Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupte Review

Now whenever I saw these, I wanted them all. Recently I was watching a video by lollipop26 who raves about them, and I couldn't help but go check them out when I was in town.

#13, Peach Passion
First off.. they look incredibly pretty. I'm immediately drawn in by the glossy gold packing, the stylish logo around the middle, and the little mirror on the end.. It's generally just a very pretty product. I'm a sucker for pretty packaging, and this definitely hits the mark. They feel expensive, too. It's a heavy product, physically, compared to other lipsticks, such as MAC, which makes it feel classy and more like a product to take care of, rather than throwing it in the bottom of my bag with all the dust and icky things that live in there.
It is an expensive product, also. One of these will set you back a full £21. I will pay a lot for lipsticks, but I think over £20 is starting to push it! But.. they are so very very pretty, haha. I work for a place where I can get a discount on it, so in the end it only cost me just under £16. Which mentally I, of course, round down to £15 and that doesn't seem so bad to me..
The colour is gorgeous. I don't really have anything like it. I have things that give a similar colour with sheer coverage, but this is something else. It looks very creamy in the tube, and I assumed this wouldn't be very pigmented. I was wrong. You put it on and it comes out highly pigmented, and super glossy. It slides on almost like lipgloss. I love the texture, however, I don't know if I'll be wearing it an awful lot in this thirty degree heat.. but still. The colour is very similar to that on the tube, a pinky-peachy coral, leaning possibly towards the 'salmon' end of the spectrum, but sort of milky. A bit like peaches and cream. Which I suppose is about right for the name.

Here's a side by side comparison of my lips bare, and then with Peach Passion. Please ignore my little freckle on my lip, haha. This picture doesn't really show the difference that well, now that I'm looking at it. In person, it adds a really pretty, bright, creamy looking finish. I've heard people complain about these being super-drying when on the lips, but I haven't really found that? I do tend to use a lip scrub most days, but I think if you already have dry lips in the slightest, it will cling in all the lines on your lips... which pretty much means bad times.

I could go on but I'll stop! Here's a little breakdown for you;

Price: 3/5

Packaging: 5/5

Colour: 4/5

Texture: 5/5

Would I buy this product again?

Probably! As long as I have my trusty John Lewis discount card by my side, I'm sure I'll be looking into some other colours in the future, because there is a deep purple (Forbidden Burgundy) with my name written all over it...

Beauty-related posts will return shortly..

I just read a blog by someone I went to college with moaning about summer. 690 words complaining about how they hated the summer. Hated children in summer. Hated adults in summer. Hated driving in summer. Hated shopping in summer. Hated leaving the house in summer.

God. Really? Be grateful you don't live with depression or seasonal-affective -disorder, why don't you.

I live for summer. Sunshine works absolute wonders. I didn't realise until recently how much something like the sunlight effects me, and how much of a different person I am in the winter. I love Autumn with a passion, honestly. There is nothing I like better than cold walks with my dad and coloured leaves and fires burning and rain. But by the time the days shorten, I feel like my personality leaks away.
I don't want to do anything, my mood drops considerably. There's the typical winter-blues, but when you physically cannot bring yourself to move, you know there's more to it than that. I dread winter, every year. January and February are my worst months and I don't have good memories about these times. I'm virtually bedridden, some days. The hardest thing is when you never really see the sunlight. You get up and it's dark, you do things all day and it's dark by the time you get home. It's a horrible thing.

Summer is a good thing. Do not underestimate how good the sun can be for you. Yes, it can be bad. But for people like me, it's literally a God send. I love everything about the summer.
So here is a blog to counteract those 690 words of misery, because I need this.

I love the heat. I love sitting outside and just being so overwhelmed by heat, heat, heat. I love the light. God, I adore the light. Getting light at 4AM? It's beautiful.

And the sunset's in summer are intense.

The light is one of the best things by a long shot. The sky seems to take on this amazing quality in the summer. I don't even know, but it makes me feel fantastic.

Clouds are gorgeous. I could write a whole blog about how I love clouds. I won't. But trust me when I tell you how pretty they are. Look up.

If we're talking nature, remember how green everything looks in the summer months. It's got to beat snow or bare trees, right?


The places you visit seem even better in the sunshine. It adds a great colour to all your memories.

Italy was one of the best places I've ever had the privilige of going to.



And whilst we're on the subject of traveling.. you don't even have to leave your own country, god. My dad has a phobia of flying, so my family holidays have always been British-affairs. And I'm okay with that, pretty much. The weather can be bad, but it can be excellent too. Just wake up to it. I love British beaches. They're a staple from my childhood, and it makes everything excellent. Take a trip to the Lake District and go on a boat. Walk up a hill. Go to Oxford or Bath and look at some excellent architecture.


