The Ten Best Things About Being...............

Life isn't easy being a petite gal, but that doesn't mean to say that there aren't some added perks to being lacking in a few extra vertical inches, check out my list below of the ten best things about being petite:

1. You're the master of hide and seek, no space is too small for you to squeeze your tiny self into!

2. You have a legitimate excuse to wear fierce heels no matter what the occasion, for example, added heel height is a necessity when trying to reach the top shelf in a supermarket, and to quote Beverly Hills' finest real housewife, Adrienne Maloof (she's actually pretty deep, you guys!) - 'The higher the heels, the closer to God' - and you can't argue with that kind of logic.

3. It's rare that you'll ever have to worry about being taller than a guy.

4. You'll always look younger than your actual age, which may be annoying when you're in your twenties, but once you hit the big 3-0, you'll be grateful to that sales assistant who ID'd you for that bottle of Merlot (because that's what you drink when you're in your thirties).

5. You can buy oversized tops (or go a few sizes up in a top) and wear it as a dress.  It'd probably be a mini dress but that's cool, I'm totally on-board with that.

6. You'll never have to worry about your feet hanging out the end of the bed.  Nobody likes cold feet, in literal OR metaphorical terms.

7. Flying economy class on a plane is bearable due to your legs not taking up loads of room and thus giving you plenty of space to wriggle about for maximum comfort - and trust me, you'll be thankful for that on those pesky long-haul flights!

8. Being cramped up in a bath tub is something that you are unlikely to experience with the length of the bath ALWAYS being longer than the length of your body.

9. Petite fashion lines from the likes of Topshop, ASOS and Miss Selfridge are getting increasingly more exciting and often you'll find petite exclusives, meaning unless you're 5ft3 or under then you're not invited to this party - so keep on walking sister!

10. Sofas are the perfect length for you to take a nap on without being all scrunched up and contorted into weird and painful shapes.

I just want to point out that this list doesn't mean to say that there's anything wrong with being tall, I just think that you should love your height, no matter how tall, small or averagely proportioned you are - so at the end of the day, whether you're barely pushing 5ft or so past 6ft that it's nothing more than a distant memory, just OWN IT.  Also apologies for my terrible drawings - they're pretty bad but I sure do like to doodle!

Hooked on SensatioNail

It's happened.  It was just a matter of time but it's happened.  I finally gave in and now own a gel nails kit courtesy of SensatioNail, a generous brother and a Black Friday dream of a deal from Boots.  As a result, I am now hooked on SensatioNail.  Completely and utterly hooked. 

As a nail-obsessive, I'd been debating for a while whether to go down the road of owning my very own gel nail kit or to carry on persevering with my standard, run-of-the-mill-can't-make-it-24-hours-without-chipping nail polish but most times decided against buying gel kits due to the costs involved.  This year though I did the maths (and finally understood why I worked so hard to get that GCSE A-grade in Maths.  Maths is important so you can calculate the value of owning your own gel nails kit vs. trips to the nail bar.  Thank you school education, you have treated me well.).  The maths told me that buying a gel nails kit was actually a sound investment due to not having to paint my nails as often because of the long-lasting nature of a gel manicure as well as not having to pay £20-£40 at a nail bar having someone else do my gel nails for me.  After this quick mathematical equation which looked a bit like the below, I came to the conclusion that a gel nails kit was most definitely needed:

If x + y = z then that means I MUST BUY A GEL NAIL KIT (ok, so it wasn't my adeptness at equations that earned me that A-grade in maths!)

After the maths came the research which all led me to a well-known (particularly amongst beauty-lovers) company called SensatioNail.  It seemed that SensatioNail was the way to go - good reviews, it was sold in Boots as well as online and there was a great range of nail polish colours and products. 

Then came Black Friday and the offer of the SensatioNail Limited Edition Ultimate Gel Starter Kit for £35 on Boots online which had been reduced from £80.  This resulted in some minor heart palpitations, although I had just had an espresso so I think that the caffeine should take some credit for that, however once the palpitations had ceased, I immediately whasapped my brother and asked for (or demanded, I can't quite remember?) the kit for my birthday.  It was one of those moments where when you know you know, you know?  I just had to have the kit and thankfully my brother kindly (and quite possibly because he feared the repercussions if he didn't yield) got me it and gave it to me upon the day of my birth. 

