Link for the New Blog

Hello, a tiny little post telling you that this is my link for the new blog so feel free to check it out: http://alittlekiran.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you so much.

Kiran xxxx

YouTube

Hello, so I did as was promised. I have created a YouTube channel and uploaded my first video, please watch it for me and like/subscribe/comment. That would be utterly fantastic, any support at all would literally mean the world to me so please if you care at all, show some. Thank you. I will post the link to my channel and my first video below. I also have started a vlog channel except I tried putting up the Paris videos but the sound for some inexplicable reason isn't working. I will endeavour to fix this as soon as possible and will inform you when I have. Thank you. Please check out the video and let me know your thoughts that would be incredible. I will do the rest of my Paris Diary tonight so it should be on here by the morning and then I will do a Paris haul video and blog post tomorrow.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/kiran94ful

My first video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XjRfCFPog

Thank you! 

Oh and here is my new twitter: https://twitter.com/KiranK94ful

New Plans!

Hello, my sweets. So I have officially decided to suck it up and start getting creative. There is so much I want to do and I can be shy and wallow in the corner effectively pissing my summer away or I can get up of my ass and take action. So first step, I created a new Twitter account because underneath all this bravado I don't want anyone in my life to know about this online identity at least until I am sure I am not getting destroyed by keyboard warriors.

My name is @KiranK9ful and I would appreciate it if you would follow me, it would make my year let alone my day. I will post a link at the bottom for ease of access. I have also decided to start with YouTube because damn it, it looks like fun and what harm can it do? So please support me if you give the tiniest damn about it, if not, I apologise for bothering you with the internal struggle I have been battling with for the better part of two seasons. It would give me endless joy to have your support. I will upload my first video here, which is bound to be a shambles and then I will post a link to a vlog channel which will contain a lot of my Paris videos. I will post about the rest of the Paris trip tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, it's just been hectic meeting friends and everything. So thank you for reading.

Here is my profile: https://twitter.com/KiranK94ful

Thanks so much. Happy Tuesday! And now I am off to eat dinner, which is a Peri Peri burger and fries. Yum :)

Birthday Haul

Firstly, I apologise, I haven't done many posts and that is because I have been to Paris (more about that later) and then immediately after returning I had to pack up all my stuff from university and drag it all home. Since I have been home, I have been looking for a job and Skyping friends that I am already missing and meeting old friends I haven't caught up with in a while. So all in all, I have been pretty busy. On top of this, I had so many ideas for ensuing blog posts. I wanted to do a Paris diary but my phone is being difficult about letting me import pictures/videos on to my computer, but I promise to sort this all out shortly. No more excuses. In the meantime, here is my birthday haul. It was my first birthday away from home and although the majority of my extended family gave me money and chocolates (always welcomed by the way), I thought I would do a little post celebrating what I did get.

I already posted about this, but my sister bought it for me in London, it was £25 from Topshop and I adore it, I think it is one of the best crop tops I have seen. Seriously, check the out they have so many different styles and although I tend to favour the more casual varsity ones, I really do love this one, if you pair it with the Mom jeans it literally shows just a strip of stomach so it is incredibly flattering as well. A great confidence boost.

Obviously the next big thing is that I went to Paris, my beautiful Mama paid for my hostel essentially and all the money I got went to my little spending packet for the romantic city. I will do a day by day diary play on this blog very soon, as soon as my mobile starts co-operating. It will contain all sorts of interesting historical facts about the places I visited so I am sorry if it will be a bit boring, but in all honesty it's more for me than it is for you. I don't want to forget a single moment of it.

My Aunt got me this Soap and Glory box, which contains all sorts of amazing little goodies. Including hand cream, moisturiser, body butter, shower gel, bubble bath and of course the crucial body scrub. I haven't had time to test out each product and fully appreciate this gift but it is right up my street and in the coming days I will right a review/first impressions of it. I have never owned any products from Soap and Glory, in fact I have only just recently heard about them so I 'm excited to try them out.

My mother very sweetly got me a cosmetics holder and this isn't an actual picture of it because mine is still in the box, there is literally no room to move anything in my bedroom it's just full of bags and suitcases and handbags stuffed full of bits and bobs, I feel like I am living in a hostel, but I will rectify this.

