I HEART Punky Pins

I'm so excited to share ANOTHER Punky Pins blog post with you all. For those of you who missed my first post, click here to have a read. 

If you had a look at their website before Christmas and liked what you saw, you should definitely take a look again as they have uploaded so much new stock since then so I was excited when they let me pick out a few pieces to share with you lot.

As Valentine's Day is approaching, this is the perfect time to indulge in anything heart shaped! Punky Pins kindly let me pick out 2 pieces from their website.

This super cute Key To My Heart Initial Gift Set* (£18). stood out to me immediately. I haven't seen anything like this before and I just think it's adorable. The heart is made from layered acrylic and there is a cut out of an initial of your choice. The keychain fits perfectly into the heart. If you are in a relationship, this is the perfect excuse to treat yourself to this gift set because you can keep the necklace for yourself and give your partner the key to your heart.... That was so cheesy, right?  

You can also choose between a gold or a silver chain. I don't normally wear gold chains when it comes to fashion jewellery as I think it can sometimes look a bit tacky but this worked surprisingly well due to the fact that the heart has a gold sheen to it. 

I also liked the look of this Personalised Heart Name Necklace* (£18). I don't own any jewellery with my name on so this is a nice addition! You can choose from 3 colours but I think that the light pink looks the best! This looks quite girly and it'll be a fun necklace to wear on a casual day-to-day basis. As there are several layers of acrylic to this necklace, it's a little bit chunky which may be a good or bad thing depending on personal preference.

If you like handmade products and/or you like cute things, Punky Pins is a great website to check out. Acrylic is such a fun material to use and I actually used to make all sorts of things using acrylic when I was school but I never thought I'd see acrylic jewellery let alone wear it. So much thought has been put into their designs and I'm excited to see what else they come up with in the next few months. So get ordering in time for Valentine's Day!

Punky Pins are offering my readers a discount code.

Enter iamlinderella10 at checkout for 10% off your order. 

Mylah Rose - Linderella's Picks

If you're ever after a truly British gift for a loved one, Mylah Rose is one to check out. They are a new online gift store selling luxury products from small British businesses. So whilst we're on that note, if you're a craft maker or own a small handmade business, you may want to consider selling through Mylah Rose. 

It's still early days for them, as you can tell from the sparse website, but I've been looking through what they have so far and I've picked out some of my favourites to share with you all.

1. Gypsy Bear - As far as I'm concerned, you are never too old for teddy bears! I love the blend of colours on this teddy and it would make an amazing gift for anyone who likes cuddly toys.  It even has cashmere paw pads - ooh la la... With a luxury gift store comes a luxury price tag... Priced at £80, I'll add this to my Christmas wish list... Too early?

2. Heligan Moonstone Candle - Now I'm not someone who lights candles that often but this one has four wicks on it! Anything cute and quirky like this always catches my attention. It would be perfect for a special occasion and it would make an excellent centerpiece. 

3. Sugared Almonds - These have been made by Charbonnel et Walker, one of Britain's earliest chocolatiers. I've never tried these before but I love almonds and I love anything sweet so these should be good, right? Plus, how cute would this look as a gift?

4. London Montage Cushion - Although it would be pretty difficult to capture the essence of London in just one cushion, this does a pretty good job. From the red phone boxes to the Queen's guards, this is a must-have for any London lover. I just wish the photo of the dog wasn't on there, I am not a fan of dogs...

5. Teacup Gift Set - I've always liked the idea of having my own little tea party. I love how vivid the colours are in this gift set and it would certainly make any tea lover's day. 

Will you be shopping at Mylah Rose?

Sponsored post.

Review: Elizabeth's Daughter - Skincare Gift Set

I love trying out new skincare products and it's always nice to see that there are so many smaller skincare companies who are just as good, if not sometimes better, than the bigger brands. So when I came across Elizabeth's Daughter, I was quite tempted to try something out. They use all natural ingredients and are aimed at young and sensitive skin. They kindly offered to send me the gift set to try out because I was a little wary about buying a product that I'd heard very little about, especially with my sensitive skin. 

The gift set came with a headband and 3 skincare products. I've been using the products for over a month now and they're almost empty as they're only little tubes.

Headband

This was a lovely addition to the gift set! Whenever I'm washing my face or using face masks, my hair always gets in the way. I do sometimes use those elasticated hair bands but I don't like how tight they feel and the fact that you also have to pull it over your head. With this one, it's basically one long strip of material, and you just wrap it around your head and velcro it into place. Unfortunately, this only comes as part of the gift set and you can't purchase it separately.

The Purifying Mask

I'm in two minds about this product. The reason I do quite like it is because the texture is quite nice and it leaves my skin soft. However, there is a really strong chemical odour to this product, which I didn't expect at all from a supposedly natural skincare brand. I've only used this once because the smell is a bit too much but I may try it again at some point.

