How to have a great Valentine's Day...When you're single

Within 2 weeks it's that time of the year again, where all the couples are enjoying their time together and all the singles... Yeah, basically, being single on Valentine's Day sucks when you don't know how to have a good time on your own (No, not that way... I mean... maybe... if you prefer :p). The best thing about being single is that you can do whatever you want and you don't have to think about you're other half. These are some of the favourite things I would love to do on Valentine's Day.

Morning: Have a GIANT pamper session

What better way to love yourself by treating yourself on a good pamper session. Righ after when you've woken up (which could be around 9, but 12 is fine as well), run yourself a nice, hot bath. Take your favourite bath stuff, and prepare yourself to have a relaxing time. 

For my bath, I like to use a bathbomb or bubble bar from Lush, the one you can see in the picture is Avobath. 

As an extra treat I also like to wear a face mask from time to time. The one I'm wearing in the picture is the Dead Sea Minerals Anti-Stress Mask from Freeman, a brand that promotes cruelty-free beauty BUT as I've recently found out, does get their ingredients from companies that DO test on animals. If you know any good cruelty-free skincare brands that aren't too expensive (and you can get them in Belgium), please let me know! 

Then I just do the usual body- and hair cleaning, I think we all know how to keep ourselves clean ;). 

To relax, I like to listen to music, read, or watch a good serie. All things that aren't a good idea to do in a bath so be careful!

After my bath I like to make myself look all fancy by putting on my favourite makeup and nailpolish and wear my 'sexiest' outfit on, because I can. 

Can we all just take a look at what I got for Christmas to do my nails with? It works really well, especially the last step really makes my nails shine, but when I first saw it, I thought it was something... different... It's the Velvet Smooth Electronic Nail Care System! :) (NE: je kan dit kopen in het Kruidvat) 

Afternoon: Be together with the people you love

Valentine's Day is the day of love, whether it's romantic love, or the beautiful relationship you share with your family and friends. It's a day to be grateful for all the love and happiness the people around you have given to you. 

This awesome pic comes from weheartit.com 

Here's a picture of me and my best friends from last year in Portugal (can you tell I love llamas?). What I like to do the most is inviting some friends and catch up while drinking some góód stuff. To me, being together and e.g. playing games (yep, I'm that kind of person) is much better than go partying and not being able to speak properly.

Evening: Watch your favourite movie/ Binge-watch your favourite serie

Something I love to do, is watching my favourite series in the evening. At the moment, I'm following a lot of series at the same time. The Vampire Diaries is the first serie I ever started to watch, even though it's not the best serie out of my list. I might do a top 3 of my favourite series to watch (and no, Prison Break, Game of Thrones nor Walking Dead are part of that, but I'm sure they're great series as well). 

If you recognize this picture of my favourite serie, I love you, you're awesome, and you deserve the best Valentine's Day EVER

My Favourite Snacks/Drinks: Tea, Hot Chocolate, Ice cream (duhh!), Pop Corn;Wild Organic Beauty has a great recipe on coconut popcorn; you can find it here.

I wish you all a great Valentine's Day, love may just be lurking around the corner. What do you do to fight the single-blues on Valentine's Day? Let me know in the comments! :)

xoxo Lien Bee

Winter Survival Kit For The Cold-Blooded

Jeej! It's that time of the year again, where all you want to do is stay warm. During winter, I'm ALWAYS cold and I'm not even joking... Having been born cold-blooded it seems, I had to learn fast how to protect myself against the 'freezing' temperatures in Belgium. This is the winter survival kit for all you reptiles out there.

Layers, layers, layers

Ski socks

Ski socks are the best! You can also wear hiking socks but I find ski socks to be warmer. Just make sure that the shoes you're wearing have a strong shoe sole and are big enough to fit your feet in.

Tights

When it's that cold that it seems like the air is trying to cut your legs off, it's always a good idea to wear tights underneath your trousers. Wear thick ones, otherwise they'll feel annoying and you'll do 'the awkward walk'. 

Legwarmers

When you wear legwarmers, they will stop cold air from getting into your shoes. I also wear legwarmers for different reasons. Lucky me, I have this great advantage of having extremely long legs. Finding trousers that are long enough can sometimes be impossible. So often I will wear trousers that are a tiny bit too short and wear legwarmers over them so I still can look fancy ;) (like seriously, the only thing long legs are good for, is seeing how jealous people get when they see them. Besides that, finding clothes, public transport, small tables, tiny chairs, ... it all sucks)

Thermal clothing

Besides wearing tights, wearing thermal clothing under your regular clothing is an extra thing that can keep you warm and cosy during winter.

Gloves vs Mittens

Most people prefer gloves over mittens because they're easier to wear. Since I have cold hands all the time I prefer the second option. Yes, wearing gloves comes in handy, but when you wear mittens all your fingers are together in one space and therefore your fingers will be kept nice and warm.