The gel nail kit of dreams!

The kit came with SO much including (as listed on the Boots website):

SensatioNail Pro 1530 LED lamp with mains adaptor

2 colour polishes: Miss Behave & Going for the Rose Gold (3.69ml each)

Gel base/top coat (7.39ml), Gel Cleanser (27.2ml)

Gel Primer (3.54 ml), Polish to Gel (7.39ml)

mixing pot

removal tool

nail shields

manicure stick

buffer

lint free wipes.

Like I said, SO much! 

The next thing I did was watch some YouTube gel nail tutorials and decided that I wanted to try out the chrome nail trend that everyone is falling head over heels for.   I bought some chrome powders from eBay, a no-wipe gel top coat from Amazon (only no-wipe gel top coats work otherwise the powder wipes off or loses the chrome effect) and a SensationNail gel polish in the shade Midnight Rendezvous (which is a black shade) as I needed a dark colour to achieve the mirror-like finish from the chrome powders.  The whole kit worked like a dream, it was easy and simple to use and the manicure stayed chip-free for the 2 weeks I had it on.  Check it out below: 

Gel Chrome Nails

I also found that SensatioNail themselves had some great videos on their website offering guidance and tips on how to use the SensatioNail products which I would thoroughly recommend checking out.

I have since used my nail foils too which had been lying around in my nail art drawer for what had seemed like a lifetime and created an eye-catching gel nail design with them (click here to check out the tutorial video that I used for achieving a foil nail design for gel nails).

Gel Foil Nails

This gel nails starter kit is great for anyone who loves having stunning-looking and long-lasting painted nails and it has the added bonus of working out cheaper than regularly visiting a nail bar to get them done - plus, even if you were to pay the full £80, it still works out cheaper in the long-term (don't argue with me because, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but one time I got an A-grade in maths.).  That being said, Boots currently have this kit back on offer at a reduced price of £40 so I would thoroughly recommend snapping this up before it sells out! 

Have you used any SenatioNail products before?  Drop me a comment to let me know you're thoughts!   I'm already brainstorming NYE gel nail ideas as we speak so if you have any tips or useful gel nails advice then that would be greatly appreciated!

What's Wrong With Being Nice?

Now it may be the copious cups of tea that I have consumed today or the soul-destroying train strike or even the horrendous cold/flu I'm currently battling with at the moment but I'm feeling pretty fed up.  Before I get to what it is that is causing this strife, let me explain that the catalyst that caused this blog post was binge-watching the last 5 episodes of The Apprentice or, to be more apt, Lord Sugar's attitude in these episodes.  Now, I love The Apprentice and I'm also well aware that it's reality TV so I know that the majority of it is scripted or, at the very least, heavily manipulated to create drama and storylines.  What I cannot stand (brace yourself, you're now about to find out what the cause of my strife is...) and what I realised I could not stand after the theme being repeated throughout the 5 episodes of The Apprentice is the attitude that being 'nice' is a bad thing.  Seriously, you could create a drinking game for how many times Lord Sugar uses the word 'nice' and practically scrunches his nose up in disgust at the mere thought.

What is so wrong with being 'nice' and also, since when did being 'too nice' become a negative thing?  Afterall, if I'm honest, I'd much rather work with or be friends with someone who is 'too nice' than someone who is 'too horrible'.  I find this whole anti-niceness mindset both confusing and really depressing - why should we assume that we must be mean and cut throat to succeed and why should those in influential positions be advocates of this?  It's ludicrous.  People too often consider 'niceness' as a weakness but the problem here is that the reason it's deemed a weakness is because the non-nice individuals (friends, colleagues or even strangers in the street) that exist out there choose to take advantage of this decent attribute seen in others and, guess what?  This doesn't make nice people weak, it just makes the advantage-takers lousy human beings.  I certainly don't want to be telling my future children that the only way they'll succeed in life is by being arrogant, nasty, cut-throat S.O.Bs but this seems to be the gist of what Lord Sugar imparts on the candidates and the viewing public in every goddamn episode and it's infuriating.

