Weekly round up

I had a bad week this week.  We had effectively resigned ourselves to the fact that the house was never going to exchange, I was feeling ill and the week was nicely topped off by one of the senior managers at work deciding that I was personally responsible for what she perceived as the downfalls of our department.  Bursting into tears in the office was definitely a low point!

That aside, I had a good weekend!  Dog walking in the woods and beating Danny and his sister on Buzz (I got double their scores, I'd like to add, which I was particularly smug about because Danny is very competitive!) definitely made up for the trauma of the working week.  Danny's friends also had a group of us over for a barbecue and drinks and although the weather wasn't quite as nice as we might have liked, we made the best of it and spent most of the time in the garden regardless!

And, although this is strictly part of this week rather than last, I can't resist writing in this post......

.....we've exchanged contracts for our house!

After convincing ourselves that it would never happen, we now have a week (that's it - just one week!) before we move in to our own home!  I'd better get packing.....

Weekly round up

I've been doing weekly Instagram posts for a few weeks now but I do miss writing about what I've been doing, so I'm changing things up a bit and I'm going to do a weekly round up post instead.  Hopefully you'll all prefer this, but feel free to follow me on Instagram (@katm_) - I'll still be posting on there regularly!

The week started off with a lovely catch up with Aisling - lunch (does it count as lunch if you eat it at 3.30pm?!) and a girly chat was a great way to spend a bank holiday Monday and was followed by a cinema date with Danny to watch American Pie The Reunion.  Hilarious!  Absolutely hilarious!  I was a bit doubtful that it would be any good since sequels regularly fail to live up to the hype, but it definitely did and I would thoroughly recommend watching it!

A long week of work (don't weeks seem longer when you've had a bank holiday?) and drama with the house has made the week all the more stressful so a relaxing weekend was definitely needed!  The top of the chain have been putting back the completion date for our house by a week, every week so far, so it's not looking like we're going to be moving until the end of May now.  Beyond annoyed and stressed out but trying to ignore it over the weekend when there's nothing we can do about it.

Lunch with Danny and my parents at Harry's Bar & Kitchen on Saturday lunchtime was a very welcomed treat, decided upon on the spur of the moment before we headed over to Reading to meet up with Danny's friends.  We spent a couple of hours in the pub then went over to our friends' house to meet their two week old baby, Millie.  She's gorgeous and seemed to be perfectly happy being passed around all of us for a cuddle!  A full head-wetting session ensued and we didn't end up leaving until 2am!

Today has been spent at a craft fair just outside Newbury - wandering around in the sun with some of my besties.  The fair wasn't as big as we'd anticipated but they did have some gorgeous cupcakes, including the cake pushpop above - a genius idea for eating a cupcake without getting messy fingers!  Quite randomly, at the front of the fair they also had a cow with a tiny calf - cute!  After getting home and watching the dramatic last day of the Premier League, I'm now looking forward to curling up on the sofa for the evening while Danny prepares a lovely roast - bliss!

Neutrogena Wave Duo review: could this be the cheaper alternative to the Clarisonic Mia?

Like a lot of you I'm sure, I have been longing for a Clarisonic Mia but can't quite justify the price to myself just yet (I don't think it'd go down very well with Danny if I spent £100 or so on a Clarisonic and then not be able to afford to buy anything for our house!)  I was in Boots at the weekend and was browsing the skincare section looking for a face mask to pamper myself with that evening when I came across the Neutrogena Wave Duo.  We've all seen the adverts on TV - Vanessa Hudgens and Hayden Panettiere cheesily smiling into the camera stating that their skin has never felt so clean.  But does it really live up to their hype?  I've seen a lot of mixed reviews on this, so I thought I'd try it out and add my two cents.....

Product

The Neutrogena Wave Duo comes in a box containing the power cleanser, 14 cleansing pads and a AA battery.  All you have to do is to pop the battery in (which I'll be honest, I found a little difficult - the battery cover is pretty difficult to get off!), stick one of the cleansing pads on to the power cleanser head and you're ready to go.  I was a little concerned that the pad wouldn't stick to the head but the head is slightly bumpy - a little bit like velcro - so it stays in place despite moving it around your face.

The Wave Duo has two speed settings - one for 'gentle massaging' and the second for 'deep pore cleansing'.  I started off with the first setting and it definitely removed my make up successfully but I didn't feel like my pores were getting a good clean like I wanted.  On the second speed, I noticed the difference.  The sensation is a little strange initially - mainly because your face is vibrating quite strongly - but afterwards my skin definitely felt cleaner and softer.

Price

I bought the Wave Duo on impulse, so I didn't shop around at all and I paid only £10 for mine.  Considering I was planning on paying a couple of pounds for a one use only face mask, I'm pretty impressed that I picked up a battery operated cleanser for only a couple of times more.  And when you consider the Clarisonic Mia has a price tag of £120, it definitely seems a bargain!

Effects

From the first use, my skin has definitely felt smoother and softer.  It also looks brighter and feels cleaner.  I know that a lot of people report a 'purging' period when they first start to use the Clarisonic Mia, and I think I am experiencing that at the moment with the Wave Duo.  I'm quite lucky with my skin in that I very rarely get spots, but a couple have appeared across my nose since using the Wave Duo.  I assume that, as with the Clarisonic, this is due to the product bringing all the dirt from the pores out to the surface and this should clear up in a couple of days.

Am I impressed?

If I'm brutally honest with you, I'm particularly bad at looking after my skin.  I quite often fall asleep with my make up on and I only moisturise my face when I've noticed it's dry (and admitting that on a beauty product review post makes me realise how bad that actually is!)  I guess it's laziness because I know that my skin isn't prone to breakout and therefore I don't worry about the effect that not looking after it has.  I go through phases of being really good with it, but then give up and go back to my bad habits.

I hope (and I feel that since the Wave Duo is so easy to use, I have a chance!) that I stick to a good routine now and I intend to use the Wave Duo every day - my skin is definitely noticing the difference already and brighter, softer skin is always a good thing, right?

My week in Instagram photos #3

1. Birmingham v Reading - last game of the season  2.  Favourite hair product ever

3.  Reading FC champions celebration   4.  Signing the house contracts

5.  Jack Wills Brilliant Pink & Models Own Ibiza Mix  6.  Date night