Archive for July 2012

Dress: ASOS
Shoes: Ebay
Earrings: Topshop Necklace: H&M
Bag: Primark

I've been looking for a dress with cut-out detail on the waist for a while, so when I saw this one on ASOS reduced to £10 I bought it immediately without a second thought for my long suffering bank account. It's part of the ASOS Petite range, so I bought it in a size 12 to compensate (I'm 5'10 so not exactly petite!). Although I didn't really have a choice because all the 10s were already sold out anyway! I really love the pleat detail on the high neckline. You can find it here, and it also comes in a gorgeous sulphur yellow colour. I think this is one of the cheapest outfits I've ever worn out! It totals at just £49!

Sorry for almost identical poses in the first pictures, but my brother took the photos for me and it turns out he's not very good at holding the camera steady/straight/operating the auto-focus. So these were the only usable photos!

I wore this last night for my friend's 21st birthday celebrations in Brighton. It was a really good night and it's safe to say I'm a little worse for wear today after a few too many Cock-Sucking Cowboys (a drink!), so I've been taking it easy today by napping intermittently and steadily progressing with my reading list for uni. Going to be watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony tonight (wild Friday night). Anyone lucky enough to get hold of any tickets?? x

I was devastated when I discovered my little Kindle had come to a tragic and unfortunate end when I arrived back from France last week. We'd shared laughs and tears, we'd travelled Europe together (I took it on holiday to Spain and France), and I'd bought it a really cute 'keep calm and carry on' stick-on skin thingy that's now been wasted. And to add insult to injury, I still hadn't paid my boyfriend back the money he loaned me to buy it a year ago. Yep, RIP little Kindle!

Anyway, before I'd even organised a suitable send off for my little reading buddy, I'd already decided which device I would next be downloading my e-books onto: please meet Mr. Kindle Fire. Although he's not actually available in the UK yet (I read somewhere that it would be at the end of the year - but don't hold me to that), my boyfriend managed to get hold of this one for me. It's more of a tablet than a simple reading device, although if you're in the market for a tablet then the iPad is obviously going to win every time! For me, it's a reading device with a better display and access to Facebook, Twitter and Netflix. I'm not overly bothered about downloading loads of apps on it because I already have an iPhone. I don't know how much they will retail at in the UK, but this one worked out at about the same price as my Kindle 3 (£110) but with lots of added extras! I really love the crisp look of the pages of the books and the fact that it's in colour (the grey display on my old Kindle wasn't quite so appealing). The pictures make it look a bit fuzzy, but it looks much better in real life.

The only downside is that, unlike its predecessors, the Kindle Fire has an LCD screen which causes that annoying glare from the sun (one of the main selling points of the previous Kindles is that they don't do that!). But this can be easily fixed with an anti-glare protective screen. I really love my new Kindle! If I'm honest, my reading plan for the summer went a bit downhill so I'm hoping this will help restore my enthusiasm! Tomorrow you will find me sunbathing and reading ;D x

"Je ne parle pas Frainçais"

[Jumping in Geneva | Beautiful French streets | Dinner overlooking the gardens | The Jet d'Eau on Lake Geneva (we walked through it. Got soaked. Very fun) | Lyon | Cocktails with my beautiful cousin | Sephora!]
Yesterday evening I arrived home from an amazing week in the very beautiful Lyon, France. I went with one of my best friends and stayed with my cousin and her boyfriend. We spent our days lingering around Lyon, and our evenings drinking copious cocktails or cherry beer (which is YUM!). Although a fluent French speaker (and Spanish, and English, and Portuguese...), my cousin is South American and it soon became apparent she'd sniffed out just about every other Latin American in Lyon; none of her friends are French. Thus my French Phrase Book was pratically useless. In fact, we only met one French person: a rather drunk French man named Julian who only seemed interested in discussing matters concerning the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. We didn't talk to him for long.