The other day, for example, someone mentioned to me that I was so nice that if I was in a horror film, I'd probably be the first one to get killed off - and I think that sums up exactly the mindset of people today.  Why does my being nice mean that nothing positive will come from it?  I'm not hugely religious but one of my favourite quotes comes from the Bible and this is 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' (Luke 6:31) and I thoroughly believe that there is nothing wrong with thinking that way.  If anything, it's common sense that I would treat someone how I would want to be treated, it's not rocket science!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect and I'm sure there are times when I'm not nice as we all have our moments, but I will never stop wanting to be nice because that's a fundamental part of who I am and that sure as hell does not mean that I won't succeed in either my personal or working life.  So, before I tell you that 'I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and we'd all eat and be happy'* and you yell back at me, 'She doesn't even go here!'*, all I ask is that we start viewing being 'nice' in a postive light and consider that maybe, just maybe, we can be both successful AND nice (*gasp*) because, if I'm honest, that'd be pretty ni.....great!

*If these two quotes mean nothing to you then I suggest you view the below video (skip to 1:02 for the good bit) pretty imminently or I may not be so nice in future**

**That was a lie, I'll still be nice because I'm awesome like that.  You're welcome.

The Nailbot - it will blow your mind

'Am I dreaming?  Is this real life?  What is this sorcery?' will be the interior monologue reverberating around your brains after reading this post because I just discovered something that will change all our lives forever.  'What could this be?' I overhear you whisper via your interior monologues (yes, I was eavesdropping), well, I give you, *drum roll, please*, the 'Nailbot' aka the Smartphone nail art printer.  Yes, that's right, a printing device that connects to your Smartphone and can print your photos/designs on to your nails.  Let me just give you a minute to process that information before I commence my next paragraph......have you processed yet?  Yes?  Great.

I stumbled upon this invention through my liking of HelloGiggles on Facebook where they had posted a video all about the Nailbot, showing how it worked and speaking to the genius creator, Pree Walia and which my Facebook kindly notified me about.  From the viewing of the video, I learnt that this invention prints custom nail art in 5 seconds which is faster than burning a piece of toast, just in case you needed some kind of time measuring example to put into context how fast this nail art printer actually is.  If you need proof that the Nailbot acutally exists and works faster than burning a piece of toast then I thoroughly recommend that you check out the video below.

Just imagine how great the Nailbot would be for a friend's wedding where the bridemaids could all print photos of the happy (hopefully) couple on their nails or for a friend's birthday where your gift to them could be decorating your nails with photos of their beautiful face!  Or, if you're just in a bit of a mood funk then what better way to cheer yourself up than by printing the poop emoji on all of your nails?  Mature?  No.  Hilarious?  Most definitely.  The options are endless and the best thing is that you don't have to be a skilled nail art technician to be rocking some skilled nail art designs.  This is the kind of invention that I have dreamt about without even really knowing it and, if I'm honest, my brain can barely believe that it's real and not just a figment of my imagination.

It's hardly surpising that the Nailbot has now raised way over its $75,000 goal on Kickstarter with $87,110 and it still has 40 hours left to go due to its innovation and easy-to-use style.  Sidenote, if you wanted be one of the first to get your sassy paws on a Nailbot then there is still time to pledge - I myself would love to pledge but, unfortunately, I still have 12 more days until payday and apparently paying your rent is more important than nail art (I don't know who came up with this rule but it is not one that I am a fan of) so I will have to be one of those poor suckers who waits for it to hit the shelves and buy it then (which I'm totally fine with and not bitter about at all).

I can't wait to spend hours on YouTube watching all the nail art tutorials that will come out of the Nailbot's presence and I think that we can all agree that this will most detinitely kick the chrome nail art trend's ass.

If you're feeling intrigued then check out the Nailbot's kickstarter page here where there is even more info and fun photos and videos showing exactly how the Nailbot works.

P.s. You are welcome*.

*because in my interior monologue you are all showering me with a million thank yous.  You're too kind, really.

 





 

The Pavan Henna Bar

So back around Christmas time, I was invited to the Pavan Henna Bar at Selfridges to have some henna done and check out some of their products.  Now, due to some unforeseen laptop issues (i.e. my laptop broke) I am now only just able to blog about it now with my fully (finally) working laptop.

I have had henna done at the Pavan Henna Bar at Selfridges before which was when I got henna done on both hands for my birthday (see pics below). 

