Anna, Look!

Since moving into my flat in September last year, I’ve been really enjoying hosting friends, and part of my hosting duties include mixing fun cocktails for my guests. I was kindly sent a bottle of the Kwai Feh lychee liqueur to review, and had lots of fun using it to jazz up some well-known drinks recipes. 

I love lychees as a fruit, and this liqueur both had a strong lychee taste and smell. This lychee essence goes with a lot of alcoholic spirits, making it a very versatile ingredient for drinks. In the photo below, I made lychee mojitos:

The ingredients for this drink were: a handful of mint (I have a mint plant which I use for this, very helpful!), 25ml of Kwai Feh, 25ml of rum, 25ml of freshly squeezed lime juice, 15ml of sugar syrup, topped up with lychee juice.

Whilst I enjoy rum cocktails, I don’t actually love the flavour of rum on its own, so it was pleasing to my taste buds that the lychee liqueur overpowered the rum in this drink! The lychee mojito was very fruity and fresh, with the mint leaves and lime really bringing out the tastiness of the lychee in the drink.

The next drink I made was the pink señorita cocktail, partially inspired by the pink aesthetic of the Barbie film!

The ingredients here were: 25ml Kwai Feh, 25ml tequila, 25ml Cointreau, 10ml lemon juice, topped up with pink lemonade.

Prior to going into lockdown, my daily make-up routine consisted of just two products: MAC concealer for the bags under my eyes and blemishes on my face, and MAC blush to give my cheeks a bit of colour. On Fridays, if I was feeling audacious, I would top this look up with MAC eyeshadow, usually a glittery pink shade, on the eyelids. I'm certainly loyal to the brand! 

This was an extremely simple process that I could do quickly when my train was ten minutes away from its destination, meaning that my make-up was freshly applied for work. 

Over lockdown, with there not being much to do, I had time to refine my beauty routine, and in doing so, added an extra component to the existing process: highlighter. 

My friend Joy invited me to the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibit at the Victoria & Albert museum, and it was an afternoon very well spent! The gowns were absolutely to die for, and it would be amiss of me not to share some of the sumptuous photos I took!

Dress: Ted Baker

Handbag: Kate Spade

Earrings: Christmas market stall (Leicester Square)

Cardigan (under handbag): H&M

Glasses: Red or Dead
Nail polish: Essie

I’ve recently started a job in finance, a profession where it is tantamount that you dress for the part. Time permitting, I might review several of the outfits I bought, but I definitely had to give this gorgeous peach Hobbs dress a mention.

Hobbs’ sizing is very accurate, so the size 10 fit me nicely. If I were to gripe about anything, it would be that it’s too tight at the bust, but that was also the case with the Missguided and Miss Selfridge dresses I reviewed, so I think it’s fair to say that’s an artefact of my inconveniently ample bosom, rather than a design flaw of Hobbs, who tailor their dresses to the average chest size for every size.

What I wore to dine at one of my favourite Japanese restaurants for the umpteenth time!

Angelica T-shirt: New Look (a store I'm clearly a fan of!)
Earrings: Won in a competition

Trainers: Adidas

Faux leather jacket: TK Maxx

Toy: Disney Store

Floral top: Forever 21

Skirt: Dorothy Perkins

Earrings: Miss Selfridge

I adored the display so much last year that I went again this year!

The lanterns this year were different in flavour from last year's, so here be some photos of the gorgeousness!

As a research student, I read a lot of journal articles on my topic of interest, articles of which I then file away in ring-binders before staring another one. The problem of getting through so many is that, when, in a Eureka moment, I want to go through an old paper, I waste a lot of time sifting through ring binders not just looking the article in question, but looking for the exact sentence that contained the interesting philosophy I wish to revisit.

Shirt: Hollister

Shorts: Oasis

Hoodie: GAP
Glasses: Twiggy for Aurora

Trainers: Adidas

Bonus photo: elegance in motion. Ahem.

The strawberry and mango tea was a little too pungent for my tastes (6/10), but the raspberry, strawberry & loganberry was more palatable (7.5/10). I particularly enjoyed the addition of that third ingredient - it gave the tea a moreish kick.

Boob tube: Primark

Skirt: China

Earrings: Topshop