stylespiration 08

images from here, here and tumblr.

black, gold and silver accents, vintage collar tips, crisp black shirts, bold block make up, oxblood docs, slouchy knitwear, clear nail tips, skull studs, black court shoes, dirty hair, aura + amethyst crystals and dark lips.

make up saviours

i wouldn't really class myself as a make up snob, which i think some bloggers seem to give off. i'm not really loyal to one brand, i have favourites.. mac, clinique, benefit etc. however, if something really cheap does the job better i definitely don't complain.

01. erase paste in 'fair 01' - concealer by benefit.



a miracle in a pot, i love how creamy and thick this is, full concealer coverage and it feels so light on your face! i'm the lightest shade and it has lovely warm tones to it. i love the little lesson leaflet they give you, pictured below, which shows the best ways to use the product. so, retailing at about twenty quid per little pot, it's pretty pricey, but well worth the money.

02. play sticks in 'spin the bottle' - foundation by benefit


i recently ran out of my usual MAC studio fix fluid in 'NC15' and decided to have a change because i simply couldn't find a mac store near epsom! i went to the benefit counter with my mam and asked the for full coverage, matte foundation. the lovely girl on benefit told me the brand rarely does a full matte coverage, but their 'play sticks' is the closest to that and the most natural. i must admit, the cream-to-powder texture is perfect. however, i'm not so sure how long the product will actually last me, the stick of foundation is too easy to apply generously, so i hope it lasts!

03. volume million lashes in 'black' - mascara by l'oreal
04. exceptionnel de chanel in 'noir obscur' - mascara by chanel

03. this is a recent purchase because i didn't want my chanel one to run out quickly, so i'm currently alternating between these two. the volume million lashes is AMAZING. it's a medium thickness, so it's easy to build up to a thicker coverage over your lashes, which is usually my method. the brush is excellent, it separates lashes fully but doesn't take away the mascara too, you have full control - which i love. i can't recommend it enough!

04. i got this mascara as a gift from my best friend and i have to say, it's so good. the product itself is quite thin in density i would say, but i prefer it for days when i want my make up a little more natural. it can be layered and built up, but it's better just to use one coat in my opinion. it is best for lengthening and giving that nice dark texture, like you've just had your lashes tinted!

05. triple performing face emulsion - moisturiser by benefit

when i bought my foundation from benefit, i received this cute little sample of moisturiser. not being one to look after my face, i rarely use products apart from shovels of make up - so my face gave a sigh when i rubbed this into my skin. it's very light.. which is good for me, cause i feel like my skin is prone to breakouts easily lately. however, i think it kind of nourishes and targets the dry areas of my face too, which is a bonus. i may have been persuaded to buy the full sized bottle now!

06. blusher in 'pink orchid' - by barry m
07. stay matte pressed powder in 'peach glow' - powder by rimmel
08. liquid eyeliner 'black' - by w7

right, now back to the three old basic favourites, all of which as so cheap!

firstly, my blusher. i always return to this barry m favourite after trying out mac blushers or benefit blush pots for a while. the vibrant colour and length it lasts on my face simply can't be beaten!

secondly my absolute make up must have. my rimmel stay matte pressed powder. i hate my face bing shiny. so this is perfect for touch ups and reviving my face if the majority of my make up has come off after a long day! my powder is my life, i am totally loyal to this product. at just under £4, i can't complain.

finally.. this is the liquid eyeliner i use. yes it can be bought from poundland, tj hughes and peacocks - and yes, it costs about £1. everytime i notice it in a cheapy shop i buy it in bulk, because i never know when i'll find it again. actually, i just thought.. maybe it's online! and i've FOUND IT HERE! be right back... just buying 20million of them. honestly, the liquid stays on all day, is totally jet black and the felt brush tip makes it so easy to apply.

so yeah, theres some main aspects of my make up kit. sorry for the hefty post. hope this helped if any of you were looking for a specific make up must have. love soph

belmondo purse

the lovely people of shopalike sent me a beautiful beautiful purse for doing that little review post, which you can read here! the purse is by the german brand belmondo, and i absolutely adore it. i'm not sure on the exact price of this exact purse, but other belmondo, real leather purses like this one retail between £40-£60.

i needed a new purse, my old paul's boutique purse.. bought a few years ago from oxford street topshop has suddenly become insanely chavvy to me. sorry, but i'm really not a paul's boutique fan anymore, but thats just my opinion. it also didn't have enough card space or room for me.

i'd originally bought a plain black real leather purse from topshop, but once i got the opportunity to recieve this purse it was a no brainer.

i adore the feel of the insanely soft brown leather, and the silver stud detail is right up my street, it has plenty of card space and lots of compartments and extra pocket space. the coin purse section is detachable for even more versatility. i can tell i'm going to use this until i wear it out, it's perfect.