Therefore, when I was invited to check out the Pavan Henna Bar back in December, I couldn't resist and made the trek, well one 20-minute bus journey ride after work, to Selfridges in Oxford Street. 

Once at Selfridges, it was somewhat of an intense navigation process to find the Pavan Henna Bar due to the hordes of overly excited Christmas tourists, I lost count of the number of MASSIVE Selfridges tote bags that people knocked into my poor little legs. 

Once I located the henna spot in the beauty hall, I met Pavan who did my henna for me and who also happens to be the lady behind the Pavan Henna Bar (I suppose the clue is in the title there) AND who also happens to be the official record holder of the World's Fastest Henna Artist' which is pretty impressive. 

Whilst having my henna done, Pavan told me about breaking the world record and being the Word's Fastest Henna Artist as well as having set ups in other locations including Manchester and even as far afield as Abu Dhabi.  Pavan also told me that they could do white henna as well as henna in glittery hues which looked so pretty.

I stuck to the traditional henna colour and decided to get the henna design done on my wrist/back of my lower arm mostly so I could keep it covered at work rather than for aesthetic reasons.  The design Pavan created looked gorgeous and I absolutely loved it plus she did it so speedily which was an added bonus.

Whilst waiting for the henna to dry, I was speaking to a couple of lovely ladies who also worked at the henna bar who were so kind and friendly and were telling me all about how they had done henna for Ellie Goulding as well as Perrie from Little Mix so I immediately felt a little bit cooler!

Now that we're coming up to summer (It's about bloomin' time!) I can't think of a better time to be heading back to the bar and I will soon be making my appointment to get had better book my appointments now before Perrie or Ellie beat me to it because that would not be ok!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Pavan also let me choose some henna-style temporary finger tattoos to take home with me and try out which are great.  I opted for silver ones and they are ideal for a special occasion or if you're going to a gig or festival plus they're so quick and easy to use which is always a good thing if you ask me!

 

Have you had henna done at the Pavan Henna Bar before?  Let me know what you think and drop a comment below!  

Another Day, Another Film Premiere

A bit late on this post so I do apologise most sincerely for my rude manors and beg you not to throw my apologetic self to the curb.  A couple of weeks ago, I managed to win some film premiere tickets to Ridley Scott's latest movie 'The Martian' thanks to Glamour (as in the magazine, just thought that I should make that clear in case you thought that I was claiming to having won the tickets due to being glamorous which would be a little bit obnoxious and, you know, also a lie).

Pretty Self-explanatory

 



My fate lied in the hands of the Glamour and Twitter gods as I simply and suavely (because I am both simple and suave) retweeted one of Glamour's tweets and calmly awaited the outcome of this simple and suave action which led to the below:

 

 

I should probably point out that I'm @amandalindseyb in the above list of winners (feel free to follow me on Twitter or Instagram if ya fancy it).  This outcome meant two delightful tickets to stare (in a completely non-creepy way) at Matt Damon's face both onscreen and in person.  Thank you Glamour and Twitter gods, I respect you both in equal measure and bow down to your supreme greatness.

 

 

Matt.  Damon.

 



Being the great flatmate/best friend that I am, I very kindly decided not to give the other ticket to my flatmate/best friend.  *Dramatic pause*.  Just kidding.  Of course I invited my flat mate/best friend, I'm not a monster, I was more just throwing in a dramatic plot twist to keep your attention but I can see now that that was cruel and so yet again, here I am apologising to you, I do hope you can forgive me?

Sean Bean, Kate Mara and Jeff Daniel looking
pretty happy here.

Now, I'm no amateur when it comes to attending a film premiere, I've been to two before and consider myself somewhat of a pro (no one can refute that.  You have NO proof that I am not a film premiere-attending pro.  Also, feel free to check out my previous film premiere post for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy by clicking here.) however, I still get quite intimidated and paranoid that I'm going to trip over when walking down the red carpet despite the fact that no one is even registering my existence as I traipse down these red pathways as I am neither Matt Damon nor Kristen Wiig.  How unfortunate.  You'll be relieved to know that I did not trip over, unless you're still harbouring a grudge against me for being late with this blog post and then in that case I should think that you're slightly displeased that there was no tripping over involved.

Kritsen Wiig's facial expression in this photo is
EVERYTHING.

