hello! this post has been a long time coming. as some of you may know i went to new york at the beginning of october. it was honestly the best holiday ever and i was completely blown away by how incredible everything is over there! you can just imagine how excited/nervous i was - i'm almost 21 and had never actually been on a plane before this holiday!! i kinda threw myself in to the deep end with a super long first ever flight. considering the furthest i'd ever traveled away from england was paris (by ferry) when i was about 13 years old, i think i coped okay! though i'm sure everybody who shared the two flights to get to america with me may disagree - i talked super fast, non stop the entire way there because it's what i do when i'm nervous haha! 

the feeling when we stepped out of JFK airport and in to the taxi to the city was something i can't really put in to words. the sun was shining, it was boiling hot and, well, we were in new york!! what could be better? the best thing was that that feeling stayed with me the entire holiday. i cant believe i did so much shopping, eating and walking in one week. i'd love to go back because there was just so much to do and see that i could easily go back for another week and not do the same thing again twice!

anyway, here are some photos of my holiday, they were just taken on my iPhone so apologises for the rubbishy quality.  

walking through the streets on an evening was so surreal. it was so busy everywhere you went even when it was like 1am!

this was the view from my hotel room. you could just see central park in the distance! it was so cool! especially the night i took this photo when it was a bit misty in the distance and all the lights were shining through the fog.

times square was about five minutes walk from our hotel. we would go for a walk down there every night after we had dropped all our shopping off at the hotel for the day! there was so much to do and so many good places to eat - i miss it!

so many tortilla chips! and avocado!

9/11 memorial. it was so moving seeing this in real life and not just on the tv / on pictures. 

grilled cheese mmmm (apologises that every other photo is a food picture ha!)

the buildings were so tall! 

one morning we went on an adventure right through central park. i couldn't believe how big it was. i kept chasing squirrels like a child and pointing out all the really posh pedigree dogs everywhere! you could easily forget you were in new york, one of the biggest, busiest and noisiest cities while walking through central park - it was strangely quiet and peaceful! so nice! 

i took this walking across brooklyn bridge. it was so so hot this day even though it looks cloudy. there was a hurricane warning over the city and it was super humid! i've never felt anything like it. in the uk we never get weather like that.

obviously i had to try pancakes one morning for breakfast!

just some of the things i bought! saving every penny of my money for months before coming here was so worth it.

and lastly, a giant cookie from a cafe next to our hotel. it was the size of my thigh and it took me three days to finish it!!! 

have any of you been to new york? or anywhere else in america? i'd love to travel back to new york and i'd also love to do a road trip across america some day. hmm who's with me!?

xo

new york makeup haul

now if there's one thing i love it's buying new makeup, and where better to go buy some new products than when i was on holiday in new york last month!? the best thing? - everything is a lot cheaper over in america than the uk so i was a bit naughty and spent a crazy amount of money on stuff i would have usually picked up, looked at the price of, and put straight back down!! 

the first place i headed was MAC in Macy's. i spent so long umming and ahhing over which lipsticks to buy, and eventually narrowed it down to three colours. i got 'creme cup' - a repurchase. 'girl about town' - a sort of deep pink which looks crazy bright for someone like me (who likes to keep things neutral!) and 'captive' - an almost purple isn berry colour which i thought is the perfect way to add a little bit of colour to my ghosty face over the autumn/winter months.

whilst at MAC i also picked up a powder blusher in the shade 'tenderling' which is just a pale dusty pink, quite similar to my natural cheek colour. i also bought some mineralise skin finish natural in 'light' which i use to set my foundation. i've used this for a couple of years and i thought it would just be a good thing to repurchase in america where it was a little cheaper!

my next buys were my 'i kinda shouldn't have but did anyway' purchases. i went to sephora (love love love) and the first thing i got was the nars sheer glow foundation in the shade siberia. i also bought the foundation in the matte version too because reasons! in another trip to sephora i then treated myself to the laura mercier silk creme foundation aaaaannd my favourite thing i bought - the radiance primer which makes my foundation look a dream when i've applied it over the top of this primer. while i was waiting to be served i spotted the urban decay naked basics palette and thought it would be rude not to pick it up too. i love this palette, it's not often i find one that i'd actually wear every single colour from but the basics palette definitely does it for me.

i went in to ELF looking for some new makeup brushes as mine were in a sad sad state and it was definitely time to get some replacements. i love ELF brushes, my previous ones have lasted years and for how cheap they are i'd recommend them to anyone! i got a flat top brush which I've been using to apply powder to my face. i also got a little blush brush which is the perfect size for applying bronzer, blusher or to contour with. i did buy a fluffy concealer brush too but i forgot to photograph it. - fail! 

on the top picture of this post i've also shown the bourjois java rice powder. i didn't actually buy this in new york...i got it when i was back home in newcastle but i thought i'd include it in this post as it's the only makeup i've bought since i got back from my holiday and i felt mean leaving it out as i love it! it gives you such a nice glow without being too in your face obvious and you only need the smallest amount when you use it. 

are there any products you've recently bought that you're loving? or have you tried anything i've mentioned? leave me a comment and let me know. :)

xo