The Daily Moisturiser

I really like the smell of this. It just smells quite clean and fresh, and it's not at all overwhelming. It contains SPF 15 and can be used on the face or body. The first thing I noticed was how heavy the moisturiser was. It doesn't feel like a thick moisturiser when I have it on my hands but it feels very heavy on the face, and almost greasy. It's definitely too much for daytime use but I've enjoyed using this at night before bed. 

The Facial Gel Cleanser

This was my favourite product out of the three. Admittedly, this has a chemical smell to it as well but it wasn't as noticeable because I used this during my morning showers. It's a clear gel which foams up really well and it really made my face feel like it had been thoroughly cleansed. 

Having trialled all of these products, I probably won't be making any purchases. I do quite like the Facial Gel Cleanser but it doesn't do anything that my usual cleanser can't do so it's not really worth the money. 

This skincare set isn't available anymore as it was a Christmas special but you can buy the full-sized products from Elizabeth's Daughter.

Review: Fatally Feminine Designs - Pink Rose Heart Cake Necklace

If you love all things cute, you're going to love Fatally Feminine Designs. In 2007, having taught herself how to use polymer clay, Aubree decided to set up her own little jewellery shop on Etsy. What started off as a small hobby is now a busy online business.

Those of you who shop on Etsy will know how many hidden treasures you can find on there as most of the products are handmade. Fatally Feminine Designs is a fantastic example of excellent handmade jewellery. Aubree's designs are based on desserts, something that I love so I knew I'd love her jewellery (even though I can't eat it...). 

Every order at Fatally Feminine Designs comes with lovely gift packaging at no extra cost. How pretty does the little box look? I live the silk pink polka dot ribbon. If you're buying something as a gift, you don't even need to do any wrapping! I love the brown textured box as well, it makes a nice change from the standard black ones. 

Aubree kindly sent me the Pink Rose Heart Cake Necklace*, one of my favourite designs from the shop. It has a 17" gold plated chain so it's perfect for wearing over jumpers or any tops. I think that this necklace would also look great with a silver chain too. I'm still in two minds about gold chains when it comes to fashion jewellery. 

I love how intricate this design is. It's amazing to think that this was made my hand, I can only imagine the time and effort that has gone into this. You can tell that this was made by someone who knows her craft and is passionate about what she does. From the latticed centre to the delicate roses, there is so much attention to detail. There is even a pink bow to finish it off.

The detail doesn't end there either, a small Swarovski Crystal heart has been attached to the back of the necklace by the clasp. I normally wear my hair down so it's unlikely anyone will see it but it's nice just knowing it's there. It's those extra little touches that make you feel quite special. 

Fatally Feminine Designs delivers internationally so you can get your hands on all of the super cute designs no matter where you are. If you love jewellery and you love desserts, you'll be sure to find something (or a lot of things) that you'll love. Let me know if you order anything!

What are your thoughts on my necklace?

Just Because I Was Craving Cake...

Here's the thing, I love baking, I love cake, I was craving cake, so I baked.... If only I could easily make everything that I was craving... 

Admittedly not the most exciting of cakes in the grand scheme of things, these are standard vanilla cupcakes with a smooth buttercream topping. They're easy to whip up for those days when all you want to do is eat some cake.

This is a baking post so let's not get too deep but I find that baking is so therapeutic when I'm stressed out. So the next time you're feeling a little down and want some cake, bake your own! Also, put away the electric whisk and just go back to basics. Using a wooden spoon and a plastic bowl is so much more fun than just chucking the ingredients into a machine. 

I bake a lot of different sweet treats but vanilla cupcakes are my go-to recipe when I literally just want to bake right now. They're easy to make and they taste good. There are a lot of vanilla cupcake recipes online but I always find that it's best to tweak them a little to get them to your desired taste and texture. 

As for the buttercream, there are so many variations when it comes to quantities of ingredients, and I've had some real disasters in the past, but the one thing that is super important is to use FRESH icing sugar. If it's been opened for a while and not stored in an airtight container, please don't use it to make buttercream. It will just taste stale and it will make the buttercream texture go all funny. 

I iced these cakes in record time as I just wanted to eat them, but it can also be so much fun to try out different decoration techniques. Hopefully next time I'll be posting some more extravagant looking cakes if I can resist eating them first!

What do you love to bake?

Review: Jasper Jewellery - Swarovski Crystal Rabbit Necklace

When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with crystals and precious stones. I actually used to collect precious stones, my mum used to buy me one every so often. Since then, my fine jewellery collection has expanded and I've been lucky enough to get my hands on a few crystal pieces. There's always room for one more though, right? 

