My Favourite Online Shops

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Hi guys!

Today I thought I'd do a quick post (you know me, I'm awful on this blog) about my favourite online shops, which I'll update if I find anymore, obviously!

I do most of my shopping online, simply because these past few years have been heavily school dominated, so I reserve most of my weekends for work, plus I'm a lazy poop, so when I do have a bit of free time, I tend to want to lounge in bed and sleep or watch youtube videos. Now I don't know a whole lot of shops that you guys wouldn't, but I may as well make this post just in case.

1. ASOS. I'm sure you guys know about ASOS, but it is in general a great service. Lots of clothes to choose from, from loads of different brands covering different styles and price ranges, with a good returns service and quick, efficient shipping.  
2. Topshop. Since I don't physically shop on the highstreet a whole lot, I love to check out Topshop to see what they have in stock as they're one of my favourite brands.
3. Urban Outfitters. Again, a good highstreet shop I don't get the chance to go into. Overpriced, though.
4. American Apparel. Great for basics and cult pieces. 
5. Nasty Gal. This is where I order most of my Jeffrey Campbell shoes from, but their clothes are amazing and I live for the day when I can afford to properly shop here, because to buy more than one or two pieces would be quite extortionate, especially considering the customs charge, as it is an american website.
6. Karmaloop. Another american website which sells JCs, but also has a good range of clothes.
7. Solestruck. Finally, another amazing place for shoes (including JCs, and they most definitely have the biggest range). 
8. INCA. Now if you watch my videos, you will have heard of these guys, but they are a British (yay, no customs!) vintage store, though they also have some of their own designed pieces. Great clothes, and again, I wish I could afford a few more!
9. Yayer. Extremely similar to INCA (this was actually the first one I found, and it turns out they were both founded by the same people!), but obviously they carry slightly different stock, so it's worth checking both.
10. Loveclothing. Another one you will have seen if you've been on my channel for a little while. It is a similar kind of idea to ASOS, lots of brands in one place! 
11. Fashionology. A very cool jewellery store, and the only one I've found that does great quality 'above knuckle' rings!
12. The Ragged Priest. These guys have a concession in Topshop, but they're not on the Topshop website, so this is their website for you! I haven't ever ordered from them on the website, but I'm sure I will be when I have more significant amounts of money, and I'm sorely tempted by a jacket for the winter months! You'll love them if you love heavily studded things.
13. Bitching and Junkfood. This brand is stocked in Urban Outfitters, but obviously their website carries far more of their stock. I have their studded shorts and I wear them all the time. Again, you'll love if you love studs, but they're also actively grungey as well. Like The Ragged Priest, I haven't ordered from them (yet), but I love their stuff.
14. Fashion Eyewear. I discovered these guys when I wanted the Ray Ban round sunnies, and they seem to be selling them for slightly cheaper, but all their products are completely authentic. Great for sunglasses (obviously.)

At the moment I don't know of too many others, but I love finding new ones, so check back here in the near future, because I'm sure I'll be adding to it!

Love Jess xxx

MOAR FAQs

How old are you?
17

Where are you from?
London

What A Levels do you do?
I did Spanish AS Level and now I'm doing History, English and Theatre Studies

What do you plan to do at Uni? Where are you applying?
English literature. I'm applying post-A Level so I haven't yet applied and I won't be sharing where I applied or what I'm doing until I have offers (hopefully!) etc next year.

What are you planning to do in your gap year?
I will be working for the first half in order to earn money to travel in the second half. Ideally I'd like to do much of Asia and also South America but there's an awful lot to fit in!

Where are your earrings from? What piercings do you have?
I have a piercings video on my channel, and most of my earrings are from independent stores abroad. You can buy similar things on amazon and ebay if you give them a search. I DO know that my cartilage piercings are 9mm :)

How tall are you?
I don't know! Not very.


What camera do you use to film?
Panasonic HS900


What is the best foundation for oily skin?
I don't wear a lot of foundations, so I couldn't really advise you on a liquid foundation, particularly because I like a dewy finish anyway, so I don't necessarily own ones particularly for oily skin. It's also very much a personal thing, as you can see I like a dewy finish, as I have naturally oily skin, but some might like a matte finish because their skin is oily. The only foundation I use with any regularity is the BareMinerals mineral foundation, because I feel like it doesn't clog my pores, not because of any relation to my skin type, though naturally as it is a powder it does set concealer nicely and removes some of the shininess. That is the only one I can really recommend, therefore.


Tattoo Questions
It's all in this video

How do you keep your skin clear?
It's all here!

How long have you and James been going out for? 
2 and a bit years (from June)

How long did it take to grow your fringe out?
I'm afraid I don't know exactly as I don't know when I began, but probably about 4 or 5 months, and its obviously still not the same length as the rest of my hair.

Acting FAQ

Hi beautifuls,

This blog is turning into a mini FAQ section! Haha! But seeing as I reply to every single question on formspring then it is useful and a time saver for me to make these posts :) Plus being a Youtuber first and a blogger second, I feel like any ideas I have would be WAY better in a video than in a blogpost, so maybe this should be more of a personal blog and less beauty focussed? Let me know!

