My Adventurous Goals for 2018 | 12 Days of Blogmas

When it gets towards the end of the year I always routinely start thinking about what I want to achieve in the next year.

Usually it'll be something like "save money" and "lose weight". This coming year I want to make my list a bit more adventurous. I want to do more exciting things, and finally start crossing things off of my bucket list (a list of things I want to do before I die).

My 2018 Goals (in no particular order)

1 - Abseil the Spinnaker Tower

This is quite a significant building where I live, and I've been telling myself for at least a year that I want to abseil it for charity. I would be confronting my anxiety and the adrenaline junkie inside of me, all whilst raising money and creating a unique memory.

2 - Go Some Where Abroad With Connor

Myself and my boyfriend have wanted to go away for years now, and have only accomplished short stays in the UK. My main priority in 2018 is for us to have a holiday anywhere. Be it travelling Europe in a few weeks, or individual trips to Spain or Amsterdam. Crossing the sea to USA or Canada.

3 - Travel More of the UK

I've seen a lot of people visit some beautiful places in the UK and I'm eager to explore and take some stunning photos. I think we often forget that where we live can be stunning, and I don't want to get into a rut of just staying in my local area.

4 - Sky Dive (again)

A few years ago myself and my Mum raised money for charities by skydiving. It's something I'd always wanted to do. However, I want to do this again but have it filmed or have photographs of me falling through the sky. I think it's not something that everyone does and I'd love to have evidence of me doing it!

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I think that should do it for adventurous goals! I wanted to have some goals that were a bit out of the ordinary. Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure where my actual bucket list is otherwise I'd have added some more here!

Let me know if you want to achieve some big goals in 2018!

I wish you all a Happy New Year where ever you are.

Love Saffron

My 2017 Favourites

This is my first ever favourites post, I'm very excited to show you guys what I've been loving this year! 

It's also noted that these are cruelty free brands.

Make Up

Barry M Flawless Matte Finish Foundation 

I haven't used many foundations in my life, but when I came across Barry M's I fell in love with how smooth it was, and how easy it was to apply. I also love how when you're using up the product, it pushes it up to the top. In the picture above you can see this frosted part behind where it says 'Barry M' as you use up the product the frosted bit gets larger. This makes it super easy to use up all of the foundation, and I love it!

Barry M Flawless Light Reflecting Concealer 

As I had chosen Barry M for my foundation, I thought that having the same brand concealer would be a good choice. Again, it's easy to apply and I feel it does the job at covering my tired under eyes and blemishes.

Barry M Illuminating Strobe Cream - Galactic 

You can start to see a pattern here with my make up...I had zero highlighting experience when I picked this up. I love that you can just roll on the cream and then blend it in with a brush (at least that's how I do it) it makes it so easy.

Barry M Matte Me Up Lip Kit 

When I kept seeing people go on and on about Kylie Jenner's lip kits, I wanted to find my own affordable dupe. I came across Barry M's, and they have lots of shades and even a metallic range. But, I keep reaching for the Matte Lip Kit. I find that it's simple to apply, and is long lasting.

Barry M Liquid Chrome Nail Paint - Razzle Dazzle 

I am a huge lover of Barry M's nail varnishes, the majority of my varnish collection is Barry M. I've only recently discovered the Liquid Chrome range, and I love it. It has a lovely shine to it with a silvery pink tone, and it dries like a dream.

Barry M Eye Define Liquid Eye Liner

I am so happy with the eye liner that Barry M have produced. It took me a while to find a suitable cruelty free replacement from my previous liner. But I was a bit forced to make the leap a bit sooner than planned, when the previous brand didn't make that liner anymore. And I needed on the morning of my Graduation as it'd run out. I was livid. As I was so happy with the rest of Barry M's make up range I thought I'd give their liner a go.

Admittedly, it took me awhile to get used to the shape of the brush as it was a bit smaller than my previous one. I'm honestly not a fan of the really long pen type eye liners, I just struggle so much to apply the liner.

I believe I own two of these liners and they've lasted me months, this isn't with every day use but I'm impressed with how much liquid liner you can get out of one of these.