 I also got a Benefit make up brush set which consists of 7 different brushes which are all super soft and lovely to use. I am a Benefit enthusiast, I love all of their products and swear by their Hello Flawless foundation. In the brush set there is a powder brush; an angled contour brush; foundation brush; eyeshadow brush; angled flat top eyeshadow brush; and an angled liner brush. In addition to that I got Maybelline Gel Liner, which I have heard is the easiest to use, because all my life I have struggled with eye liner I always seem to get it wrong and then proceed to have to cover it up with excessive amounts of glitter. I got lots of other little things as well which I love including perfume, which I never buy for myself so it is always nice to receive as a gift. I got the Sigma Paris palette which I will do a review and some tutorials of, I got two new dresses, an overnight spa day, and a pair of cute black ballet flats from River Island with a gold bow which were £25.

The two things I am extremely excited about are this makeover for Unique Studios, which was £50 and includes going to a posh salon in London that is frequented by lots of stars such as Mylene Klass and Victoria Beckham etc (not Rihanna, I know, but I can deal) you get a makover, a professional haircut and a day of pampering with champagne on ice, you get to dress up all fancy and have professional photographs taken which you are allowed to keep at no additional price. My friend Paige and I are going to do this, most likely in September, it sounds like a lot of fun.

The next thing is a make-up master class which is in Birmingham, you get skincare tips and tricks, you learn how to apply false eyelashes and you get taught by a professional how to do evening looks and what suits each face etc so this will come in handy when I finally get the stones to start
a YouTube channel. This was £24 and one of my friends found the deal on Wowcher, what can I say they know me well.

So all this is coming up: Sigma Paris palette review/tutorials; Paris Packing because I only took my prettiest things to the city of love; Paris Diary including outfit and make-up of the day; Paris haul because let's face it I bought way too much and I am a sucker for all things tourist; and I am going to Risa in Birmingham on Friday so I'll do an "In My Shoes" for that. Please comment, and thank you for reading it's very sweet of you. Happy Fourth of July, guys. I'm not American but I am feeling the freedom anyway. Have an awesome day, the sun is shining and I have a tonne of stuff to do. Toodles.

The Great Gatsby and London

Last week, two days before my birthday my sister drove down to see me and whisked me away to London, one of my favourite places in the world. I love the city, it's always alive with activity and you can never run out of things to do. But most of all I love the fashion, everyone is so much bolder there with their garments and I feel like each individual has their own unique take on style and I love it. So obviously we went shopping, I bought a tonne of makeup and a pretty crop top from TopShop, we each bought a few maxi dresses from Apricot, we had a fancy brunch just outside of Westfield shopping centre. We had such a fabulous time, living like we were on the cast of Made in Chelsea for a day. It was brilliant.
Another incredible part of my day was seeing 'The Great Gatsby' in one of those gorgeous cinemas, with a ginormous screen, comfy leather armchairs and blankets to keep you warm. It was a stunning place and by far the prettiest production of any novel I have ever seen. I adore Fitzgerald, he is one of all time favourite authors, 'The Beautiful and The Damned' is his best book by far I believe and I really hope they make an adaptation of that. Although, I hear good things about 'Tender Is The Night' so I look forward to reading that after re-reading all the others. Apart from his books though. his lifestyle fascinates me, we talked about him in our captivating Lit classes last year (I miss those days) and it came to light that he did live an incredibly extravagant lifestyle and that he would turn out a new novel as quickly as possible so he and his glamorous wife could afford a new fur she wanted. I love that, I like knowing that his books are a reflection of his own life and his relationships.
I have read 'The Great Gatsby' and I liked it, but I didn't fall into it and never want to escape. It was just nice, it painted a nice picture and story and then there was the romantic figure of Gatsby, so I was incredibly impressed by the film. It is very visual, and therefore less about the story because the novel is very slim. I disliked how it is told from Nick's viewpoint, because you don't get a full impression about Daisy and Gatsby's relationship, so in  way it lacks a bit of depth in that sense.
But, I just fell in lust with this movie, it was like sitting and watching someone else's dream for a few hours. Every scene was gorgeous and Leonardo DiCaprio was, of course, flawless. He has not let me down with any movie I don't think (I didn't care for Romeo and Julie much, though). He makes this film, he is fantastic, compelling and he definitely looks the part. So if you haven't already, please watch it, you will not forget it and I promise you it will exceed your expectations.