so thank you again shopalike for giving me this beautiful gift!

whirlwind weekend at home

okay, so i'm back down south now. still without my beloved photoshop so i'm slowly dying, as is my blog. here's a few quick webcam pictures i snapped in my bedroom at home whilst i visit my friends and family this weekend just gone.

i wore my trusty topshop faux leather jacket, a new polka-dot, jersey, midi dress from primark and a gunmetal, spiked necklace from therapy at house of fraser and my river island chelsea boots. oh, and my burgundy lipstick is rimmel in 'starry-eyed' from this post.

so, it was lovely catching up with my girls up north, i had a pretty hectic weekend - i was on the megabus home for eight hours on friday (a company i do not recommend) and just as i got home, i went back out for a well earned night out, durham style, it such a funny night.
on the saturday i went shopping with mam, dad and dominic to the metro centre and had a kfc for lunch. then saturday night consisted of a surprise baby shower for one of my best friends, who's expecting a baby boy in november.

finally, sunday i got up bright and early to do a photography job for a business in my hometown, had a meal at nando's with my girls, then met up with some more friends to go and see rihanna and calvin harris on the sunday night! what an amazing weekend!

so yeah, i have so much more to blog about. hopefully i'll get kirsty to help me get some good pictures tomorrow. love you all x

urban outfitters lookbook

i absolutely love how urban outfitters (cant find the name of the stylist, help me?) has put their latest lookbook together! the layering, knitwear and clunky shoes, everything's perfect!

i love the fur collars, hoods and trims. it inspired me to stitch my topshop fur stole too a new coat i bought recently, which i shall photograph and post about later this week.

stop, and wait a sec.

jumper: h&m, lips: 17 lipliner in 'valentine'

helloooo, i realised i havent really done any little short personal posts in a while, so now i'm going too do just a quick update.

so, i've been down in epsom, surrey for just over a month now. i feel settled in and my course is okay, im sure the more i learn and the more people i meet it will just get better and better - hopefully! i'm due to get the bus back home tomorrow for a whirlwind weekend back up north. my friends from home are ready and waiting to take me on a night out on friday, then there's some special events taking place on saturday and sunday too - including going to see rihanna at metro radio arena!

the picture above is a new favourite of mine, partially because you can't see the majority of my face, and partly because of my new hair colour. to be honest, the colours pretty similar to my natural. but it's a shade lighter and looks much more 'ash' toned, instead of being gingery. it's the first permanent dye i've ever had on my head, but i'm glad i did it! the dye i used was actually called blonde!

so over the weekend i may not be able to post much, obviously. but once i come back i'll try my hardest to blog about a recent trip to camden, a shopping spree in oxford street and some of my latest uni work etc.

see you all soon! i'm now off to my student union to see a band called fiN who've apparently supported the kooks and mona (who i absolutely love ever since kings of leon - read my blog post here) - love soph x

p.s - my photoshop trial (for my new mac) has ran out! i had full photoshop on my old pc and i kind of depend on it for my blog pictures. so, making nice posts which i'm happy with is proving difficult with other lame editing software. if anyone has any serial codes for trials or anything please let me know! i'm desperate.

charlie simpson and lexy at st. pancras station, london.

me and kirsty went to see charlie simpson play an open gig for the station sessions in st. pancras station, london. he was amazing. here are a few rubbish shots i got of him through the crowds. such a beautiful voice.. such a beautiful man. the videos are much better, watch em.

  

shop a like

i thought i'd do a little blog post about the personal online shopping site shopalike.co.uk.

they recently contacted me and asked me to have a look, and to be honest i'd never been on the site before. however after i had a quick browse - i soon became obsessed. it's so easy to use and insanely easy to search for things.. and you can find pretty much anything your after. you've basically got everything in one place! amazing.

they are paired with an unbelieveable variety of shops and stores, for example urban outfitters, very.co.uk, office, new look, motel rocks, miss selfridge, misguided and so many more! they currently stock shoes, clothing, kid's clothing, bags, watches, furniture, jewellery and sports, and they are going to add a new beauty category in the next few weeks.

photographer: jonathan hallam

the other day i had a lecture at university taken by photographer jonathan hallam. to be honest, i hadn't heard of him really... but when i saw his work, i knew i recognised that from a variety of places. he was such a quirky, crazy and eccentric character.. really funny too. he had the whole lecture room laughing with some stories he told about himself, his life and well, just funny little things he said.

i found the whole lecture fascinating and i really love his outlook on the fashion industry and his story of how he got to where he was. he sent out some strong messages about individuality and being yourself within the industry, which i thought was really positive and very influential. his work reminds me of juergen teller's, using similar direct flashes of light for a vintage effect.