In general, I love cities in the summer. Despite the heat. I like how the heat descends on a city and everything seems to slow down.

I love travelling in the summer. It makes me feel like something exciting is going to happen. One of the best things in life, I feel, is having music up loud, driving somewhere, a car full of your friends and the windows down and your hair being blown all over the place. Driving like this, it solves everything.

Here's a good time: get some food in, start your BBQ going, get some wine or fruity drinks and get your friends over. Continue until the sky goes black. Then light candles and carry on.

Cocktails and pub gardens are a must.

So yeah, maybe hot, stinking tube trains suck, maybe screaming children on a trampoline at 7AM next door when you're trying to have a lie-in in August get on my nerves, the 4PM customers on a sunday when we're clearly sold out of anything barbecue related are beyond irritating.. but get over it! There are far too many good things to waste your time complaining about the bad things.
Do not under value your summer, your seasons in general. My bad winters make me appreciate the summer a thousand times more.

Please tell me you like the summer too?(All pictures are my own.)

Happy Birthday to me!

Well.. not anymore.. it's now Tuesday, but we'll ignore that fact (and the fact that I should be in bed but I can't sleep!). Just wanted to say thank-you for all the birthday wishes I got.. and show you the amazing birthday cake my mum made me! It is absolutely unreal...haha.


The outside.. 20 candles, count 'em! You may notice it is quite a tall cake..


And this would be why. Layers of rainbow cake.
My mum makes some pretty awesome cakes and when she asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I jokingly said I wanted a rainbow cake. Then yesterday we spent a good few hours in the kitchen making the layers and perfecting the food colouring.. I love it so much and almost didn't want to eat it. Cutting into it was the best thing ever.
I saw this idea forever ago on i am baker's blog where she made a green cake, and didn't think it was possible because it's a right pain in the bum to find white cake mix here, but me & my mum made a batch of pale cake mix, and managed to successfully add colours. We also found this recipe really useful, too.


A slice.. (: You will not need second-helpings. Trust me, haha.

For two layers of cake you'll need:
4oz of butter/marg
4oz of flour
4oz white caster sugar
2 large eggs
As much food colouring as you like!
2 small pans (I recommend small, thin pans, mine were probably like 20cm across)

Basically you just mix the cake like you normally would, then add the food colouring, making sure it's super vibrant, as it fades a tad when cooking, then cook the cake like you normally would. The outsides, where they cook, will go a strange colour - a sort of dull, greenish version of the colour you made.. but do not despair. Layer the cakes as you want, and I used some Betty Crocker icing inbetween each layer, and then smoothed around the top & bottom (I say *I*, my mum did this bit because I can't ice cakes for shit!). And then have the time of your life cutting into it. I am going to bedoing this for all my friends now, haha.
If you opposed to such things as E numbers, i am baker also does one coloured by natural substances like strawberries, blueberries and kiwis.. which I really want to try.
And I would highly recommend trying to find an American food shop (I'm visiting this one later this week haha) to get white cake mix because that is a, cheating, and b, a hell of a lot easier, haha.

That concludes my food-themed-blog post, haha. Hope you had a good day, too. (:

A World of Birds..

I kind of haven't done anything this week.. but I've been busy! Been doing lots of little bits, like popping to the shops with friends and just hanging out with people and trying to fit in going to the gym as much as possible and enjoying the start of my summer! So I thought I would show you a little bit of what i've been up to & share some pictures. (: I went to Birdworld. It's basically just a place near my university that has a lot of exotic birds you can have a look at. And for some reason, I have a thing for birds.. I love them, haha. Except Albatrosses. They freak me out. Anyway, you can buy stuff to feed them and some of them are super friendly, I made friends with a parrot who whenever I made a clicking noise, copied me and I pretty much loved it.


Pirate parrots! I love them and I really want to own one!


I kind of love toucans and so do my friends - their beaks look like their stuck on or something, it's great.


A peacock I made friends with. This was in a bit you could wander about with lots of chickens and turkeys and the peacock liked me, but the turkey tried to attack my friends..I laughed from a safe distance.


A very noisy bird that let us stroke it's head. (:


And me! We went on Monday which was the hottest day of the year so far and oh-my-Gosh I was dying haha. But this picture is because there is the exact same one of me when I'm little in front of that picture, haha.
What are you up to now we're officially into June (by the time I post this anyway)!