My top 10 life hacks...

These are some of my absolute favourite life hacks and I feel like I really should share them with you. They're not linked in anyway possible but they are all very useful.

No. 1
Hangers. Hangers can be very useful when it comes to storage but they have many other uses, one in particular I use ALL the time! So, a while back I'd have to iron my school shirts and trousers all the time but I soon got sick of it and just completely stopped. Basically, I looked scruffy 24/7. Eventually, my mum got sick of it too, she gave me a very useful tip, that I still use now... As soon as you wash your clothes, hang them on hangers and leave them out to dry (preferably near a radiator) and when it is dry you will have a crisp and clean, ready to wear shirt, trouser or blouse!

No. 2
Now, here's for the people that love to get creative over the weekend and use PAINT! Everyone gets the dilemma of not being able to shut a paint tin because there's crusty, dried up paint around the rim of the tin. Well, worry no more, as there is a solution. Wrap an elastic band around the paint (from the top of the tin, to the bottom). It should look like there is a guitar string on the tin. Dip your paint brush in and wipe the excess on the elastic band. Problem solved.

No. 3
I'm that person that says they need to drink more water and I drink like 15 glasses one day and then none the next day. Believe me, that won't help you! You need consistency. So a smart idea is to mark your water bottle. Mark a certain amount that you'd like to drink before a certain time. Usually the challenge motivates people to actually do it so give it a try.


No. 4
This is something I was completely sick of until I came up with a simple solution. Earphones. They get tangled so bloody fast, it's unbelievable! When you wrap them around your fingers, take a hair clip and punt it on the wire to secure it, this way they stay neat and simply unwind when you need to use them.


No. 5
Sometimes you go on holiday and forget that other countries have a different plug socket That's fine, it happens. When you forget and adapter or simply just don't have one, usually the TV in your hotel room has a USB adapter. Just plug the wire in there and wait whilst your phone, tablet, kindle, etc. charges up. Simples.

No. 6
This is for those who wear dark lipstick (or lipstick in general), AKA me! I wouldn't be able to live without my lipstick. But I don't always take it with me where ever I go because I don't have to, my lipstick stays on for the whole day without an chip, crack or any getting on your teeth. How, you ask? Again, it's simple. Apply your lipstick like usual, make sure to use a good lip liner to get a neat coverage and make sure that you don't miss any areas. Then simply take the ply of a tissue apart and put one layer to your lips, press down and then remove the tissue, this blots the lipstick and makes it stay the WHOLE day. It's so useful and effective! I promise.

No. 7
The worst thing that could happen is getting one of those large, painful, red spots on your face just before a big event. Here's what you can do to help that. If you have time, put toothpaste on the spot to absorb the oils and dry it up. But some spots have the worst timing, so you can't do anything that will make it go away in time for your big event. Fear not, make up will do the job, but, you have to do it right. Take a concealer palette and usually it will have a green shade (the second one in the picture below). Use that to cover up the spot because it will take the pink undertones of the spot away. After that you can put your normal foundation over the top and voila.

No. 8
I get insomnia so the dark circles under my eyes get pretty bad. This can cause problems for me when I want to go out, so what do I do? I use make up to fix my problems. Dark circles under the eyes have purple undertones, in order to get rid of this, you need to use the orange on your concealer palette (the fourth one in the picture above) to cover everywhere that looks even a little bit purple. Put your normal foundation on top and you will look refreshed and ready for anything.

No. 9
I find that on some people you can have dark elbows and knees or even armpits. There's a simple fix to this. Use half of a used lemon and rub the left over juice and lemon into your joints. Do this regularly and you will soon realise that the darkness is gone.

No. 10
Last but not least. Eyelashes. Now I don't know about you, but I'd love to have long eyelashes, naturally, long, beautiful eyelashes. And I can! If I remember to put Vaseline or coconut oil on the roots of my lashes every night before going to bed. One of my friends has been doing it for about four months now and her lashes are insanely long, it's ridiculous.

Well that's it from me for now, and with that have a wonderful new year!

The Big SleepOut

As you all know, I did the Big SleepOut on Friday 4th December.

It was a really interesting experience and I want to share what I learnt, with you.

I had a cardboard box, just long enough for me to lie down in and a plastic sheet to cover the box in case of rain. That was my bed for the night, of course I brought a sleeping bag with me but most rough sleepers don't even have that. I was to stay outside for twelve hours- 6 pm to 6 am.

Once the lights went out at midnight, I tried to stay awake because I didn't think I'd be able to sleep properly and thought I was just going to wake up with a sore back. That plan didn't work, see without entertainment it's quite hard to keep your eyes open, so I fell asleep. Well it was a half-sleep, half-awake kind of thing. I was on edge the whole night and the sound of the wind made me think someone was outside my box, so I kept opening it to check. Every time that I did that I had let the cold back in, so I had to try and get warmish again, before I could fall back to sleep. My entire night went like this, every hour that passed resulted in me being awake.

After what seemed like days it was finally six in the morning, it was a struggle waking up and when I opened the box I couldn't believe how cold it was. It was ten times colder than it had been six hours before. Half asleep I rolled my sleeping bag up, although breakfast was being served, all I could think about was getting back home.

...And once I was, I went straight to bed and didn't wake up until four in the afternoon, I was shattered.

Sleeping rough is hard. Harder than I thought actually, the wind was unbearable, to an extent that just the sound of the wind was scaring me. And the cold... It was as though the cold had gotten into my bones and once I was home I could still feel it in my bones for the rest of the weekend.  When I eventually woke up, I actually broke down and was crying a lot, because I had only slept rough for one night, I couldn't imagine what it's like to spend my whole life without a roof over my head, like others do. It made me feel really lucky.