Olympia Beauty 2013

First of all I'd like to apologise for not posting for such a long time. I've now been at Brit for three whole weeks and I'm really loving it! But that also means I've been putting loads of my energy towards it and so a lot of other things ended up taking a back seat. Also my health hasn't been great either but I am trying really hard not to let it get the better of me... Because of all this I have literally just been exhausted.

But anyway, thats probably not why your reading this, so back to the actual post.

Yesterday I went to Olympia Beauty for the first time ever. I had fairly high expectations, and I'm glad to say it definitely surpassed them! I mainly went so I could mooch around the polish stands and perhaps even pick up some nice new one at much purse friendlier prices and I can safely say it was mission accomplished! ;)

It was actually so good!! Mainly because I was in polish heaven for a while! :P As you have probably worked, I did plenty of shopping!! I ended up not having very long to browse (read on to find out why) but I managed to get my hands on lots of goodies in the short while I did get! You may also notice that I am such a glitter bug and much like a magpie, was draw to mainly glitters! Take a look...

And guess what happened? Well, while I was at the Nubar Stand, I was asked to model for them at the Nailympics. Apparently there had been an issue with their model and they needed someone within the hour. I said yes and so for almost three hours I sat and got my nails done and judged. The technician doing my nails was Shannon Nakamura (from Hawaii, ooh!, and she really was so lovely! I did have to have my long nails cut right down but the whole time she was so sweet and even taught me a thing or two about nails and nail care! The section I was modelling for, was the Acrylic Tip & Overlay round. It was definitely a new experience for me, but I enjoyed it at the same time. I'm not sure what the results were, but as a thank you, she gave me a goodie-bag totally filled with Nubar products! (And some bits from her personal kit too!)

Meet Shannon :)

Oh and I also met up with some other British Bloggers: Lucie of Lucy's Stash, Vic of Glowstars and Dimpal of Crazy Polishes. They were all so nice and I'm glad I got to meet them :)

I am so glad I went because it really was an experience!

ITS MY 1 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY!!!!

Hiii!!!

Guess what?? It was my blogiversary yesterday!!!!!

I seriously cannot believe ONE YEAR has already gone!! I know its a cliche but it genuinely does feel like it was only last week when I set this blog up!! 

I started this blog one year ago, just as a trial to see if I liked blogging. Prior to that I used to read a number of blogs (that number has now turned into hundereds) and always thought I'd love to give it a go. So I did! And that was how The Teenage Shopaholic was created. This was my very first post. Since then, because of my blog, I have been invited to industry exhibitions, been offered products to review, completed challenges, received awards, been in frequent contact with many other bloggers and been featured on online magazines! I've even been offered the chance to be on television! (which by the way, I'll let you know more about soon!)

So here are some stats:

Top 5 most-read blog posts:
1) L'Oréal Color Riche Nail Top Coat Confetti (800+ !)
2) Revlon Scandalous
3) Revlon Girly
4) Barry M Sequin Nail Effect - White
5) Christmas Nails

Top 5 audience countries:
1) United Kingdom
2) United States
3) Germany
4) France
5) Canada

Number of countries visiting my blog: 106
Number of combined (GFC/Bloglovin/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook) followers: 415
Number of pageviews: 20,000+
Number of posts published: 138 
Number of comments: 339

By no means has it been easy, but I think that all adds to the challenge. I've learnt so much and I have such huge respect for all the bloggers out there! I've realised that blogging isn't as easy as it seems and sometimes I want to just blog and blog and other times I can't even look at the screen. I've also found that life does get in the way, but I just have to work around it and go at a pace thats good for me. 

Its been an amazing, interesting, crazy one year and I'm just hoping the next one is even better!

Basically if your reading this right now, I'd just like to say a massive Thank You! Without all of your support and encouragement I may not have stuck at it, but boy am I glad I did!

Love you all <3

Crazy Color - Violette

You may have noticed that my hair looked a bit different in the last four posts compared to when I told you I dyed the ends of my hair purple here. Well basically after just three washes, ALL of that colour had gone. That wasn't really an issue for me since I was getting my hair cut a lot shorter, but if I wasn't I would be giving that dye a big thumbs down! But anyway here is the post explaining what's changed.

So, after my haircut last week, I realised I still wanted funky coloured ends. So I went and bleached a smaller section at the bottom again and repeated the whole process.

This time however, I used a different dye. I used Crazy Color Violette, which is described as an "Electric Purple". After using it, I would say it is actually more of a blue than a violet. Actually I would say it is blue (you'll see why I say that further down). Keep that in mind if you are thinking about trying it.

I bleached about 4 inches and then I applied colour to about 6 inches. I did this so that it would look a bit more gradiented, rather than a stark block of colour at the bottom. Again, like last time, I roughly straightened my hair at each step to ensure a level spread of colour. The consistency was that of the thick cream but it applied easily and spread well. No issues there.

I left it in for about 45 minutes, longer than your supposed to, I know. But I'm glad I did because the strand I washed out at 30 minutes was SO much lighter than the rest. This is the result two says after I washed it for the first time:

I really like it! Definitely going to be keeping colourful ends for a while! When this washes out, what colour do you think I should go for next?

Yes I got lazy with the straightening :P

OOTD ~ 31/08/13

OOTD ~ 30/08/13