Being me, of course I paid attention to the make-up worn by the actresses and Daisy's was surprisingly soft and natural even on a night out it was a very soft brown and gray smoky eye, poreless skin
and perfectly coiffed hair. Myrtle's was much more noticeable with a red lip and full eyelashes. Every single aspect of this film was perfect, makeup, styling, acting, cinematography. Baz Luhrman did a tremendous job I look forward to seeing what he does next. Ad if you haven't listened to the soundtrack then you are crazy, I don't think any other film has a soundtrack that could compare. Lana Del Rey's song gets me every single time. Is there anything she sucks at?

In My Shoes: Thrice is The Charm

I am aware this is starting to read like a diary, so I'll keep it short as that wasn't my intention and hopefully my Sigma palette will arrive imminently and I can deflect attention onto that. I am so excited. The shoes in the picture are wedge trainers purchased from Primark for £18. I love Primark, it's three storeys of heaven. I picked them up because they were quite funky and I have no shoes like them. So today I went to this thing called Pop! which is something that goes on in the Copper Rooms here at Warwick university 7pm till 2am, the idea is you go circling (which if you are not familiar with the term is playing a whole load of drinking games with the goal being to get as hammered as possible, it can get pretty brutal) usually with societies, so I went with Mixed Netball, some of my friends go with Aerobics or Tennis or Polo. It's fun, you circle for 3 hours then for the next 4 hours you dance to cheesy classics and party the night away. But there is always a theme, so for this circle we had to dress as either something beginning with W or C, because the new social exec's names begin with those two letters. One girl came as Warwick Castle, which I thought was inspirational, another came as a Walkers Crisp packet, there was a World Cup, a condom, Where's Wally, clown, children complete with barbie dolls, teddy bears and exaggerated black freckles. I kept it simple as it was a last minute decision to go and went as a witch, essentially I borrowed a friend's tatty witch hat from the dozens of plays she has performed and plonked it on my head. I used the Theodora Oz palette for my eye make-up and wore all black.
I hadn't eaten before I left so I got quite tipsy quite early. I didn't do anything out of the box, but I did see this one guy that I met at the last Pop! I went to and it was incredibly awkward, considering the last time I met him I lost all my friends and had no way of getting home (regular occurrence with me, if you hadn't noticed). He was super sweet about it, willing to let me crash on his floor. But, I managed to get home in the end, and I thanked him via text and he kept asking me out and I just didn't text back hoping he would get the hint, but then he facebooked me and messaged my friend asking why I didn't reply and if she could please get  me to reply. It makes me sound like a cold-hearted bitch but I did just blank him, and pray that I never saw him again so when I did see him it was weird as fuck.
My friend and I left early to get a kebab because we were both starving, then went home to put my witch hat away (it was getting me into all sorts of trouble) we had a few shots of Baileys and then returned with the rest of our hallmates. We had a pretty decent night, but on our return one of the guys we went out with was being really awkward, I was drunk and the last time I was drunk I told him a few home-truths, again not painting me in the best light but I assure you I would say it to him sober and have frequently. I'm the kind of person that if I don't like you and you ask me I'll tell you, I feel like life is too short to be dishonest about things that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter. And I might have been drunk or sleep deprived but I am pretty sure he asked me on a date, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing considering not long ago he was chasing one of my best friends, but I must have imagined it because that is too surreal.
As posts go, that really wasn't very interesting so I apologise, thank you for reading the ramblings of a 19 year old clueless human being I am very grateful and now I am off to the post room, so my next blog can be about something other than my failure of a life. Speak soon, honey buns. Honestly, I have no idea if anyone even reads this tripe, but if just one person is reading then honestly I appreciate it. You're the best, whoever you are.

Summer Must-Have Products/ May Favourites (Plus New Video!)

As the sun is making it's presence known, styles and go-to make-up products gradually begin to change, girls swap leggings for shorts and boots for sandals and wedges. Here are some of my favourite summer-friendly products. I'll also post my YouTube video beneath, if you are interested my YouTube channel is kirank94ful feel free to comment or subscribe.