The Body Shop Eye Colour Stick - Nevada 

I came across these Eye Colour Sticks browsing a TBS store and thought all of my eye shadow prayers had been answered. I'm not that experienced in eye shadow, so I was happy to see an easy to apply eye shadow stick. There's a whole range of colours, and this one has a subtle glitter to it which is lovely paired with my dramatic eye liner flick. You can also twist the stick to produce more product.

Skin Care

Superdrug Chocolate Orange Self Heating Face Mask 

Superdrug often have a three for two offer on their face masks, which makes it easy to experiment with different types. This one was so lovely to apply, it smells gorgeous and it was a little bizarre when my face started to warm up, but it left my skin feeling amazing.

Superdrug Hydrating Face Mask 

I picked this up out of curiosity earlier this year, and it became a god send when I had a horrible period of dry skin on my face. It comes out as a white colour but it becomes transparent, and soaks into your skin. I usually put a fair amount on before I would go to bed and let it do it's thing.

Lush Grease Lightning Spot Treatment 

This year I've started to venture into Lush's other departments. I tend to have quite problematic skin, so thought this would be worth a try. I absolutely love it. Again, I tend to use this before I go to bed or if I'm having an indoors day. I find that the gel type product dries out and you can either use water to smooth it, or kind of peel it off. So it's not a good look when you turn up for work.

But, I do find that it helps calm down horrendous spots, and helps get rid of them quickly.

Bath

The Body Shop Bath Bubble - Coconut

I only recently got given some of TBS bath products for Christmas (I did get to see them in action at the VIP Body Shop Christmas Event). I had just un-wrapped my presents, and fancied a bath. Admittedly, I didn't read that this one was to be held under running water, so I had already chucked it straight into my bath.

When I saw that it wasn't bubbling I immediately pulled it out and thought I was a right idiot for not reading the packaging. I didn't have to use much of the product to turn my bath blue with bubbles, so I've got plenty left over for another bath or two!

The Body Shop Mojito Scrub 

This summer TBS released this amazing range with citrusy scents. At the time I really needed a scrub, and picked it up. Little did I know that this was just a limited range and it's not available to buy anymore. I hope they decide to bring it back for 2018, as this is my favourite scent! It's also isn't harsh on my skin as it was a gel scrub, which is good as I can have quite sensitive skin.

The Body Shop Vanilla Chai Scrub 

When I saw the new Christmas range, I knew I had to go to my nearest store and immediately sniff them all. The Vanilla Chai scent was right up my street, aside from citrus scents, vanilla is my favourite as well. This scent is like a spiced vanilla so it smells very Christmassy. The scrub is amazing, you don't have to use much at a time as it's quite thick so you don't waste any product. I'm sure I have the whole range of Vanilla Chai now and I couldn't be happier!

Hair

The Body Shop Banana Shampoo 

For my birthday this year my lovely friends (that's you, Charis and Lily if you're reading this), made me a cruelty free pamper box. Inside it was a Banana scented shampoo and conditioner. I wasn't sure about the scent at first, but it smells like those foam bananas you can get from sweet shops. And I love it. I love the thick consistency as I'm usually used to slightly runnier shampoos.

The Body Shop Banana Conditioner 

Same as above. 

I've been using hair products differently recently. As these products are thick in consistency it means I can portion off bits of product at a time to evenly cover my hair without it slipping through my fingers and onto the shower floor.

Perfume

Zoella Beauty Sweet Inspirations 

Even though it's been about a year and a half since the release of the Sweet Inspirations range, I'm still hooked on the vanillary/macaroon scent. I didn't think I'd like a sweet scent, but Zoella's range turned me! I love the bath products from this as well, and recently topped up my collection with the Bath Latte and the Sugar Dip.

Body Fantasies Pink Vanilla Kiss Fantasy Body Spray 

I don't tend to use body sprays very much, I usually just stick to deodorant and perfume. Then I came across Body Fantasies in Superdrug and loved this scent. It's very affordable and is a good size to fit in my hand bag.

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I have probably forgotten a few things over the year that I absolutely loved, but these were the main things that stood out from the rest. I'm hoping to get more bath and beauty reviews on my blog in 2018, as it was something I used to post about originally back in 2015!