Jasper Jewellery specialises in fine Swarovski Crystal jewellery at affordable prices. They retail online and they offer free delivery AND free gift wrapping so you can imagine my excitement when they let me choose something from their website.

It took me a while to choose a product because I thought that most of the pieces looked stunning but the pretty Swarovski Crystal Rabbit Necklace* caught my eye straight away. I've been a little obsessed with bunnies lately so this was the perfect necklace for me. This was on the website for €32, which is approximately £27.

This product was delivered from Ireland and it arrived within a few days, requiring a signature upon receipt. I love nice packaging and this was wrapped so wonderfully! It was lovely to be able to open a little present after Christmas was over. They even added some sweets to my parcel!

The necklace itself is stunning! I loved it when I saw it on the website but it looked even better in person. The little crystals and the big blue gemstone glisten in the sunlight. Blue is one of my favourite colours and it doesn't really clash with anything either.

For me, this is a very fun and youthful necklace but it also looks very classy at the same time. I would be quite happy to wear this out to the shops or out for a special occasion. I've also been showing this necklace to anyone and everyone! It's too adorable not to show off.

All of the pieces from Jasper Jewellery are limited stock so, unfortunately, this pretty rabbit necklace isn't available anymore but there are still so many gorgeous pieces on there.

It's also almost Valentine's Day so it may be a good time to start dropping subtle hints... Jasper Jewellery have also kindly offered to give my readers a €5 voucher to spend on their website.

For €5 off your order at Jasper Jewellery, enter iamlinderella5 at checkout. 

They offer worldwide delivery!

Review: Simple Skincare - Kind To Eyes Revitalising Eye Roll-On

I've never tried an eye-roll on before because I've never felt like I needed one until now. My recent insomnia has led to my eyes feeling a little worse for wear. As I have sensitive skin, I opted for the trusted Simple Skincare brand. I did consider a few different eye creams but I'm very conscious about putting too much pressure around the delicate eye area - one of the reasons why I don't use eye make-up. So I opted for a roll-on. 

This product claims to wake up tired eyes and it definitely did that. The rollerball feels really cool on the skin and it instantly makes me feel refreshed. However, that is about as much as it did. 

I can't really tell whether or not it reduced puffiness so, if it did, the effects obviously weren't that visible. Maybe I'll have to try this again on a day when my eyes are extremely puffy....

The major issue I had with this was that it dried out my under-eye area. I wasn't expecting this at all so I was quite disappointed. This product felt really nice when I was using it, but once the product dried off, it dried my skin as well. My under-eye area was left feeling a little tight and uncomfortable. I did think that perhaps this tightening was supposed to happen in order to reduce puffiness but, either way, it's not really ideal.

Overall, this product is good for an instant pick-me-up for the eyes but not so great for making you feel good afterwards. I'd compare this to eating sugary snacks when you're feeling hungry - you get an instant energy boost and then it just drops you back down again. Ah I do love a good analogy...

I've been using this on and off for the last few months because I do like the cooling sensation that it gives me but I definitely won't be repurchasing this.

Have you tried any eye roll-ons?

Review: Urban Chique Jewellery - Mykonos Bracelet

There are so many online jewellery retailers out there that it can sometimes be hard to choose one from the next. You then have the issue of trawling through pages and pages of products to determine what you want and what will suit you best. 

With Urbanchiquejewellery.co.uk, you can access a "colour consultation" page to help you find the jewellery pieces that will suit your skin tone. The tones are split into the four seasons, and then sub-divided. The clear descriptions make it easy to determine which category you fall into. You can then select your handmade piece from a group of products that have been specifically picked out to suit your skin tone.

I found that "Clear Winter" sounded most like me and I was very kindly sent the Mykonos Bracelet* from the recommended items, which I received the very next day. It arrived nicely packaged in a sleek black jewellery box. 

Initially when I chose this bracelet, I wasn't entirely sure about it but I had absolutely nothing to be worried about. This is a super pretty bracelet with a beautiful Swarovski flower and dark blue pearl beads. It's definitely not a colour I would normally wear when it comes to jewellery but I think it really suits my skin tone. It's nice that the beads are quite small and dainty as well. I think I have an average-sized wrist and this bracelet fits me well. It has a standard hook clasp which is fairly simple to use.

I went through this phase a couple of years ago where I would constantly be wearing a bracelet, or a stack of bracelets. Having now got my hands on this one, I can feel that phase rearing its head again. I've been wearing this pretty much every day. Don't get me wrong, I own quite a few beautiful bracelets but most of them are quite precious and expensive so I tend to save them for special occasions. This Mykonos Bracelet gives effortless casual elegance and it is easy to wear on a daily basis.