1. Coconut Face, Body and Hair Beautifying Oil. £9
           I have already written about this, but since then I have tried to use it on my hair and didn't like the outcome at all, it made my hair feel greasy and I wanted to wash it again immediately, but then I did leave it in overnight. A friend of mine kept the oil in for two hours before rinsing it out and she was very pleased with the results so by all means try it. I, for one, am just not keen on using oil in my hair it just goes against everything I believe in, regardless of the benefits etc. However, it is perfect for the skin, it smells exceptionally good and gives a nice tan sheen to your skin whatever colour you may be, so you don't look too pasty while you're trying to soak up some sun rays.


2. L'Oreal Nude Magique BB Cream. £8

            I love this, I have it in Medium, I purchased this just a month or so ago and already I think I am almost finished with the bottle. I use it almost every day. It's quite sheer and yet build-able, it gives you that extra bit of confidence without making you feel like your plastered an inch thick in makeup, it's barely even noticeable it just makes your skin a little more even, a little bit prettier so when the sunlight reflects of it, thankfully it doesn't look strange. I hate the weird sweaty look girls have when they have a face full of makeup in hot weather. Not a good look, ladies.


3. Eyelash Curlers. £3
            There should be a trusty pair of eyelash curlers in every girls, or guys makeup bag, because they, my friend, are an investment. Curling your eyelashes properly takes very little time and effort and even less money yet the difference is immediately distinguishable. Squeeze thrice at the base, half way up and at the edges, then comb through your lashes and voila, instantly your eyes look more awake, they look brighter, prettier and more noticeable. Eyes are the window to the soul. They cost very little, I personally don't think you need to hot foot it to MAC to get one for £14 when you can easily get one for almost a quarter of the price in any high street ship i.e. H and M, Boots. But it is up to you. How simple is that?


4. Johnson's face care cleansing lotion. £2
           A simple, easy, effective way to take your makeup off at the end of the day. It makes your skin look and feel great. It leaves mine feeling soft and refreshed, the scent is lovely, there is literally no downside. Sometimes I dab a little on my face in the morning after I have washed it and it is still make-up free simply because this product genuinely just makes me this happy. I love it, and it is perfect for the summer, it's light and literally sinks into your skin


5. Sigma Resort palette. £34
           This is the perfect summer palette, for those of all skin tones. It is awesome, it has soft muted shades like Muse which is a matte grey, and bright, vibrant colourful shades that seem to pop up out of the package and scream "use me, use me!" Those shades are Midori, Neela, Papaya and Topaz. The palette also contains Fawn and Luna which are light, bright shimmery golds perfect for a Gatsby-inspired look. As well as the eight eyeshadows, you get a luminescent highlighter and a blush shade in a pretty pink colour called Heavenly. There is a double-ended eye pencil, one side is a bright turquoise and the other is an earthy brown, great for summer when you want to mix up the colours a bit, instead of going for the same old standard black.


6. Barry M Gelly Nail paints. £3 each.

              Nail polish for me has always been a must. I love these nail varnishes, primarily because of the colours. I adore the pastel trend this season, and have frequently been picking up new shades from this collection. My favourites are Lychee which literally looks great on anyone of all ages, skin etc, it is a nude shade; Papaya, which is a coral orange shade that looks great with anything denim; Blueberry is a great shade also, it reminds me a little of periwinkle blue and I love it on my toes, I love looking down and seeing a bright, pretty colour, it sounds silly but it makes me feel better. And last but not least the colour I have on my nails currently it's a lilac shade but it is called Prickly Pear, which I don't think I will ever understand.


7. Double Duty Clear Nail Polish Top and Base Coat. £4
            If, like me, you like your nails pretty and polished to perfection then please invest in some form of base or top coat it makes a huge difference. Before using it, my nails would chip by the end of the day, it was an ongoing annoyance, and although there are definitely downsides to using one of these there are plenty of up. You have to wait longer for your nails to dry at the end, the process of application is at least thrice as long, and it is a bitch to take off. However, my nail varnish lasts about a week now and is usually in fairly good condition towards the end still, which is a rarity. So it is definitely worth buying, it comes in really handy for when you're stressed and busy so don't have time to keep up the nail maintenance.