Let me know what your favourite things were in 2017 in the comments!

Love Saffron x

Mrs Santa Is The Most Underrated Character In Arthur Christmas | 12 Days of Blogmas

If you hadn't read my Films To Get You In The Christmassy Mood post last year, then you won't know how mad I am about Arthur Christmas. I can literally watch this film on repeat I love it so much.

Whilst watching it three times since the beginning of the month, I never realised that Mrs Claus is the best character.

She's very subtle, you probably haven't even noticed it yourself or given it much thought.

1. Peace Treaty

This completely bypassed me the first ten times of watching Arthur Christmas, but she's looking over a treaty with Greenland?? Let alone cooking the Christmas dinner and making a mince pie for Grand Santa (of which he doesn't eat).

2. Buying her own present

She sorted her own present to give to Santa for him to give it back to her...but he's Santa? And she acts surprised. Let's not lie though, we all know at least one woman in our lives who has to do something similar to this.

3. Battling a polar bear

Mrs Santa casually comes in with a ripped coat, and drops that there was a polar bear and she handles it.

4. She is the glue holding the family together

She's supportive of all her family members, is always positive and happy. If she wasn't there the family would 100% fall apart.

5. She took a flying course

I mean why not? She's Mrs Santa a.k.a bad ass.

6. She reads the manual

I love that she reads the manual to actually figure out how to fly the ship.

Mrs Santa is just down right amazing, and needs more appreciation!

Let me know if there's anything I've missed that you noticed about Mrs Santa, she's my fave character now.

Love Saffron x

Two Years On From "Just Breathe"

Two years ago I wrote a very personal post called Just Breathe talking about my mental health experience at that time. It was Christmas Day 2015.

I was really miserable over the Christmas period which was horrible as I wanted to be happy with my family, but I was bogged down with the horrible events happening in the world, and I had recently been diagnosed with Anxiety.

At this point I'd been blogging on and off for a few years and had created previous blogs. This blog was created for me to be as open and honest as I wanted to be about a whole matter of topics. Little did I know how much I would battle with mental health issues.

I'd actually forgotten about some of the posts I wrote when I was really suffering with anxiety. When the other day I suddenly remembered that it's coming up to two years from a crucial turning point for my blog.

To set some context for Just Breathe, it was Christmas Day. I had been suffering with physical illnesses for sixth months wondering what the cause was. I was in the middle of my second year of university and was getting very stressed about assignments. And I had just figured out that my physical illnesses weren't the root of something physical. It was something wrong with my brain.

I was devastated. There was no quick cure to fix me.

So I turned to my blog, my fairly unused and un-opinionated blog, to spill my mental thoughts in the hopes to make myself better, and that whoever will be reading it as well will not feel so alone.

I felt very alone in the first few months, I didn't understand what was happening and neither did my friends or family. Eventually the more I talked about it, the more I found that there were other people around me who were the exact same. It's very strange to talk to people about your mental health, but it was so beneficial to hear what other people experienced as well.

I also want to talk about how far I've come in the past two years. There's still parts of my mental health and experiences that I don't feel comfortable talking about just yet, but the time will come. Because all I want to do is help and inform others about sensitive topics that we need to address.

I forget that sometimes a good day is being able to get out of bed and get dressed, going to any kind of social event, and let's not forget actually talking to people or having the courage to talk to people.

Or even having a super bad day and crying my eyes out, it means I'm still here and I'm still fighting.

I remember noting down moments when I felt anxious in my cognitive behavioural therapy sessions, and I found some the other day. There were things like making a phone call as I would get anxious about what to say even if it's to someone that I know.

But two years later, I answer calls even if I think it's a sales call (albeit I do still have days where I really don't want to answer the phone, even if it's someone I know). I go to social gatherings without having to do my breathing exercises on the way there and during. I've met up with complete strangers from the internet and have held really in depth conversations with them like we'd been friends for ages. I've managed to have blips of self confidence and gotten myself some unique opportunities (I just wish I had this confidence all the time).

