Pinterest #2

Another post featuring the infamous Pinterest platform. This time it is all about make up and hairdos that I want to learn to create sometime in the future. It all looks simple in the pictures but when you try to recreate the looks it just looks like a terrible mess, yes, I've been there many times. But, as they say practice makes things perfect. Never stop perfecting yourself, there are always new things to learn.

So, my most beloved looks from the board Beauty (these are not my pictures, just my repins):
                           I can never get my polka dots right like this, is there a magic trick I missed out on?

                          Love Keira's hair and make up in this picture, totally something I would wear.

                                        Perfect eye make up for Christmas or New Years Eve.

 This is not an exactly Autumn/Winter look but I really like the combination of the colours here, you could create the same effect but with a red and a burgundy lipstick.

Perfect manicure

                                                  
                           Really love the make up here, requires a good brushes and a lot of blending.

                               A lot of work in achieving these colours probably, but totally worth it.

                      Love love love the lipstick, I think the colour Rebel by Mac is quite similar to this.
                                              Need to get my hands on it, as soon as possible.

                                             A summery look but love it for autumn, nonetheless.

Very classy and Bardotesque, don't you think?

Music Mondays #5

Let's go to bed with a classic today: The Smiths -There is a light that never goes out

The Body Shop Haul

In the past few weeks, I have been searching for a body lotion or a body butter for my daily use, because strangely enough I did not bring one with me when I came back to the UK. I went to Boots, Superdrug and all the other shops around town looking for an affordable price and a good scent. Having not found anything that fancied my likes I just waited a bit, it's like I knew some great deal is going to turn up my way. And then I got THE email that was worth all the wait. An email from the Body Shop saying that they have a 40% off the entire website, including the sale. Now that's what I am talking about. I love Body Shop body butters but £13 for a body butter to me is a bit much (I'm a student, after all) that is why I always try to stock up when they have great sales like that. So, of course I immediately started browsing the website and ended up buying a whole lot of products. And it all cost me only £21.15.

I would definitely recommend signing for their newsletter if you are a Body Shop lover like me.

This is what I got:

Brazil Nut Body Butter 200 ml 

Coconut Body Butter 50 ml 

Coconut Lip Butter 10 ml 

Vineyard Peach Body Lotion 250 ml 

Brazil Nut Body Mist 100 ml

Love Etc Eau de Parfum 30 ml (great for your handbag)

Cranberry Joy Room, Linen and Body Spray 100 ml (a very Christmassy scent)

2 x Almond Shower Gels 250 ml each

Vineyard Peach Shower Gel 250 ml

Raspberry Shower Gel 250 ml

Pinterest #1

Don't you just love Pinterest? I always get so much inspiration just by browsing different Pinterest categories,  to be honest I think my most repinned one is Hair & Beauty, but I can't be blamed there are so many beautiful things out there and so many girls I want to look like.
But, today, I've decided to share with you a few bits from two of my boards: Places & Spaces (inspiration for my future apartment (hopefully in a few years) and travels) and a Wishlist board, with things I want to get my hands on as soon as possible.
If any of these bring a smile to your face, a good memory or a creative idea, I've done my job for the day.

To see the full collection of pictures, click here:
http://pinterest.com/focusonthequiet/boards/

From the board called Places & Spaces also known as Take me there as soon as possible:

And from the Wishlist (I have a lot, but these are the most wanted for now):

 Lovely, eh? You can never dream too big.

Music Monday #4

Stop it and deny.

Music Monday #3

Because it is all real simple.

How about that? It is beautiful.

 

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

(Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969)

Music Monday #3

Weeks go by so quickly and I was not that organised as I promised. That's bad.
But hopefully, you can forgive me if I dedicate you this monday song:

Music Mondays #2

Let's all have a soft Monday with fluffy clouds and beautiful memories.

Bat for Lashes - Laura 

Instagram #9

Have any of you missed these Instagram posts? I think it's been almost a year since my last one, so I guess I have a lot of pics to share with you. However today I will share my favourite ones and if you want to see more follow me on Instagram @focusoniana. If you, yourself have an instagram profile do not hesitate to leave me your names in the comments below, I would be thrilled to see who reads my blog.

Had a fun time with these girlies back in December.Miss you xx | Was invited by my beautiful Coco to take photographs at the Brass Factor | One of the best memories this year was finally seeing live one of my favourite bands called Why? | Back in November dyed my hair Ombre and was quite pleased with the result

This year we had an awesome apartment with an awesome view | In June we made a trip to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine | Last July we went to Spain and had the best time with the best people | Finally, this year we've also been to York and enjoyed it a lot.

31 days reading challenge + Goodreads

This is a post for all my bookworm friends out there. Whether you are in Norway, United Kingdom or Republic of Moldova, this is dedicated to you.

For the year of 2013, I set myself a book challenge on my Goodreads account. I settled on the number 35, which is doable with all the university work and all the summer activities I am to do outside of reading. As I was on a reading roll from about September to March I somehow managed to get to 24 books and I am proud to say that I am still 7 books ahead. The numbers do not matter as much, what matters most is to get rid of my 'to read' pile and buy more new ones. I am a book buying addict, more precisely awesome books but bought for a bargain. I was quite good at doing that in the past year. I managed to get a lot of books from the BBC Top 100 Book List for a pound or so. I would like to think I have a good eye for bargains, not only for books, but in general.

I am rambling now. OK, so lately, to be more exact for the month of June, I have been quite behind with my reading. It was all due to my internship in June, but now that it is over I thought I need to get cracking.