8. NYX Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencil in Milk £3
            I use this as an eyeshadow base, it helps when I apply bright colours especially to make them pop as in some cases, I find that some bright colours don't show up as well against my skin tone, so this is a way of counterbalancing that. It blends really nicely, you can just blend it on your lid with your finger and if you want to make your eyes look even brighter you can apply a little on the inside corners or even as a base for your brow highlight.


9. Heat Protection Spray £5
            I don't style my hair often but when I do I always protect my hair, I honestly believe that your hair is your crowning glory, so do look after it the best you can. If you're going to use heat then protect your hair, I apply Tresemme's Heat Protection Spray while my hair is still damp then wait for it to dry before straightening, I don't like using hairspray to keep my hair in place I just tend to pray, occasionally I will loosely spray some more at the end so my hair smells nice and not just like it's been abused with an ironing rod.


10. Lip Conditioner/Lip Balm £1-6

           A good one should cost no more than five pounds really. I have already shared with you the Lip Conditioner I purchased from The Body Shop and that is good, I use it a lot, but recently I found my old basic Nivea Lip Balm and it's like finding an old friend. I love that lip balm, it's perfect and it makes your lips feel totally smooth and summer ready. No one like chapped lips, they feel horrible, so just slick on some Vaseline, or Nivea Lip Care whichever is your favourite to give you that extra bit of confidence.





Oh, and my final must-have summer product is sunshine, if it won't come to you, you must go to it! I hope you all enjoy your holidays and if you're not going away I hope you enjoy the sun we do get. Thank you for reading and here is the video. Enjoy, feel free to comment, subscribe or get in touch with me.

Les Miserables The Film - My Take

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with beauty or style, but I am an avid movie-watcher and after what seems like a incredibly long time I finally got around to watching this much hyped film and thought I would sweetly let you know what I thought of it. First off, it was very melodramtic, almost overly so in places but for someone who watches Bollywood movies quite often that is nothing new. It was even welcomed at times.The scenery and cinematography was fantastic as was the acting, a few characters definitely stood out for me especially the little girl who plays Cosette, she was wonderful and utterly adorable. I had heard prior to watching it that Russel Crowe's singing wasn't up to scratch, I completely disagree with this, he definitely exceeded my expectations. My main issue with the movie was the lack of French, I did think they would randomly insert some French words or accents, but the poor French people just sound overtly Cockney. It was all very strange, especially as it is immediately followed by a song about the French Revolution.

I loved Eponine, she was incredible, by far my favourite character, her scenes were heartbreaking and she is so beautiful. Her song, I thought, was one of the best, plus her waist is actually tiny. I don't know who the actress is but I am positive she has a very bright future ahead of her and I look forward to seeing her in many more films or musicals. Marius clearly needs his head testing, there is one scene (I don't want to spoil it for anyone) that just made me feel so sorry for her. On the other hand, I didn't care much for the older Cosette played by Amanda Seyfried. I loved her in Mean Girls but ever since then all her characters have lacked a certain quality that enables me to like them, she is very pretty though I didn't care for her costumes (I assume they were a reflection of her wealth). She has lovely features but I find them scarily childlike, all in all I felt she was very bland and pointless. Sacha Baron Cohen, however, will always have my heart, Ali G never seems to let me down, his performance was the perfect balance of humour and talent.

Which finally brings me to the freckled perfection of Eddie Redmayne. I don't know if it is because he is actually quite beautiful or that I have some weird obsession with freckles but he looks great in this movie, just flawless. He looks like such a nice guy, so for the last half of the film I was essentially just swooning over his freckled face. I had already heard about him because of his involvement in the BBC adaptation of Birdsong, I had the pleasure of reading the novel (hated it) for A Level Literature, and apparently the adaptation was very good mainly due to Eddie. So, doubtless, I will be watching that soon.

I sang a long heartily to every song, I munched my way through a variety of food throughout. I didn't cry, me and the friend I was watching it with both screamed and cursed whenever something happened that we didn't like. It was a great film. Definitely worth watching, for some reason after a recent conversation with a good, yet achingly cool friend of mine, I have realised that I don't tend to take musicals seriously at all. I love them, they're fun (High School Musical and Hairspray anyone?) but they lack a certain gravitas for me. So I wasn't as moved as other people might have been. Gavroche was the best dressed out of the lot of them, that little man had style.

