the [free] gift of energy, from Boots

by Nikki LLL Blog, February 27, 2015

I might have mentioned it once or twice; but I've been in a pretty bad way these past few months what with the state of my health. Won't harp on about it like, cos I'm trying this whole 'positive' attitude on the daily. But it just means little things like eating more fruit 'n' veg and taking vitamin supplements have become more important to me. Where once vodka and Jagermeister were the two biggest focal points in my life, I have replaced that with sensibility and budgets. And bulk buying Flash cleaning wipes.

Beyond tragic, really.

Anyway.
In this responsible phase I'm going through; where I'm having genuine fruit for breakfast [bear in mind I used to have a mug of coffee and a pack of cookies - and I mean the full pack for breakfast] and trying to be an all round better person, I've started taking Vitamin tablets. Nowt mental; I just started taking Well Woman Original capsules with my tea. They're supposed to regulate your hormones and also give you more energy, in addition to what normal vitamin tablets do. And although I don't think I've noticed that much of a difference in how I feel so far, I certainly don't feel worse for having been taking them.

This doesn't explain the picture above of a totes unrelated product however; so I'll stop banging on and get to the meat of this post. When I placed my order with Boots online last week, they had a fab offer on where if you bought Vitamin tablets online, they threw in a free gift. I LOVE it when Boots do this kinda thing; at Christmas they slayed it with the freebies. So when my parcel turned up, I was chuffed to find I had been sent not just what I had ordered, but also these Re-Energising tablets.


You may have noticed, but [as well as poverty and general laughing at my own expense] a massive recurring theme within my life is, ironically enough, how tired I am and how I always sleep through my alarm[s]. So this product may well have been a little godsend [if it works!]  I got 20 of these Re-Energise tablets with my order; they come in a plastic tube with a pop off lid. All the deets you need about them is on the box / on the plazzy tube, so they're pretty self explanatory. Basically, they contain vitamins such as Vitamins C & B that energise you. And that's that.



After pouring a glass of water, you just plop the tablet in and within a matter of minutes, the bubbling subsides and the drink is ready.
Really though; the way these tablets dissolve is mint - they're so noisy! Was probably the highlight of the whole experience for me. But then again, I have next to no life and I will be the first to admit I'm easily amused so what was a 'novel' experience for me might not float your boat so much.



When it's done you're left with a pure fluoro drink which looks like orange cordial; not just any insipid shade. It tastes a lot like cordial as well, though it definitely has a slight tang to it. It's a lot nicer than other dissolvable vitamins and medicine taste-wise, for sure though. I have a habit of making a drink and then forgetting to drink it - but I finished this off fully, so it must have been alright.

I'm not sure whether after my first glass today I felt much different. I am absolutely shattered at the moment, so I doubt that any vitamin boost would actually energise me that much. I did feel a bit like I was on a coffee high for a little while after I'd drunk it though. Basically, this is a really great free gift and I'm going to give them a few goes to see if I feel the benefit. And if you're planning on ordering in new vitamin tablets then I highly recommend that you do this via Boots; as all free vitamins are worth taking advantage of.

Pros - Tastes alright really for a vitamin drink, quick [and entertaining] to dissolve, did seem to give me a bit of a boost during my afternoon lull.

Cons - It says that if you excessively consume this product, it can have a 'laxative' effect.... Never the most desirable of side effects!! Also a bit tangy taste wise.

Watch this space to see if this free gift will lead to an ongoing love affair with this product.
If you fancy trying these tablets out, you can read more about them here. They retail at £3.99 [so not bad for a free gift] and Boots also make a cherry flavour, which sounds nice.

Have you ever tried these tablets, or anything similar? What's your top tip / go to product for boosting your energy levels? As 50% human, 50% sloth I could really benefit from some energy enhancing tips!