ANYWAY. I get an awful lot of questions on my plans for what I hope will be a future career in acting. Just as a little background, I have as of yet been in no films or TV shows, have never been an extra and have mainly acted within school productions and my own devised pieces for various drama exams. I will add to this as I remember all of the frequent questions I get :)

• Why do you want to be an actress? For the simple reason of, I love performing and being onstage. It's what I love and making a career out of that would be a dream.
• How do you plan to get into acting? I hope at University or even with my A Level Drama pieces to take some of my performances up to Edinburgh festival or into a proper theatre where I will beg agents to come and see me! If this fails I will probably resort to a masters in Drama or a Drama course and try to go from there. 
• Why do you not plan to go to Drama school first? I feel that whilst Drama school must give you a very good basis in the history and different styles of theatre, it can be a very expensive addition and if you already have talent, you can probably make it on your own! Naturally though, as I've said, it is good for connections and experience.
• Do you plan to do theatre or film? I would definitely like to get a considerable amount of experience in theatre, but film would be great eventually as well, if I'm successful enough!
• What would be your ideal part? I don't really have an 'ideal' part, or come to that, an 'ideal' type of film/theatre I'd like to work in - I want a really varied experience and really, I'd be thrilled with any substantial part!
• What if you fail at being an actress? What's your back-up plan? I don't have a back-up plan because acting is EXTREMELY hard to be successful in, and when you're hit with constant failure, it is very easy to give up when it needs perseverance and luck. I am going to University though to get a good degree, so that if I decided I needed a different job I would hopefully have sufficient qualifications. 
• Favourite actress? Probably Kate Winslet, but really there are lots of good actresses out there! Unfortunately there's probably an equal number of bad actresses :/ Anyway I've loved me a bit of the Winslet since I first watched Titanic when I was small, so she's probably my first love actress-wise.
• How did your parents/friends react when you told them? Since I told them I wanted to be an actress they've been very supportive!
• How do you learn lines? It's all about repetition. Choose a few lines (try and learn a phrase/sentence in one go as opposed to stopping mid-way through a sentence if you're learning verse or something like that) and repeat them until you know them! Also, move around whilst you're trying to learn, because you're unlikely to be static onstage when you're actually performing the lines, and when you add movement and acting on top it can easily go pear-shaped! So walk around or gesture wildly just so you're making your mind concentrate on two different things as it would be onstage. 

Love Jess

xx

Time Management & Dealing with Stress

Hello my beautifuls,

Judging by my formspring, a LOT of you at the moment are feeling the pressures and stress of school and it's all getting on top of you. Now I've had a helluva lot of experience with this, particularly last term and last year in general it's just been absolutely crazy and I can't tell you how glad I am to be finally getting out of school to have my year off in 6 months time. As you might be able to tell therefore, I don't always deal with stress very successfully, so I'm no expert in this field! But below are my ideal ways, if I always followed them, of dealing with my time and stress well.

Anyway, I pride myself on helping anyone who needs it on my formspring, but I just can't do repeats of time management questions loads of times, just because I want to give you detailed answers with as many helpful tips as I can but I myself have lots of work and can't type out the same things over and over :( So if I've directed you to this blogpost, it's not because I don't care about your question or you, but I have to do my own time management and it's kind of a waste of my time to re-type things!

Moving on from this lengthy introduction, here are my tips for good time management when you're overloaded with work:

1. Invest in a diary. If you don't already have one, or maybe you have one and don't use it, start using one now!
2. Prioritise. What subjects do you need more time to do? What don't you need to look over as much? When is your nearest deadline? There is no point in spending your very precious time on things that you can do after your next big assignment, or that you simply don't need to spend as much time on (though don't neglect any of your subjects, even if you're good at them!)
3. Now plan. Everyday you need to write in your new diary what you're going to do, and make sure you do it. Now motivation is one of the hardest things to just conjure out of nowhere, believe me I know! I have an app on my computer which is called Self Control, google it if you have a Mac. Basically it allows you to blacklist certain websites, so you can't go on them. Then I turn off my phone or the internet on my phone and get cracking. If you've got nothing else to do then it's hard to procrastinate quite so much! Another thing to remember when you're planning your day or your week or your month, is to put achievable aims down. Popping down a whole assignment for one day, is obviously not achievable. Reading a 400 page book in 2 days? Also slightly difficult. Pop normal goals on there so you can achieve them and feel like you've done something at the end of the day.
4. When do you work well? How long can you concentrate? Learn a little bit about yourself - are you a morning person or an afternoon person or perhaps even you work well in the evening (make sure you adhere to point number 5 though!) And also perhaps you don't like working that much, and so need to do about 2 hours a day, or maybe you can survive up to 6 hours but need more rest days where you do nothing. If you do less, spread it over more days, if you can do more, you could potentially have more relaxed days. If you're tight for time, try to work a little more than you might like, but try not to push it too much - not very many people can work 8 hours a day!
5. Sleep, eat, socialise and relax. Do NOT work hard all the time, you will simply burn out. You need to breathe fresh air, get out of your slippers, see a film with your friends, LAUGH, sleep as much as you can, eat healthily and drink lots of water. This will make your studying far more effective and it is so easily missed when you're busy and pushed for time but do not forget it!!

