Silver Spring Clean

Is your silver jewellery looking a bit discoloured? or in need of a good clean but don't want to leave the house or pay to get it cleaned? Well.. thanks to the wisdom of my mother and my grandmother.. I've learnt the foolproof way to get your jewellery sparkling once again!

My housemate mentioned that her Thomas Sabo bracelet was looking a bit brown.. which you wouldn't expect from jewellery like that. Lucky for her, she's got a domestic godess as a housemate! (yep, that's me!) Having seen this problem before, I knew just what to do, and all you need is a few things you'd find in any kitchen. 

After a while, silver reacts with the air and it oxides, leaving a residue layer on top of the silver, discolouring the metal. In order to counteract this, you need the right about of anti-oxidising ingredients.

Now, there are a few different ways you can clean silver without buying silver cleaner, but some work better than others .. First thing you can do is put the silver in a bowl of hot water and vinegar.. leave it for a few minutes and take it out.

If that doesn't work.. mix some flour and salt into the bowl to create a paste. Leave for 15 minutes and rinse off.

If that STILL doesn't work.. here's the one that works every time!

All you need :

Tin Foil

A Bowl

1 Tsp Salt

2 Tsps Bicarbonate of Soda/ Baking Soda (or one of these sachets)

1 Cup of Boiling Water

Your Silver Jewellery

• First, take the bowl and line it with Tin Foil and fill the foil lined bowl with water half way. 
• Add the salt and stir.
• Add the baking soda and stir.
• The water should start fizzing. This is when you just plonk your jewellery in. Making sure it is touching the foil and is fully emersed in the water.

• Leave for 2-5 minutes depending on level of discolouration.
• Take out and rinse under cool water. Buff off the water with a cloth and it will look as good as new!

To keep silver looking this shiny and to prevent/reduce the effects of silver oxidising, store it with a piece of activated charcoal or a piece of chalk. 

Well I hope this was useful!

Do you know any other ways of making silver shine?

Xx

Jasmine

Superdrug Face Masks

I picked these up recently in Superdrug, I find myself shopping in there more frequently since they introduced their loyalty card system. The face masks were 4 for the price of 3 and I go through facemasks like nobody's business so I'm always looking to try new ones and stock up.

I chose the Tropical Smoothie Self-Heating mask, the Dead Sea Purifying Clay mask, the Chocolate Orange Self-Heating mask and the White Chocolate Mousse mask. I'm probably most excited about trying the chocolate ones!

what face masks do you use?

xoxo Kirsty

JANUARY 2013 BIRCHBOX

 I always seem to be the last to receive my beauty box, but this finally arrived last week! Sorry girlies for the delay in posting about it, I've been very pre-occupied with work and uni so my head is all muddled at the moment! But not posting in a while also means that I have loads to post about to stay tuned for the next couple of days as I'm doing a bulk blogging session now and will schedule to reveal them over the next couple days!

But here it is.. the launch of the UK Birchbox. Formerly Joliebox, the Birchbox brand from over the pond have blessed us by taking over Joliebox, giving us a much better beauty box with (hopefully) better products to try!

Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely

I have avoided celebrity perfumes since I was about 16, which is the last time I owned this perfume. Usually I am a one-perfume-for-life kinda gal but I am prepared to make exceptions. My all time favourite perfume is Chanel coco mademoiselle which is pricey and as a student I don't think Ill be able to replace my current bottle when I run out so I'm investigating cheap alternatives. I bought this for 20.99 from fragrance direct, which is 50% of the usual price. 

Lush Midnight Massage Bar

This is another of my naughty sales' purchases. I initially went into Lush to see if there was any Snow Fairy left in the sale so I could stock up cheaply. Unfortunately there wasn't but there were plenty of gems at 1/2 price. 

