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.     

How One Stranger Changed My Outlook on Life

You never really know when someone is going to come into your life and impact it so greatly that it changes your outlook for the better on almost everything.  I encountered one of those ‘someones’ a couple of months back when I was temping up in London, and for the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly in awe of a total stranger.

This stranger was an unassuming, kind-faced man in what I guessed to be his mid to late fifties with greying hair.  There was nothing extraordinary about this man's appearance, if anything he looked very ordinary, from the way he dressed down to the shoes he wore, but if you looked a little closer, that's when you noticed it.  This unassuming, kind-faced man was blind and he had been so since birth.

He had a soft tone to his well-spoken manner with a politeness that I had never really experienced before within the customer service oriented world.  He was led into the office, his arm looped through the arm of someone who worked within the building, and that was when I learnt that not only did this man have no sight but he was also hard of hearing and relied upon hearing aids to help him with this.  What struck me the most about this man was how he perceived his situation, he stated that he felt he was very lucky to have been born without sight rather than to have had it and then lost it.  Now, whether you agree with this statement or not is not the point, whether you agree that it's better to experience something and then lose it forever always knowing what you've lost or that it's better to have known it no other way than how it is because you can't miss something you've never had, isn't what I want to focus on.   It was this man's outlook on life that captured my attention and which I found immensely inspiring.  This was someone who had been given obstacles in life but he was grateful for how it was rather than how it could have been and what he did have rather than what he didn't have.

This man had every reason to be angry at the world but he wasn't, he was friendly and kind and thanked me over and over just for fetching him a cup of coffee.  When you come across people like that, even if it's just for a few minutes or even seconds, they can impact your life in a way that makes you look at everything differently.  How many times had I moaned about how unfair my life was just because I had missed my train or got home from work late?  How many times had I moaned about how unlucky I was just because I felt like I was the only one who had to work on a Saturday?  I realised that rather than focussing on everything that was going right in my life, I was focussing on everything that was going wrong, or at the very least, not how I had expected it to go.  I was constantly comparing myself to other people and feeling like I just didn't measure up, from my appearance to my career prospects, nothing was off limits in my one-woman pity party.

I needed to stop comparing myself to other people and start being grateful for what I did have and embrace it in the same way that this man did.  I will be forever grateful to this man for unknowingly changing my outlook on life and to me this is someone who is both admirable and inspiring as well as an example in which to follow.  I'm not saying that I won't ever attend my old pity party once in a blue moon because I'm only human, but I sure as hell will try a lot harder to tick the 'unavailable to attend' option when I next RSVP, after all, I hear the cake at those pity parties really sucks!

First Time at the Opera

Opera - it's never really appealed to me, I guess you could say that I'm a little bit more Taylor Swift than I am Plácido Domingo, but I always like to try new things so when my mum asked me on Friday if I was interested in going to see Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House this weekend, I was all like 'um....YES'.

Pretty decent view!

Even though I've never been an opera fan, I would have been a fool to pass up this operatic experience, plus how do you really know that you don't like opera if you've never actually experienced going to one - it's like this one time I decided to try beetroot even though for years I'd claimed that I didn't like it so I forced myself to try it and as it turns out, beetroot's not so bad, so now I have an extra component when I make salads (which I almost never make).  I feel like my point's been lost somewhere in this brief interlude.  I think that what I am trying to say is that beetroot, or in this case, opera, needed to be tried in order to actually assess whether I disliked or liked it. 



Fancy!

Before the opera, my mum gave me some pre-Rigoletto reading to do, yep, that's right, this trip came with homework (she nearly lost me at this point) but I persevered and did my reading.  As it turns out, the reading was pretty useful as it was a somewhat detailed (we're talking double-sided pages here) synopsis of what occurs in each act.  Seeing as the opera is sung in Italian, this pre-reading meant that I had more of an idea of what was happening on stage and even though there were subtitles on a screen throughout, it helped to have some knowledge of what was going on so that I didn't have to rely too heavily on the subtitles. 

