Normally January is a super quiet month purchase-wise, normally because the month is long as I have overspent at Christmas, but this year, perhaps because of how paydays fell, it didn’t feel like as much of a stretch as usual. Plus, I took advantage of the sales to stock up on things I needed.
Tom Ford Eyeshadow Quad (and pasta)
I don’t normally buy high-end make-up, but I walked past the Tom Ford counter in John Lewis and swatched this eyeshadow palette – Sous Les Sable. I baulked at the price though. A bit of googling and I found it on sale at Jarrolds of Norwich for just £37, basically half price. So I ordered it. I needed to spend £50 to get free delivery (I hate spending money on delivery) so looked at what else they sold that I might want/need and ended up on the food department section of the website. Wanting something non-perishable, I ended up buying different pasta, including mafaldine, an excellent pasta shape for sauce, way better than tagliatelle or spaghetti.
Skincare goodies
After being disappointed by the La Roche-Posay UVMune 400 SPF, I ordered the Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun SPF that so many people rave about, from Sephora. At the same time I picked up some of the Kitsch creaseless clips and cashed in my reward for an Invisibobble claw clip.
I also noticed that Look Fantastic were running a 20% sale that included the Medik8 crystal retinal, so I bought the 20 strength. I’m currently finishing up the 6 strength one and have a tube of the 10 strength one lined up next. I’ve had no reactions to the 6, so I’m hoping that my skin will also tolerate the 10 well and that I can then move up after that. The deal was too good to not take advantage of to stock up, so I also bought more suncream – I decided to give the Beauty of Joseon Aqua Fresh version of the Fresh Rice SPF a try so that I could compare it with the regular one.
Hotels and transport
My friend is having a 40th birthday party (yes, we’ve all hit that time of life) in March in Manchester and so I got ahead of things by booking a Premier Inn for the night and a train. I don’t take it often, but the London-Manchester train kills me every time. How it is possible to book around 10 weeks in advance and it still cost £150 for specific trains for two people WITH a railcard? I thought East Midlands Rail was taking the proverbial when it came to train prices, but the Manchester route is something else. Thankfully I don’t do have to do that run often.
Lululemon bag
Every week this year on my two in-office days I have been going to the gym. The various branches of my gym are closer to work than they are home and so it make sense to try and combine going with days when I’m already in the City (I’ve also been trying to go to a weekend class, but that requires a special trip). The problem is that I’ve ended up carrying in two pretty hefty bags – one with my laptop and work stuff in, and one with my gym kit. My gym bag (a slouchy Underarmour duffle bag) has been starting to show signs of wear as the straps are pulling away from the body of the bag, so I have been looking for an alternative that might serve as a replacement.
Lululemon had a duffle bag that looked a lot like it might be a direct replacement for my current gym bag. But when I went in store to check out bags, I saw the City Essentials Duffle Bag and got to poke around in it and realised that it might be able to replace both of my bags. It has a padded laptop pocket, space for shoes (in a separate pocket to the main body of the bag) and loads of space for my gym/street clothes and other work necessities. It would also be a good and sophisticated-looking option for an overnight bag or cabin bag.
I had a £100 voucher from work for having been with my current employer for a certain period of time and so I converted that into a Lululemon voucher and it made the bag just £48, which felt like a bargain. Well gel of all the Canadian Olympians who get a whole load of Lululemon for free.
T-shirts
I am all about a graphic tee this year. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been watching a lot of America’s Next Top Model lately and the mid-2000s was my era, but for whatever reason, I have been craving tees with personality (and bootcut jeans).
The Lisa t-shirt is the holy grail of Blackpink merch for me. I’ve always seen tees focused on Lisa but they always include photos or other graphics. As a fellow Lisa, this is everything I wanted, a simple tee with our name on. I can’t remember how I even found this but it was from Amazon and part of a collection of Alter Ego merch sold via an official US Amazon store.
We went to Margate the other year and visited the Crab Museum, which is an amazing small museum, an absolute must visit if you go to Margate – crabs, politics, great merch, what more can you ask for from a museum?
At the time I picked up one of their A.C.R.A.B tee shirts, which I bought with the intention of it being a big comfy tee I could sleep in. Wanting to proudly wear my love for the museum out and about and evangelise about it (and to support the museum), I ordered this tee.
Marie Antoinette Style exhibition book and mirror
I LOVED the Marie Antoinette Style Exhibition at the V&A, and so I’d barely stepped foot into the gift shop before the exhibition book was in my hands, along with a little round mirror backed in my favourite print from one of the dresses in the exhibition, a sort of blurry floral ikat design on a background of stripes.
Ouai hair stuff
Last month I included a small travel bottle of the Ouai fine hair shampoo in my Space NK order in order to benefit from free delivery, thinking it was worth a try. That was an error. I love it. It makes my hair more voluminous and shiny and manageable. Which now means I can’t go back to my regularly-priced shampoo and have to keep paying for this one and the full-size bottles are generally £28 for 300ml. They do also do refill pouches of 946ml for £56, so effectively making each bottle’s worth about £19, which feels at least a bit more reasonable.
I was looking at buying a full-size bottle and refill pouch and found that Mankind were selling a pack of the full-size shampoo and conditioner (which I haven’t yet tried but obviously want to) for £44 and the refill pouch for the shampoo for £44. So, I should hopefully be set on shampoo at least for a while. I’m not sure whether I’m hoping the conditioner is just as good or not, I could end up with a very expensive hair washing regime.
Trainers
I’ve been getting myself back into the habit of regular Bodyattack classes at the gym and with the latest release noticed during the lunges that the balls of my trainers – New Balance Fresh Foam Arishi v3 – weren’t providing much, if any, real grip. Looking at them afterwards, the treads have really worn down. According to my email (god bless ordering stuff online for receipts), I bought them in 2021, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that they’ve had some wear and tear. So it’s time to replace them for classes – they’re still not in bad condition overall so I’ll keep them for when I need a pair of trainers to knock about in.
I couldn’t find a next-gen version of the same shoes that really had the same look and feel. I think they were billed as running shoes originally and the latest version has gone all thick foamy sole and cushiony, whereas what I’m looking for is a pair of shoes that don’t feel clunky or big on my feet and which offer stability when moving in all directions. I also prefer it if they’re all black or as close to that as possible (bonus points if they aren’t also crazy expensive).
After a bit of googling, I landed on a pair of Reebok Nano Gym shoes (£48 on sale). I have yet to wear them. They feel a bit clunkier than my old shoes, but more stable and with some grip, which is what I need. I need to walk about the house in them yet to check they’re comfy, but so far they fit the bill.
Stationery
I started my Japanese class this month and needed a new notebook for all of my new-found language knowledge. So I headed to my nearest Ryman Design which is basically Paperchase (RIP) in resurrected form to see what they had. They actually have a decent range of Japanese stationery from Kokuyo and so that was my ideal starting point. I picked up a bundle of four super kawaii notebooks (I landed on using the blue Tiger one to start with, being the Tiger that I am), a gel pen, a double ended coloured pen with bullet tip option, and a fold-out ruler. I made myself a little pencil case using some scrap upcycled denim from an old project.