Essie "Orange , It's Obvious"

I included this cheeky addition in a recent Fragrance Direct order. It was only 1.99 which is a complete bargain! The colour its displayed as online is a very dull orange but I ran a quick search online before ordering which showed it to be a very neon-y orange. I think this will be a great colour for Spring/Summer so it will just have to bide its' time until then. They have a few other colours available online if you like Essie but not the usual price tag.

what do you think of Essie polishes? 

xoxo Kirsty

Benefit High Flyin' Glosses

When I heard Benefit were making lip glosses of their blushes last year I was intrigued. As a rule, I avoid lip gloss but when I saw these in the January sale, I couldn't stop myself. I think I only paid 12.50 or thereabouts instead of the 19.00 they were before Christmas. 

Soap & Glory Wowed Mouth Lipstick Palette

I snatched this up in the Boots 1/2 price sale after christmas for 6.00 instead of 12.00 (I think). The only Soap & Glory make up I had tried prior to this was a lipgloss. I'm really not a lipgloss person so I didn't think it was fair to judge the brand based on that. I have really gotten into lipstick in the last 6 months, so these colours are a welcome addition to my collection. 

Glossybox January 2013 Review

I Hope today is the first and last time I have to write a vaguely negative Glossybox review. I know not everyone  receives the same items so if you subscribe there is always a chance that you will consistently get the "good" items each month. Having had a look at a few other blogs, the products this month were generally decent so don't let my box deter you!

New Years Resolutions

Rather than simply running with the cliché "new year, new me" I'm going with "new year, improved me". Putting too much pressure on myself to change every aspect of my life is really just setting myself for failure and by the beginning of February ill just be all depressed. I want to make slight adjustments to how I do certain things and keep it positive. Rather than giving up things and telling myself I can't do things, I want to introduce new things and find better ways of doing what I already do. I reckon this will make my goals far more attainable.

Firstly I want to take my skin care more seriously. I already rank it as a priority over make up and hair care but sometimes I'm just really lazy and I can't be bothered to remove my make up. This year I'm aiming to take my make up off every night not just 6/7 a week.

I have massively neglected my hair this past year, I think I've had it cut once and from January to November I wasn't using a heat protector before styling. As a result it's looking pretty abused. This year I want to get it trimmed at least every few months and start using a protectant religiously.

I have really, abnormally thin tooth enamel which means I can get cavities really easily. I don't think I really take this seriously enough, I'd like to have at least some of my own teeth when I'm 80! I'm going to start brushing my teeth after every meal, rather than just morning and night.

I am a bit of a hoarder with beauty products, I buy tonnes and a lot of the stuff is still unused. This is a really stupid thing for me to do financially so this year I'm going to use what I have before I buy a new product. Who really needs 10 different body moisturisers after all?

I am joining a gym this month, because I do want to look after myself more. I would have done so when I first moved back to the UK in October but I didn't have a job then and a gym membership wasn't financially justifiable.

Finally, I want to be less critical, both of myself and others. It's a really negative thing to do and isn't at all constructive.

What are your New Years resolutions?
Xo Kirsty

Philosophy REAL Cinnamon Buns

Ever since I bought the Philosophy Bath and Shower Gel in Cinnamon Buns I have wanted to try out the recipe on the bottle. I finally have an oven so I gave them a crack. I've not actually made dough without my mothers supervision ever so I wasn't expecting them to turn out perfectly. 

The recipe didn't actually include any filling or icing so I sort of made that part up. Otherwise I would have been left with cinnamon bread, and that's not exciting. 

making the dough took FORever, I still didn't give it enough time for the yeast to work its' magic so they didn't turn out fluffy sadly. I actually used 2 sachets of yeast because the dough didn't do anything after 2 hours with just one. I also added a bit more flour because it was too runny and sticky to work with. 

The steps that are not described on the bottle are pretty easy. It's just a matter of spreading the filling on (an extremely healthy mixture of butter and brown sugar, flavoured with cinnamon) and then rolling it up. I then just sliced it up and wapped it in the pan. 

They took longer than 18 minutes to cook nicely, more about 30ish. 

They are delicious although probably about 1000 calories per bun. 

have you made these?

xo Kirsty