The pressure on young people today & advice | talking all things exams, uni and sixth form

Hi all, today I though I would do a different blog post. I have been looking back on my years at school/sixth form and have seen how much pressure I have been through. If you are reading this blog post I assume you have either been in this position or have started a year in your school life where there will be exams and you are looking for advice.

First I am going to give you a little bit of background about my experience through school/sixth form. I am going to just through this out there right now I have done 5 years of exams now and I can safely say each year I still felt the pressure. But if you get a revision system and help and support you will be fine!You may be wondering how on earth has she done that many exams and she's only 19! Well I first started my exams in year 10 as I was that year who split the exams over the two years of GCSE's and then I did a retake year at sixth form and plus year 12 and 13 equalling a whopping 5 years!

Now I'm going to give you some advice on what to do if you are feeling the pressure. I know it's early but if you are in year 12 and you are already feeling the pressure you do really need to talk to someone such as your form tutor or your head of sixth form or even a teacher who you feel you can trust and advice you in the right way. If you have just chosen A-levels because your mates are doing it then you seriously need to think if you want to do this especially if you are a practical person or know what you want to do. Some of the people from my school went to a vocational college because they knew what they wanted to do and you also gain the experience you need for the future. If this person is you it is not too late to change! All you need to do is ask for help and I'm sure they will, that is their job after all!

The next thing I am going to talk about is University. I am starting Uni this month which I am apprehensive but I am exciting because I know my end goal and uni can get me that. I've seen on twitter recently so many people starting sixth form worrying about University. Personally I did not think at all what I wanted to do until year 13 and was starting to think about what course I want to do, what job I wanted to do, what I needed in a Uni, etc. If you are someone who is already worried about where to go to Uni or even if Uni is right for you?  You do need to research either way because it is a big decision. The 1st thing you need to do is think about a career! Your probably think that is early Jess but here me out, to choose a Uni course you need to know what sort of sector you want to go into. If you change your mind thats fine I changed my mind what feels like a hundred times. I even changed my mind after I applied and got accepted into courses. After a lot of thinking and a lot of pros and cons lists (which I would really advice when making big life decisions like this) I decided a course and a Uni.

Another thing when looking at Universities is that you don't need to pick what other people perceive is the best Uni. For example I've seen people saying you shouldn't go there you should go to Oxford, Cambridge, etc. Well all I can say is it is your life and you should choose a course where you will get to what you want to be. Or you can choose a quite an open course like I have. I went on a website called prospects which lets you look at careers you can get with your course.

Websites to look at if thinking of going to uni
Prospects
Uni stats
UCAS
What uni

Apprenticeships
Unifrog
Prospects- apprenticeships

I hope this helps and has given you some useful advice. Just remember it is not the end of the world if you don't do what your friends do or the most common thing like Uni as long as you know what you want to do and get there it is fine!

 All the love 

Jess

Tanya Burr's salted nutella cookies taste test and recipe

Hi everyone! Today I thought would share with you how I got on when baking the Tanya Burr's salted nutella cookies.

To be honest they tasted amazing! However I did over cook them which made them a tad hard. It depends though on your personal taste as I like my cookies soft and squishy!

You will need:
200g unsalted softened butter
300g caster sugar
1 large egg
325g self raising flour
200g nutella (around 4 heaped tbsps)
1tsp sea salt

Method:
1) First you will need to preheat the oven at 180°c/375F and then line some baking trays with grease proof paper.
2) Next you will to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) After that you will need to add the egg and mix until incorporated.
4) Gradually add the flour and mix (I used an electric hand mixer) until it has created the very tasty dough. If the dough is a bit dry add a dash of milk.
5) Now it's time to add the brilliant invention that is chocolate spread! I add the spread and stirred it will a spoon until I created a sort of marble effect.
6) After you have made the dough  marbled and very pretty you will need to separate the dough into balls. I did mine into golf ball size which will mean it won't need 12 minutes ( maybe check at 8 minutes and check every 2 minutes or so.)
7) After they have baked let them cool for 10-20 minutes and enjoy!

Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did! Let me know how you get on either in the comments or on twitter (jess_b97).

Speak to you soon
Jess

June beauty favourites

Hello everybody! I hope you are all well. Today I thought I would talk about my beauty favourites which I have been loving and have been using a lot this month.