Mini 'Alice in Wonderland' ballet figurine display at the Royal Opera House

 *SPOILER ALERT*
In relation to the plot, Rigoletto is about a Duke who likes the ladies.  A lot.  Probably too much.  To simplify the story, the lady-loving Duke, aka the Duke of Mantua, has his wicked way with a Count's daughter at an orgy (you haven't lived until you've seen an operatic staged orgy and some casual full-frontal nudity - which I missed because I was focussing too intently on the subtitles.  I'm beyond disappointed in myself.) and the court jester, Rigoletto, mocks this and gets cursed by the Count (bit extreme but who am I to judge, I've just watched a bunch of opera singers act out an orgy).  This curse results in Rigoletto's daughter, Gilda, falling in love with the Duke of Mantua after he seduces her, Rigoletto arranging for the Duke to be assassinated and Gilda sacrificing her life in the place of the Duke's.  Rigoletto then discovers that the 'assassinated Duke' is in fact his daughter when he uncovers the corpse and holds his daughter in his arms as she dies.  So, as you can see, it was a really upbeat storyline. 

Left: Mini 'The Tsarina's Slippers' figurine display at the Royal Opera House
Right: Mini 'L'heure espagnole' figurine display at the Royal Opera House

Now that I've explained the plot, I will admit the following: yes, I did fall asleep briefly in the first act but it was probably for no more than thirty seconds and, yes,  I definitely needed an ice cream in the interval to wake me up but I did stay fully conscious throughout the second act and, yes, I did actually, really enjoy it.  I would definitely go and see another opera again although I would probably have some form of caffeine beforehand.  However, I think that part of what made going to see Rigoletto so enjoyable was the whole experience of being at the Royal Opera House, acting all fancy-pants and feeling incredibly cultured and sophisticated (pretty ironic seeing as the night before I'd set up a series link for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills - well, I can't be cultured and sophisticated all the time, it'd be exhausting!).  As much as I enjoyed Rigoletto, I don't think that I would enjoy watching opera on TV as you don't get to experience the atmosphere in the same way that you would if you were actually right there, sitting in the stalls.  I also don't think that I will be adding any opera soundtracks to my iPod anytime soon because, at the end of the day, I am still the girl that likes Taylor Swift and has The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on series link, BUT, I would most definitely go to another opera again and would encourage anyone else to give it a go, after all, you never know, it might be your beetroot*! 

*Refer to the second paragraph for the 'beetroot' comment to make any real sense!

Guardians of the Galaxy European Premiere

So a bit of luck was thrown my way last week when I managed to get some tickets to the Guardians of the Galaxy European Premiere in Leicester Square.  By 'some' tickets, I mean 'two', so being the nice sister that I am, I offered the second ticket to my brother, I know, I know, my generosity is almost too much sometimes!

I have to say, this isn't my first movie premiere I've attended (in case you didn't know, I'm kind of a big deal.....................oh wait, you really didn't know that? I guess I'm not that big of a deal, sometimes I just randomly win stuff but it's pretty much once in a blue moon!).  The previous premiere I attended was for the Danny Boyle film Trance which starred James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson.  I took one of my best friends and watched one of the weirdest movies I'd ever seen (don't let the 'weird' bit put you off though, it was actually really good, weird but good!).  We got to walk down the red carpet which I'd been dreading - I really don't know why because no one actually cares about the non famous folk walking down the carpet - anyway we walked straight past Danny Boyle and Rosario Dawson on the carpet which was so bizarre but, you know, in a good way.  The only downside was that we didn't get to see James McAvoy as he was late to the red carpet and we had to go in plus he didn't stick about as he was performing in Macbeth that evening.  We were in the front row at the cinema and the cast plus Danny Boyle came onto the stage to introduce the movie so we got to see the entire cast properly (minus one James McAvoy. *Sad face*.).  The premiere wasn't massive now that I compare it to the Guardians of the Galaxy premiere but in a way, I preferred that as it meant that we actually got to see the stars of the movie, which after all, is kind of the point of a movie premiere, right?