And that's it guys! That's all I can think of at the moment but if I come up with anymore great time management tips I'll put them in at a later date. If you have any of your own pop them in the comments below and I will happily use them if I like them :)

Jess xxxxxx

Gross Skin Alert - What to Do!

Hey guys,

Recently I've been getting blemishes here and there, I think it's a combination of stress and purging from various strong products that I've been trying. Today I was feeling a little too blemish-y, all red in places from recent spots as well as dry from all the blemish-killing products I've been using. So not great in general! Anyway I just did a little facial on myself and thought that I'd share with you what products I used.

1. Cleanse. If you're feeling particularly spotty use a mask before this - my choice would be Liz Earle's Deep Cleansing Mask which you can buy here but as I said my skin has been feeling dry so I didn't go with this option. I cleansed with DHC Cleansing Oil which you can buy safely from their website here (I used it myself recently). I used this instead of my recent Paris purchase of the Bioderma H2O cleansing water that has been so popular on youtube to add some moisture and oil back into my skin, and soften all the dry skin bits to come off in the next stage. Whilst the cleansing water doesn't make me feel particularly dry and the oil does not make me feel oily afterwards, it was more soothing on my dry skin and as I said, does a better job of softening and loosening flakey skin.
2. Exfoliate. Obviously this is to remove all that dead skin I'd just softened with the oil. I massaged gently (otherwise you can further irritate your skin) for a couple of minutes with Liz Earle's Gentle Face Exfoliator which you can buy here. And when I say a couple of minutes I mean it!
3. Treat. Depending on your specific situation, this might be different for everyone. I use various 'treatments' on my skin daily, but when I'm feeling all red, the best way to combat this is to use an Aspirin based product. This may seem a little crazy, until you remember that Aspirin is anti-inflammatory. You can make your own treatment with Aspirin you have lying about your house - see this link if you'd like to know how to do that - but I use Paula's Choice Skin Relief Treatment which has it in. If you're having serious acne issues, go with Paula's Choice BHA Liquid instead. 
4. Moisturise. You want to use a moisturiser that suits your current skin issue. Seeing as mine was feeling extremely dry I went for something rich, Avene's Rich Skin Recovery Cream, which made my skin feel great. If you're less dry, go for something lighter, like Liz Earle's Moisturiser for Normal/Combination skin. It's sort of rich, but then again, it's not! Difficult to explain but it's really lovely and gentle on the skin. Whatever you do though, DON'T SKIP THIS STEP.
5. Kill the spots. I cannot recommend Panoxyl 2.5 gel enough. You don't need a higher concentration unless you have severe acne, as this stuff really does kill spots. However it is the reason for the redness and dryness, so I applied it over the moisturiser to prevent it from getting at the already dying spots but still applied it to make sure I was getting those last bacteria once everything had soaked in.

So there you go guys, there's an emergency sort of facial thing you can do at home if you're feeling dry/spotty/red and scarred. 

Hope it has been useful!

xx

Effy Inspired Makeup Tutorial

Hi guys,

These are just a few photos of the tutorial I just recorded - I am exporting it as we speak so it should be uploaded overnight tonight. Get excited!

xxx

Big Collective Haul - The 'Pics'

Hi guys!

I promised you all a little picture extravaganza on some of the cosmetics featured in my latest haul video (I figure you can see the clothes pretty well but lipsticks etc don't always come up quite right on the camera), so here goes. If you're wondering about my title - you'll know what it means if you've watched the video haha. This is not in the order they come up in the video as I am tired :P

Barry M Nail Paint in Racing Green - 299 (haven't tried this yet!)

Barry M Nail Paint in Red Black - 115 (Been loving this - only needs a couple coats before it's opaque and takes a while to chip, if you can paint nails that is haha!)

L'Oreal 4D Mascara (I think this is okay, as long as you unclump the wand, but it is pretty expensive for an 'okay' mascara)

Topshop Lipstick in Nevada (I love these lipsticks, they smell and feel good and last pretty well on the lips. As you'll see in a mo, this sticker on the bottom here is darker than that of Desert, but Desert is the darker and less 'nude' of the lipsticks - Don't be fooled by stickers!)

Topshop Lipstick in Desert

Desert on the left, Nevada on the right (I had a fancy schmancy picture with the names on, but it doesn't wanna upload :( )

The obviously wrong stickers...

Topshop On the Town Lipstick

Topshop Blush in Neon Rose (Loooove these blush's formulation, really high quality, really reasonable price)

Topshop Blush in Pinch

Eyelure Naturalites in Lengthening (some of me fave lashes!)

Lipcote - a 'lipstick sealer' (STILL haven't tried this - need to get on that haha!)

Hope you enjoyed :) xx