Saturday night antics...

It was my friend Joanne's birthday celebration on Saturday, the perfect excuse to dress up!
Shopping during the day and partying all night - what better way to spend a weekend!
Here are a few snaps from the night...

Joanne and I before we went out

me (in the front) and the girls drinking killer terminators!!

And this one is just for fun.....

my usually shy and relatively quiet boyfriend (in the blue) and Joanne's boyfriend up on stage at a club dancing around a pole - comical!!

He may be comical, but the boyfriend can also be quite sweet!I got home from work today and because I always have cold feet (especially in the cold weather at the moment) he had bought me some lovely fluffy slippers from Fat Face! what a sweety!

Warm winter wishes xxxx

Wash away the winter blues...

Skin looks amazing in the summer - soft, smooth and glowing, but as soon as the cold weather sets in, out come the tights and long sleeves and it's bye bye bare skin!
But just because your skin will be covered up for the next few months doesn't mean you have to completely forget about it — believe it or not now is the time to start getting your skin prepared for summer! (yes I know Christmas hasn't been and gone yet so why am I thinking about the summer already?)
Think about it, if you look after your skin throughout the winter, then when the summer does come along all the hard work has already been done — no last minute frantic scrubbing to get rid of all that dull dry skin!
My skin is not naturally soft like some lucky people have — I tend to have tiny little bumps all over my arms and legs which, if left unattended, make my skin feel like sand paper! yuk. So for me there are only two rules for soft winter skin — 1. exfoliate 2. moisturise. That's it.

There are loads of body scrubs and exfoliating products on the shelves at the moment depending on your skin type — mine needs quite a bit of scrubbing so I opt for scrubs quite densely packed with beads or 'gritty bits'. The best one I have found so far is super on the skin and perfect on the pocket — Superdrug's own Vitamin E Exfoliating Body Scrub which at the moment is on sale for just £1! www.superdrug.com (I love the Vitamin E range it smells like summer, all the  products are under a fiver and they do make your skin feel soft!!)

The only downside to this is that because it is so packed with 'gritty bits' that it leaves quite a mess in the shower and especially in the bath!!
At the moment I'm addicted to these exfoliating body gloves....

Ok so they're not too glamorous but who's going to see you in the shower?! From Superdrug again, these are just under £2 but you just use them with your normal shower gel and they last for ages! (You can put them in the washing machine to clean them too)
Personally I think these are AMAZING! (They also exfoliate your hands while your at it!) No mess and no fuss!

When it comes to moisturising I must be the fussiest person on the planet! I want a moisturiser to make my skin soft, but can't stand when you feel sticky or greasy for hours after you apply it! (I usually moisturise before I go to bed and the boyfriend hates cuddling me in bed when I'm sticky or greasy!)
I have a whole box full of moisturisers that I have used and not liked but the one I seem to keep going back to is Vaseline's Aloe Fresh Hydrating Body Lotion

It's thick enough to make your skin feel soft but sinks in after a couple of minutes leaving your skin dry to touch but fresh and moisturised.
I tend to exfoliate and lather myself in moisturiser two or three times a week — any more than that and your skin will be over scrubbed and feel more delicate.
If you start now and make it part of your weekly routine, by the time the summer comes your skin will be soft, glowing and ready to soak up the sun!
Happy scrubbing! xxx

SSshhhh, let me tell you a little secret....

Ok, not really a secret but if any of you fancy a bit of a shopping spree from the warmth of your own home, you can get 20% off purchases at ASOS.com until November 30 by entering the code ASOS20 at the checkout!
Happy shopping xx

All I want for Christmas is....

you? Maybe not, but a couple of things I would quite like to see in my stocking this year are....

Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat — anyone who knows me, knows that I am obsessed with trying to cover up the dark circles under my eyes but sadly to no avail as yet! (I have a makeup bag full of various concealers that are no good) but this is the best I have found so far. Because it is a highlighter as well as a concealer, it reflects light off the skin making dark rings not so obvious!
Unfortunately, at around £20 each, my pay packet does not stretch far enough for me to buy a new one as soon as the old one has run out (I would probably get through two a month but as I said - I'm obsessive).
So I'm hoping someone (namely my mum) will buy me one from the duty free when she goes on holiday next week!

As a compulsive shoe/boot buyer, I also really want these boots from Next...

(They're lighter than this in real life and really comfy - I have been in and tried them on), unfortunately again they are quite expensive — £80 to be exact. Not bad for real leather boots but I can't justify buying them myself seeing as I just spent almost that much on a pair of these RocketDog boots which I am living in at the moment!

Other than that I can't really think of anything else I want for Christmas except lots of champagne and lots of FOOD!

If you are stuck for ideas on what to get people for Christmas this year, my friend Joanne is a brilliant artist and will paint black and white portraits from photographs (She is currently doing a painting of my brother and his girlfriend for me that I will give them as an xmas pressie!)
She painted one of me and the boyfriend as our moving in present, take a look....

I think this looks scarily like me (except as you can probably tell I was dressed as Marilyn Monroe at the time)
To see more examples of her work or to get in touch with her visit her website www.joharrisportraits.co.uk
Lots of love xx

Techno savvy..

Just a quick update because I have changed the name of my blog - although I liked the previous name, it really had nothing to do with what I was blogging about!
Sooo, I now have an alter ego — Sam AKA the barefaced beauty fool!
I also got a bit 'techno savvy' with my blog and made it look a bit more professional (it took me a while to figure out how to change everything, computers are not my strong point!)
So I hope you like the new look!
Adios! xx

My first follower and the dreaded MAN FLU!

