On Christmas day last year I opened my emails to find something really exciting. I had been reached out to by a company I'd seen on Instagram. They were offering me the opportunity to work alongside their Instagram account and blog. The deal was that I promote their products on my blog/Instagram using a discount code so that my followers can get money off their order and in return, if they like what I'm doing, I may get the opportunity to do closer work with them. This was the first time a company had reached out to me for this kind of work and I am still so excited to be working with them.
You guys can use the code chloehanks20 to recieve 20% of your orders at coconut-lane.com!
Today I want to share with you some of their products that I have been using and loving. I would love to do a giveaway in the near future of some coconut-lane products, if you would be interested in entering, let me know in the comments so that I know if it's worth the investment or not!
So lets get started.
The first thing I was drawn to when exploring their website was, of course, the stationary section. You can never have enough notebooks, especially as a blogger/creative writing student. I absolutely loved all of their designs and it was really hard to pick just one so I'm sure I will be collecting loads over the next few months. I decided upon this one because of the galaxy print. I love cosmic themed things and I just loved the colour scheme. I use this to plan my blog posts. The pages are completely blank white which is really useful for mind mapping or planning things. It's come in really handy over the last month because it fits in my college bag really easily so any time I get an idea I can grab it and write it down. The notebooks cost £4.50 so it's amazing value for money and, as I said, I would definitely spend money on more!
The next thing I wanted to try out was their jewellery. Again because of my love of the cosmic theme I was drawn to this moon and stars necklace. I know so many friends who would love this too. It's so cute against a plain black top and, again, it was really great value for money at £12. I have received so many compliments about this and they have loads of really cute designs on their website so be sure to check that out!
I upgraded my phone earlier this month and so I was in need of a new phone case. Seeing as I was working with this company anyway I decided to use it as an opportunity to check out their phone cases too. Again, they had so many lovely designs that it was hard to choose so I see myself getting loads in the future! The one I chose was this lovely pink marble design to go with my rose gold phone and it's so pretty. I absolutely love it. Like most of their phone cases, this one cost £16.
The last product I want to share with you is probably my favourite. I saw the slogan on it and found it so funny how much it relates to me! I knew I had to have it. I was so happy with it when it arrived because it is super comfortable and true to size. I was worried that, being a petite size, it would drown me when I tried it on but I got the smallest size and it fits really well. They have some amazing designs in their clothing tab and I'm sure there's something there for everyone and with 20% off, why not head over and have a look. The hoodies all cost around £28 and they are so worth the price!
Make sure you use the code chloehanks20 to get your discount. Currently on the website they're offering free shipping for orders over £30 so head on over to check out a few things. If you would be interested in a possible giveaway or want to see more of these products, head over to my Instagram ChloeHanks23 or leave a comment below and let me know! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!
As winter closed in around 2016, ready to take it with both hands and sweep us all into the cold, tragedy befell my wardrobe. My beloved khaki parka was sick; dying. It all began with a temperamental zip, sometimes closing effortlessly; others, sticking, failing and protesting against the harsh November chill. I was heartbroken. That coat served me almost two years. I adored it! The pockets were still stuffed with confetti from the night I took it to see Taylor Swift. It had traces of the various perfumes I had worn over the years. It was my coat. I didn't want to replace it, not really.
Christmas was vast approaching and I gave into the fact that I needed a new coat. I could no longer walk around hugging each opposing side around my body. By this point, various parts of the coat had ripped or come loose including the buttons holding my fur trim into place. It was slowly failing to keep me warm and each day we got closer to losing each other. I tried on many coats with my Mum looking for a potential Christmas present. Most were too long, too big, the wrong shade of camel for my skin tone. Truth be told, I just didn't want a new coat. I settled for one I liked a little from TopShop. A grey number that cost around the £70 mark. Much over what my parents had left of their budget for Christmas and much beneath my expectations of what I wanted my new coat to be. In the end, I decided to go without.