you will probably recognise this shoot of his mostly, it's from topshop's 'dress up' collection. i remember seeing the images plastered over the walls of the shop last year... and really loving the grimey, rough location. it contrasted with the highly embellished party dresses.

one thing that amazed me was that he shot these images, like he does all of his work, on film. i find it amazing that a huge high street brand like topshop didn't want to see the images immediately from a digital SLR camera, and they allowed jonathan to take the negatives away and develop them properly.

another thing i loved was that none of the images are retouched at all. he truly believes that "retouching is sick" and wasn't afraid to voice his opinions about the effects of retouch and airbrushing on society. i truly admired that. he never retouches his work, "the girls are beautiful why would i want to retouch?.. imperfections are beautiful and i'm attracted to that."

jonathan hallam, originally from yorkshire, started out as a hairdresser and then became assistant for renowned hair stylist eugine souleiman. who has created looks for everyone from givenchy to gucci, viktor + rolf to prada, you name it. so jonathan soon picked up the inside knowledge of the fashion industry.

he did an exhibition of experimental hair dressing for dazed + confused, in which he said "i pretty much destroyed their hair, kind of like anti-hairdressing" - alexander mcqueen himself attended the show. he also toured with the chemical brothers working on the lighting and projections of the show. he told us that he realised he wanted to become a photographer on his first fashion shoot where he was styling the hair, and never looked back.

finally, my perfect chelsea boots.

i finally found my perfect pair of chelsea boots everyone, so happy! after months and months of searching.. i found these beauties from river island, but they're here on the asos website too. they are so comfortable, the heel isn't too small or too big. they pretty much go with everything and they were only £40. still a bit pricey.. but the bertie julietta boots i originally wanted were a bit further out of budget at £115, so i think i did well.


boots: river island/asos, socks: topshop, leggings: topshop

p.s. i also recently bought these snake print leggings from topshop. i'm a little obsessed with all things snake print at the minute too. i need to control myself. spent soooo much of my student loan! eeek.

jumble sale

there was a little jumble sale in the church across the road last week. i got these theree things for £1.00, yes just 100 little pennies! i officially love jumble sales. i picked up these gorgeous deep raspberry real cord trousers, by american apparel which are a perfect fit. so tempted to cut them into shorts but i think i'll leave them for the winter. i'm picking up a lot of nice trousers and leggings for the colder weather.. love it.

each item in this post cost me about 33p. i cant quite believe it hahahah.

i also got this huge crisp white mens shirt by van heusen, which my dad and some friends have told me you can get from their shop for about £50, so that was also a good find. i'm tempted to cut out the shoulders for this kind of look... what do you think?

finally i grabbed these little navy shorts with gold detailing. they are also a perfect fit and will fit right at home with my extensive collection of shorts and cut offs. there are some in topshop veryyyyy similar too!

can't wait to find more jumble sales!

mini haul and a bit of news!

sorry, but how bloody beautiful is this bag?! you can get it here from new look, for like £13. which i think is so good. it looks so much more expensive than it is and it has a cross body strap too. i'm still loving the burgundy, so when i spotted this snake skin trimmed beauty i ran to the till with it. i love the detail of the clasp too.

i also bought a few things from h&m. these bottle green jeans/jeggings hybrids and this unbelievably comfortable breton stripe jumper. after london fashion week when i snapped this girl's gorgeous outfit, green jeans because top of my wishlist. so when i spotted these from h&m last week for under a tenner i couldnt resist them either.

finally i got a lot of new bits and bobs, pictured below. firstly.. i got some lipcote - from superdrug - after attending a lecture at uni by teresa havvas (who is also involved with puma, volt magazine aswell as lipcote). so, i decided to buy a bottle of the lipstick sealer for myself - since my lipstick never stays on!

it truly works, when you first apply it over your lipstick it feels a little uncomfortable and stingy, but it really locks the lipstick in and it doesn't smudge or wear off easily.

so i also got, the cutest make up wipes from sainsbury's, the cheapest but nicest eyelashes ever from savers, nivea moisturiser, eyelash curlers and a barry m blusher since my lovely mac one has ran out. no more new mac for me, student lifestyle now! however, i do love this blusher.

finally my two mascaras, the chanel one isn't as new.. i was given it for my birthday from my best friend but i save it for best haha. i bought a new everyday mascara which is SO GOOD. volume million lashes by l'oreal is definitely one worth recommending.

p.s - the little bit of news! I'VE BEEN OFFERED A JOB. after having the interview yesterday.. i got the phone call from house of fraser this morning offering my the perfect hours i could have asked for, and a pretty decent wage too. really happy now :)