For all you hardened bloggers out there, this probably isn't a big deal but today I got my FIRST FOLLOWER!! Someone is actually interested enough to read about beauty-related opinions and my day to day happenings, so thankyou very much to ♥ Stacey ♥ for making my day (you can read her blog at thehqofbeauty.blogspot.com).
I am dealing with the dreaded man flu at the moment - not me (obviously) but the boyfriend who's cold seems to effect every other part of his body (mainly his legs). If anyone saw him they may be forgiven for thinking his cold is terminal!
As the loving girlfriend I am, after making him dinner his laziness kicked in and somehow he convinced me to go outside into the freezing cold to buy him ice-cream?! I need to learn how to say no!
He wouldn't let me take a photo of him looking ill either- miserable git!
Let's hope it doesn't last too long!

Sweet Lips!

So this is the first of my reviews and it has come after I decided I wanted to start wearing more lipstick to jazz my face up a bit.
My mum wears a lot of lipstick and she bought a new one from Superdrug the other day which I tried and really liked.
It's Maybelline 18 hour wear Superstay lip colour in 130 Dawn Pink Rose Seduction. (It got a bit bashed in the bag on my way home).
It is a double-ended stick - one end has a lip gloss type applicator for the colour, which you put on first, and the other end is a conditioning balm, which goes on second.
After you've applied the colour, you have to wait for it to dry (you MUST do this otherwise the colour goes bit smeary). Once the colour has dried, you put the conditioning balm over the top which moisturises the lips and gives it a shine.
The colour I chose is quite subtle because I wanted something I could wear during the day and to work.
It is about 5.30 in the evening so the light in my flat is not very good which means the photo of the colour on my lips is not great but just gives you an idea...

(I'm sorry that you can see up my nose!!)
I'm not the most photogenic person in the world hence the half face shot!
Anyway I really like this lip colour it really does stay on for AGES but does come off when you wash it off (unlike a lip stain) you do have to keep applying the balm though, otherwise the colour looks a bit dry. I'm used to putting on lip balm every 5 minutes so thats not a problem for me!
Let me know what you think!
Pretty pink kisses! xxx

London/Paramore pics (finally)

In Oxford Street shopping...

I thought it was supposed to be the boys hanging around outside while the girls were busy shopping, but the boys were a bit too exited about the life-size figures of Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo in the Adidas shop!
The 02 arena in London (where we went to see Paramore) was huge! we stopped to have dinner - I had mac 'n' cheese (very American)! Showing a bit of love while having dinner.....

 (Joanne and me)

This pictures a bit dark but it is Joanne singing a long to Paramore!! Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the actual band because we were too far away and my camera wouldn't zoom in that far!
After the concert at the 02, we waited in the LONGEST queue for a taxi back to our hotel and the guys got a bit fed up...

But after a wonderful weekend away and a lot of walking and travelling we were glad to be going home...

Have a wonderful weekend!! xxx

London Baby!!

Back to work this week, after a very hectic trip to London over the weekend! It seemed like we did nothing but travel, walk, travel, walk, travel, walk! It was worth it though.
The whole point of the trip was to see Paramore at the 02 arena and they were AMAZING!! (Even though we were sat right at the top of the arena and the sound was crappy —I'm feeling a complaint email coming on in the hope that I may score some free tickets!) But it was still amazing and I almost lost my voice from singing along!! I was disappointed they didn't sing my favourite song "All I wanted was YoooouuUUuu"
Pictures to come, I'm at work at the moment so can't put them up right now!
Over and out! x

Spring cleaning (in November)!

Today was the first day of my much needed week off from work and my flat was an ABSOLUTE tip so I decided to do some spring cleaning (and also if the boyfriend came home from work to see that I have sat on my bum all day doing nothing he wouldn't be very happy!!)
Our spare room needed the most work as it looked like this....

We only have a small flat so the spare room is our wardrobe/washing/drying room! haha. But after some banging tunes and a lot of dust up my nose it ended up lookin like this...

Now I'm pooped! but after all my hard work, I treated myself by painting my nails! I'm such a girl!!

Have a beautiful day! xxx

Hangover TV

I didn't really want to start my blog with a hangover but as I'm sitting watching Beetlejuice on crappy Saturday TV, I thought this was as good a time as any!
I should probably introduce myself a little bit - my name is Sam but my friends call me manths (as in Samantha) or panth (don't ask me why).
I live in a small town in Devon and work on the local newspaper as a journalist. Working on such a small newspaper I spend a lot of time talking to old people and people who have nothing better to do then moan, but I do love getting to meet lots of people and the people I work with are lovely.

I have a very close knit group of friends (we are a bit like the programme Friends). There's my wonderful bestest mate Joanne - she's my rock and I love her, and then theres Mike (my boyfriend), scottie, bruv, pete, zig, doyler  and Joe- i love these guys, they make me laugh everyday - you will probably here a lot about them on this blog! They look a little bit like this....

So back to my hangover - it wasn't intentional (but when is it ever?) Joanne and I have a tradition of going to our local pub "the nish" after work on a Friday to celebrate the end of the week (even tho Joanne doesn't have a job at the moment) but last night she flaked out on me so I managed to convince the boys to come out.

One drink led to two, three and four and before I knew it, it was 10pm and the boyfriend decided it was time I went home! So off I was dragged, and having missed dinner, it was no surprise that I felt pretty awful when I woke up ths morning!
Anyway, back to nursing my hangover.
Peace out.