Edinburgh 2015

I went very food centric for the second collage! But there were just so many gorgeous restaurants and cafes and bakeries ahhhh. It was honestly sooooo hard to pick just 18 photos from my trip to Edinburgh, it's just such a beautiful, photogenic city. 

1// A sign in Pleasance Courtyard directing you to he venues. 2// We went to the Military tattoo on the first night we were there and it poured for the solid 2 hours of the show which was in a open air stadium. When we got back to the hotel it looked as though we'd sat in a bath fully clothed, but the show itself was beautiful none the less! 3// My dad, sister and me at Edinburgh Castle, which was lovely. 4// The path to the Beach at St Andrews 5// A view of the ocean in St Andrews 6// Another View of Edinburgh Castle sitting proudly on the remnants of a volcano. 7// St Andrew's Cathedral 8// The sea from St Andrew's again (I really like the sea okay? And the weather was really nice this day haha!). 9// My sister and I went down to look at the rock pools and found lots of tiny fish.

1//The day before we left there was a little food market in Leith where we were staying and I got s gorgeous green juice and freshly baked croissant for breakfast. 2// Is that not the cutest menu board/cafe name you have ever seen? 3// I really just thought that the labels were super pretty. 4// Me and my sister got Wagmamas take out one day 5// How could I not buy macarons from Patisserie Valerie and Fudge from the oldest Fudge House in Edinburgh? 6//Between shows me and the sis grabbed some frisky Froyo with brownies and oreos(me) and brownies and gummy bears (her). 7// How pretty does everything in Patisserie Valerie look. 8// I officially think all macaroons should be presented on Eiffel Towers. 9// The first night, before we went to the military tattoo, we went to the most delicious Kurdish restaurant right next to the castle and I had Shawarma and Baklava. It was the best meal I have ever eaten.

The rather important bit that none of these photos actually show is the Fringe Festival itself. Whilst in Edinburgh I saw loads of performances; theatre shows, musicals, live music, spoken word and comedy stand up shows. The highlight of which was either 'Thrones! The Musical' which was an absolutely hilarious musical parody of Game of Thrones or 'Austentatious' which was an entirely improvised play in the style of Jane Austen. I also really enjoyed 'Yve Blake Lie Collector' who's on Youtube if you want a peek, 'Pippin' Performed by Cambridge Uni Musical Theatre Society and 'Jon Cozart- Laughter ever after' who you may also know from Youtube, his Channel is called Paint. After the show we met him and had a chat and he was a lovely fella, my sister got his autograph and a photo with him too. The Fringe is definitely an experience I would recommend to anyone, not only is the whole atmosphere in Edinburgh amazing at this time of year but with such a variety of entertainment available, there really is something for everyone. I would also genuinely and wholeheartedly recommend a trip to Edinburgh regardless of the time of year because of what a beautiful, friendly and interesting city it is.

Sorry it took so long to get this posted, I hope you enjoyed reading about my travels...

Asda Swimwear Picks

I'll be the first to admit that if someone asked me where to buy pretty swimwear, a supermarket usually wouldn't be my answer, but as a matter of fact, when my friend Eilis asked me that very question last week, it was the first place that popped into my head. After I was grocery shopping with my mom and saw some pretty bikinis, I decided to have a scroll through their website and fell in love. I'm torn between the black and white floral bikini, the blue floral bikini and the leaf print bikini on the top right, I just adore the halterneck shape as it's so flattering. Technically I'm not going anywhere that I'm going to be needing a swimsuit this year but since I threw all my old ones out, I feel like I need to have at least one! 

So to summarise, next time you're grocery shopping, don't neglect the supermarket clothing brands!

New York City: The Photos

This is the last in my 'New York' series sadly. It was a really amazing trip and I'm so grateful to my parents for taking us because it really was the best holiday of my life. Everything about New York is incredible not only are all the buildings massive, everywhere is so busy all the time, even in the middle of the night and it's so loud as well, there's always people talking and car horns beeping and adverts playing on the big screens. I'd love to go back again and hopefully will in the future. We managed to get most of the things done that we wanted to except for Ellis Island, here is our itinerary of sorts..

Day 1-The Rockefeller centre, Time square shopping in MAC, Aeropostale and the Disney Store and we went to St Patricks Cathedral

Day 2-Time Square, Bryant Park, Central Park, Bloomingdale's, 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, The Avengers Station, Queensboro Bridge and the Rockefeller at night.

