Firstly, a HUGE thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway. And a massive apology from me for not announcing the winner yet. Don't worry, nothing's gone wrong, I still have a mystery beauty box which is so full of things I had to move it from an old Boudoir Prive box to an empty Lux box in order to fit it all in. I've been absurdly busy now I am back at work and I'm still in that crazy adjusting to my new routine mode. And now I am busy tapping away at my laptop whilst on a train to Scotland to spend time with my Mum who has a special birthday on the horizon, and I didn't want to draw the winner until I was in a position to actually send the box! So, if you could hold out a teeny bit longer I'd appreciate it a lot :) Im only 5 followers away from 50, which will surely mean another giveaway on the horizon as well!

Anyhoo, I have today for you a really old collection of empties. Doing it monthly wasn't working for me. Some months I get overexcited and open so many different beauty products that I don't finish anything at all. So now I'll just collect empties until I have a decent enough stash to write about them, then I'll put up a post. Sounds good, no?



Not a huge amount for this post, but I get the feeling I have other empties photos lurking around so I'm sure another post will be along soon.

• The Sanctuary Luxury Bath Foam - this was part of a gift set. nice and bubbly, with a slightly different scent to what I would choose myself.  I probably wouldn't buy it again but at the same time, if I am given any as a gift I will be more than happy.
• Balance Me Super Moisturising Body Wash - I went off Balance Me for a bit after the beauty box market became a bit saturated with the products but in all honesty, that's very unfair on the brand. I enjoyed using this shower gel a lot, it was nice and moisturing and I felt lovely and clean after using it. I would buy this again in the future (this one came in a beauty box).
• Dead Sea Magik moisturiser - I got this in an early beauty box, used it all up and then popped the empty into a drawer in my bedside table. Classic hoarder behaviour. This was a nice sample and it was moisturising but didn't especially wow me. I probably wouldn't buy it again but I'd be interested in trying more products in the range to see what they're like.
• Korres rose SPF6 moisturiser - I've had a couple of samples of this through beauty boxes. Its no good for me as a day cream, but not bad as a night cream/intensive moisturiser/makeshift hand cream. Im not a huge fan of rose-scented things so all in all, this wasn't really for me. I wouldn't buy this in the future.
• Batiste Dry Shampoo - love these mini cans, so useful for travelling. Dry shampoo is the best at taming my fringe if I was to spruce up my slightly wild hair during the day (my hairline etc is not really formed in a fringe friendly way, I have a bit of a widow's peak and a whopping great cows lick, but a fringe is cheaper than botox for the lines on my forehead, so I find a way, oh yes). I buy the ginormous dry shampoo cans for home and the minis for travel and handbag (and I've had plenty of minis in beauty boxes, which is fine by me). Batiste probably isn't my most favourite dry shampoo but it does a fine job at a good price. I'll be buying again (and have probably half a dozen times over since taking this photo!)
• Balance Me face moisturiser - its been a while since I took this photo and I wont like, I don't remember anything remarkable one way or another about this moisturiser. My skin is very picky, so it was unlikely to be a resounding success. Most of these types of products work best for me at night, as my skin tends to get greasy otherwise. Wouldn't purchase again.
• Body Shop Passion Fruit body butter - passion fruit things are my absolute favourite. But not all body butters were created equally and I find this body butter leaves a bit of a greasy residue on my skin that others have not. Still, if you buy when there's an offer on you cant go wrong with slathering a load on after a bath or a shower to help your skin feel soft and smooth. I'll buy body butters again but not the passion fruit one. Woe.
• Witch skin clearing primer - helps prevent breakouts and primes your skin for foundation? Brill. This primer worked reasonably well on my skin, I didn't see any extra breakouts when I used this. I haven't purchased it again since as I've been trying out different products, but I would give this one another whirl for sure.
• TIGI Rockalot dirty secret dry shampoo - you might be able to see from the price sticker on this that I picked this up in the clearance at TK Maxx, along with the dry conditioner. Its not a bad dry shampoo, leaves your hair looking slightly less powdery than bastiste will. I'd buy it again if there was an offer on.
• Korres Mint Tea Body Milk - picked this up from TK Maxx as well (I love going there to look at beauty products. Sometimes you can find some amazing things!) and I really liked it. The mint made it slightly cooling on the skin which was great in the heat (I did say these empties were old!) as I'm prone to heat rashes etc (delightful, eh?). Would definitely buy this again. 
• Boots Botanics 3 minute deep conditioning hair mask - I've been using this for years and it doesn't disappoint. About a fiver for this big tub, no matter how overly generous you are in scooping some out it lasts for ages and I love the scent and the effects on my hair. Would definitely buy again.

And that, my dears, is another one of my empties posts. Not a bad mix of things I liked and things I didn't. I didn't actively hate any product, but some weren't best suited to me.

What products have you been using up lately?

