I have always struggled with my skin. Starting at the very early stages of puberty, followed by teen years on Roaccutane tablets, contraceptive pill, harsh creams – you name it. In my twenties things calmed down but my skin has NEVER been completely clear. Now I’m 31 and dealing with both the starts of wrinkles whilst still dealing with breakouts. Frankly that’s just unfair. However, things have vastly improved for me in the last year, thanks to the amazing team at Loft Skin + Beauty in Mount Eden, Auckland. Up front, I have to declare that this post is NOT sponsored, and I have paid for all m ..read more

Finding stylish, and reasonably priced plus size clothing in New Zealand can be a real challenge. Thankfully, I have now been introduced to Isla Maree, a women’s plus size fashion store based in Auckland. They produce their own range of clothes as well as stocking other brands like PQ Collection, eb&ive, and Haven. I was kindly gifted two beautiful pieces from Isla Maree’s latest collection to review and show to you all. Kitty Wrap Dress – Guava print I love wearing wrap dresses, they suit my hourglass shape so well and I always get compliments when I wear them. As soon as I tried on this ..read more

I’ve recently come back from the trip of a lifetime to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand, where I went on a tour with Intrepid Travel. When I decided to go, I knew I was going to be travelling solo, so I wanted to go on a tour. This was both to have travel companions and to have some of the hard parts of travel planning taken care of. Intrepid Travel came highly recommended, and they’d recently launched youth tours for 18-29, which sounded perfect for me. I decided upon doing the Intrepid Travel Real Cambodia tour which started in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, before spending 10 days in different c ..read more

There’s been a big movement away from single-use plastic in recent years, and one way to do that is through your beauty products. solod Recently they contacted me and offered to send me some of their solid shampoo & conditioner to test out. They have a range of products for different hair types, and to help you decide there’s an interactive questionnaire. My hair is pretty ‘normal’, and I ended up choosing the Pinkalicious shampoo bar and Wonderbar conditioner. When they arrived, I was surprised to see that the shampoo bar was almost twice the size of the conditioner. I always finish condi ..read more

Hello friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it – 5 months to be precise. Whilst I’ve still been posting regularly on Instagram, I haven’t written any actual posts until last week’s post about Croatia. In my almost 5 years of blogging I’ve never gone that long without writing a post, but life has been hectic. Time for an update on what I’ve been doing! At the end of August I changed jobs, within the same company. It’s been a challenge, having to learn a lot of new things, and I was coming home just knackered. I’m very happy in the role, despite the difficulty at times, which is good. I’ve changed ..read more

After our whirlwind Trafalgar tour mum and I continued our travels to Croatia. My maternal side of the family is all Croatian, but I’m the third generation to be born in New Zealand. Growing up, I didn’t know a great deal about the country, despite having half my ancestry from there. This was a great opportunity to meet some extended family and learn more about the place where we came from. On top of that, Croatia is a beautiful country with a lot of interesting history so it was great as a tourist destination it it’s own right. Dubrovnik We took a short 1 hour from Rome to Dubrovnik on V ..read more

Historically, I have been one to avoid washing my hair, because drying it was such a chore. My hair is very thick, and I always found that blow-drying it took so long and left it frizzy. I tried a lot of different anti-frizz products, but mostly I just let my hair air dry which was a very slow process. Until one day earlier this year, when I won a Remington Radiance hair dryer pack from Verve Magazine. From the very first blow dry, I knew that this was what I had been missing all along! It seems hair dryer technology has improved somewhat over the years and it was time to join the 21st century ..read more

Athleisure is a fashion trend that’s not going away any time soon, and I for one love it. Comfortable fabrics, fun colours, what could be better? Outside of work, I swear all I wear is leggings these days. Finding cool plus size active wear has previously been an issue for me, with the major sports wear stores in NZ not stocking above a 16. However, since discovering Rainbeau Curves, all my dreams have come true! Rainbeau Curves makes clothing ranging from workout gear to more of an athleisure hybrid for plus size women. I bought my first pair of their leggings a few months ago and have worn t ..read more

In recent weeks, an ASOS Curve jumpsuit has taken Twitter by storm. My friend Nat posted about it, saying how comfortable and stylish it was, and before the week was out at least 5 of us had bought them. Once we got ours and realised how incredible they are, even more people bought them! Now we’re a matching jumpsuit group, spread out across New Zealand. It’s kind of like the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, except we all have our own. Introducing the ASOS DESIGN Curve wrap jumpsuit with 3/4 sleeve. It comes in size 12-28 which is a good range, extending from the higher end of the stra ..read more

If you follow me on social media, you will have seen that recently I travelled to Europe. I had never been before, so there was a lot I wanted to see. Given that I only had a limited amount of time off from work, I decided a tour would be the best option. Contiki is a company that many of my friends have travelled with, but it’s restricted to people aged 18-35. Given that I was travelling with my mum who is (slightly) outside that age range, we needed to find another option. Trafalgar had great reviews online, and offered an itinerary that ticked off many of the cities on our list. We booked t ..read more