So for my return to the #TMIFridays tag, I thought I'd share a round up of all things Love.Laughs.Lipstick this week. Just in case you wondered what my life comprises of these days. Or just want to be nosey. I'll put my hand up and admit that I LOVE reading bloggers' lifestyle posts. And I also love to overshare. So the #TMIFridays concept is perfect. If you want to know more about it - or about joining in [honest, I'd love it so much if you did] check out this post from the archives.

Moving on - please firmly bear in mind that I don't actually have a life and that fun for me these days is bleaching the bathroom tiles; so don't expect sex, drugs and rock & roll. The only one of those components you can slightly argue has been part of my life recently is drugs: prescription.




- Cussons Carex Complete Strawberry Laces hand soap, on offer at Asda for just 89p at the moment. It. Smells. AMAZING. SO sweet and fruity. Can't wait to try out some of the other fragrances from this range. Provided it stays on offer for the foreseeable future - hashtag poverty probs.

- A good brew. As a coffee lover, I've been seri-iii enjoying a good cuppa PG Tips this week, which is unusual.

- Flowers. I've got a small and budget bouquet of lillies and they've come out to bloom beautifully this week. [Hang on. Let me just check that I'm not actually Alan Titchmarsh.]


- An ex boyfriend of mine once said to me 'You eat like a child.' 

Why thank you, you condescending bar steward

But anyway. This was a few years back and I've made an active effort this week, what with my daily health battles at the moment, to try and better feed my body with nutrients. Alongside a lot of chocolate brownies. But still. Moderation. I've totally cut out fizzy drinks - which is somewhat of an achievement, given that I used to drink a can of coke everyday without fail. I even got a Tropicana from Maccy Ds the other day rather than a coke... I know right. I can barely believe it myself.



- Lying in the bath for about two hours while the bubbles lap over the sides and soak the floor. Future me is going to be totes mad at present me when the waterbill comes in.

- Swearing. I am, admittedly, a bit of a potty mouth Pete. Sometimes, when life gets you down or something goes tits up though; it's flipping great to drop an f-bomb or two.  A spoon snapped in half the other day when i was removing a teabag from a brew [standard] and the force of it meant that scolding hot tea shot out all over my hands and my OCD-standard-of-clean surfaces.  It bloody well hurt. Physically and mentally; seeing all that tea swirling around my freshly wiped kitchen. Thinking about the event later on, when I looked back at what I yelled - at a SPOON - in anger, it was really quite hilar. So let's overshare.

In my burnt, raging frame of mind I yelled at the spoon that it was a 'Cheap Ass Mother F***er.'
There's not much I can say after that.

- Zoella. OMGGGG. I'm well too old for her typical demographic; but I watched some of her vlogs this week and I'm just about obsessed. Nala is literally my dream dog [I heart pugs], I'd LOVE to live her lifestyle and her positivity and the genuine happiness she radiates through her way of talking gave me some maje inspo. Hats off to her; she deserves her success. And that Alfie kid she knocks around with is a bit of alright too.

- YouTube mixes. Once, I thought of myself as somewhat of a musical connoisseur; bringing new music to the table and going to the gigs of up-and-coming indie stars. Now I search for things like 'the Top 40 of 2003 mix' and go with the flow. But I'm loving it. Along with Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande and One Direction at present. Soz not soz.


- BADLY BEHAVED EGGS. I'll tell you something; I HEART a good old boiled egg, but there's nothing worse than them being little buggers when you're trying to de-shell them. When more than just shell comes off and before you know it, raging chunks of egg are peeling off left, right and centre too.  So you end up with some madly misshapen, mental looking egg. OR when tiny fragments of eggshell jab you in the finger as you're at work. Both these things get right on my tits.

- My alarm. It having to exist and it going off. I've been having some mint dreams this week - pure lotto wins and everything - only to be woken up by that killjoy ringtone. Eurgh.

- Blokes being raging perverts. And all round turds. Can you trust any of them? Doubtful. Bahh *shakes a feminist fist*

- Being so skint. When you are OVER your overdraft, you know something's gotta give.