 

So the Guardians of the Galaxy premiere was last night and honestly, I've never seen Leicester Square so busy before in my life - I reckon if I worked there I would probably have some kind of breakdown every time I made my way home on a movie premiere evening.  The size of this premiere versus the Danny Boyle one was insane.  It was massive.  There were crowds of people everywhere and it took my brother and me about 15 minutes just to get from one end of the area to the other part which was where we had to be to get in.  I guess, due to our lack of movie premiere experience, we made somewhat of a rookie error in that we went in to the cinema WAY too early and missed out on seeing Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel and worst of all? CHRIS HEMSWORTH. Not ok. However, we did walk straight past/in front of Karen Gillan who smiled at me (so we're basically best friends now - that's how it works, right?).  Karen Gillan looked stunning which was almost annoying because it completely destroyed my theory that actors/actresses only look good because they're airbrushed on screen and are under the right lighting, but if anything, I would say she is even more beautiful in real life (and also incredibly tall, although to be fair, I am pretty short so most people seem tall to me!).

We also saw the movie's director James Gunn who was managing to balance an actual real-life racoon on his shoulder which has since resulted in my want of a pet raccoon that I can walk around on a lead and take to movie premieres like it's no big deal.  I naively thought that this premiere would be like the Danny Boyle one and the cast would introduce the movie before it started, but sadly they didn't do that which I think was because there were two screenings of the film within the cinema and I reckon the cast introduced the movie in the other screening...........which I kind of feel like they should have at least brought the director or someone from the movie in to introduce the film for our screening, just because I'm not from The Only Way is Essex doesn't mean I don't deserve an intro from a member of the cast. Just sayin'.

The film was amazing though, probably the best film from the Marvel universe, it had it all: comedy, romance, action - there really was something for everyone!  I'm not massively into 'superhero' movies and I really didn't have high expectations for this one and to be quite honest, if I hadn't had tickets for the premiere I'm not sure I would have actually gone to my local cinema and paid to see it BUT that would have been a massive mistake on my part because it really is worth a trip to the cinema. Also the 3D was spot on so there's that as well!

 

Anyway, now that I'm somewhat of a movie premiere pro (HA!), I now know that should I ever attend a premiere again (unlikely as it is), I now know the protocol - basically don't go in until ALL the movie stars have arrived.  Otherwise, like me, you might miss out on seeing Chris Hemsworth and you'll forever wonder what those muscles look like in real life.

Lex Luthor Seriously Needs to Chill Out

So, I'm pretty sure that I haven't written a post since late 2012, as in last year. OOPS! I take full ownership for that and have no acceptable excuse other than I've been crazy busy........and Lex Luthor keeps trying to thwart me. Ok so that last bit re Lex Luthor may not be true but the crazy busy bit is!

I have some cute Christmas nails that I did over the festive period for you to feast your beautiful, sparkly eyes upon (yes I am sucking up right now to make up for my absence. Whatevs.):

Plus these standard non-Christmas nail designs aren't bad either:

Not much to report on since my last post. I did make one of the biggest decisions of my life just before Christmas.................I decided to get my hair cut. Pretty big deal, eh? It wasn't even a big decision in that it took me about 5 minutes to decide to get it done whilst drinking a cup of tea and daydreaming whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing. My hair was in a rather bad state from a fair bit of bleaching on the ends (courtesy of DIY dip dyes) and was stained from having been dyed various shades of lavender, deep purple and bright pink so all the unpleasantness needed to be hacked off. So I now have short (ish) hair, although it's not so short now that it's grown a bit (because apparently that's what hair does - grow). My hair for the first time in about 7 years is completely natural in colour - no highlights, no dip dyes, no nothing - just 100% natural redhead. It felt weirdly liberating reverting back to my hair's natural colour and it was nice to know what my actual hair colour was, I mean, I knew I was a redhead, I just had no idea what shade of red I was. Turns out I'm a kind of deep auburn colour which I'm digging (yes, I did just say 'digging', this is the 90s, right?). However, I get bored easily and the time has come to say goodbye to my 100% naturally coloured hair and hello again to the dip dye experience, except this time I will be making no attempt to do it myself.......instead I've made an appointment to get it done at Bleach London which I've been desperate to do for AGES. Yes, it'll be pricey but I've saved up for it and it still works out cheaper than what my highlights used to cost me plus hopefully it won't take as long to grow out so I still have the option of reverting back to natural life again.

So that's it, London tomorrow for the dip dye and a casual persual of Topshop (well, I'm only human after all.................although try telling that to Lex Luthor, he seriously needs chill out).