Dani Dunne - UK lifestyle blog | UK lifestyle and beauty blog

Hello my lovelies,

I may have mentioned once or twice recently that it was my birthday, and as I was lucky enough to get a few vouchers I treated myself to a little shopping trip with the best girls last weekend!
Now I have to admit that I planned the first purchase meticulously, researching all my options before coming to the conclusion that a black leather (or pleather as it were) bomber jacket was absolutely essential to my spring summer wardrobe. I found the perfect one online, decided at the price (£29.99) it was too good to pass up on, and luckily enough spotted it as soon as I entered the Canterbury branch of H&M (which incidentally is lovely now they've remodelled it, but still no phone signal!).

The second purchase was a little less planned - I've wanted a lace dress for a while and had actually bought an ASOS one on eBay some weeks before to wear out last weekend, but it hadn't arrived in time, so I found this little number in Dorothy Perkins which was cheap and cheerful enough! I really like how these two textures work together - the dress is such a warm weather dress and I like being able to wear light colours now, but the jacket is still definitely required so I don't get cold!

I liked wearing these so much together last weekend that I popped them on again for a trip to Bluewater today (where I bought a couple of beauty bits I'm quite excited about - will blog once I've tried them out). As the outfit was a bit monochromatic on its own I added a pop of coral with my New Look owl necklace, and of course a slick of Nars Satin Lip Pencil in (what else) Lodhi. Now all I need is for the sunshine to stay out a bit longer!

Hope you're all having lovely weekends - what have you treated yourself to recently?

xoxo
Dani

Hello my lovelies,

Now it's not something I broadcast publicly but last Monday I (hush!) officially reached a quarter of a century... Terrifying stuff.

I hope you were all adequately pleased with the sunshine and above freezing temperatures I ordered - I certainly was and celebrated by wearing (what else) a floral print dress from Dorothy Perkins.

It ticks all the necessary boxes for me: pretty print, mixed colours, high neck, fitted waist and of course a lovely swishy skirt! I teamed it with my Next lace blazer and new Kurt Geiger (*cough*TK Maxx) pumps - although I did have to put on a mac later on as it was quite windy and a wee bit chilly! The perfect outfit for our annual afternoon tea excursion, I managed to make it through two scones without spilling jam down my front which is clearly a sign I've reached adulthood.

I think it'll look good for work eventually (and obviously better without black tights! Bring on the warmer weather!) but at the moment I'm happy to keep it for weekend wear (I don't know if anyone else does this, but whenever I make a new purchase I HAVE to wear it for several non-work days before I debut it at the office...) and special occasions. On that note I shall be taking it back down to Kent today for my birthday weekend with the bessies - I'm so happy the sunshine has finally decided to grace us with its presence! Hope you all have a super weekend!

Much love,

Dani xoxo

Hello my lovelies,

So the worst blogger in the world awakens once again from her slumber... miss me?! (just kidding)

I've had a weird few weeks, just seem constantly busy, on the go, and exhausted - despite the fact I've had a couple of long weekends! I've messed about taking a few outfit photos but none of them met the standards I hold for this blog, and otherwise I have just been wearing very comfy, boring work outfits. Let's face it, not every day can be a quirky glamorous style day! I also had a quick peek back through some of my previous posts and came to the conclusion that I was lacking in beauty posts - for someone who reads beauty posts like a madwoman when they appear in my Bloglovin feed, and happily spends all wages on various beauty goodies, I really don't blog about my beloved beauty bits as much as I used to...and I have so MUCH STUFF!

Like this recent acquisition, my very first Nars purchase...we were meant to be. Literally.

I have to admit, this purchase occurred purely because of the name... If you don't follow me on Twitter or Instagram or any other social media platform where I have happily placed my full name, this won't mean anything to you, but basically this lip pencil is named after me.

Now my siblings and I have grown up hearing all sorts of stories about the provenance of our last name (totally ruled India in the Middle Ages. I could be a princess right now), apparently it's a famous name in India and I even included it in a project I did about the country during primary school, but having a Nars product with our name on it? Way more exciting than anything else! They also have another shade in the range named "Luxembourg" which obviously means that they are stalking us and totes read this blog*.