I mentioned to someone on Twitter recently that it's good to note down the positive things that happen, even if it's that I had my favourite coffee with whipped cream on top. I used to put them in a jar with the date on, so that when I was having a bad day, or felt a little down I could pull a piece of paper out and remember what made me happy that day.

We tend to let the bad days and the bad memories define us and take over our lives. I don't want to live that way anymore, I want to remember the good instead of the bad.

Yes I've been through counselling and was discharged, and yes I don't always have anxious moments every day anymore. But it's all still there and sometimes so raw. I never know when it's going to hit me, and I can't always prepare every single situation. But I have the tools to recover and cope. I don't know if there ever will come a time when I'll have a more normal life, but for now I am handling things.

I still have bad days, weeks and months. But I have built a support system and I know when I need a break to pull myself back together. No matter what, your health is important.

As always, if you ever need to talk or ask me questions you know where to find me!

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas where ever you are.

Love Saffron x

Christmas Tag | 12 Days of Blogmas

1. Whats Your Favourite Holiday Movie? 

I'm never very good at picking favourites! I wrote a post last year about some of my fave Christmas films but I think I'll have to say Love Actually! It's christmassy, funny and it's so clever how all the stories intertwine. If you haven't watched it please do, it's a classic!

2. What Are Your Favourite Christmas Colours? 

I think I love silver and gold, my Mum always writes cards out in these colours and there's so much wrapping paper with these colours. I guess they are quite fancy colours that I only really use at Christmas time!

3. Do You Like To Stay in Your PJs Or Dress Up For Christmas? 

I wouldn't say I dress up, but I love having Christmas pj's for Christmas Eve, and wearing suitable Christmas jumpers and/or a Santa hat.

4. What do you eat for Christmas Dinner? 

A bit of everything I think! Where my parents aren't together I go between their houses and my boyfriends. We used to rotate who I would have Christmas dinner with, but now it's sort of a free for all as it depends on who's doing what. Now that I can drive it makes things a lot easier as no one wants to drive on Christmas, but I've been dreaming of this day!

This year I'll be at my Mum's and her boyfriends house and I think we usually just have chicken or turkey with all the vegetables, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings (the best part), stuffing and delicious gravy.

 5. Do You Open Your Presents Christmas Eve Or Christmas Morning? 

As mentioned before, where I flit between houses I get to open presents at all times of the day! Personally, I like opening stockings in the morning, then you get on with the rest of the day preparing the meal and then you open the main presents. However, this year I haven't wanted many presents, I don't really want much other than money to go towards things and gift cards, I have too many materialistic positions already.

But I'm looking forward to giving this year, I've tried to put a lot more thought into my gifts than frantically buying!

 
6. Have You Ever Built a Ginger Bread House? 

I don't think I have. I don't think I'm the biggest fan of ginger bread houses, which is odd because I love ginger flavoured things. 


7. What Do You Like To Do On Your Christmas Break? 

I wouldn't say I have a Christmas break anymore since I'm not a student. But I get a few days off work so other than having Christmas and Boxing Day with my family, I'm going to be chilling so I can prepare for the New Year and everything that I want to achieve in 2018. (Post to come soon)


8. Any Christmas Wishes? 

This reminds me of Katie's Christmas List with a Twist! I think all in all I just want to have a nice chilled Christmas with the people I love, but I want to make sure it's fully documented this year. My family aren't the greatest at getting photos and videos when we're together so this will be my mission!


9. Favourite Christmas Smell? 

Ooh, this could be a tough one. I love apple, cinnamon, gingerbread scents especially if they are spiced!


10. Favourite Christmas song? 

Again I can't pick favourites! If I had to choose one to listen to forever it'd be The Power of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I know it's not a conventional Christmas song, but it always comes out at Christmas, and it's such a chilled song. (Post to come soon on some of my other favourites)

I didn't get tagged to do this post, I thought it'd be a quirky post to add to my blogmas posts, if you want to do it to please go ahead!

Love Saffron x

The Disaster Artist | Review

If you aren't aware of the cult following of The Room, you need to see it. It's one of the best worst films. Still not fascinated to see it? Well, the film was written, directed, and starred Tommy Wiseau. It was supposed to be this epic drama that would make Tommy and his best friend; Greg famous actors.

