Hi Guys, 

Elinor from Little Red here! The lovely Amy asked me to do a guest post for her, whilst she is away, and review a product I have recently tried & tested. 

Us English Roses have just about wilted from this stonker of a heatwave and I don't know about you but my skin has gotten really sensitive with the heat. Removing my eye makeup became utter torture as my normal Simple eye makeup remover seemed to do nothing but sting. 

I spent a long time roaming Boots in search of a saving grace eye makeup remover that would love my sensitive skin. I settled on the Boots Botanics Eye Makeup Remover as it boasted about being all natural ingredients and to have a brightening effect on your eye area. I have bigger bags then your neighbourhood bag lady so I was all over this! It seemed kind to my purse - I hoped it would be just as kind to my eyes! 

I was so wrong. 

You have to shake the product well to combine the ingredients, once I applied it to my eyes my first thoughts were how oily it felt. For me it had no soothing feel instead I felt as though i'd smeared cooking oil on my face. It didn't seem to remove my makeup either, it started to break it down yes (I had to hold the cotton pad over my eyes for a good 2 minutes) but whilst trying to wipe it away it just seemed to smudge down my face. 

It took me a good 5 minutes every time to stop looking like I'd gone three rounds with Tyson, when all my makeup was removed I had a very oily residue to wash off. Instead of a quick job it turned into manual labor! Taking off my makeup became even more of a chore than I already felt it was. 

As you know, water and oil don't really mix that well so to get rid of the residue I had to splash my face 10 times. After the first use, the product got all over the outside of the bottle which meant it was slimy and the labels all started peeling off. I wanted to leave this on my shelf unloved because I didn't even like it. 

I pursued with it however and used it all up, took about a week and a half (which I thought was really poor product lasting time). One that will not be welcomed home in my next Boots haul, beware! 

x

My London Adventure!

Hi there!

Yes, I've been to London before but it has been a while since I had a good shop there! I went with my Mum and we got the bus from Bristol at 7.45am! I wasn't exactly the most awake on the bus there...

We arrived at about quarter past ten and then got the tube straight from Victoria to Camden Town. I love Camden Market. Although there are some really weird stalls and people the overall all atmosphere is awesome! We spent quite a bit of time there actually, it's so big you just get lost!
We were looking at this one stall that had some lush fairy light made with all natural ingredients when the guy running it came up and said "Amy?", I just looked at him like 'how does he know my name?' and he said he was a magician. He then proceeded to show us a load of magic tricks which were really cool and made me laugh out of amazement.
I also grabbed some lunch at the market from one of the dozens of Chinese places and there was this huge robot thing that was near to where I sat to eat...

Also if you walk along the street where the underground is in Camden literally all of the shops have models attached to the front of the shop. I like the Doc Martin...

After Camden, we hopped back on the tube down to Knightsbridge to visit Harrods. It wasn't to buy anything! I'm not rich! It was very busy and the only place we really looked was the perfume (which was at the front) and the food hall. My Mum bought her lunch from there and then we walked over to Hyde Park.

We actually got a bit lost in the park - I'm not know for my navigational skills - but we ended up coming out my the memorial for the 7/7 bombings. It was so different to a regular memorial as there wasn't just a list of names but a pillar for each of the people who had died and where they had been killed.

When we finally made it out of the park at the right exit, we headed down Oxford Street and the real shopping started!
I did attempt to go in Primark but it was just so busy that I gave up and opted just to go to the one in Bristol some time soon. I also went in Urban Outfitters, River Island, Boots, Forever 21 and Selfridges. We stopped to have a cup of tea in Selfridges - mocha for me obviously - after I had had a good look at the MAC cosmetics counter!

We then moved on to Carnaby Street, which I have to say is the lushest street I have ever walked down. The only problem was that we were getting a bit rushed for time so we didn't have time to properly look through the shops, but it is definitely where I am going to start next time I go to London!

For dinner we went to this lovely little restaurant called Côte, which was on the outskirts of SoHo. We chose to go with the "pre-theatre" menu - two courses for £11.75. Both me and Mum had the steak and chips for the main course and it was - I couldn't think of a better word - absolutely divine! The meat was so succulent and cooked to perfection, there wasn't a single burnt chip, and the service was so quick! 

For pudding I had a dark chocolate mouse with crème fraîche on top but I didn't eat all of it. 1) it was so rich and sickly! and 2) I have now discovered that I don't like crème fraîche.

I would definitely go to any of the Côte restaurants again as it was so utterly fab, deserves a big five stars from me! 

Also this was the bottle that the complementary water came in and I thought it was rather fancy...

After dinner we headed down to Leicester Square as Mum had in mind to buy a Häagen-Dazs ice cream for some reason! However, when we go there we discovered that the world premiere of Simon Pegg's new movie "World's End" was going on so we stood and watched Simon Pegg and Nick Frost getting interviewed on the blue carpet - was a little bit weird! 

