Isn't it strange how fast this year is going? I mean- goodbye April and hello May??? Where is the time going? April, has felt like a really long month, and to be honest not a great one for new discoveries for me, although I do have a few! Here they are:

Water
I haven't been well this past week (and I know a week isn't the entirety of this month but y'know), water has been my best friend. I think I really do need to drink a lot more water, and whilst I drink a lot of tea it's not really the same haha. I've found myself not drinking too many fizzy drinks this month which is good, maybe I'm prepping myself for summer? haha.

Stila Stay All Day Eye Liner in Black
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before or not but this is the best liquid liner I've ever used. In fact I'd go as far as saying it's my favourite eye liner. Woah, I know- cool down Jess. It's really precise, very black and really long lasting, what more do you need from an eye liner? Well I suppose it needs to easily come off with make up remover but it does that too! It's been a firm favourite of the year so far, not just April!

Tony & Guy Flyaway Stick It Up Gum
I have a bit of a problem with frizz, specifically flyaways. I had this little thing in my march glossybox I think. At first I thought it was a bit weird, it's a kind of waxy gel consistency and really white which looked a bit scary. It's a bit sticky in the palm of your hand and you only need the tinniest little bit of it. Rub it together in your palm first, then apply it to the flyaways and finally gently brush through it. I was amazed at how well my flyaways stayed away! My hair just looked lovely and sleek all day long- woo!

Treseme Keratin Smooth Mask
I am very excited about this lovely find. When I came home from uni I saw this bad boy perched on my bath corner calling my name. I thought that it would be best to test it immediately since me and my hair had been having a fall out that day. Oh my lord. I will probably have to post a full review of this soon -but I was soooo impressed with this mask! My hair felt incredible! It looked smooth and full of richness and UNdamaged!? I'm officially in love! Look out for the review coming soon!

Pink Brandy from Maxfactor
Even though in the past couple of days I have developed a cold sore -boo! I've been loving this lipstick. It's a coral, pink, red, and it's perfect for this time of year. And because of the mix of colours it tends to go well with a lot of things. It's a matte lipstick but its easy enough to layer with a gloss and it stays for quite a long time without looking flaky. I've had this for about a year now too and it hasn't dried up.

Jakey Jake
I've been trying to widen my reading horizons over the past couple of months, beauty is still cool but I kinda want to learn about other stuff to y'know? I've been reading a new blog latey (click here), and whilst I don't really know much about sports I'm loving the posts about film. I wouldn't say I'm a huge film buff, but I do love a good movie and it's actually really interesting to see what other people have to say about them. The posts are written really well and I've really enjoy reading them- so go check it out people!

Hello October
My YouTube favourite this month is definitely Hello October. I've read her blog for ages, and have only now discovered she has a YouTube channel- where have I been? I've pretty much gone back and watched all her videos (oops) and particularly enjoyed her tattoo tag. She's just really cool and funny, a definite favourite of mine now! (channel linked here)

Since starting my blog I've now got nearly 60 followers on bloglovin'. Now, I know lots of people are going to be like -yeah ok but Tanya Burr has over a million followers... but I've just started blogging and I think 60 followers is pretty darn good. I'm so impressed that I've stuck to it because it's something I've wanted to do for a really long time. A lot of people ask me now, "why do you blog?", "why did you choose beauty?" and "what are you going to do with it?".
When I was around 14 one day I came home from school, face red with spots and scraggy hair, I just felt sad. I know this is going to sound a bit depressing but just roll with me- I just didn't know who I was or what I wanted to be. I was in that phase. Even though I had loads of fantastic friends I had really low self esteem. If somebody made any sort of slight remark at me I reacted like it was the end of the world. At this point in my life I had very wonky teeth, I had given up swimming for my group and so I started gaining weight, I was stressed with my school work and I was a moody teenager. I came home that day and I typed into the internet 'make up to cover spots'. I thought if I could sort my spots it would solve all my problems haha. And in a way, it kind of did.
I managed to stumble upon Fleur De Force's YouTube channel that night and I watched ALL of her videos. I know it sounds sad, but I learned so so so much. I stayed up way past my bed time that night and the next day I went shopping and bought a whole new make up kit. From there I found Tanya, Ingrid, Essie, Anna, Lilly, Ameliana all of them! Then I managed to stumble upon blogs too. Sooner or later watching videos and reading blogs took up the majority of my time, I found my passion. With reading and watching all the videos I learned how to make myself look and feel better on the days I didn't feel s great, and then my esteem started to rocket!
When I turned 15 I decided to make a YouTube channel, "this is what I want to do" I said to myself. I made an evening skin care video and within a day I took it straight down. One person had commented on it that the music in my video was too loud and so I took it down. I tried this on a number of occasions, but it always resulted in me with an empty YouTube channel. I decided to leave it. I carried on watching and reading though, but I just felt that my creative side wasn't really fulfilled. I loved acting and analysing plays in school because my own ideas and opinions were put forward and made into something great, so when I went to University I missed that a lot.
Tom understood that I was frustrated with this and really encouraged me to start small and start with a blog so that maybe one day I will post a YouTube video. It's crazy that it's taken me 4 years to start blogging, but it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I know I'm not great at it yet, but with practice I'll get better. So now I've decided it's time for me to face my fear and start YouTube, it's just a matter of getting a good camera and set up and I'll be on my way! I would love to blog and vlog as a full time job. Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to do that, if not I still really want to carry on with this is the future. And for anyone who wants to blog/vlog and is just a bit nervous, JUST DO IT! You'll be so happy that you did!