When the film was screened for the first time the audience was aghast with the film, but then they started to laugh.

It is quite possibly the best comedy I've ever seen. Myself and my boyfriend Connor went to a special screening at the Harbour Lights Picture House in Southampton, and I've never seen an audience react to a film the way that we all did. Everyone was in hysterics the whole time, reciting the lines in perfect synchronicity and throwing plastic spoons (if you know, then you know).

When I saw the trailer for The Disaster Artist, with James and Dave Franco and Seth Rogen I was in stitches and knew I needed to see it ASAP. I'm still in need of watching The Room again and this filled that void.

The Disaster Artist is based on the book that Greg wrote on his experience in making the film both off and on set with Tommy. It shows how they met and the journey they go through to become actors.

Tommy, James, Greg and Dave.

When I was in the cinema, I wasn't sure if my fellow audience members had seen The Room before but I wasn't afraid to be one of the only people laughing at every. Single. Thing.

But don't get me wrong every one was laughing too, just maybe not as loudly and as frequent as myself...

James Franco as Tommy Wiseau

It was as great as I'd hoped it be. James Franco has really outdone himself. I believed that he was Tommy. Everything about him on screen matched the Tommy in The Room. I also loved how many other well known actors popped up, for one my beloved Zac Efron. Especially as James, Dave, Seth and Zac are friends in real life I feel like it added something extra to the film.

The production design was fantastic, all of the sets for TDA were identical to The Room, although I was disappointed with the lack of spoons but oh well. At the end of the film they actually played back  side by side TDA re-enactments and The Room scenes and you could see how in sync they were, and how much effort had gone into making this film.

If you still haven't watched The Room in the middle of this review, then I'll tell you a little something. The film essentially is about two underdogs, Tommy and Greg want to become great actors. This film follows that journey, and if anything we can all relate to aspiring to be something, but people keep knocking you down. The Room is most likely only successful because Tommy put his all into making something of his film. He is the single distributor of The Room. How crazy is that!

I hope you enjoyed my little review, I didn't want to give too much away and may have rambled on about The Room a bit much, but it is amazing and you should watch it. As well as watching The Disaster Artist obviously.

9/10 (would've been 10 if there were spoons)

Love Saffron x

Christmas Pinterest Ideas | 12 Days of Blogmas

I've noticed a few people asking out over Twitter for thoughtful and non-bank breaking ideas for their loved ones.

One of my favourite places to look is Pinterest.

If you haven't ever checked it out, it's basically a digital mood board for all the things you like and want to try.

Especially around this time of year when there's lots of people to buy for and you're not quite sure what to get or how much you'll have to spend on presents. I love to look at the do it yourself gifts, they usually don't cost much but are full of thought.

Here are my personal faves!

Paw Print Ornament

This is such a great idea if anyone has a pet, or multiple pets!

Personalised Polka Dot Mug

I love ideas like this, they are so simple but effective. AND you can make it however you want and add your own flare. Personally, I'm one of those people who never have enough mugs, and if I were to get a personalised one I would probably shed a tear of joy!

Music Lyric Plate

I'm not sure how I have never come across this before. It's so cute that you can customise plates and things with a signature song or just write some lovely thoughts that someone is going to see everyday!

Marble Mug

I have seen this for a while and I've always wanted to do it, you can also use this method on lots of other object as well, not just mugs. There's even one with baubles!

Marble Baubles

Photo Letters

I love this idea, you can get the letters from lots of affordable shops, I love going to Hobby Craft for creative things. Aside from Christmas presents this would be nice to do for milestone birthdays or wedding anniversary presents for example a wooden "21" with photos from their celebrations.

Mason Jar Cocktail Gifts

I think this is great for those who you know who have a favourite drink or cocktail, and for a present you give them everything they need for one drink. You could probably also do non-alcoholic ones, and even coffee or hot chocolate (not as a liquid but all you'd need it hot water or milk).

These were some of my personal favourite affordable Pinterest ideas, but there are so many for you to explore!

I'll leave my Pinterest link here if you want to explore my other pins.