Unfortunately, then it was time to start heading back to the bus station at Victoria to go home. As the Leicester Square underground was so busy we decided to walk over to Trafalgar Square instead. (I sent us in the wrong direction again- oops!) But when we got there, there was a full on camera crew and extras filming something, don't what though. That was quite interesting! 

It's not very clear on that picture but you can see the big purple screen they had up to keep the sun of the actors. 

Finally, after some very crowded undergrounds and a little bit of running, we made it to the coach on time and then we were homeward bound! 

Well done if you have managed to read all of this post and thank-you! I hope to go back and have some more London fun soon! 

- Amy Caitlin xo 

10 Facts About Me

Hi there! 

As I am a new blogger you lovely people reading this probably don't know anything about me, other than my schooling and TV preferences from my 'About Me' page. However, normally when you read/see one of these you just get the boring facts but I thought I would just tell you some absolutely random facts! I'm only doing 10 because I thought most people would get bored with anymore than that...

1. My full name is Amy Caitlin Lindley. The only reason I was called Amy was because my brother couldn't say Caitlin so it was relegated to my middle name. I prefer Caitlin though.

2. When I was little I always wanted to work in a supermarket just so I could use the bleepy machines for the barcodes. That dream was crushed with the invention of self checkouts. But hey! I know work in a supermarket!

3. My first proper kiss was actually rather movie-ish. We were hanging out by the lake near my house and he just kissed me. It sounds more like song lyrics rather than a movie - that would be a very short lived movie.

4. I used to be scared of ants. Yep, the tinniest thing you could think of and I was terrified of them! There's a video of me somewhere doing an Easter egg hunt around my garden, in full bunny costume of course, screaming at the ants and hoping they'd run away.

5. Me and my best friend were born something like sixteen hours apart. We didn't even meet until we were twelve and we were born in the same hospital (I think). I'm the older one and I always hold it over her if someone asks us.

6. I prefer going to the theatre rather than going to the cinema. My favourite performance that I have seen at the moment is Starlight Express and I have seen it twice. (If you don't know what it is then look it up it is so amazing!)

7. I have a birth mark on the nape of my neck that is just a faint red mark.

8. When I was little I used to sing really loudly when I went to the toilet and get completely undressed when I was in there.

9. I don't know whether I will go to university but I definitely want to go travelling around Europe/the world. I really want to go to places like Australia, Thailand, America, Greece, Italy and New Zealand.

10. I love Chinese food and noodle dishes in general and I am rather skilled at using chopsticks.

So I hope you learnt some useless facts about me! Comment below with a fact about you, I want to get to know my readers!

- Amy Caitlin xo

I Danced At The Royal Albert Hall?!

Hi there!

No the title is not joking, I really did dance at The Royal Albert Hall! I haven't actually made it totally clear on this blog that I dance so, sorry about that. I dance at the Adele Stitch School of Dance and have trained in various different styles of dance since I was two.

Anyway, the reason that we danced at the RAH was because we were invited to be a part of the Barnardo's Help The Children concert, which is a big honour.

Previously, I have danced at the Wembley Arena as part of the same concert but I have to say that this time round it was so much better!

Considering I had my Year 11 Ball the night before, getting up in the morning was torture! The coach was leaving at nine so I only had five hours sleep! I literally forced myself to stay awake on the coach as I knew I'd be more tired if I went to sleep again. Luckily we stopped at a service station so I bought a Mocha and had my coffee hit.

When we arrived at the Albert Hall we entered through the Stage Door and were immediately bombarded by pictures of all the different acts and performances that the Hall has hosted. 

It was really interesting and kind of awe inspiring to see who had stood on the same stage before us: there were pictures of Gary Barlow, The National Television Awards, Frank Sinatra, Beyonce and Jay-Z and sooooo many more! There were also pictures of when the hall was turned into a basketball court and a sumo wrestling ring.

We were then shown to our dressing room. I could of happily of lived in there it was so lovely! The carpet was so soft on your feet and the sofas were so squishy. It was really well decorated and we even had a fully tuned piano! 

Before we had our rehearsal, our dance teacher took us up to the top of the Hall so we could see the size of it and it was quite literally breath taking! Never in my whole life am I going to forget this experience.

Mirror in the dressing room.

The view from the top.

The humongous organ. 

Corridor view.

The light domes that hang from the roof. 

After we had had lunch in Hyde Park, which  is home to some very weird runners, we had about two or three hours to do all our hair and make-up before the performance. 

                                   That was rather stressful!        

             

Overall the performances went really well and the stage is so long that when we finished everyone was panting for breath! 

The concert itself it mostly a choir of school children singing with soloists and such, but is also presented by 'celebrity' compere each year. This year it was Ore Oduba from Newsround on CBBC and we met him afterwards. He was nice. 

This is a video of one of  our performances! It's to a mix of Bom Bom by Sam and the Womp and Girls by Beyonce.

Hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment, I love to hear what you think!

- Amy Caitlin xo