I visited a Sephora for the first time in my life which was amazing! I could have bought every single nail varnish in the building. I celebrated my very first Bastille day with homemade cocktails and an incredible fireworks display. I visited Geneva for the day which is ridiculously over priced (SEVEN SWISS FRANCS FOR A TALL STARBUCKS!). If you'd like to see som more photos from my trip then browse my instagram (@nataliecarmen_). I had a frigging amazing week and cannot wait to return next year! x

No7 Fanomenal Lash £12.95

When I was younger, I used to think that where makeup was concerned, the only difference between one person and another was the colour of the foundation they used; light, medium, or dark. Those were the days when I used my fingers to apply patchy foundation, eyeshadow (that completely wasn't my colour) with a cotton bud, and wear lipgloss from an old issue of Sabrina's Secrets. Basically, I didn't have a clue. And why would I? Nobody ever teaches you this stuff! I've never needed to use algebra since the day I left school, yet makeup is something that I use every single day (and probably will continue to for many years) and I've been left completely to my own devices with it. Perhaps if there was more concentration on makeup application in schools, then we'd have a lot less people waltzing around looking as though they've just stepped off the set of TOWIE. But that's besides the point. Since then, I've learnt there are millions of things that affect our choice of makeup other than the tone of our skin. Makeup is very personal to the individual; what works for one person may not work for another. And that applies to mascara. Some people have long lashes, some people have thick lashes, some people have short lashes, some people have spaced out lashes. Not only do eyelashes vary from person to person, I'm pretty convinced even my own two sets of eyelashes are completely different from eachother! My point is, this review is based on my experience with this mascara, so please don't shout at me if you buy it and it doesn't look the same!


So this is the No7 Fanomenal Lash mascara, dubbed No7's biggest mascara launch of the year (bit rich if you ask me considering they only release one mascara a year). I couldn't take a picture of the brush because my camera wouldn't focus on it, but basically it looks like a fan , or in my opinion, a helter-skelter. I know what you're thinking - oh No7 you absolute jokers with your clever and witty play on words! Har-har! When you go into Boots and open it up to look at the brush, you are going to think 'wtf' because, quite honestly, it looks disgusting. The brush is way overloaded with product and it looks like a caterpillar coated in...black gooey stuff. HOWEVER! This mascara is my favourite ever that I've ever used! Fanomenal lash aims to lengthen lashes, rather than add volume and I can confirm it certainly does that. The unique fan brush helps to seperate the lashes too. After you've used it a few times you'll find the brush isn't quite as gooey and it's easier to use.

Fanomenal Lash retails at £12.95, but with the No7 £5 vouchers you can get it for £7.95. Boots are doing the vouchers at the moment and they're valid until the 15th July. I work in Boots, so I got this one for free but I've since used my voucher to buy another one, I really like this mascara!

Have you tried Fanomenal Lash? What are your thoughts? If not, then what's your favourite mascara? x

Top: Primark
Shorts: H&M
Shoes: Qube
Necklace: H&M
Firstly, please allow me to apologise for the crappy quality of these pictures. My little camera only seems to cooperate when there is beaming sunshine outside. So not very often. I was planning to post over the weekend, but I wore this everyday so it would have been a bit boring!

I'm on a bit of a health kick at the moment. Before I moved home for the summer, I had a somewhat unhealthy diet consisting of McDonalds. Just McDonalds. Sometimes I'd have McDonalds for lunch, McDonalds for dinner, McDonalds on the way home from the club and then McDonalds again for breakfast. So now I'm back home until September I've decided to get on the running machine, not to lose weight but just to help unblock my arteries a bit. I managed 15 minutes today before almost passing out. That's my personal best. If I'm honest, I hated every minute of it. My heart rate was going up faster than the seconds were, and 'calories burnt' was barely going up at all. I burnt 130 calories in total, but unfortunately my 30 gram serving of cereal (as directed on the box) was 149 calories. And I was still hungry after. I'll keep you updated on my progress (providing I don't give up, again).

The lovely Hollie of Good Golly Miss Hollie featured Just a Thought on her 'Favourite Fridays' feature on, er, Friday! I would like to say a massive thank you! I've read Hollie's blog for a while now and really enjoy it so I couldn't believe she'd chosen little old Just a Thought. If you don't already, you should definitely follow her for a lovely, genuine read.

My boyfriend sent me this link earlier. It's an interactive video advert for the online clothing retailer ONLY. It's so cool! You can click the clothes throughout the advert and it pauses while you get a closer look! Such a great idea because you can see what the clothes look like on. Definitely worth a gander!

Also (last thing) I finally bought some DISCO PANTS! Weee I ordered them yesterday and I literally cannot wait for them to arrive! Ok I've rambled enough now, bye! x