Love Saffron x

The Body Shop Haul | 12 Days of Blogmas

As a convenient follow up to my first Blogmas post; The Body Shop Christmas VIP Event I thought I would show you guys what I bought!

I knew I needed to get some of the bath bombs as I'm very intrigued and they were so cute and affordable! I loved the initial scent of the Vanilla Delight and Green Tea bath bombs.

There wasn't a chance that I was going to leave the store without a personalised body butter! I would thoroughly recommend you pop in and pick your fave scent and get one printed!

If you didn't already know I'm mad about the Vanilla Chai scent and nearly have the whole collection of just that scent! I love it so much, it'll be a sad day when I run out of product.

I had already seen the bunny headband on social media, and it was the first item I picked up. I used it as soon as I got home to take my make up off, and also used it the next morning to apply make up as well. It's so handy to keep my hair out of my face so I can concentrate on removing/applying make up, or just looking cute as hell in it.

I got kindly given a little goodie bag with some samples of Body Shop products, which I can't wait to use and perhaps write little reviews, or even post on my insta stories because I'm on there almost every day (@saffronwatson_).

I'm really excited to try the Drops of Youth as I've heard so many good things already! And I'm always up for a face mask and hand cream!

I can't thank the staff at The Body Shop enough for organising the event and goodies for all of us too. I hope that you might get a few Christmas present ideas for friends or family, especially some stocking fillers (cough the bath bombs cough cough).

If you're taking part in Blogmas leave your links in the comments because I love reading people's Blogmas posts!

Next post to come the day after tomorrow!

Love Saffron x

The Body Shop Christmas VIP Event | 12 Days of Blogmas

WOO!

This is my first blogmas post! However, I'm doing 12 Days of Blogmas, because twenty four is just too much for me, and I'm going to give twelve days a good go!

This was my first event that a company has contact me first to come to a blogger event. I was very excited to see the email in my inbox and nothing was going to stop me from getting to the Chichester branch. If you haven't been to Chichester, it's a lovely quaint city with all kinds of shops!

When they opened the shop for us we were greeted with gift bags and a choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks (I took the non-alcoholic because I was driving). There was a lovely spread of food as well, when I spotted the gingerbread reindeer I was straight over there!

We got to have a little nose around the shop before the staff introduced themselves, what was in store for the evening and all about The Body Shop as a company. It was great to learn more about the shop's history as I knew a bit already. The Body Shop was one of the first companies to advocate cruelty free beauty through it's founder; Dame Anita Roddick in 1976. Up until recently the company was owned by L'oreal (which isn't a cruelty free brand itself), but the company has been bought by Natura Brasil, whom to my knowledge are a cruelty free company.

The staff demonstrated and talked us through some of the amazing new products they have, it was a lovely friendly and funny demonstration. We got some of the products passed around so we could have a sniff, a good look and some of the other bloggers got glittery!

I was so pleased to learn about the collaboration with House of Holland, there's amazing all in one palettes (eye shadows, highlight etc) the products look so fun!

A new product that has joined The Body Shop's bath range is BATH BOMBS. I love a good bath bomb, and they come in these tiny packets with a range of flavours and the colours are so pretty! You can see one of them in with the ducks for one of the games we could play to win prizes. I can't wait to try one of these and write a little review for you guys!

I loved the opportunity to get to know a load more products and I had a good whiff of all of the Christmas scents, and I must say that Vanilla Chai is definitely my favourite. It's a bit spicy in a Christmassy way, like cinnamon and I just can't get enough of it!

It was really a surprise to see how BIG the advent calendars were in person, I was blown away by the products you get inside them!

Also I love the amount of support that The Body Shop are giving to lots of causes, it was so lovely to read about their campaigns and to also support them through purchasing their products, and knowing that money is going to a good place.

One of my favourite things to take away from the evening was a personalised body butter, there are lots of designs to choose from. I knew I needed the "Forever Against Animal Testing"!

I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of The Body Shop staff for an amazing evening and a big thank you to James for emailing me and inviting me to the event! I had an amazing time and it was great to see my fellow blogger friends again; Mike, Sophie and Charlie.

Let me know what products you're loving at the moment or would love to try!

As always,

Love Saffron x