#IBW2015 Bookshop Crawl!

THE BOOKSHOP CRAWL
It's Indie Booksellers Week and to celebrate I participated in the bookshop crawl (I mean of course I did, it's a bookshop crawl). The set date for the bookshop crawl was actually the 27th, however I have to move out of my university halls on that day so I definitely won't have time for that and exploring  bookshops, so I did my crawl on Monday the 22nd instead. As Bath has some of the most amazing bookshops I decided I would do my bookshop crawl there. Here's what I got up to...

BOOKSHOP 1 - THE OLDFIELD PARK BOOKSHOP

I'd never been to this bookshop before, in fact I didn't even know it existed until now, but I can tell I'll be spending a lot of time there in the future. It had a great selection of books and I had a good little browse whilst there.

I came away with 'The Moth' which is a collection of 50 true stories that were each told at a live storytelling event in America, and then put into the book. I originally picked this up because of the oh-so gorgeous cover and then the concept of it intrigued me so much I couldn't not buy it.

I decided that I would find 9 other books to recommend to you from each bookshop I visited on the crawl. The books range from ones I've read and loved, ones on my forever growing To Read list, or books I saw on my journey that I thought looked good. So here are my 9 recommendations from The Oldfield Park Bookshop...

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (i love this book!)
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgernstern (this is my all time favourite book, oh my god, go read it)
3. A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (in shop spot)
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (to read)
5. Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (on my to read list)
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger (to read)
7. Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket (to read)
8. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (to read)
9. The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin (to read)

MOCKTAILS AND BURRITO BREAK

Every bookshop crawl needs a mocktail and a burrito break!

BOOKSHOP 2 - TOPPING AND COMPANY

Toppings was the first bookshop I ever went to in Bath and it's still one of my favourites to this day. I love it in there, I could spend hours just browsing the shelves. Whilst there, I bought 'How To Be Bad' by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski. Because Toppings is so fab, they have loads of signed books on offer, and when I saw this book was signed I had to pick up a copy. (Unfortunately I missed E. Lockhart actually being in store by a day! If only I'd have done my bookshop crawl a day earlier!) 'How To Be Bad' is about three girls, Jesse, Vicks and Mel, who are desperate to get out of town and discover their true badass selves. And that calls for a road trip!

And here are my 9 other book recommendations from Topping and Company...

1. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly (love this book!)
2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik (in shop spot)
3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (I adoooore this book)
4. The Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (to read)
5. I'll give you a sun by Jandy Nelson (to read)
6. The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard (in shop spot whilst looking for Pretty Little Liars)
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (to read)
8. It by Alexa Chung (to read)
9. The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Roald Dahl (in shop spot)

BOOKSHOP 3 - MR B'S EMPORIUM OF READING DELIGHTS

This is my all-time favourite bookshop in Bath and just in general. I absolutely adore it. It has an amazing selection of books, friendly staff who will always chat about books, plus tea and cake on offer. I had a long browse in here before coming out with 'Vivian Versus The Apocalypse' by Katie Coyle. I've heard lots of good stuff about this book and for some reason never got round to buying it, so I decided now was the time. It's about Vivian Apple (amazing name) who wakes up one day to find a 'New World', or more simply an apocalypse. Her parents are gone and all that's left is her memories of what life used to be like and her friend Harp (again amazing name). And so they embark on a road trip across America in search of any family they might have left. (There seems to be a road trip theme going on with my haul... that wasn't intentional, haha.)

And here are 9 more book recommendations from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights...

1. Leon Cookbook (to read)
2. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (read and loved)
3. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (obviously love)
4. The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (in shop spot)
5. Gingerbread by Robert Dinsdale (to read)
6. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (to read)
7. Jamarach's Menagarie by Carol Birch (to read)
8. The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw (in shop spot)
9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saffron Foer (to read)

BOOKSHOP 4 - GOOD BUY BOOKS

Good Buy Books is a discount bookshop, offering books for half price. However, I didn't actually end up buying anything from here as their fiction section wasn't very big and nothing was really jumping out at me. But it's still a bookshop so that's what counts, right?!

