Monthly Favourites // April

Hey guys!

It’s been quite a while since I did a favourites blog, and they’re one of my favourite kind of posts to do – I like recommending things to you, I also enjoy reading other people’s posts and watching favourites videos to see what other people recommend too, as trying out new things is always fun!

Before I start – there’s a couple of things I’m putting in my favourites that I’ll also be doing a longer review post on in the near future, so if I don’t go into too much detail, that’ll be why. So, without further ado, let’s get into my April favourites!

This month, I’m going to start with gaming.

Last month, Nintendo released their newest console, the Nintendo Switch, and they also finally released the long awaited new Zelda game, Breath Of The Wild – the game also launched on the Wii U, as was originally planned. As you probably already know, I’m a pretty big Nintendo fan, so when the Switch got announced, I knew I wanted to buy both it and Breath Of The Wild. I was lucky enough to be able to grab the limited edition bundle – here in the UK, this included the game, a soundtrack and a statue of the Master Sword. I also got a Zelda t-shirt as a preorder bonus! I’ll try and keep this as spoiler free as possible, in case any of you are currently playing it too, or are planning on picking it up.

I will be doing a full review of my thoughts so far on the Switch, and a more in-depth chat about Breath Of The Wild, but I will say now that last time I checked, I’d hit 155 or more hours on Zelda – I also finally decided to finish the story over the weekend. The game, quite simply, is massive – the world is pretty huge, so you can spend forever exploring and still not discover everything! There’s also 120 shrines to find and complete, some of which you’ll have to figure out a puzzle to unlock – they’re also like mini dungeons inside, so you’ll have to try and figure out how to beat whatever’s inside to proceed. There’s also a LOT of things you can collect, too, so you’ll never get bored – even though I’ve now finished the main story of the game, I still find myself reaching for my Switch and playing Zelda because I still have a lot of stuff still to do, including side quests, shrine quests (I’m currently on 109 shrines out of 120) and more!

Next up on my favourites list is music!

Earlier this month, my best friend Beth invited me to go and see one of my favourite bands, You Me At Six, with her in Birmingham, as she had a spare ticket and she knew I’d had to cancel my previously booked London date because of family reasons. I took her up on her offer, and stayed with her for a few days too! (see my previous blog post for more details if you’re interested in seeing what we did)

You Me At Six are one of those bands that I always love seeing live – their setlists are always well put together (apart from Underdog, please stop with Underdog now), they always put so much into the show, plus it’s always an amazing atmosphere at a You Me At Six show. They also played both of my favourite songs off the new album, which is always a surefire way to put a smile on my face! I’ve seen them countless times over the years, but it always feels fresh and they’re one of the few bands that I always look forward to seeing live!

My second and final music favourite for this month is the latest AFI album, subtitled The Blood Album. It came out in January, but I’ve pretty much had it on repeat for all these months now because I love it a LOT! One of the things I like and admire about AFI is that they’re never afraid to experiment with their sound – their albums always have a different kind of sound to them, as they grow more as artists and evolve their sound. This is the first album that their guitarist, Jade Puget, mixed as well, and he did a pretty amazing job!

I think that my favourite songs from it are Aurelia, Feed From The Floor and The Wind That Carries Me Away, so I definitely recommend that you check out those songs at least! They’re also supporting Deftones in a few weeks here in the UK, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see them in London with my friend Vicky, so I’m far too excited for that!

This will probably be the longest part of this month’s favourites now – beauty/makeup!

First up – when I was in Birmingham with Beth, I picked up a few makeup items when we went on a mini shopping spree in Superdrug, oops.

The first thing was an eyeshadow palette from MUA/Makeup Academy, called the Tropical Oceana palette – it’s got so many pretty summery colours in it, ranging from bright pink to shimmery orange, pale green to deep sea blue. You could create so many gorgeous bright summer looks with this palette, and I mainly picked it up because I have no orange eyeshadow and that caught my eye! I do believe the palette was £8, it contains 25 eyeshadows – 5 orange, 5 pink, 5 purple, 5 green and 5 blue!

(I apologise for the photos of the palette, the lighting wasn't very good at the time and it really doesn't do the colours justice!)

I also picked up a gel eyeliner pencil from L’Oreal – the L'Oreal Infallible Gel Crayon Eyeliner. 

I’ve been meaning to try out gel eyeliner for a while now, as a lot of the time, my liquid eyeliner ends up smudging all over my eyeshadow. This one is easy to use, as it’s a pencil, not a brush, and I’ve found that it stays put all day and doesn’t smudge – always a bonus when you wear as much eyeliner as I do!

A few weeks ago, I was browsing in my local Boots (I currently live over the road from one, it’s both a blessing and a curse) and I noticed that they had the Hello Kitty Tangle Teezer brush on sale for around £3.50 – I’d wanted to try one for ages now, but couldn’t justify spending £13 on a hairbrush, so naturally I had to buy one!

I keep mine in my bag, as they come with the plastic cover to keep the bristles in good condition, and it fits nicely both in your hand and to the shape of your head while you’re brushing your hair. It glides easily through your hair – even when it’s pretty damn tangled – and it just makes life a while lot easier. Plus, it’s adorable!

The final part of my favourites this month is miscellaneous – the things I wanted to include but wasn’t sure of a category to put them in!

I used to be obsessed with Pinterest – I’d spend hours just looking for pretty things to add to my mood boards, it was always a good way to kill some time. I had it on my old tablet, but then it started playing up, so I forgot all about it and my Pinterest was also neglected. However, I recently decided to download it to my phone again, and I’m slowly but surely getting hooked on it again – when I’m in bed and can’t sleep, or I’m waiting for a bus or something, I’ll just hop on it for 15 minutes or so and look through things that catch my eye!

Finally – when I was seeing Beth, I mentioned that I wanted to go to a shop in Birmingham to pick up a plushie of my fabourite Pokemon, that I’d wanted to buy the last time I was in Birmingham with her but I didn’t. When she met me on the platform, she surprised me with the Umbreon plushie that I’d wanted! Needless to say, I love it, and it has pride of place on my shelf at the moment – it’s so cute, and I’m veryyyy tempted to get the shiny version eventually too!

There we have it, my April favourites! Thank you if you read all the way to the end – you’re a trooper!

Next month, I have a couple of gigs coming up, so I’m really looking forward to those and I may even throw up a review of one/both of them, or put them in my next favourites post – you never know.

What are some things you’ve been loving this month? Let me know!