Bleach. Cleaning wipes. Bin liners. This week hasn't been a week of impulsive, glamorous #bblogger purchases; it's been a poverty shop to feed my obsessive compulsive cleaning habits. Who needs to stay within their credit limits, when you can be bleaching the grouting in your bathroom tiles? 

[this paragraph was written with copious sprinklings of sarcasm, some sadness and the best of intentions that soon I will have become less of a penniless tramp and will be able to 'haul' and showcase new looks / beauty inspo as well as the next person.]



- To keep eating clean[er].

- To stay positive and hope that when negative thoughts creep into my mind, I can continue to shoo them away with a firm hand.

- To make a bit of a blogging schedule and sit down with my thoughts of where the LLL story will go next. I was planning on taking a bit of a break to sort my health and life out... but instead, putting the blog to one side like a forbidden fruit has meant I can't stay away. I just can't resist temptation, obvs. [Which must be why I've put on two stone of body weight in the past six months. Oopsy...]

by Nikki LLL Blog, February 25, 2015



... things that annoy me, about me



1. When I'm trying to be quiet or go into 'stealth mode' - I actually make things worse. I remember once myself and a friend trying to subtly escape from the end of an afterparty we didn't want to be at in a posh flat. As we crept sooooo silently towards the door... my bag knocked a vase over and it fell and smashed at an epically loud volume. Rumbled.

2. No matter how many alarms I set, I can't wake up in the morning.

3. My cleaning / need for order OCD is driving me a bit mental atm. I have become that party pooper - that one prize knobhead - who insists that if someone's going to have a drink in my home, that they'd better bloody well make use of the intense coaster regiment I have going on. Do they not realise the peril of coffee rings on a glass surface?!

4. I think - and think - and overthink - situations so much that something as simple as a friend not texting back within a five minute window means they obvs must either be dead or hate my guts.

5. I am a maje night owl. I will happily stay up till 3am to get jobs done. Or can be found burning the midnight oil, writing until the early hours. I'm definitely at my prime post 7pm. This is a shitter, however, when I have to hold down a full-time job which requires me to get up early and be sociable with people before my 11am watershed.

These quirks that make up my personality do rile me sometimes. They're not always the most practical of features to bring to the table or the things I like best about myself...

Life is all about acceptance... being proud of who you are - your quirks, that funny toenail, your morning breath 'n all - these little things make you, you. And that's a bloody great thing to be.




As anyone who reads my blog will be all too aware of by now - I am the poster child for poverty. So when my little pot of Bourjois blusher ran out recently, my purse began weeping in anticipation of the expenditure ahead.

To the dismay of my battered collection of credit cards, I am of the firm belief that my face minus blusher = disaster, so I decided that a hasty re-purchase had to be done [let's be honest, my face with blusher ain't exactly the ideal either].

I normally go for Bourjois' Little Round Pot Blusher in one of the Rose shades, which retails at about £7.99 in Boots. But I decided, after about 5 years of consecutive loyalty to this product, I'd look elsewhere to see if I could achieve a more professional looking effect, for a similar price.

Cutting a long, waffling story [involving yet more analogies about how skint I am] short; I picked up NYX's Baked Blush - Illuminator + Bronzer in BBL10 Ladylike / DeMoiselle which was £7.00. 


*images courtesy of www.nyxcosmetics.com


What struck me straight away was the size of the circle of blusher itself; its circumference [ooh, getting all GCSE maths on you here!] is definitely wider than the size on offer from Bourjois - and it's consistency made me believe that it will also last longer. Anyone who's familiar with the Little Round Pot Blushers from Bourjois will know that after a bit of use, it grinds down to reveal a disappointing - almost cloth-like - hard, textured surface which you think might be blusher [but is really just whatever is used to hold the blush in the pot] and it's suddenly game over. Also, the packaging is totally adorable on this NYX blush; with a little bow clasp to open and close the pot. Awww. Now would be a perfect time for the pink bow emoji. But I'll refrain.