Online Shopping Addict: How to Become a Savvy Online Shopper

For some inexplicable reason ever since I have gotten to university, I seem to have gained a new addition to amplify my addictive personality. It's nothing to cause major concern, I have a, what I believe to be normal, relationship with alcohol for a student at least, I haven't tried any dangerous, mind altering drugs. But online shopping gets me every single time. On a whim, I'll casually open a few new tabs in my browser and type the magic words: H&M, River Island, TopShop, Miss Selfridges, ASOS, New Look, Zara, Urban Outfitters, getthelabel.com, bohoo.com, missguided.com. And the next thing I know I have ten new parcels en route to me in the post, to the point where when they arrive I have no recollection of what I selected to buy.

The problem with this is, it's not very savvy and it is expensive. I buy things whimsically, if they look nice and pretty I'll purchase: I am the ultimate consumer. But, more often than not, I make mistakes, things that look good on the model wouldn't suit me as much, I absolutely hate it when that happens, or even though the product is lovely it is ridiculously expensive (cough cough TopShop) and I would only wear it a limited amount of times, I'm not Millie Mackintosh if I went to lectures in Boutique dresses I would get stared at for all the wrong reasons. So this is a helpful  guideline, I hope, on how to become a savvy online shopper.

1. Use online outlets to browse the sales specifically. As there is usually a much wider range than what you would see in store.

2. Set yourself a price limit, in the advanced search you can cap how much you are willing to spend on merchandise, I tend to cap at around £20, but depending on the shop i.e. TopShop and Miss Se
lfridges, the good stuff in those collections are around £40.

3. One word: ASOS. I love this website, it has so many different brands. I have recently started using ASOS Marketplace and got two pairs of fabulous boots. One TopShop pair that would have cost £90 but I got for £30 and a tan pair from New Look which would have cost £20 but I got for £6!

4. Ebay is also great, learning how to use it is something I would definitely recommend  After all, everyone has clothes they don't wear anymore instead of chucking them away, donate them or give them to one of those Cash for Clothes companies, if you're not going to try and sell them.

5. Always envision how your potential purchase would look on you, would it suit your skin tone? Is it a flattering length? Do you have anything to wear it with in your wardrobe already? If you don't have the funds to buy a whole knew outfit, then really is it worth it? If it's just going to sit in your wardrobe not collecting compliments then leave it, your money could be better spent.

6. Do take consideration of weather, fair enough if you're going on holiday and you want to buy your body weight in gorgeous tropical print bikinis, but every year i get suckered into buying summer collections, since March I have been filling closet space with crop tops and flirty summer dresses and shorts and have I had a chance to wear a single one. No. Be smart and realistic.

7. Always go for clothes that can be staples, clothes you can dress down or up and will be versatile. For me those are leggings, oversized jumpers, shirts and skater dresses. I love all of them and practically live in them, they are so versatile and can be adapted to warm or cold weather.

8. Before you go surfing those high-priced brands (my personal favourite being All Saints and Ted Baker) look for similar alternatives in other exclusively online stores like Very and bohoo. I sometimes find great websites when flicking through a magazine.

9. Keep your student card handy and always check if there is a discount code for that day, Dorothy Perkins usually have discounts quite frequently at least that is what my mail tells me. So check it, you'll kick yourself later on when you realise how much you could have saved.

10. Finally check the returns policy, if you're unsure about an item and you still insist on buying it, check on how you could return it and when you would have to return it by, is there a store near you? That is why ASOS is so great, it's free postage and packaging when you return their items so if you're not sure just send it back no muss no fuss. All Saints is harder, the only store, as far as I know, is in London and as they don't allow you to return online purchases in Selfridges, for me it's a bitch to return any items so I have to think long and hard before I buy especially considering the price tags.

That was quite an extensive list, I apologise if a lot of it felt like common sense, and I really hope it helps even a little bit. For me on my list, the first thing is to take my own advice, but then I suppose you learn from your mistakes, and now I can pass on my "lessons" to all you wonderful people. To leave you with one last piece of recycled advice from Confessions of A Shopaholic, repeat after me "Do I need this? Do I?" and of course remember there is always Primark. The most bargainous shop of all, seriously if you can't trust yourself online go to Primark. The day they get an online store, I will be transported into figurative heaven. Thank you for reading and please comment, if there is in fact anyone out there. I'll upload some pictures of my fantastic bargainous purchases in my next post.

