Mac Creme Cup

If you know me, you'll know I love a bright lip. In my current growing lipstick collection there's a variety of brighter colours for example Rimmel London Kiss of Life and popping pinks by Mac (Girl About Town and Candy Yum Yum) as well as Mac Brave Red. There's something about the bolder colours that seem to make my lips look really nice and defined whilst complimenting lighter eye makeup looks. I do own some every day neutral rosey pinks which are pretty and a couple of nudes but the nudey shades are 1) too brown for my skin tone and 2) smell horrible (Rimmel I'm looking at you. Please sort out the old fashioned smell out!)

As a result of the bad nude lipstick experience, I've put off buying a light lipstick for absolutely ages, preferring to team any fairly light natural day time eye looks with my favoured bright colours. If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen them as I'm always wearing them! After much research for quite a number of weeks, reading through blogs and comparisons of a number of different MAC lipsticks, I decided it was time to take the jump to buy a subtle day time pink. 

With pay day just a few days away I decided it wouldn't hurt the bank balance too much if I picked up a new one today. So after I'd been to the cinema I popped into Fenwicks to have a nosey at the lipstick counter and decide on one. Creme Cup by MAC is one of the names that is so obviously popular in the bloggersphere, and was also a shade recommended by a few friends too. I read numerous blogs comparing it to Angel, Please Me and Hue and in the end decided to pluck up the courage and go for Creme Cup. I swatched it at the MAC counter today next to Please Me but the latter was a matte whereas Creme Cup's Cremesheen finish looked a lot more pleasant. Nothing wrong with matte finishes though, Candy Yum Yum is a matte lippie that I own (which I wore today) and I do like a matte lip!

I am super excited to try this new colour out, pairing it with both natural and more smokey dark eye looks for night time. I have heard that as it is a cremesheen, it only lasts for a couple of hours so needs to be re applied throughout the day but I do that with all my lipsticks anyway so this shouldn't pose a problem.

Obviously at £15 a pop they are by no means cheap but the thing with these is I view them as an investment and a set of lipsticks that I am certainly going to get my wear out of.

Dove Summer Glow Moisturising Lotion

I've always been one to love the sun and the warm weather but hate getting burnt and my skin is quite pale and takes ages to naturally tan in the summer months. We've had some warmer brighter weather here in the south east of the UK over the past few days and it's been so nice and pleasant. Given the chance I love nothing more than chilling out on a sun lounger basking in the sun's rays but even after some many hours in the heat my skin doesn't get much colour to it which I hate.

Another thing is fake tans have always been a thing that scare me, the fear of turning orange like a satsuma is not fun and therefore fake tans are a product I usually steer well clear of. On the odd occasion in the past (sixth form leavers balls etc) I've dabbled with self tanners to give myself a bit of extra colour - notably the Johnson's one in the yellow bottle - and looking back my sixth form leavers ball I was kind of orange for, whereas the application of a bit of tanner for my boyfriend's leaver's night was much more subtle.

After a day in the glorious weather today at the beach with my best friend, we had a nose in Superdrug and stumbled upon this Dove Summer Glow lotion which has a gradual self tanner included in it. It was on offer at half price of £2.48 for a 250ml bottle so I thought 'Bargain' and have opted to try it, in the "Fair to Medium skin" option. The thing about gradual tanners is they tend to give a more natural looking tan coverage for my skin opposed to an instant tan which is often a bit much and usually always tends to end up in me looking like my legs have been tangoed! Which isn't a good look.

A plus point for this product is its a moisturizer too to help keep skin soft and smooth which is great plus it smells fresh too! Not that horrible biscuit smell most fake tans give off. I've applied this to my legs tonight so excited to see what results it leads to if I apply it more than once this week for a natural looking summery glow.

Do you have a favourite self tanner?

And now you're gonna believe us... The Whites are going up!

Saturday May 10th 2014. What a day. A day that will live long in the memories of many a Dover Athletic fan. The reason?