I am so glad I came across Urban Chique Jewellery because I would never have chosen something like this if it wasn't for their colour consultation. 

Have you been through their colour consultation?

Review: Ko:kou Ionic Vegas Hair Straighteners

It's been a while since I've used hair straighteners. As a young(er) girl, I used to always straighten my hair before school until one day, it suddenly occured to me that my hair was naturally quite straight anyway. Nevertheless, I did still straighten my hair every now and then just to get that extra bit of shine and tame any hints of frizz.

One thing that I've always loved about hair straighteners is that you can use them to curl your hair. My hair is quite thick so standard curling tongs don't work that well. I know you can get curling wands nowadays but I think I'm still a little scared to use them! With hair straighteners, I use the trick of clamping my hair, and then twisting the straighteners as I move down the section of hair. 

So the other week, I decided to have a little play around with the Ko:kou Ionic Vegas Hair Straighteners* which the company had kindly sent me recently. This product is part of a wider range of hair styling tools available from Ko:kou, a new brand for salon professional hair. 

It arrived in a sleek yellow box, which I have kept so that I can store the straighteners once they've cooled down and are not in use. One of the things that I quite liked when I first opened up the box was that the straighteners have curved barrels. I knew straight away that this would make it a lot easier for me to curl my hair. 

I began, though, by straightening my hair first. I was a little disappointed to see that there was no temperature adjuster, nor was there any light to tell me when they had heated up sufficiently. However, this did heat up very quickly and I started using it after about 20 seconds. 

As you can see from my images, my straightened hair doesn't look that much different from my natural hair, which is already quite straight! I felt that it did give it a little extra shine though, and it got rid of any wispy bits (which I then created myself when I was moving my arms about trying to take photos!). The Ionic Technology is supposedly the magic that creates the shine. There are also floating ceramic plates, allowing you to evenly distribute the heat over your hair.

I also tested this product out by curling my hair. It took quite a bit of practice...... I ended up doing half a head full of really bad curls, some of them weren't even curls... So once I'd finally mastered it, i thought I'd do one good curl on the other side of my head. One good curl is better than a dozen bad ones! The straighteners didn't glide as well as I hoped they would but the curled barrels made it a lot easier to get the smooth, rounded curl effect that I've always wanted. The curls do come out quite frizzy but it's nothing that a bit of serum can't fix. 

The Ko:kou Ionic Vegas Straighteners retail on the website for £24.99, which is quite an affordable price, especially if you just want a basic pair of straighteners to quickly whizz through your hair in the morning. Of course, you can use this for curling your hair too!

Do you use hair straighteners?

Do you curl your hair with them?

Review: Clayspray - Toning White Clay With Aloe Vera

First of all, Happy New Year to you all! This is my first New Year as a blogger and I'm loving it! I hope you all celebrated the New Year in style. I stayed in cuddled up on the sofa, watching the countdown on BBC, just the way I like it!

Today's review is all about a clay mask. Who doesn't like a good pampering session? I know that I love finding the time to put on a face mask, relax in the bath and just have some me-time. It's actually been a while since I've done that but, upon arrival of the Clayspray Toning White Clay With Aloe Vera* which was kindly sent to me, I had the perfect excuse! 

I didn't get off to the best start with this product. When it arrived, it was quite damp. I'm not sure whether I got a bad bottle or whether it just got knocked a lot in transit but it was dripping all over which I wasn't expecting from a bottle of clay.

I later found out that that this product contains spring water and when I shook the can, more water leaked out onto my floorboards (thank goodness it wasn't carpet!). 

Having cleared up the mess (again), I finally managed to use the Clayspray. It's definitely a lot more practical than clay mask sachets. With sachets, I find that there's always too much in one sachet and there's not a lot I can do with the remaining product so I end up just chucking it away. With this, you can dispense as much as you like using the pump.

This product is supposed to be good for sensitive skin and it claims to gently exfoliate, smooth, and soften the skin. I found that I needed a little more clay than usual because of the watery nature of it. The first time I attempted to use this, it wouldn't dry at all because it was just so watery. The second time I applied a thicker layer and it worked a lot better. The texture of this is so nice and it glides on really smoothly. It's one of the smoothest and silkiest clay masks that I've ever used.

This one is specifically for sensitive skin and it definitely didn't irritate my skin at all. It made my skin feel quite smooth and soft. I've also been using this on my hands as well and it's worked wonders. I've heard some negative things about some of the other Clayspray products which haven't been specifically geared towards people with sensitive skin, but this one was fine.

If this was an affordable product, I would most likely purchase this as it's so convenient to use. However, at £47.71 for a 125ml can, this certainly isn't something to purchase on a whim. 

What are your thoughts? Would you buy this?