Prairie Charms

Very recently I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in #ProjectBlogger with Prairie Charms. Prairie Charms is a gorgeous online shop that sells accessories (and you all know how much I love accessories). They're main target audience is women and pretty much all of their products are for women. However, after getting in touch with them through twitter, they offered me the chance to have a men's custom made leather bracelet from them. These bracelets aren't currently being sold on their website as they explained to me that they currently don't have the high demand for them.

I was extremely excited to receive this opportunity as it's my first ever company-blogger collaboration!!!!! :D #ProjectBlogger is basically where bloggers can buy products from their online shop for half-price and in return the bloggers write a review (although it's not obligatory). I ordered the bracelet through Twitter by direct messaging them my order. And (after much changing my mind) I ordered a medium toned leather bracelet with teal and grey cord and a silver chain fastening. With the 50% off and P&P applied my whole order came to £11.49.

The payment was done through PayPal and before I knew it they had started making my order! The customer service was fantastic! They were so friendly to me and offered advice and help whenever I got a bit confused with what I was ordering (which happened a lot).

The bracelet arrived I think just over 2 weeks later. However, considering they were bombarded with blogger orders (I think quite a few ordered more than one item as well) along with the fact that everything they make is hand-made, the delivery wasn't that bad. It arrived in this shiny gold packaging and was beautifully wrapped inside as you can see from the pictures...

I enjoyed every part of this process and am extremely happy with their customer service. I really recommend you take a look at their website, as they sell some gorgeous stuff. And! For any guys reading this who would be interested in getting a custom made leather bracelet, tweet them (this is their twitter) and ask them. They need the demand for them to start selling them on the website :) I also just want to say a massive THANK YOU to Prairie Charms for everything :D

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, please follow me on Twitter and 'Join This Site' at the side. Also please leave a comment as I always reply and feel free to tweet me :)

Have a look at their website- http://www.prairiecharms.co.uk/

What are your favourite acessories?

James

Queen Helene- Mint Julep Masque Review

So this is my second review, and I'm really pleased to finally be writing it! My skin is combination skin, and because of my skin type I find it hard to find products that really work. Thankfully though, I found the most amazing skincare range that has made my skin look a hell of a lot better (read about it here). Although, even when I'm up to my eyeballs in skincare products, I still have those times when I get breakouts. If your someone who puts a lot of effort into your skincare then I think you'll know what I mean when I say that I panicked and freaked out when I saw the spots surfacing.

I can't just wait for them to go, and just keep washing my face daily etc. And spot treatments are realllllyyyy hit and miss with me (although most of the time it's miss). So with both of those options (if you like) out of order, I resort to...face masks. About a year ago, I went through a phase of buying loads of face masks. I bought a lot of them from Lush as they're all made with natural ingredients and you can leave them on for hours without them damaging your skin. I did use some chemical peels from places like Superdrug but I'd always leave them on (by accident!) too long and they'd make my skin look terrible.

This past week I've been eating a lot of ice-cream. I haven't eaten pretty much anything healthy, and so my skin has broken out all over. So my mum provided a solution...Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque. I've used it once before and was happy to use it again as it's completely natural (Yes!). When it's first applied to your face, it's quite a strong green colour and as it stays on your face and brings out all the impurities in your skin, the colour lightens. There isn't really a recommended time for it to stay on your skin as you can leave it on for as long as you want. I usually leave masks on for 15-20 mins so that it can make my skin as good as it can. (btw, A bloke in Lush said that Lush face masks (and ones like this) are great to leave on in the bath)

This mask is meant to absorb oil and minimise the appearance of pores. Although, as it draws out all the bad stuff in your skin, it helps get rid of your spots much faster than cleansing and (in my view) more successfully than spot treatments. As the website said it would, my skin feels incredibly smooth after using it and it evens out my skin as I struggle with redness. This mask smells really strongly of Polo Mints, so it's quite a refreshing smell, but it's up to you whether you like it haha :D

This mask is fantastic & I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone as I am more than happy with the results. After using it once, the next day my breakouts were so much better and on the second day, they're nearly gone! Overall, I'm incredibly pleased with this mask :)

The picture above shows when it has been applied on to the face. The picture below shows that after a while it will begin to dry out and crack. Once it's completely dry then it's done all it can, so you can wash it off with water and a flannel (I just use my hands instead of a flannel but it's a much harder & longer process).

Apologies for how bad my skin looks in these pictures!

Thanks for reading this post. Please follow me on Twitter and 'Join This Site' at the side. Please leave me a comment below as I reply to all of them and I love being able to interact with readers. I'm also more than happy for readers to tweet me as I always reply :)

James

The best hair-care products I've ever tried...