We got PROMOTED!

Over 1,000 of us packed into Stonebridge Road's Swanscombe End to see our beloved team take on our bitter rivals Ebbsfleet United in the Skrill South Promotion Final, not knowing whether come 5 o'clock it'd end in tears good or bad. Go with no expectation was the thought in my head - I felt the same way as I did prior to our semi final win at Sutton; "Whatever happens is a bonus". But it was fate, at the end of the day, that it would be Dover vs Ebbsfleet in this final. Way back at the beginning of the season, Whites fans predicted this one, even when it looked like our playoff hopes were dashed - several times - we crept into that 5th place spot and took the bull by the horns. All the way to the final showdown in a winner takes all clash.

Glorious sunshine on arrival at Stonebridge Road

Over 1,000 travelling Dover fans in the uncovered Swanscombe End

It was always going to be a single goal that would decide the winner - there were no doubts on that. Just which way it would go we weren't too sure. The first half wasn't pretty by any means, but the team kept compact enough to shut out the Fleet's chances and we went into half time still 0-0, with us travelling fans drenched from the rain that had been forecast; the dark clouds rolled in and the rain struck with a vengeance by 3:30pm. We were soaked but our moods weren't dampened.

We got drenched but it was worth it in the end!

We all know the team plays better away than they do at Crabble so any nerves that still remained going into the second half soon disappeared when our boys took the lead just over 10 minutes into the half thanks to Nathan Elder. Cue delirium in the away end! Bonkers. Absolute madness. I don't think any of us couldn't believe we were leading after such a poor first half but the team then pushed on for another - various chances came and went (some closer than others) and the Fleet players themselves tried to conjure up a way of getting back into the tie. That was to no avail as our goalie ("England's number 1" we sing, in reference to his England C Squad call ups) Mitch Walker pulled off some fantastic saves to stem the hosts and keep our dreams very much alive.

The four minutes that were added on felt like the longest of our lives. Tears were flowing before the final whistle and as the referee blew for full time, the celebrations began. In the pouring rain, once again getting drenched, but we didn't care. We'd won the promotion final and we were going up! Back to the Conference Premier (one league below League Two) where we'll now face teams like Bristol Rovers (HA!) next season. It's just incredible to think that three weeks ago we all thought the playoff dream was over, but the team has done so wonderfully well and you can tell what it means to all of our squad, the management, the fans. Everybody is ecstatic.

WE ARE GOING UP SAY WE ARE GOING UP!

So on to next season now and it should be an exciting one; lots of new clubs, grounds and places to visit and hopefully a few weekenders chucked in from time to time as well. I also hope to continue my writing for the club - getting the privilege to write the match report for the promotion final and have us actually win the final is probably one of the proudest moments yet. It certainly beats having to report on our promotion final heartache from last year...!

"Who put the ball in the Ebbsfleet net? Who put the ball in the Ebbsfleet net? Who put the ball in the Ebbsfleet net? Super Nathan Elder! Super super Nath, super super Nath, super super Nath, Super Nathan Elder!"

Barry M Gelly Hi Shines and Mattes

The number of Barry M nail paints in my collection is slowly growing thanks to a 3 for 2 purchase on all products in the brand on Friday afternoon. Huckleburry (a light pastel blue) and Pomegranate (a deep pink/red) were the two I chose after reading a couple of reviews online and I also picked up a matte paint in shade Vanilla.

 

Lychee is probably my favourite nail polish for every day but the matte Vanilla is one I'd had my eye on for a while; several people posted images on Instagram recently over the past few weeks wearing a taupey-purple almost mushroom colour on their nails which looked so pretty and therefore spurred me on to find a similar shade myself. A quick search on google led me to the Barry M Vanilla. This particular polish is a taupe-nude with significant purple undertones, as opposed to Models Own Utopia that has more silver/white undertones.