I will be doing the 31 days reading challenge inspired by the YouTube Book Community. Most of the guys out there did it in June, and as I was quite busy I will be doing it in July and have another day as a bonus.The amount of pages that you presumably have to read throughout this month is 6000 pages. That seems impossible to me, that is why I will be changing the rules and just set myself a number of books for the month that I need to get through. I have selected 6, some of them which I started earlier but never got to finishing them, and so all of the pages summed up together result in 1,072 pages which divided by 31 makes 34,5 so basically 35 pages per day. That sounds very promising and with all the going out possible to accomplish. I will do an update at the beginning of August :)
Wish me luck and feel free to join the challenge with me!


These are the books I want to read throughout the month of July, 6 in total:
Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl 31% left to read
Tom Butler Bowdon - 50 Psychology Classics 48% left
Mark Forsyth - The Ethymologicon 90% left
Chris Frost - Reporting for Journalists 
Paul Donnelley - Assassins and Assassinations
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

My Goodreads account:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7892031-iana

Music Monday #1

I want to become a more organized blogger, so I bought myself a notebook, sat down and started writing  blog post ideas inspired by others or that I came up with myself. These particular series called Music Mondays were inspired by a fashion blogger who goes by the name of That's Chic. http://www.thatschic.net/ 

Not sure if she does that every Monday or not,  I just saw the title of the blog post last Monday and thought that it is so me that I definitely have to start doing that.
So, basically, the idea behind this is that I will be posting a song every Monday, it might be because the lyrics are beautiful or the clip is awesomely filmed or whatever, but if it is here that means I feel it.


I fell in love with this song the moment I heard it and even though it has been a year since then I still cannot get enough of it. It is magnificent in every way to me.
The XX - Fiction



P.S. NOTE:
As you have probably noticed I do not only write about beauty anymore. I want this to blog to be much more than that. I have lots of ideas that I want to try and get done and I really hope that this sounds exciting to you, as well. Also, by writing more often I hope to get better at it, because to be honest I do suck at it sometimes. Peace.

Three gentlemen (a different kind of post)

There is this myth about the modern men, those-digitized-and-hands-in-pockets-men, that they are not gentlemen. They only care about themselves and are violent and abusive.

It is not in any way my personal belief, but nonetheless a very popular one within my generation.
They might be a rare breed, but they do exist. I met three yesterday.

The first one offered me his hand when I was getting off the bus.
The second gentleman politely offered me a ride to the nearest station, while it was raining cats and dogs outside.
The third, offered me half of his umbrella on my way home from the station.

Gentlemen, please do this more often. I promise to write more posts about you.

Style Crush #4 Abbey Lee Kershaw

This Australian beauty has always been a model that stood out to me because of her extravagant, non-ordinary style. The embroderies, gipsy skirts, furs and hats that she wears all the time, somehow create a mysterious aura of a 'hippie witch'( weird non-existent term, I know) around her.
It is not necessarily that I would wear these outfits, but I do appreciate when people look confident while wearing quite strange outfits.

Empty Products # 1

This will be part #1 of the up coming series of Empties posts. This one is all about hair care and body products I've used up since September, when I started collecting empty bottles like a crazy person who has nothing else productive to do with her life. Yep, that is exactly me.

And this is the result here:

First off is the Burt's Bees Radiance Exfoliating Body Wash. This is a product I've been excited to try out when I have received it in my mystery Burt's Bees bag, I had in the bag four samples of it (2x350ml and 2x50ml). It became a product towards which in the end I felt quite indifferent. It has a very liquidy consistency compared to your standard shower gel, but it has those jojoba beads that help exfoliate your body. The most disappointing thing about this body wash is its scent. It reminds me of cereal or oats, which is a weird smell to have in the shower, but it is not in any way overpowering, just not very pleasant. I've used almost all of the bottles, I have the last big one in the shower now, but I would definitely not repurchase the product.

I am a fan of The Body Shop products and especially I like their body butters and shower gels. This particular shower gel in the Fuzzy Peach scent has been a favourite of mine since the day I started using it. It is nothing special, it does the job as any gel would, but man, are Body Shop brilliant at creating yummy, refreshing scents.

The Herbal Essences Tousle Me Softly shampoo has been a favourite of mine as well. As I have wavy hair, for once I've decided to actually try a product designed for it. Went to Boots, saw this on offer, decided to give it a go. Loved the smell and the product, have not seen a massive difference in the way my hair behaved itself, but it was soft and felt a bit more 'in control'. I would definitely recommend it and repurchase sometime soon.

And the last two products, are Triple Resist shampoo and conditioner from the L'Oreal Elvive range. I've been seeing a lot of new L'Oreal hair care ranges coming out and decided to try one of them out, at once. I've chosen the Triple Resist because I'm always looking for products that ensure protection and resistance for my hair. I've enjoyed using these two together, the smell was very pleasant and almost felt luxurious, in a way. It is always hard to tell whether shampoos work or not, but as long as you don't get dandruff or a scalp rash you are fine.

Follow me on Pinterest or Tumblr?

Heeeeeyyyy

It's been too long now since I've been here and to be honest I can't even justify to you guys the true reason to why I've been away. And still I'm not even sure if I want to come back full-time. I've not posted here anything since July and I really miss blogging sometimes but if I start writing I want to commit to this 100%, so I'm still deciding. I'm probably overthinking stuff, as always.

But hey, on the other hand, I've been quite active on Pinterest and Tumblr. These where the places I went to when I lacked inspiration or words, and it seems it was a constant need these last months.

So, if you want to check those out, feel free to click on those links below:

Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/focusonthequiet/

Tumblr:

http://focusonthequiet.tumblr.com/  

Next post we'll probably be an 'Empties' entry on the products I've used up since September until now, I've kept them all like a freak, so I'll talk to you soon, I guess.

Focusonthequiet,
                        xx