What I appreciate most, however, is that they chose a colour that is so very ME. Coral - a lovely bright coral that flatters my skintone and brightens up my face. It's so soft and just so damn pretty! Yes, that is the crux of review - it is pretty, now go buy it!
(Please excuse the hideous close-ups - I took these after a long sweaty day at work and didn't want to show all of my face!)

This is most definitely going to be my go-to lip colour this summer as I think it'll look amazing once I finally get a bit more colour. I'm thinking of teaming it with Benefit's Cha Cha Tint for some epic coral fabulousness!

My only gripe is the price, really, as the product is quite small and it's a little more than I'd consider spending on a lip product otherwise. These lip pencils retail at £17.50 and can be found at any Nars stockists. If however you are a penny pincher like me and you are thinking about picking one of these up. I'd recommend heading over to ASOS and either waiting for a discount code, or finding some lovely soul who will lend you their NUS code.

What are your thoughts on these lovely new Nars offerings?

Dani xoxo

*Disclaimer: Nars most likely did not name a product after my sisters and I, and have never even heard of us... but a girl can dream, right?

Hi all my lovelies!

So the plan for this week was to head to Athens for four sun and history-filled days with my dad and siblings. In between eating lots of halloumi and visiting Ancient Greek ruins, my sisters and I were going to take lots of fab photos of each other to decorate our photo frames and, yes, for me to eventually blog about. So Sunday came around and I found myself on a plane bound for Switzerland (to make our connecting flight), armed with a suitcase full of spring brights, skirts, ballet pumps, light cardigans - the usual fare. I even packed suncream and sunglasses. Fatal error - never put your trust in an airline to actually deliver you to the promised destination!
After touching down in Switzerland, I received a frantic call from my mum imploring me not to get on the next plane as my family's plane had been cancelled - cue rushing around the airport to retrieve my precious luggage (like, my make up was in there! My straighteners!), before spending five hours sitting around while they decided what to do with me. Eventually our mini sunshine break turned into a mini break at home in Luxembourg for me - not quite what I was expecting, but fun nonetheless!
The whole gist of this is really to explain why I am not wrapped up in winter knits for these pictures - I simply was not prepared! I started off taking a nice mirror-selfie...

Then my lovely little sister was persuaded to take a few photos of me as the sun decided to make an appearance (do not be fooled by the sunshine, it was literally just above freezing!).

I'm wearing the Warehouse skirt again from last week (except, once more, the black opaques had to be pulled out!), paired with a lovely Next top gifted to me from Stephie, as well as a super bright coral-pink Primarni cardigan. My vision for this outfit was wandering along the streets of Athens, soaking it all up, sunnies out, hopefully getting a bit of a tan... Wrapped up and wandering round Luxembourgish supermarkets was a required alternative!

Of course, one of the best things about being at home is being able to spend time with this little lovely:

And of course, I'll get to have a nosey round Sephora if I'm lucky!

Hope you are all having a good week!

Love Dani
xoxo

Hello my lovelies!

Rain is currently lashing the windows and it's pitch black outside, which is absolutely...not great. I want spring already! I want it so much I've been wearing skirts and brogues and only one pair of tights (I can no longer feel my legs) in an attempt to entice the sun out from behind these clouds. So far, so...ineffective. But a girl can dream right?

This skirt is the perfect spring skirt in my opinion. It's very structured, in a lovely heavy material, so does not lend itself to any unfortunate Marilyn moments. It has TULLE. TULLE! I love tulle. And it has flowers and pink and cream and it just generally would suit sunshine so much better than this grey dullness permeating our days. I've been wearing it non-stop since it arrived on Thursday (£3 on eBay, of course. I couldn't possibly afford it full price). However, it is cold and therefore I have had to team it with all manner of jumpers and today I chose my pearl embellished number to try and inject some class. Yesterday I wore it with boots, but I can't wait to rock this outfit with some nice ballet pumps and maybe NO TIGHTS. (I wish).