Out of the three that I picked up, Huckleburry is probably my favourite. An absolutely gorgeous pastel/sky blue, it is such a pretty shade for the spring and summer. I applied this to my nails on Friday evening, it needed two coats as the first was quite thin and streaky, but with two coats it set lovely. One word of warning is it is quite bright, a fun light shade for the summery months though.

Third up is Pomegranate. A deep pink/red, it is more on the pink side than red - a lot like Raspberry in the usual BM range but with more pink pigmentation, kind of like a berry wine colour. Sadly the camera picks up the red tones in it more. Haven't yet applied this to my nails but am excited to try it. Having seen a few photos on other blogs it does look gorgeous, particularly as it is a Gelly nail paint and therefore will dry with the shiny "Gelly" top. Whilst it's not a light pastel for spring or summer, the deeper nail polishes are perfect for evenings out.

Favourite nail polishes?

From the Ryman South to the Ryman Prem...

To the Conference South where's it gonna end? In the football league's where we want to be, we're the Dover boys and we're living a dream!

Saturday's away day at Sutton United for the second leg of our Conference South playoff semi final really was something else. Just incredible. None of us ever imagined it'd pan out the way it did... If you know me, you'll know I love my football. I follow Dover Athletic home and away, near enough every weekend and even have the privilege to write their match reports for the official club website. We reached the playoffs this year on goal difference, on the final day of the season, after beating Hayes and Yeading with Havant & Waterlooville drawing at Tonbridge Angels. The luck was with us; the previous Monday we thought we'd blown it with another home draw but somehow snuck into 5th place to claim the final playoff spot.

No team who has finished 5th has been promoted to the Conference Premier through the playoff system. This year we're aiming to change that. Having drawn 1-1 with Sutton at home on Wednesday night we all had a fair amount of confidence going into yesterday (the team is always better on the road), but to achieve what we did was incredible.

Pre kick off at Gander Green Lane

Early minutes in the first half

Down to 10 men within 3 minutes, our skipper being the man sent off, it was a case of "Oh no here we go we've blown it. Sutton are going to beat us on their own turf which they've not lost on since mid December" but somehow, just somehow, it was still 0-0 at half time.

Team huddle before the second half

A simple case of re-grouping at the break, and come out all guns blazing second half. 12 minutes in and we were 1-0 up - cue limbs everywhere on the terrace we'd all congregated on (probably about 200-300 of us travelling fans) and suddenly the playoff final dream was alive. Could we really do this?! 10 minutes later our winger had scored again and it was just mental. How was this possible? We were down to ten men and were beating a side so strong at home they'd not lost for months there. Unbelievably just 2 minutes later we'd scored again and that was it. We KNEW we were into the final for the second time in a year!

Celebrations for our first goal!

Last year's heartache long gone, this year we really think we have a definite chance of promotion. The Conference South is a tough league to get out of once you're in it, but the playoffs are a lottery. Previous form goes out the window and it's winner takes all. The team will now travel to our Kent rivals Ebbsfleet United next Saturday in the hope of achieving what we didn't last year: going up. Having already beaten the Fleet twice this season, there's a strong sense of belief it'll happen again.

Post match

We'll hopefully flock in our droves to north Kent to Stonebridge Road next weekend to roar on our team. Together as one. Buzzing is an understatement for so many of us. Yesterday's match drained us all - non stop singing for 90+ minutes of play plus a half time sing-a-long, coupled with copious amounts of bouncing to "If you don't bounce, you're not a White!". It was brilliant. Such a surreal day. I didn't even go into yesterday thinking we'd win - anything that was gonna happen was going to be a bonus, and what a massive bonus it turned out to be! Simply one of, if not THE best, away days ever in recent times.

Could we really be swapping the likes of Boreham Wood and Whitehawk for Telford United and Bristol Rovers? BRISTOL ROVERS. Let's hope so... Roll on Saturday! Oh Stevie Brown, we're coming for you...