Elle

This isn't quite like my usual post, however, this year, a one day visit to Poland has made me want to tell as many people as possible about what I have experienced and explored. In March, I was selected after a process of interviews to represent my school on a trip to Oświęcim, funded by the Holocaust Educational Trust. The day long trip saw us fly to Krakow and then travel by bus to the infamous concentration camp: Auschwitz - Birkenau. I've now written about my experience numerous times. In my monthly column for the local magazine; in a lesson in which I taught Year 7 students studying The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and in the essays I had to write for the Lessons from Auschwitz project once I had visited the site. Despite this, however, I am still unable to put my feelings entirely in to words, nor write enough to cover everything that I saw and felt both prior, during and post my visit. It is a strange thing to stand in a place where millions have died and feel the s...

This post is a little late in the writing but as summer is coming up and many teenagers will have some free time and be considering a mini break with their friends, I thought this might be useful. During February half term, my friends and I (4 in total) took the train and visited Skegness for 2 nights and three days. Here I thought I would give you a brief outline of our trip and some tips and tricks to make everything run smoothly and not break the bank! We chose to use Booking.com to compare hotels and ended up choosing the North Parade B&B, we got two twin rooms, both of which had ensuites. After reading the reviews, it seemed to have friendly staff and was in the perfect location: a 10 minute walk from the train station and right on the sea front so easy to access everything, which is something to consider if you don't drive. Another thing I would definitely recommend is calling the hotel you choose to stay in if you're under 18 or even 21, some of the places we look...

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you'll know what a fan of Benefit products I am. Recently, Benefit seem to have been expanding their most successful Box o Powders in to their own lines; last year we saw 'Dew the Hoola' and 'Dandelion Dew' amongst others and this year these two have graced the shelves of Benefit counters. If you haven't noticed, I'm incredibly pale and have to consider this when applying my make up; therefore when I saw these, I couldn't wait to try them - Dandelion Twinkle is a light pink powder highlighter while Hoola Lite is (quite obviously) a lighter, cooler toned version of their popular matte bronzer/contouring powder Hoola. Both of these sounded perfect for paler skin or a minimal makeup look. I did try to swatch these but as they are both quite light, it was too difficult to give an accurate representation - although this isn't a negative, it just means that they blend well. Hoola Lite First u...

Summer is finally here in the UK, we've had some beautiful, sunny days. One of my favourite things to do in the summer is to play with bright and beautiful lip colours and so I thought I would compile a short list some of my favourite, affordable lipsticks to brighten your days over the coming months. PS - my camera wasn't showing the colour of the swatches very well so I had to use my iPad to take picture swatches so the quality isn't great. PPS - the pictures were taken after 12 hrs of make up wearing so it's not looking great but my eye make up is a combination of Trick, Liar and Factory from the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette combined with the Too Faced Better than Sex mascara. I could've picked so many but I tried to pick a small representation so it's not too overwhelming: From left: NYX Cosmic Metals Speed of Light, Colorpop Poppin', Revlon Lip Butter 'Tutti Frutti', Avon 'Rapid Rose', NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream 'Sydney'  ...