Recently I hit 25 followers on Google Friend Connect. I know I also have a few other followers who keep up with my blog by other means, so there could be a few more of you out there, following by mythical ways I don't quite understand! I'm really grateful to have any followers at all, and its nice that so many of you have added me to Twitter, etc as well to keep the conversation going.

I wanted to do a little giveaway as my way of saying thanks to everyone for reading my blog and for commenting and chatting away with me on Twitter. I've long thought that I wanted to put together my own beauty box for the giveaway, but to make it a little bit more special than the ones we receive in our subscriptions, and add in a few other bits and pieces too! The only mandatory entry into the giveaway is to leave me a comment. I've suggested you say what sort of posts you'd like to read but honestly, leave me any comment at all, I like receiving them!

I don't want to give away (no pun intended!) too much about what's in the box as I think it might be nice to make it a surprise! What I will say is there's definitely more than 5 items Its more like 20!) and hopefully there's a range of products to keep any potential winner happy! Maybe if you are dying to know  more you can let me know in the comments and I'll reveal a spoiler or two? Perhaps you'd like to know some other information, like a couple of the brands in the box? I will tell you I have recycled a Boudoir Prive box to put the prizes in (yep, I've had this box a long time! But I haven't had the contents for as long, I promise)

This particular giveaway is open to folk in the UK for this round, sorry to any of my international chums, maybe we can organise a box swap or something to make up for it?! So, without further ado, click the link below and enter via Rafflecopter, good luck!

This recent horsemeat scandal is pretty horrifying, isn't it? It makes me enormously glad I rarely, if ever, eat pre-prepared food. I really enjoy cooking and one of the main reasons is I like knowing what's in my food and controlling what goes in. Sure, I ate microwave meals as a student, who didn't?! But I never find them very tasty or satisfying.

I'd like to show you that making your own meals is infinitely more satisfying than reaching for a plastic tray from the fridge or freezer. My lasagne recipe isn't quick, it can't compete with 4 minutes at 800W, but its 100 times tastier and satisfying and whilst its not a healthy recipe per se, it's got to be better for you than horsemeat which may or may not have been injected with vetinary drugs that make it unsuitable for human consumption! If you're organised in the kitchen and willing to prepare in advance, whilst it takes a while to cook, you don't have to be in the kitchen watching everything like a hawk.

I've spent quite a lot of time at home in the last few months and have become a bit of a housewife. Don't get me wrong, I'm still horribly disorganised at home. My home will never be perfect, but I've found some good products and tips along the way that I'd like to share with you, and hopefully you'll have ideas to share with me too!

The first flat we lived in was lovely, but it was cold. It had 2 storage heaters in the whole place, one in the front room and one in the hallway. Our bedroom had an oil filled heater and there was an electric fire in the front room too and that was it. It also lacked good insulation so condensation mould was a major problem. This made drying clothes a nightmare. So we invested in one of these:



The Lakeland Dry Soon 3 tier heated tower airer. This helped enormously, I can't begin to tell you. We used to stick it in our hallway to try and help heat the bathroom too. Things still took a little while to dry as the flat really was freezing but it chopped the drying time in half for sure.

2 years ago we moved to a house with gas central heating and better insulation but we still use this airer all the time in the winter when we can't put our laundry outside to dry. Its quite expensive but totally worth it. Its a lot cheaper to run than a tumble dryer (which we couldn't fit in our house even if we wanted one!) and totally silent. One trick I've learned with it is to maximise the heat, throw a sheet over the airer once you've put your wet laundry on it, this will help keep the heat in around the damp clothes/towels/bedsheets and help them dry quickly. It has the added bonus of keeping the room you use it in lovely and toasty. I'd advise opening a window when you use it to help moisture escape. As I said, in the summer we get all our clothes outside on the washing line whenever its not raining because nothing is as good as line-dried clothes, they're the best aren't they?!

The only issue I have with the airer is it is quite big and so gets in the way a little. However, you don't have to pull all of it out, you can easily just use one side of it. And if you do your laundry more regularly than me and have smaller loads, you could buy the two tier one which would help a bit. The Dry Soon is great for drying towels. Ok, its not as good as a tumble dryer but much better than them hanging around on a non-heated airer for days on end.You can also dry items flat as well like jumpers, which makes it versatile. It also goes without saying that in warmer months you can use it without plugging it in if you just need to give clothes a little more airing time.

Lakeland are one of my favourite companies and their customer service is second to none, so I'd always recommend their products! I bought one of these for my mother and hers arrived damaged and Lakeland replaced it immediately with no questions asked. Mine has now lasted for 2 1/2 years with pretty heavy usage and shows no signs of giving up. If it does, I'll be right back to Lakeland to buy a replacement.

This is the first in a series of domesticity posts. Over the next few weeks I want to continue sharing my tips in the hope of us all having an easier home life! What sort of tips would you like to see in the future?

This is not a sponsored post. I have not been asked by Lakeland to provide this review and paid for the airer myself over 2 years ago. I simply want to share a great product with you all!