Skirt - Warehouse via eBay/ Jumper-H&M

Once again the light is absolutely rubbish, despite standing outside on the balcony, so do forgive me if these images are offensively blurry and washed out. You can, however vaguely, see that I'm wearing a lovely pink colour on the lips and I shall blog about it in due course (spoiler: it's Revlon and I am obsessed with them). I just felt as though the mere act of wearing pink would help brighten up my day, which it did for all of five seconds. We then left the flat to go food shopping and a downpour started, so I'm now curled up on the sofa in PJ bottoms with wild curls because my hair got soaked. Le sigh!

On another note I feel I have to address the Google reader debacle currently taking place in the blogosphere! I'm a bit gutted as I use it to read blogs on my phone, but I hear Bloglovin is a suitable alternative so I'll be making the necessary adjustments in case you want to follow me on there instead. I think GFC will still be functioning though, so that's good news!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend and here's hoping we will finally see some sunshine soon!

Love Dani
xoxo

Hello my lovelies,

So I was skimming back through previous posts on the blog, lamenting my total lack of regular posting ability (does anyone else do this?) and realised I have yet to put up any photos of my holiday from way back in November.

In my defence I filled up no less than three Facebook albums with these babies. I made sure we attended every single parade (especially the 3 o'clock parade in Magic Kingdom- in fact we may have attended this one several times...perhaps every day) and we watched every firework show going. We also ate our way round the Food & Wine Festival in Epcot, but I was so busy stuffing my face I hardly had a chance to take photos. Both Jon and I are unashamedly Disney-obsessed, so we basically spent two weeks just bouncing from park to park!

I'll spare you from trawling through every single one (I took about 1500 - my SD card quite literally refused to take any more on the last day. thankfully!) but here is a dinky selection of my favourites. It was my first visit to Florida - well, to America - and I was absolutely blown away. Disney was like a dream world, it felt like we spent two weeks on another planet. Blissful!

The ubiqituous ears shot.

Christmas decorations - I would happily have taken this tree home with me!

Friendly Cinderella-mouse!

I don't know what impressed me more, the castle or the fact there was sunshine!

The real stars of the show!

The castle all lit up for Christmas. It was so stunning. I literally have about 100 photos exactly like this one, it was so pretty!

The whole holiday was, without wishing to sound like a broken record, absolutely MAGICAL. We're already saving to go back - whose idea was it to buy a flat, anyway! We stayed in the All Star Music hotel, which was one of the cheapest Disney hotels there, but it was comfortable enough and the service was impeccable. Next time, when we hopefully have a bigger budget, we'd like to stay a bit closer to the parks, but the buses were frequent and I'd definitely recommend it to any other first-timers!

Have you ever been to Walt Disney World? Would you like to?

Dani xoxo

Hello my lovelies,

No, your eyes do not deceive you - I am truly blogging again! I hauled my dodgy tripod out on to the balcony today to try and take some photos (one day I might dare to take it outside our building, where it's all nice and landscaped instead of muddy and dreary, but there always seem to be people moving in to our building and it's just too embarrassing!); annoyingly, most of them weren't focused properly and the light wasn't brilliant but oh well!

Although it's not much of an outfit post, I love this t-shirt so much I just had to show it to you! Belle is my favourite Disney princess and I could probably recite the entire movie by heart if you asked me to, songs and all. The shirt was a Christmas present from my in-laws, picked up in New Fantasyland in Disneyworld Orlando; whilst Jon and his dad distracted me with Gaston, Jon's mum slipped off into the shop and bought it for me as I'd fallen in love with it! I paired it with my Topshop Joni jeans (not shown as I just did not have the space to do a full-length photo - they're great but you'll have to take my word for it) and red pumps, to match the bangle and the lipstick.

I've also been trying to wear more jewellery lately, as I have such a decent collection and just never get round to wearing more than my Golden Snitch necklace! These are a few pieces I've picked up recently - the bangle is so bright and summery and just happens to match my MAC Crosswires lippie as well (as worn in these pics!), and the earrings, well, I'm a sucker for anything rose gold. The charm bracelet is my special Thomas Sabo one, bought by my parents and added to every Christmas and birthday. I adore charms and am building up quite the collection!

What sort of jewellery do you favour? Would you be interested in seeing more of my favourite pieces?

Dani
xoxo

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