These past couple of days I've been itching to write some reviews (not literally) and am so glad to be able to finally start on one. I am a self-confessed beauty addict. I've spent 2 hours + in Boots and then gone on to Superdrug. I'm literally running out of room for all my creams and cleansers, and yet find it impossible to find good products! God knows how much I've spent in these shops (lets not forget you can order online....) and I really do struggle to find stuff that works. 

Because of this constant struggle, I was amazed when I tried these 2 products. These are the Schwarzkopf Gliss Liquid Silk Shampoo and Conditioner. My mum gave them to me to try after having success with them herself. I'd seen these on other blogs but never been interested in trying them out for myself, and because of my luck with beauty products, I wasn't expecting much...how wrong I was.

I have thick hair. I mean really thick hair. It might not seem like it from just looking at it, but it's almost un-manageable. Sometimes it can take me over half an hour to do my hair in the morning! Which is ridiculous because my hair isn't long and my hairstyle is in no way complicated (grumpy face). I usually use volumising products to take the weight out of it and make it easier to handle, but then my hair ends up quite dry (sad face). 

At first I didn't notice much a difference in my hair. But after a few days of using them my hair has completely changed. It sounds ridiculous but my hair has completely changed. It doesn't have knots in it, and doesn't look dry. My hair is certainly not as heavy as it used to be. All I do is use both in the morning (sometimes twice a day) and after a matter of days I've had these results! I haven't had to use hair masks or other treatments (which I'm very pleased about as they take up so much time). 

The best part about these products is the price (dollar signs in eyes). In places like Home & Bargain (as well as more), each bottle is £1! I was stunned when I realised this! I've spent a lot more on other products that have not worked at all. These are by far, the best hair-care products I have EVER tried (which says a lot considering how much I've bought). 

I recommend this to anyone who's looking to make their hair silky and healthy. So many products/brands promise 'Silky Smooth Hair' but they don't deliver. These products are some of the rare ones that do. These shampoo's and conditioners are hair-repairing so I can't really see any downside to them. The price, results everything about them is amazing. I really do recommend you try them. 

Have you ever used these products or other hair-care? What did you think?

Thank you so much for reading this post. Please follow me on Twitter and 'Join This Site' at the side. Also, please leave a comment as I love replying and talking to readers and feel free to tweet me :) 

James

Birthday Post!

So these past few days have not been particularly pleasant. My birthday was on Sunday and even though I received some amazing gifts from my parents, the day wasn't very happy and ended up with all of us quite upset. I'm not going to go into detail about it, I just wanted to explain this as I don't plan to write a post about the actual day although I will tell you what I got. (I really hope you don't think I'm bragging or anything, I love reading these posts and find them really interesting, so I hope that's how you'll feel about this post as well)

( Just wanted to say that everything is okay now and no one is upset anymore :) )

For my birthday I very kindly received the new fragrance by Paco Rabanne 'Invictus' which smells AMAZING, and if you follow me on Twitter then you'll know how much I've wanted this fragrance ever since I smelt it! I could not recommend this fragrance enough. It smells so natural and is perfect for summer. I hate how a lot of mens fragrances smell really fake and unnatural, you know the ones that when you smell it make you cough? This one is not like that at all and Its currently my absolute favourite fragrance :D

I also received the fragrance 'Jet Homme' by Avon which I have used before and love! It's main ingredient (that doesn't sound like the right word but oh well) is Sandalwood. I love the smell of sandalwood so this is definitely a fragrance favourite of mine :D

I'm counting this as a birthday present as it arrived just before my birthday. I'm not going to say anything about this as I'm going to be doing a review of Prairie Charms in the next few days :D

I also got a MIANSAI silver Anchor bracelet that I picked out online on the Selfridges website. I've seen these style of bracelets a lot recently, and I've seen them on loads of shopping websites as well as in photo shoots. The brand MIANSAI makes these in the USA and ships them to retailers elsewhere as well as selling them themselves. This bracelet is perfect as not only is it absolutely gorgeous, it's come from the USA! (If you don't know, I love the US sooooo much! Some would call it an obsession haha :D).

My last present is a Sony VAIO laptop. I am so excited to get this as It's my first ever laptop! It's going to be so useful for blogging, school work and college and I'm incredibly thankful to my parents for giving me this (my mum will get a chance to get back on the home computer now!).

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post! Please follow me on Twitter and 'Join this site' at the side :)

What have been your favourite/most amazing gifts you've ever received?

Stylish England :)