Why am I so obsessed with Fashion and Beauty?

Unlike some people, I only relatively recently began to get into beauty in a serious way, it wasn't something that clicked from the moment I was born, it wasn't an innate drive rather for the first fourteen to fifteen years of my life I couldn't have cared less. When I was younger, I wasn't a tomboy exactly, all this materialistic stuff just didn't interest me in the slightest. The clothes I wore were all a variation on a theme: jeans, T-shirt, jumper. I never wore nail varnish, unless I went to a wedding because they were considered a special occasion. At school, right through up until secondary (high) school, we were required to wear uniforms, so again I had little reason to be bothered about fashion and what was on-trend and wasn't. In addition to this, I was quite a shy child at school, I simply preferred to be invisible so I would wear little make-up and always have my hair in a plain and simple plait or ponytail because I didn't want to draw any attention to myself. I always felt that any scrutiny was bad scrutiny, this, of course, was before I discovered the genius of Oscar Wilde.

When I entered Sixth Form, it was the same situation, I had started to wear eyeshadow and mascara, because they were the easiest types of makeup to apply, but on most days I wouldn't bother, I didn't think that makeup application would make too much of a difference and I didn't want people to notice me because of the pretty glittery eyeshadow on my lids, I would rather they think I am pretty based on natural beauty and this is still true. There's a negative perception that people who are superficial enough to grant such importance to clothes and cosmetics are vain and shallow, when I think it should be stressed that just one part doesn't make the whole.

But one day, in the summer of my first year at Sixth Form (that would be junior year for Americans) my sister and I had planned a day out in London, a girly day full of shopping and seeing the sights; we had very high expectations. Naturally, being Britain it was on top form that day and rained constantly, so we spent the majority of it looking for places to hang out inside. So after going to M&M World (one of my favourite places to date) and ambling down Covent Garden, splurging in Harrods and finding this adorable tea shop with every single tea known to mankind, we spent at least three hours in Selfridges. We walked through each designer department staring at the glossy bags with security alarms that would cost more than two months rent until we reached the beauty department. It is ginormous. And I absolutely loved it.

All around us were long legged, perfectly waxed, tanned and made-up Amazonian women, with an arsenal of make up brushes strapped around their tiny waists. These make-up artists looked like models and my self esteem just deflated as I looked on with awe. They were perfect, and though I knew it was essentially expertly applied make-up that had allowed them to hide their flaws, if they even had any, I was still envious of their flawless finish.

So after this incredible day out, which was more fun than I could have imagined, I started to pay more attention to what I wore. Bearing in mind I was still lazy so I never put a full face of slap on and sometimes I didn't apply anything, but I did pay more attention to what clothes I donned, I became addicted to nail varnish, I love it and tend to match it to my mood rather than my clothes. And then I discovered a little thing called YouTube and started watching all these different make-up tutorials and gradually got more interested and started to buy more of the products, especially eye shadow paletttes.

I'm not rich or even well-off, my parents won't pay for my indulgences and I respect them for that, so everything I buy is either a product of my own hard-earned money or saved up cash or the miracle that is student finance. So if I don't post new products, or things from MAC and other high-end brands like YSL it's because some of us are still feeling the recession. Thanks for reading and I will post again soon.

Very First Post: Short Introduction :)

Hello all you lovely people,

This is my face:

My name is Kiran, I am an eighteen year old Indian girl (soon to be nineteen!!) who attends the University of Warwick as a first year Psychology undergraduate. I absolutely love clothes, make-up and anything cute or pretty. So I thought I would just, like a typical 21st century child, share everything I love with the world. So my posts will be about what I've bought lately, make up reviews, I absolutely love eyeshadows, so there will be a lot of palettes and swatches on this blog. Be prepared. But obviously, I am aware that there are a million other blogs like that and I follow some of them myself, so to make things a little bit different, I'll probably post anything that inspires me also, whether it be a quote, a book, a film, any suggestions would be welcome. I hope you like it and that you don't get bored, I'll endeavour to keep things interesting for you guys. I should probably mention that I am obsessed with food too, so if i post pretty meals which I probably will just indulge me, and with that I am going to eat some lovely food at Nando's (which will be in my next post most likely). Thank you and I will post again soon.