The first product I have had a rekindled love for is the 'Soap and Glory Glad Hair Day'. This honestly makes my hair feel so smooth and soft. It also makes your hair smell so nice kind of like pear drops, which is amazing! It says on the bottle that there is no build up formula which means you never have to change shampoo. This is brilliant as once I have found a shampoo that I love to use I do not want it to not be as good as it was when I first used it. Like most of you at home I have way too many half used shampoo and conditioner as they have stopped being as good as they were. I have found that with this shampoo and condition you do not have to worry and as an added bonus it is for all hair types. 

Soap and Glory Glad Hair Day Shampoo £5.50

The next product I have been loving is the 'Naked 3 Palette'. I have wanted this palette since the first time I saw it and I finally bucked up the courage to pay the amount of money it was which I would never normally pay for a palette (as I normally use high street brands). When I went into the shop to have a look at the palette I spoke to the women behind the counter and she told me that you got the eyeshadow (obviously), a brush (which is so soft btw) and 4 sample of the eye primer which I think is so good as if you add how much the primers cost as well as the eyeshadow then that is a brilliant deal!

                                

Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette £38.50

I don't know whether you would count this as a beauty product but my next item is toothpaste. I was recently watching Zoella's vlog and she purchased the 'Oral B 3D white toothpaste'. I have always found it difficult to find a toothpaste which actually whitens your teeth as well as keeping your mouth minty fresh. I was in my local supermarket and it was on offer which I thought was the perfect excuse to try it. I can safely say it works for me! Now before you all go and try it and think you will have pearly whites in the first use it doesn't work like that I'm afraid but it does give your teeth that brightness. My teeth are still not as white as I want but I believe that you have to have them whitened for that. This product is the next best though and is way cheaper then buying a kit or going to the dentist to get it done. 

Oral B 3D White Luxe Perfection Toothpaste £4.49

Last but no means least is the 'Botanics All Bright Hydrating Day Cream'. The previous moisturiser I was using kept breaking me out and made my skin so dry! So I thought I would do some research into the new Boots range called Botanics which is made from plants and is such a reasonable price. In the mornings I wash my face and then put some of the moisturiser on and let it dry before I do my makeup. This way it gets to work on my skin and doesn't mix in with my foundation. You only need a little bit of the product as it is quite runny compared to some of the other moisturisers I have tried. However for the price and the job it does you cannot complain.

 

Botanics All Bright Hydrating Day Cream SPF15 £4.99

I hope you enjoy some of these products just as much as I do! If you try any or have any recommendations of what I should try just comment or tweet me as I would love to know your opinions. Thanks so much for the read. 

Jess 

My hair disaster

Hello everybody, I hope you are all well. Today I thought I would update you on my hair trouble I had a few days ago. 

Let's start from the beginning. I decided I wanted to lighten my hair for the summer and go blonde. So I went to Boots and brought a kit so I could do it my self (with my mum's help). I left the hair dye on for about 30 minutes and when I washed it and dried it, it look awful. It was really bright, patchy and had ginger bits in it. So my mum called the hairdressers and made an appointment.

At the hairdressers I sat down with someone who worked there and had a consultation. She had to bleach the bits of my hair where the dye didn't work. Once we had done that she decided to tone my hair. It was supposed to come out like an ash blonde colour and it went blue for some reason. We don't know why but I think that because my hair had so much colour put on it, it went blue. She then tried to put a blonde over the top to try and settle it. It fixed it a bit but it was like a grey/blue colour.

I decided to leave it that colour for now and see how I got on. After having some funny looks in the street and deciding I wanted to have blonde me and my mum began researching. 

How to go from grey/blue to blonde

This is the key part that really fixed my hair!

The first thing you need to do is go to the supermarket and purchase 10 lemons which you need to squeeze into a bowl. You then need to get 1 tbsp of conditioner and mix. The easiest way for me was to put my head over the sink and my mum poured the liquid (it doesn't look like a paste) onto my head and I rubbed it in like I would shampoo. 

After leaving it on for an hour I dried it with a towel and blow dried it. Then hopped in the shower and washed it as usual. 

Here is the final product:

I hope this has helped some of you out there and the lesson I have learnt is it is best to go to the hairdressers in the first place. Especially when you are unsure of how it's going to turn out.

 

Advice on different types of people

Hi all, I hope you are all well and are enjoying the lovely spring weather. I'm here today to give you some advice on people I have experienced in my life and I generally do love to people watch! Even if I just give one person a piece of advice that will help then I will be over the moon! I'm going to get straight in and try not to ramble!