The product itself, now I've stopped buzzing off its packaging, is also fab. It doesn't smell as nice as Bourjois' offerings; but it applies a dream. And with blusher, I guess a nice smell isn't a prerequisite; it's not as though anyone smells my face.

Apparently it can be used wet or dry; but I've not attempted using it wet yet. It takes a couple of applications with a blusher brush to build up the pink colour; but the shimmery consistency of the powder really highlights your cheekbones and is visibly noticeable straight away. It's reaaaaaallllllyyyyy highly pigmented, which is fab. I feel the effect achieved with this product looks extremely professional and a little more subtle than other blushers I've tried.

NYX Baked Blusher handily doubles up as a highlighter. Add a light dusting down the bridge of your nose, to the centre of your forehead, chin or décolleté to best use this product as a bronzer or illuminator - and to keep your contouring game strong. It also applies well on top of any foundation I've thrown at it so far; some of these products are ones which other blushers have clumped to almost instantly in the past, and which have left me with rosy streaks rather than rosy cheeks.


Pricewise - although you can probably get a cheaper substitute to achieve similar results; you can also most certainly get more expensive. I believe this product is great value, as it's like two products in one. Although I'd still use Bourjois again in the future, I much prefer the application of the NYX product.

Sometimes, I have to make do with cheaper products due to how skint I [always] am and I weep at the sight of people who have their lives together and a makeup bag worth more than all my worldly possessions combined. My cheaper products and the results they achieve in comparison to other peoples' flawless faces cannot come close. However, this has surprised me for the price and is actually a really great product. It would surprise me [if money wasn't an issue] if I could find a more expensive blusher which I preferred more.



I only have a few products from NYX; but after this I feel I'll definitely explore more of the range. Some of their range I feel is quite pricey; but I was really satisfied with this product. I might even shop the Baked Blush range to explore other colours for more dramatic looks. FYI, Next have recently started stocking this brand, so this is a great place to pick some of the range up if there's one near you.



Click here to explore the range.

Have you got a blush product you remain loyal to? Have you discovered any great value blushers you'd to share with the world? My comment box below would love to know more. I have recently installed the Disqus widget so that all my lovely readers / bloggers on other platforms can comment; so let's get to know each other better.

That's all for now,


Today's Thought

by Nikki LLL Blog, February 24, 2015


In my prime, I used to have about 70-100 nail polishes. I've just been going through them today, throwing away the ones that don't pass the 'gloop' test - or the ones which have that unnamed, weird liquid that just appears in them one day [what the eff is that?!] 

I've picked up 10 different colours that I'd totes forgot I even owned and I'm well excited to have a little experiment and feel like a genuine girl again. It's been so long since I've made effort for life. 

Cutting to the chase of the musings behind this post though... what changed in my life whereby past me used to have time to paint her nails a different colour for work every night, to now - where present me is dozing off by about 8:30pm? 

How did I manage to fit that past time in?! 

Is this what being a true adult feels like? Where you'd rather be bleaching the bathroom tiles then lashing on copious layers of Barry M glitter? 

Or did blokes ruin this for me? [Probably blokes. Can blame them for most of life's blips.] 

But what. And wow. Mind = blown. Feeling the need for Bernard's watch now, more than ever!


*image courtesy of www.thestudentblogger.co.uk

I'm not dead...

by Nikki LLL Blog, February 20, 2015

PS I hope you guys like the new blog layout  - all in conjunction with the amazing things to come this year :} 

Thanks for reading, thanks for your support and as you can probably tell with the amount of stuff I've been working on since declaring I am taking a short break... I won't be gone for long! I'll be using this time to work on new content, new opportunities and tweet like a boss; as well as you know, recover! Health always comes first guys, something I wish I'd have thought about a little more when I was a young whippersnapper [as if whippersnapper is a legit word that spellcheck doesn't have a moan about!] 

Keep checking back, keep following and keep being you; because if noone's told you this today - you're amazing :}

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