Have you ever had an image in your head of something you desperately want but it doesn't actually exist?
Since early secondary school I've had a picture in my head of a khaki trench coat. I didn't know the name of the shade or style back then, it was just an image in my imagination. But early on Christmas morning, I found myself waiting for sisters to wake up and I journeyed onto the MissSelfridge website to see about getting myself a coat for Christmas.
There it was. £53 in the sale and in a size 4.
It was fate. The exact coat I had created years before was a real item on a real model and it was really there for me to buy! The fact that it was in my exact size (which no shop ever seems able to stock very well) seemed to me like a sign. I bought myself the coat and said a tearful goodbye to my parka.
(just kidding, it's still in the coat cupboard in case it ever magically fixes itself)
I adore my new coat. It will never match up to the memories I made with my parka but I'm sure I will make lots of new ones. It fits me perfectly. I find that when having to shop in a petite section, MissSelfridge is the most accurate with smaller sizes. Everything I buy from them fits perfectly, including this coat. It's very thick fabric so it keeps me warm and it looks really smart. It's perfect for wearing to sixth form if you want to look smart and also out and about to perfect your winter look.
There are still plenty of days left of the January sales so it's never too late to treat yourself to a new coat!
Over the last year I have tried to be more adventurous when it comes to choosing makeup. I had always stuck to the cheaper brands, splashing out occasionally on a fancy pallet or mascara. I fell in love with the Bourjois liquid satin lipsticks last winter and have been desperate to try more of their products since. I was stocking up on powder when I came across this little pallet. It juxtaposes everything I would usually go for in a nudes pallet; but it was so cute and compact and the colours looked so gorgeous that I couldn't resist.
You can get hold of this little jem for £11.99 at Boots. The first thing I have to point out about it is it isn't really what I would call a nudes pallet despite the name. It's more pastel colours from the look of the pallet. However, they are really well pigmented so you don't have to apply too much and worry that it looks too bright. It's a really lovely pallet to wake your eyes up a little in the winter. Eye shadow pallets are my weakness and I usually stick to golds and browns. That tends to be what I look for in a pallet so using this one has been a little different for me. I wear a lot of khaki and so the pale turquoise shade has been used a lot! I also absolutely love the rose gold shade.
I have already mentioned the pigmentation which is one of the best I have found in a drugstore pallet. In fact, it almost feels like a cream eye shadow when I apply it which I love! The colours blend beautifully. The glittery colours do transfer a lot of glitter to your face when applying which I often find with Bourjois glitter eye shadows; I don't mind this too much but I understand some people wouldn't like that at all. That's the only real issue with this product. The eye shadow wears really well. I never reapply eye shadow throughout the day and when wearing this, I can still tell its there when I go to take off my makeup in the evening.
The actual packaging of this product was really intriguing for me as well. It's very small and compact, perfect to fit into a handbag, small makeup bag or overnight bag. Also, the lid can twist so that the mirror faces different angles which is actually really useful when blending. I always use my eco-tools brushes to apply and blend eye shadow so I haven't tested the applicator provided.
Overall, I am loving this product! It's definitely worth the price and it's fun if you're not used to wearing brighter colours on your eyes. I can't wait to try more Bourjois eye shadows now!
Let me know in the comment section what your favourite pallets are so I can give them a try. See you back here next week!
