You, Me & Beauty...

My Go To Makeup: Brown Smokey Eye..

11:10

Every girl has a go to makeup look; It's that combination of eyeshadows paired with that certain lipstick, that she just knows works and takes no longer than 5 minutes to do.

Mine is a subtly brown smokey eye, its probably the only look I wear on a night out because it works with pretty much every outfit. I do chop and change, but when in doubt this is what I go for.

This look is so easy and can be recreated using pretty much any eyeshadow palette as it only requires two matte brown shades and a highlight colour for your brow bone. This time round I used the Limited Edition Bobbi Brown Rich Chocolate palette which I have been absolutely loving at the moment. For liner I used the the Eyeko Skinny Liquid Eyeliner, which is a great product for those of you who aren't completely comfortable with liquid liner yet, as the felt-tip end is really sturdy giving you slightly more control.

The trick to a good smokey eye is to keep everything else really simple. Your base should be flawless without being cakey and your blush or bronzer should be subtle, but still giving your face that lift and glow. Stick to a lip balm with a hint of colour and you're golden!

Lara x

Acne

Acne: Story So Far..

08:23

Having suffered with acne for about three years now, my skin is never something I like talking about, let alone writing about it on the internet and including a picture of myself with no makeup on, but like they say there's a first time for everything.

Before I hit the age of sixteen I had lovely clear skin, not a blackhead, scar or spot in site. However that summer my skin had a bit of a meltdown and decided now was the time for me to get acne (couldn't think of a worse time in my life if I tried). For a while I didn't really treat my acne, all I did was buy every face wash and scrub available on the high street that was geared towards spot prone skin, but none of those were helping, if anything they made matters worse.

I then went to my local GP and got put on antibiotics, which I took for about a year and a half I think, but those didn't really do the trick either; it wasn't getting any better, and by this point my acne had spread to my cheek and chin area, were as before it was just confined to my T-Zone.

Unfortunately I don't have any bare faced pictures of myself from when my acne was at its worst because as you can imagine, makeup was my best friend and the camera... was not! What I can offer you however is a picture of myself now.

An unedited, bare-faced, HD picture of myself taken straight after my workout!

After having taken Trimethoprim (Click here to read my in depth blog post all about it) for 10 months, this is how my skin looks now.

While on Trimethoprim my skin was beautiful, it was spot and blackhead free; my facialist was extremely impressed! But I couldn't be on medication for the rest of my life, so in June, my dermatologist and I decided that it was time for me to come off it. My skin stayed clear for a few weeks once I had finished my course, but while in Mallorca I noticed I was starting to get a few spots here and there, it was a bit disheartening, but I knew this would happen anyway.

As you can see from the picture above I don't have any big red nasty spots on my face; the only red spots that you can see are actually scars, and I get those whether I pop a spot or not. Besides the scars all I have are a few little bumps on my forehead and on the side of my nose, and considering I haven't been on medication for three months now, thats actually pretty good going.

I would highly recommend Trimethoprim to anyone with acne who is a bit afraid to try Accutane. You may still get a few spots when you come off it, but the same can be said for Accutane, and the possible side effects of Accutane just did not seem worth the risk to me.

Now I'm on the hunt for really good skin care that will keep my skin in the condition it's in now or better yet, clear it up even more. It's going to take time and a lot of trial and error, but its important to me that I only use whats best for my skin.

To any of you suffering with acne all I'll say is, keep your head up and don't let it knock your confidence too much. The people that mean the most to you and are true friends, really won't care that you have a few spots on your face, and those who do aren't worth your time. Have patience, do your research and enjoy your life!

Lara x

And Other Stories

Girls Day in London Town

08:43

Last week I went into London to see one of my friends from Madrid who was in the country for a week or so; and of course we had a proper girls day out, I'm talking, brunch, shoe shopping, makeup shopping, more food, finished off by sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine catching up on just about everything!

I thought it would be a nice idea to share with you some pictures of the places we went so you yourself could check them out the next time you're in Londres.

Food

A girls day out isn't complete without a nice meal or two. The first place we went to was Balthazar in Covent Garden for some brunch. This place is notoriously hard to get a table during lunch and dinner time, but you'll be fine if you're just going to brunch like we did. I could not recommend it enough, the food is amazing and the atmosphere and decor isn't something you find everyday; Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while I was there, the pancakes had all my attention!

For lunch, my lovely friend took me to one of her favourite places to go in London. Caffé Concerto has restaurants scattered all over London; we went to the one in Knightsbridge. The decor and atmosphere was all very 'up market Paris' and the food also has the same feel to it. We had the warm duck and pear salad topped off with a glass of prosecco and my God was it amazing. I managed to take a few pictures while we were there.

Me and Ksenia at Caffé Concerto (Isn't she pretty?!)

Red lips + prosecco + my new ring

Shopping

I personally didn't do a lot of shopping, all I brought was a ring (Shown in the picture above) but I did have my first trip to & Other Stories located on Regents street which is where I brought my beautiful new ring, and we also popped into Space NK.

The morning we went into London I had seen a tweet by a blogger (I can't tell you which one, my memory is awful, apologies) mentioning this store called '& Other Stories' and made a mental note to visit it if we had enough time, and funny enough we stumbled across it when walking down Regent Street; in typical Lara style I kind of fan girled and jumped up and down saying how much I wanted to go in, and I was not disappointed. It's a bit of a miss + match store selling pretty much everything, from gorgeous shoes to cotton buds. The layout of the store can only be described using two words, clean and chic, making it a shoppers heaven. So whether your in London or any other city where this store is located I highly suggest you go in and look around, there are so many beautiful things in there; you could either come out with some beautiful new clothes or some new body products.

We then moved onto Space. NK and I think I deserve a round of applause for not buying anything; However we were in there for about 25 minutes. Ksenia was introduced to the magic of Nars and I was educated in the Goldfaden MD products, the gentleman that served us was amazing and I wish I had found out his name. As with everyone that works in Space NK he was really informative and knew what he was talking about and really made you interested in the products. I was given a sample of the Goldfaden MD 'Doctors Scrub' and 'Vital Boost' Moisturiser so I'll be giving those a test run in the next few days to see if they would be a good investment and I will let you know.