as I'm far more comfortable writing my thoughts than speaking my thoughts. It also sounds a bit stupid, but I don't feel like I fit the mood all that well as I'm not exactly the most confident of people; I'm actually pretty awkward, particularly because I have a deep voice for a female so I don't sound as feminine as I feel like people would expect of me. I have an issue in the sense that I don't own any equipment like microphones or cameras that would work all that well for this kind of work; for my blog work I use an iPhone 7 plus so I definitely would need to invest in some kind of equipment before making the decision to start a YouTube channel.

One of the reasons that I'm feeling unsure whether or not to take the plunge into the YouTube world is that I'm worried that my videos won't be interesting enough to watch; I have some ideas for video creations but I'm just concerned that I would run out of ideas quickly and then I'd just give up. Although, I haven't ran out of blog post ideas yet so I guess that's just me doubting myself. Another reason that I'm a bit nervous is that I don't have a particularly photogenic bedroom to film in; I know this definitely comes into the whole idea of 'first world problems' but basically I haven't decorated my room since I was roughly 9 years old so it just feels like my childhood room. If I do decide to go ahead with YouTube, I will definitely be considering redecorating my room beforehand as I feel like that will make me feel a lot more confident about creating content on YouTube, as strange as that sounds. I don't really know why, but I would feel a lot more comfortable with a nice background to my videos as then I wouldn't feel like the sole focus of the video was on my face haha!

I would absolutely love it if you could leave a comment with your opinion on my dilemma down below, because I really do want to see what the people who actually read my blog posts think about the slight changes to my blogging style (posting less frequently, but better content) and whether or not a YouTube channel would suit the kind of content that I create. I really want to create content that works well for those who read my blog, so I would love any kind of feedback from you guys as although I don't have the biggest blog following in the world I do appreciate every one that takes the time to read my ramblings so I would love to hear from you. Overall, I'm feeling a little better in myself at the moment so I'll be posting more regularly across all of my social media and if you want to connect with me just get in touch as I would love to get to know you :)

July Moodboard

Hello again; this month I've got two spontaneous piercings... My left tragus and my nose! I actually have so many piercings now (sixteen in total) that I'm bordering on more metal than girl, oops. Which is why I've been loving looking at piercing arrangements online as I've rediscovered my love for piercings. When I was at university I used to get new piercings regularly, but that habit stopped when I worked in the food industry. Luckily I now have a job that allows my piercings to be on full display! All of the images below were found using google image searches and most of them are from Tumblr and Pinterest. Ever since I dyed my hair pink last month I feel quite experimental in terms of my hair, although I want to grow my hair very long again. I'm feeling super inspired by 'mermaid' style hair, long and flowing with crazy hair colours, although I think I'll go back to blonde soon. After spending 24 years with blonde hair, the pink is fun but blonde is just easier to care for. I've refound my love for Cath Kidston through my summer wardrobe; I have so many of her 1950s style dresses... Buses, Clocks, Leaves, Townhouses, etc. However I really want to start buying more styles, I wish I could find the Trains or Books dresses, I'm in love with the whimsical prints and the cut of the dresses really suits my curvy figure. I'm not a huge fan of the heat of summer, but I do wearing girly dresses and just generally going out and making an effort to look nice. Let me know in the comments if you enjoy this kind of post! :)