Magic is a concept that as limited beings, we find fascinating. I grew up reading Harry Potter and being totally captivated by the idea of anything being possible via magic. The only real magic I have ever experienced is the cliche idea of being transported to another world through words. I always comment on the power of words and the complex construction process that goes behind writing something magical enough to take you away from your bedroom and carry you into another universe. I have never experienced that magic more literally than I did when reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
This book is a book that followed me for over a year before I got around to reading it. I came across it firstly on Instagram. I follow a lot of accounts that share what they're reading because it's a good way of discovering texts that I wouldn't normally come across. I saw this book and the cover caught my eye immediately. It felt magical. A black cover covered in metallic stars and flashes of red. I almost instantly added it to my 'to be read' list. A few weeks later I was messaging a friend (another book lover) about other books I had enjoyed and without me mentioning it first, she told me about The Night Circus. I felt like it was fate. I ordered the book that night and I remember being so excited to read it. The next day I was in my Creative Writing lesson and my lecturer was telling us about a student who bought him a book for Christmas. She bought him a hardback edition of his favourite book, The Night Circus. It was like this book was chasing me, begging to be read. When it arrived, I added it to my box of books patiently awaiting my attention. It went unread for months.
With so much to read for my A Levels and so many books catching my attention, it's hard to get everything I want to read read. The book sat there until about a week before Christmas. I had just finished my first Agatha Christie, Murder On The Orient Express, and I wanted something fun and magical to read that I could really get into. I knew I should probably be re-reading a literature texts or reading something about Communist Russia; but I just couldn't resist the sparkling cover any longer. It was a Saturday night and I got about 50 pages in before I had to go to sleep to wake up and do the breakfast shift.
I woke the next morning feeling awful. I had a cold and my head felt stuffed with cotton-wool. I went to work at 8am and served everyone breakfast. The housekeeper arrives at about 8:30 and when she arrived we had a quick chat. I told her I wasn't feeling too well and that I couldn't wait to go home and curl up with my book. When I told her what I was reading she turned to me and said, "No way!"
It turns out the day I started reading The Night Circus was the day she finished reading it herself. She said to me, "Chlo, you will love it!"
I did.
I have never read anything so full of enchantment and colour. Every single page is just laced with imagination. I feel as though this book was written for me. Every aspect of my personality, my imagination, my creativity is just put into a story within these pages. I have never been so happy reading. With every page I turned I just wanted to read it again and again. The story is captivating but it's even more than that. When you read this book, it's genuinely as if there is magic dancing around you, following you to work, begging you to keep reading the book. It interrupts your dreams, telling you to wake up and keep reading the book. I just wanted to live in that world. I didn't want the book to end. Nothing will ever compare to the feeling of this book.
What makes it so strikingly magical is the use of second person in between chapters. The intersecting of second person monologues draws you into the world of the circus; it makes you feel involved. It's such a wonderful use of structure and it has really inspired me to do more with my writing.
Despite the wonderful use of structure, it isn't at all a complicated book. The plot has the perfect balance of ambiguity and imagery. You know exactly what is going on while at the same time, nothing is really what you think it is! It's such an easy book to read because it grips you from the first page. You're constantly discovering. Morgenstern has a wonderful style of writing. It's the way she draws you in; heartbreak, magic, empathy etc. This book has everything. I have never felt so many emotions from reading one story.
You can probably tell by the tone of this post how happy this book makes me. I just want to read it over and over again; it's wonderful!
If you're looking for a substantial book to really get your teeth into, this is the one. I couldn't recommend it enough. I can't wait for you to read it. If you have read it yourself, let me know what you thought of it in the comment section below! Also, if you have read anything with a similarly magical touch to it, please let me know because nothing I read compares.
Thank you for reading!
It has been well documented that 2016 was a tough year for everybody... While it was a year of loss, political tension and intense change, it was also a year of new beginnings, history in the making and my own personal triumphs. I too had a tough year. I experienced my first death in my family that I have been old enough to understand and with that attended my first funeral... closely followed by my second. I have felt an array of new emotions; not all pleasant ones. I've watched friendships die and I've felt, at times, levels of loneliness I haven't felt for a long time. I've been emotional and I've been isolated. I have felt under immense pressure with my a levels and immense stress. I had to give up driving because of my anxiety levels. I've overworked myself and experienced enough health problems for a little while. (please and thank you!)
But when taking the time to reflect I don't want to jump onto the 'hate 2016' bandwagon. So many amazing things happened to me this year and have inspired me to make 2017 an even better year for myself and for the people I love.
