Author: Christiana

‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ by Robert Galbraith ~ A Review

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Let me begin by saying that when I picked this up I had absolutely no idea it was written by J.K. Rowling. Of course I am neither prejudiced against nor in favor of her work (like many people seem to be), so realizing would hardly have made much difference. To be honest I would probably just have felt intrigued, with regards to how well she could handle such a different (compared to her Harry Potter Series) genre. Moving on to the actual review, I found this 1st installment of the Cormoran Strike Series to be a competently written, intricately plotted story – which, despite not being amazingly original, managed to keep me hooked until the end. Both the male and female leads were well- rounded & relatable – really getting you to care what happens to them next (so much so, in fact, that I have already pre- ordered the next book in the series). The cast of supporting characters was greatly varied and equally well- developed, while the myriad of clues scattered along the …

The Versatile Blogger Award

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A couple of weeks ago, the lovely Katie from Intraordinary nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. Let me first say, thank you for the nomination – and, of course, for visiting and enjoying Lifestyle Counter ! The official rules for this are: 1. Thank the person who gave you this award. 2. Include a link to their blog. 3. Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. 4. Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award. 5. Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself. My 15 Nominated Blogs are: 1. Pretty Trippy 2. The Little Scottish Corner 3. Splish Splasch (recently discovered) 4. Joanna Loves 5. Beauty & the Tomboy 6. The Daily Debut (recently discovered) 7. Buy now/ blog later (recently discovered) 8. Little Stylist 9. Lovely Girly Bits 10. DebE 11. Le Beauty Girl (recently discovered) 12. GirlXOXO 13. Procrastinails 14. Two City Girl (recently discovered) 15. Pretty Little Treasures INSERT PARENTHESIS HERE: God this is hard (& feels so random). There’s absolutely no way …

Sunday Manicure (Vol.17)

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Products used: Essie ‘First Base’ Base Coat 15.00€ Essie no. 860, ‘Resort Fling’ 12.50€ Essie ‘Good to Go’ Top Coat 15.00€ After a quiet couple of weeks I’m back with the namesake of the Essie Resort collection, ‘Resort Fling’. The shade is being marketed as a “coral peach” – a quite spot-on description. Being in a spring-y mood I figured it would make a girly, feel- good choice. Alas, I was bitterly disappointed. Applying this (very un-Essie like, ridiculously thin formula) was a nightmare… The 1st coat was all over the place – streaky & uneven- and even though the 2nd coat did improve things, it just didn’t improve then enough. I did not bother with a 3rd coat (since my nails would take forever to dry) & was left with many uneven patches – especially around the nail-bed areas. Conclusion? I wanted to give this a chance (despite the rather negative reviews) but I’m afraid I can’t in good conscience recommended it to anyone…

*Smile* (Vol.1)

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On a bit of an unrelated note, I wanted to do a quick post and share a little something that made me smile today with all of you. Since I’m a big believer in promoting things that bring us joy & make us feel good, despite our daily grievances and assorted stresses, I’ll be making this a semi-regular feature and spreading the positive vibe whenever I chance upon it… Enjoy & have an amazing rest of the day!

Beauty Obsession of the Day…

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My oily skin has always been quite a pain in the butt. I usually start the working day with a carefully polished face, only to watch it slowly disintegrate during the course of it – to the point of looking totally unkempt by 4PM. I always notice a big difference if I use a primer – but have not yet managed to settle on one that I actually love. I currently use Benefit’s ‘The Porefessional’ pro balm, but find it a bit too silicon-y and heavy for my skin (as is the case with most of the other primers I’ve tried this far). As a result I usually only resort to it on ‘special occasions’ (for fear of irritation or – god forbid – a major breakout). While browsing Cult Beauty (& in particular its ‘What’s New’ section), I bumped into this little gem by Jouer. According to the description, the Anti- Blemish Matte Primer is “enriched with clarifying, resurfacing, soothing and luminosity-boosting ingredients, as well as Vitamin E, Ginseng and Gingko Biloba to provide …