Anyway, I digress (ALWAYS wanted to write that in a blog post.  Nailed it.), whilst strolling down the red carpet my friend and I bumped into someone that my friend knew who was working on the red carpet.  I won't lie to you, we felt pretty cool at this point until a rather intimidating security guard came along and told us that we couldn't stop on the red carpet to chat - apparently you can only do that if you're famous or something. 

These guys again.

Once seated inside the Odeon in Leicester Square we found our free 3D glassed (jackpot!) and our free popcorn which was the most disappointing-flavoured popcorn ever (sweet coconut and vanilla flavour?  Really?  REALLY?  In what world is that an acceptable flavour of popcorn?!).  After this slightly mundane discovery of an unpleasant popcorn flavour which was probably really interesting for you to read about, the cast came out on stage to introduce the movie and as we were seated in the second row, we had an amazing view of the entire film premiere-attending cast.

The whole, slightly blurry, gang.

I find it so bizarre that the genius that is Sir Ridley Scott was standing right infront of my face and, in all honesty, I was slightly disappointed that Sir Ridley didn't spot me in the audience and see some unearthed star potential in me and want to whisk me off to Hollywood to put me in movie that would go on to win me the Academy Award for the Best Supporting Actress (because I'm a beginner at this acting malarkey in this imaginary scenario, I would be part of an ensemble cast hence the award would be for Best Supporting Actress and not Best Actress).  Kristen Wiig, Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara all looked stunning and exuded glamour (this time I am not referring to the magazine but, in fact, Hollywood glamour.  Just thought that I should make that clear.).  Whilst Sean Bean, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels and Matt Damon (I really hope that every time I mention Matt Damon that you flashback to 'Team America: World Police'.  You know what I'm talking about.) looked just as stunning their female co-stars but in a slightly more masculine manner.

Sir Ridley Scott wearing a pretty swish scarf
and failing to notice my star potential.

As for the film, it was brilliant - intense, fun, dramatic and so many other superlatives.  I would wholeheartedly recommend it, Ridley Scott has not let himself down with this movie.  Plus, for any 'Community' and/or Childish Gambino fans, Donald Glover is also in the film and nearly steals the show in my opinion even though he wasn't at the film premiere which broke my heart a little bit but it's fine.  Totally fine.  I'm over it.  Who even is Donald Glover?  Exactly.  Also, I wrote that this 'Donald Glover', whoever he is, 'nearly steals the show' because essentially Matt Damon is about 75% of the movie so I'm not sure that it's possible to steal a movie from someone who makes up three quarters of the actual film.

What's everyone looking at?  Probably Matt Damon.
 

I seriously suggest that you go check this movie out which you may have already done seeing as the film has been out for a couple of weeks so, I, er, guess this whole blog post is actually pretty redundant now, what a shame.  Oh well, if you have seen the movie then feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what you thought of it, you don't have to leave a comment though because you do have freewill and I respect that.     

White Henna Exists. For Real.

Can we all just take a moment and acknowledge the fact that white henna exists. 

Now that we've all taken a moment, I shall continue.......no wait, I'm going to need a little longer to fully take in this new nugget of information. 

First came the tan/brown henna then the evil/dangerous black henna and now the beautiful white henna.  Now, if you're thinking, 'white henna? Really?' with an edge of scepticism then feast your eyes on this stunning white henna (and nail art may I add!) courtesy of Reecey Roo's Instagram feed:

God Bless Reecey Roo's Nail Art Bar for this stunning white henna!
(Image via Reecey Roo's Instagram page)

Looks stunning, doesn't it?  Plus how perfect would this be for a wedding?  As someone who's fairly obsessed with henna (obsessed in a completely healthy way - see below pics for my henna love affair), white henna just seems to be the next step for me and I can't wait to try it out! 

This is a temporary henna tattoo transfer that I applied myself. 

I love my tiny henna temporary tattoo transfer which you can see on my
middle finger here.  Also, feel free to appreciate the nail art that I did which
featured real dried flowers!

Please ignore my slightly mannish hand and appreciate the  intricate henna design
here that I got from Pavan's henna bar in Selfridges last December.

Let me know what you think of white henna?  Have you tried it before?  Plus if anyone knows of anywhere that does great henna for a reasonable price (I've only ever had it done at Selfridges where it's quite pricey or used temporary tattoos) then please let me know?

Thanks!