Firstly, I started dating my boyfriend in April 2016. We have had the most amazing 9 months together and I loved seeing in the New Year with him. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to play loads of gigs at some wonderful music venues and events including Witney Music Festival and at a regular charity fund raiser in Stratford raising money for the Brain Tumor Charity. It was an honor to be a part of these events and to be able to share new music. My music is something I feel was neglected a lot in 2016; my goal is to spend a lot more time writing and hopefully recording next summer. I sat my first AS exams and got grades I was really proud of! I also completed my University application and have received conditional offers. I visited my second choice university, fell in love with it and it's now my first choice! I am again in that period of coming change that I remember writing about two years ago. Leaving school was the best decision I have ever made. Leaving the college that I love is going to be scary; however, University is a whole new adventure that I can't wait to embark upon. I want to make sure that this change is as good as the last which brings me to my new years resolutions and plans.
First and foremost, I need to get myself into a much healthier lifestyle. Due to health problems, I have given up red meat and I am still considering going vegetarian. I want to try to eat much healthier in 2017 and get fitter. To do this, I need to distribute my time more fairly. 2016 felt like a year of all work, no play. I gave up 99.9% of my weekends to my job and a few of my evenings too. I have been exhausted trying to balance my A Levels, my relationship and try to have time to myself. Hence why my hobbies have been neglected. I have struggled this year mentally and physically as a result. I have invested in a new weekly planner. I want to get back one day off per week to either study, rest or spend time with my boyfriend. Whichever I need most that week. I am going to set myself a list of things to complete each week and distribute my time evenly. This will include some ambitious goals that I will really try to stick to. I want to be uploading one blog post a week and one YouTube video per month. I know this is going to be difficult for me to keep up; I want to give more time to the things that I do for myself. I feel as though I give away too much of my time to other people. In addition to this, I want to try and get a chunk of revision done every day, be it 20 minutes or a few hours. I feel like I have worked my whole life to get into University and I hate the thought of it slipping through my fingers because I felt like I had to overwork myself. I want to try to exercise more, either at home or at a gym. All of these goals will be planned out at the beginning of each week or month and I will regularly write about how I'm doing either here, or, you can follow my instagram (ChloeHanks23) where I will post regularly about what I'm doing/reading etc.
2017 is going to be the year I move out of my home town into what I believe will be a much better living space. I want to be motivated, healthy and happy to start a new life with my family. I want to regain somewhat of a social life and I want to feel ready and prepared to start University. I am excited for the projects I have planned for this year. I have just began a partnership with Coconut-lane.com. Using the code ChloeHanks20, you can get a 20% discount on your order. They have some lovely products including phone cases, macbook skins and some gorgeous notebooks that I have found perfect for planning blogposts! I have some exciting posts coming up including book and makeup reviews. As I have previously mentioned, I want to write weekly which will include some more auto-biographical posts as well as any Creative Writing I feel like sharing. Some may just be updates on how I'm feeling etc. If you have any requests for posts you would like to read, leave them in the comments section and please have a wonderful 2017.
I upgraded my phone earlier this month and so I was in need of a new phone case. Seeing as I was working with this company anyway I decided to use it as an opportunity to check out their phone cases too. Again, they had so many lovely designs that it was hard to choose so I see myself getting loads in the future! The one I chose was this lovely pink marble design to go with my rose gold phone and it's so pretty. I absolutely love it. Like most of their phone cases, this one cost £16.
The last product I want to share with you is probably my favourite. I saw the slogan on it and found it so funny how much it relates to me! I knew I had to have it. I was so happy with it when it arrived because it is super comfortable and true to size. I was worried that, being a petite size, it would drown me when I tried it on but I got the smallest size and it fits really well. They have some amazing designs in their clothing tab and I'm sure there's something there for everyone and with 20% off, why not head over and have a look. The hoodies all cost around £28 and they are so worth the price! 