In September my partner and I went to Belgium for a few days. We stayed in Brussels and took a day trip to Bruges. One of the many things that's famous over there is speculoos biscuits. Crunchy spiced biscuits that are completely delicious and moreish. Over in the UK you can buy Lotus biscuits from supermarkets, which are a massed produced version of the same yummy biscuit. Ever since we got back we've been buying a packet here and there to enjoy with coffee.

Lotus have also produced speculoos spread. All the yummyness of the biscuit in spread form. I'm reliably informed its like peanut butter (I don't eat peanut butter so I wouldn't know). A quick scout on google seems to suggest its sold in the US as biscoff spread. I brought back two jars from Brussels (along with a jar of caramel sauce and chocolate spread, om nom!) and spent a long time scouring the internet for recipes and ideas. The first thing I decided to try was making a cheesecake. I love speculoos biscuits, I love cheesecake. This idea could never fail, really! I've previously experimented with cheesecake recipes as can be seen in my blog post here, although I decided to go for a baked cheesecake this time rather than a no-cook one.

Yesterday I was near an Asda store, I'm not normally up that way so I thought I'd pop in for a browse as I'd heard good things about their beauty products, specifically nspa. Here's what I ended up getting:

• Melting Cleansing Gel
• Jojoba and White Vanilla foaming bath milk
• Jojoba and White Vanilla warming salt scrub
• 5 minute magic mask
• Jojoba and White Mask Dry Body Oil
• Jojoba and White Vanilla scented candle

Last night I was a football widow and with little interest in watching a bunch of fellas kick a ball around some grass on my TV, I decided it was time for a pampering session so I tried all of these products out in a luxurious bath. I loved the scent of the jojoba and white vanilla products, it smells really luxe and much more expensive than the price tags. The bath milk gives a good amount of bubbles and you're surrounded by the delivious scent.

The melting cleansing gel was quite interesting. It comes out as a peachy-pink gel which you rub all over your dry face. Then you wet your finger tips and massage the gel over your face again and it turns into a cleansing milk which you then wash off your face. It took all my makeup off with ease and didnt leave my skin feeling too tight after which is what I was worried about.

The salt scrub was a teeny bit disappointing as it wasn't very scrubby, but it did feel nice to use and made my skin feel really soft after using it, I just wasn't able to get a proper scrub of my skin like I wanted to first.

The 5 minute magic mask was a pink creamy consistency. You apply a layer across your face and  massage in to release the beads of Vitamin E which are suspended in the cream. You then leave on for 5 minutes before washing off. After using my skin felt smooth and soft and this morning, having applied some serum and night cream after my bath my skin still feels soft and smooth and doesn't feel greasy.

The dry body oil initially smells of alcohol when you first spray it and is a little unpleasant in that respect, but once you rub it in the alcohol evaporates and leaves a dry oil that absorbs quickly into the skin leaving the skin really soft.

All in all I was really impressed with these products. There was an offer on for 2 for £8 for the mask and cleansing gel and the foaming bath milk, scrub, oil and candle were about £3-4 each so they are good value for money. I can't wait for my next pampering session!

Have you used nspa before?

Well hello to you. For the first time in ages, I'm here with something crafty rather than beauty related.

For Christmas my lovely Mum gave me a 3 month subscription to Crafty Creatives. Crafty Creatives operate a monthly box service not dissimilar to the beauty box subscriptions. Except, of course, that rather than beauty samples they send you some lovely crafty bits to get your creative juices flowing.  My first box arrived yesterday!

This is an odd thing for a beauty box/beauty product obsessive to say, but, my favourite face cleanser is one I make myself and the main ingredient is something you would normally cook with. I remember reading about the oil cleansing method (or OCM for short) through a forum or through Livejournal. I have greasy skin that sometimes tends towards combination skin and am prone to breakouts and throughout my teenaged years I assumed face washes specifically designed for greasy skin were my best bet. I now realise that's not true. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that every single foaming face wash I've ever used has been quite damaging to my skin, in terms of drying it out, or making me overproduce oil on my face to compensate, or giving me horrendous breakouts. Some have even stripped so much from my face that its been left red and sore (and I don't have sensitive skin or any particular allergies to products that I'm aware of). If a face wash makes your skin feel dry, you'll end up piling on moisturiser to compensate, and you'll probably end up a greasy mess a few hours later.

When I first read about OCM I'll admit I thought it was lunacy. My skin is already oily, why on earth would I pour more oil on it?! But if you think about oil, it dissolves in other oils, and not in water. You can break it down with detergents (so soap and soup like products) as anyone who has done the dishes will know, but that will take every last bit of oil away. If you do that, your skin won't have anything, and will freak out, and will produce masses to compensate for its loss. And there you have it, the vicious cycle begins. I was still skeptical though, but when I first read about it, I figured I had nothing to lose. I tried it and I was really impressed with the results and anyone I've recommended it to has said the same.