Afternoon in Malahide.

On Sunday my two friends and I decided to head off to Malahide for the afternoon. If you're ever in Dublin/or if you are and you've never been, Malahide is such a nice place to spend a chilled out Sunday afternoon, have some lunch, go for a walk and do some shopping.

We went for lunch in first in Malahide Village, a place called The Scotch Bonnet. It was SO TASTY- I got the baby Back Ribs and they were delish. 

Malahide Castle has an Avoca in it, which is one of my favourite places to browse around. Avoca is an Irish shop, they also have on in Dublin City Centre- they stock so much stuff, from handmade lambswool blankets, homeware, beauty and clothes. They do the most gorgeous Avoca soaps which I absolutely love, they have so many scents to choose from. Its a real knick-knack type of shop and is a great place to buy someone a nice gift.

I especially love their book section- the shelves and layout are so beautiful, I'd love this set up in my own home! They stock a lot of cookery books as they also have a cafe there; everything from a range of quirky pocket size reads to gorgeous coffee table books.

The cafe there is quite big and the cake selection is heavenly. I personally LOVE there rice crispie cakes- doesn't look like the most decadent option but they are melt in the mouth good! I didn't get a cake as you guys know I've gone dairy-free and it killed me not to get one. My friends both got cheesecakes and could barely finish them as the slices are huge! We sat outside as it was a gorgeous sunny day and their outside seating area is so pretty.

I wore a new dress I bought on Saturday, don't you just love the print? I got this little gem in Penny's and I love it- its slightly longer at the back which is nice and it was super comfy after all the food I ate :) I wore it with my ASOS wishbone necklace and my New Look boots.

After such a chilled out Sunday I finished it off with a bath bomb I got in Lush. I'd never tried this one before it was called Space Girl and was super glittery. It made my bath a pinky purple colour and smelt so nice!

Hope you enjoyed this post- I love doing these more chilled out lifestyle type posts so let me know if you want me to do more! X

Lets Talk Skin #1

So I uploaded a video yesterday all about my skin and the problems I'm having with it. Check it out if you haven't already seen it.

I'm gong to be doing regular skin updates here on my blog every week to let you guys know how its doing! So since last Monday I've been sticking to a dairy free diet to see what it does for my skin. In the past I've tried healthy eating, a gluten free diet and changing my Pill in order to clear up my skin. Unfortunately nothing has worked so going dairy free is one of the few things I haven't tried! I've read a lot online that says dairy can be a trigger for adult acne so I thought why not I'll give it a try!

So in the video you'll get to see me with no makeup on, not a pretty sight! I wanted to do this to show you guys what my skin is really like and how amazing makeup can be! You'll see that my acne is concentrated in my T-Zone and that my cheeks are totally clear and smooth. It can be really hard to cover acne, and its something I struggle with on a daily basis as my skin is constantly changing, Some days it is really dry around areas were spots are healing which means that make-up can look so crusty and gross over it-there's no nice way of saying this! Sometimes these dry areas can get really greasy throughout the day which makes spots impossible to cover as if I put powder over an area that's greasy and dry it just looks even worse! So as you can imagine this becomes a vicious cycle, I don't want to leave the house without make-up despite the fact that sometimes make-up can draw more attention to problem areas! I'm sure so many other people struggle with this too!

So on to the dairy free side of things. I'm going to try dairy free for a whole month and see if I notice any major changes in my skin. So far its been a full week and I have no new breakouts- result! My skin is still in a bad way at the moment as I have a lot of breakout areas that are healing, but no new ones have appeared. This sometimes just happens with me so I can't put it down to the no-dairy just yet! I won't lie, it has been a difficult week although some days are easier than others! For example I was out with my friends today and they both ordered huge slices of cheesecake in Avoca and it was so hard not to do the same- and I did feel miserable watching them tuck into their cake! However afterwards I was so happy and proud of myself that I didn't give in to my cravings and stuck to it!

Thanks so much to everyone who left me such lovely comments over on my video- it made me very emotional and so happy to read them all! I will be blogging again next week to let you know how I'm getting on so keep an eye out for that!