Negative people

Recently I have realised that negative people are everywhere! Recently at college I have moved away from a group of quite negative people that I surround myself with everyday, which has made me feel much better about myself and not worry about the negative energy they were giving off. They weren't negative about me personally but some of the stuff they would say would just give of so much bad energy and I generally felt horrible just when I was sitting there so I decided to make a change. The piece of advice I want to give is that there are plenty of people in this world who are not negative and do not put you down so I suggest just move away and find other people who generally make you feel good about yourself! I understand that this may be hard, especially if that's all you are used to, but trust met his will be the best thing you can do! If they really do care about you and want you in their life they will ask you "why aren't you sitting with us" and/or "have we done something to upset you?" In my case they didn't which is quite sad as they aren't necessary horrible but they are just negative. On the other hand if they cannot be bothered to just speak to you about it it not worth it. 

People you don't like 

I know it can be hard to act friendly to a person you do not like but sometimes you have to whether it be apart of a team or you know people who talk to them. The one thing that I can suggest is be civil! Some of you may think that's harder then it sounds but by doing this it avoids you starting something that can be avoided and it will save you a lot of energy that you do not need to waste on something that can be focuses on making you so much happier! 

Thanks for the read! Sorry it is so short but I hope this is useful and please let me know if this helps you! Thank you for all the support especially since I haven't written in a while! 

                                                               Love you all

                                                                    Jess

New Zoella inspired outfit

Hi everyone hope you are all well! Sorry I haven't been blogging in ages but I've just had my mocks do I have been so busy!

After Christmas I decided that I want to revamp my wardrobe not for a couple of reasons. One being the fact that I am just too comfortable in jeans and a tshirt, especially for college. The second being the fact that there is sales which is even more of a reason why I wanted to switch up my wardrobe a bit. 

I thought the best thing to do is to see what other people we were wearing which I liked so I went on Zoe's blog and see she did a post with a tan skirt which I loved! 

One of the first thing I brought was this tan skirt that I say Zoella wearing on her blog which I absolutely fell I love with. However I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on a skirt so I did some research and eventually found a very similar a line button up skirt at tesco which I was quite shocked about really! Tescos have done well with this skirt I'm not kidding it's the softest thing.

I brought a white shirt to match from primark as I again Zoe's shirt is expensive when I could get it in primark for £10. 

I then matched the outfit with some brown boots. 

Speak to you soon Jess 

Being on a dairy free diet

Some of you may know that I have a dairy free diet. Some of you out there are dairy free yourself and know what it can be like to be dairy free and some of the struggles we face. Some of you may not be dairy free and want to know what it is like or you think you may be but don't know what to try and what products I recommend. Now I am not a expert on this and I haven't been diagnosed myself but since I have tried dairy free foods I feel much better with myself.

Milk

The first thing that effects most of us is milk. Yes the milk we have in our tea and on our cereal. Now there isn't an right answer on what is the best milk but for me it's soya milk. I have tried many different milks and many different brands including super market products and I feel I have found the milk for me. I am currently using the alpro soya light which is very creamy and I think taste great on my cereal in the morning. However if you are looking for a milk that is similar to regular milk I find the sainsburys own brand is the closest I have found to regular milk. I'm afraid if you are expecting for it to taste exactly the same it doesn't and I'm afraid you will have to deal with the fact that nothing you try will but in time your body will get used to the fact that it won't and over time you'll get used to it. 

Butter

For butter I use this brand called vitalite this product is amazing and I'm not just saying that. It actual tastes like real butter. Yes really butter. I even have my family using it now and even they cannot taste the difference.

Cheese

I'm afraid one thing that tastes nothing like the actual dairy product is cheese. I cannot live without cheese and in my opinion I do not like the taste at all of the dairy free cheese but don't let that put you off. By all means try it and you might love it but I didn't. If you are wondering what it taste like I will tell you. Well it is very dense for one and it tastes like how I would imagine the texture of chalk tastes like.

Yoghurts

The yoghurts are not too bad but there is little variety. There is only really alpro Greek yoghurt or a flavoured yoghurt which has different varieties like chocolate and gingerbread (trust me it's nice). If you looking for something similar to a muller yoghurt there isn't. I'm still waiting for the day a vanilla yogurt with the little chocolate balls arrive. I am still on the hunt though so if anyone sees any please let me know.

I hope this has helped some of you out there and please let me know how you get on. I will speak to you soon. 

                                                                      Jess