Day 3- Staten Island Ferry, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero and the 9/11 memorial plus my brother and dad went on a helicopter trip round the city for my dad's birthday present off of my aunt.

Day 4- The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and Macy's department store.

Day 5- Empire State Building, New York Library and the children's exhibit plus we went to see Chicago the musical.

Day 6- Mainly Shopping and then the flight home

 Time Square

 Time Square

 Tangled Lanterns in the Time Square Disney Store

Times Square Disney Store

 Times Square

 The family in Times Square

More of Time Square 

I found the Pretty Little Liars collection in aeropostale and got a little bit too excited!

The Chrysler Building

 The family in Grand Central Station

5th Avenue 

Central Park 

 Central Park

 Bloomingdales (Where Rachel works in friends :))

Queensboro Bridge 

View from the Rockefeller centre (the huge green bit is central park)

Another view from the Rockefeller of the Empire State building 

 And another picture at night 

View of the Statue Of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry

 Me and my daddy on the ferry.

 The 9/11 memorial fountains which are hauntingly beautiful

 Here is a picture of the view from the Empire State Building which I think really shows how busy and huge and complicated, yet beautiful New York City is.

And finally a beautiful picture of the sunset from the plane on the way home.

That wasn't all of the photos I took of New York but if I put them all on, you'd be here for a week.

I hope you have a lovely time on your holidays if you're going away!

New York City: Holiday Makeup Bag

Having a rather large makeup collection kinda comes with being a beauty blogger, so when it's time for a trip, it's always hard to dwindle it down to a few key products, but this is what I have tried to do. Trust me, it was hard. Some people may say that 4 lipsticks for a six day trip is excessive but I'm sure if you're reading this you know it's important to have choices, so read on to see my holiday makeup, the products below are the exact ones I'm taking to New York but one or two are in the wrong shades as I couldn't find a good photo of them.

Holiday Makeup Bag by frankenwhale featuring lips makeup

So in the face category we have my favourite everyday concealer, foundation, bronzer, blush and powder, pretty simple really. I also have the Benefit Porefessional primer because I recently got it free in the Elle magazine (I may have spent £4 on a magazine which I personally thought was just adverts for the free gift. Oops.)

For eyes I'm taking a pencil and felt tip liner, I would have prefered a good gel one, but my Collection Gel Liner isn't very long lasting at all. Obviously I also need mascara and my MUA eyebrow kit, then I'm taking the MUA Undressed palette as it's a good neutral palette with a good range of colours and my maybelline colour tattoo in 'On and On Bronze' to use as a base/primer.

Then, for lips I'm taking Rimmel Kate Moss 110, Rimmel Apocalips in Eclipse, Maybelline Colour Sensational Vivids lipstick in Shocking Coral and Natural Collection Lipstick in Crimson. That way I have an orange, purple, pink and red and cover all my bases.

Finally I am also taking some of my Real Techniques brushes which aren't pictured. I think I'll take the Buffing Brush for foundation, Contour Brush for bronzer and blush, Brow Brush for brows, Deluxe Crease Brush for concealer and the Base Shadow Brush for my eyeshadow. Plus my good old primark powder brush to finish it of.

This is actually what I would take on a two week trip to be honest and I'm only going for 6 days...Oops...

New York City: Hand Luggage Essentials

This is the first installment in my holiday series this year! I was especially lucky this year as my parents took us to New York, which is just a dream come true! So I have decided to do a series of holiday themed posts, I have four more posts planned so far but I might come up with more so watch this space! Today we obviously have my 'Hand Luggage Essentials' plus I have my 'Holiday Makeup Bag', a 'New York Haul, a look book of sorts for my holiday and some photos actually from New York planned.

Hand Luggage Essentials by frankenwhale featuring Henri Bendel

So here's what I carry with me when flying- purse, sunglasses, camera, warm socks (It's so cold on planes!), ereader/book, food/sweets, chewing gum, mobile phone, headphones, a drink (Remember to buy it after security!) and then a make up bag. Except with no actual makeup in usually because I try to avoid makeup when flying because it dries out your skin so much. However I do carry a mini body spray, hand mirror, lip balm, moisturiser, hand sanitiser, bobbles, tissues and oil sheets.

Hope this helps you out if you're going on a trip soon...