Looking pretty is overrated

Yeah, I think the pictures explain it all ...

Tea

Tea (but also coffee and hot chocolates) is the best thing during winter.  Again, I don't think there is much exlplanation needed :) When you finally get home after a cold day and are not able to feel your fingers nor your feet anymore, there's nothing better then getting a cup of hot tea and resting your feet on the heater.

Hot air blower heater

Besides your regular heater, having an extra heater is awesome. My room seems to be at least 2 degrees colder than any other room in the house (maybe I've a ghost in my room?) so I love using the extra heater to make my room extra warm. One thing that is not that great about it is that it makes the air really dry and my eyes are quiet sensitive to it. But if it keeps me warm then it's still worth it!

Moisturising stuff

Lipbalm

When I'm stressed I have the horrible habbit to pick my lips. Now that it's winter, my lips are even drier and I have an even bigger tendency to pick my lips so now it's the time of the year to use lipbalm. (Not that you don't have to use it during the rest of the year, but now it's really important to moisurise your lips.) What I love about lipbalms is that they often have a really cute packaging so most of the time I will choose cute packaging over the lipbalm itself. Let me know if you do that too! ;)

Hand Cream

Hand cream during this time of the year is again really important. Apparently I have some type of light nickel allergy that my aunt has as well, which means my hands are dry all year around, especially it seems when I go to amusement parks. Luckily it's just a really light form, but I still like some good hand cream! Also, using a body lotion is less effective than using a handcream. I first was a firm believer that you can use Nivea Soft for anything and that is indeed true; but it doesn't work as well as an actual handcream.

For if you would like to know, I stole this hand cream from my mom, and apparently it's from a Belgian brand. If you would like to purchase this, which I think is only possible if you're Flemish, you can do that here

Conditioner

For most people, conditioner is already a must but now, everybody's hair is getting frizzy and everybody could use a good conditioner. Even though I've short hair, I always like to use a good amount of product. Recently I've bought a new conditioner from Lush 'American Cream'. I will do a review on this when I've used the product a bit more.

Fleece blanket

I looove getting cosy with a fleece blanket, especially whilst reading a good book or watching the television with my family. Since I'm 'cold-blooded', I feel like they've invented fleece blankets so we can use them all the time. I mean , you even have special ones where you can put your feet in or those with sleeves, which I would love to have! 

Look at these little cuties enjoying their cosy blanket! 

What do you do to fight the cold? Do you have any special rituals to prepare yourself against such horrible temperatures? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo Lien

Review: The Body Shop 'Fresh Nude Foundation'

Hi Guys! For the past years, I would never find a foundation that would match my skin colour. I naturally have fair skin and now that it's winter my skin is even more pale. I would always buy foundations in the lightest shade and it would always make me look like an orange. Last week I decided to go to the Body Shop, since I want to use more of their products, and bought myself a new fond de teint. 

Product description

From the website of The Body Shop:Make every day a good skin day with Fresh Nude Foundation. Enriched with English rose water and aloe vera, this hydrating formula leaves skin feeling beautifully fresh and comfortable all day. It also contains SPF 15 to help protect your skin. With a semi-matte finish, each of these 16 nature-inspired shades mimics the look of fresh-faced natural skin with a nude glow.

• 16 nature-inspired shades

• Up to 24H moisturisation

• Light to medium coverage

• Semi-matte, fresh-faced finish

• SPF 15

• Suitable for sensitive skin & dermatologically tested

They have 16 different shades, going from really fair shades to dark shades. I've read some of the reviews and one girl said that only The Body Shop had a foundation that would match her dark skin tone. I agree, but then that I've finally found a shade that matches my really fair skin tone.

The foundation costs €20, which is a good price for the great quality that you get.

What I think of the product

I like the fact that this foundation has SPF 15. Even though it's winter and the sun isn't out that much, I want to protect my skin, especially because I've a light form of sun allergy. 

The coverage is indeed not a really thick one, but your skin doesn't feel 'greacy' after you've applied it. Instead my skin feels and looks soft, while previous foundations used to make my skin look oily. 

I also looove the colour; I've tried numerous foundations in my life and they would always make me look like an orange, even when the colour seemed to be lighter than my own skin tone. So if you're one of those people who also has a really light skin tone, I think you will love this foundation!

The one thing I think that can be a bit annoying, is the fact that the texture is a bit 'watery'. I always apply my foundation with my fingers and the foundation is always almost dripping off my fingers as I try to apply it. But once it's on my face, it blends and looks great on my skin.  

Also, the foundation smells nice, like a mixture of sweets and flouwers.

This is how it looks; I don't edit my photos nor wear other makeup because it would give you a false impression of the product. Yes, I am this pale!

Do you also have problems finding the right foundation for your skin tone? What foundation do you use? Let me know in the comments! :)

You can get this product at: The Body Shop 

xoxo Lien Bee