POST CRAWL COFFEE

And then that was it for my bookshop crawl! We had a quick coffee at the Forum Coffee shop (which is one of my new favourites) and then it was time to head home. I had so much fun on my bookshop crawl, I'm in bookshops all the time anyway, but this just added a little something extra to my shopping! If you want to see more Indie Book Week or Bookshop Crawl stuff then make sure to check out the hashtag #bookshopcrawl or #IBW2015 or go to the Indie Bound website here: http://independentbooksellersweek.org.uk/Find-Your-Indie/Bookshop-Crawl#. I also have a vlog from my day, click below to watch it.

Thanks for reading! And make sure to follow me on here for weekly posts.

Hope you're having a bookish day!

Love Chloe x

Regular Scheduling Will Return Next Week

HELLO
As you may have noticed I didn't do a blog post this week, and this should be the part where I have a really good excuse for that, but I don't. My excuse is that it's been sunny this week so I've been sat in my garden reading and when I was inside I was binge watching My Mad Fat Diary (thanks to my lovely friend Holly who got me addicted to it in the first place, so if you're angry about the lack of post this week, complain to her okay). Also I was supposed to be seeing Foo Fighters play Wembley on Friday but my show got cancelled because Dave broke his leg. So I had to deal with foo fighters withdrawal symptoms this week too.

See all good (okay bad) excuses.

Regular posting will resume next week. Soz.

Love Chloe x

Testing, Testing // New In Products

TESTING, TESTING, 1, 2, 3

I've bought a few new things recently and I thought I'd give you the low-down on those products. So here we go...

BIODERMA SENSIBIO H20

The Bioderma micelle water is something I have wanted to try for so long as I hear about it on youtube all the time. However I found it really hard to buy in the UK for a reasonable price, which is why I didn't hesitate when I saw that a local health store had some in stock! I got two bottles for £10.20 which makes one bottle come to £5.10 which is a price I was very happy to pay.

I've been really enjoying using Bioderma and it's a quick but effective way of removing makeup, which is great for nights when I can't be bothered to do a long makeup removing routine. It's very gentle and can even be used on your eyes. However, as much as I like this product it's very similar to my usual Nspa Micellar Water and I can barely find a difference between the two products, except that I can get my Nspa one easier and it's cruelty free whereas Bioderma is not. So whilst I do really like Bioderma I think I'll be switching back to my Nspa Micellar water once I've used it all up. 

URBAN DECAY EYE PRIMER POTION

After getting some samples of the Urban Decay primer potions with my Naked 3 palette I was hooked. I have a real struggle with keeping my eye shadow crease-free and when I had used other eye primers the shadow still wouldn't last all day (struggles of having oily eyelids yo). AND THEN I DISCOVERED THIS. The Urban Decay primer potions keep my eye shadow looking amazing literally all day and I love it. Once I'd finished all my samples (the samples were of Original, Sin, Eden and Anti-aging by the way) I headed straight to the Urban Decay counter in House of Fraser and picked up a full size version of the Original primer potion. So in love. 

YES TO CARROTS NIGHT CREAM 

My Nspa Night Repair cream is my holy grail product that I can't live without, however when I ran out I decided to try a different one, because hey, maybe there were better options on the market. And that may well be true, but this Yes To Carrots night cream was not the product that showed me that. My first disappointment came when I excitedly opened up the box to see the words 'fragrance free' written on it, WHY WOULD YOU MAKE IT FRAGRANCE FREE WHEN IT COULD SMELL LIKE LOVELY GARDEN FRESH CARROTS? It just doesn't make sense to me! (Calm Chloe....) But I pushed that aside and went ahead and slathered the cream onto my face. It wasn't as thick and rich as my nspa one, which I didn't mind too much, however a few minutes after applying it my skin started to sting a little bit, which really isn't what you want out of a night cream! The stinging only lasted a few minutes but it really wasn't an enjoyable experience. I've been using this product for a week now and the stinging doesn't happen every time but it's occurred at least 3 times. Plus, it hasn't really had any effect on my skin. When I use my Nspa night cream I notice a difference in the appearance of my skin after just one use, whereas this doesn't seem to doing much at all. Overall, I'm disappointed with this product and I definitely won't be repurchasing it. 

HEMA DAY CREAM

I've never used a day cream before, but I decided it was time to start dabbling in the world of day creams. So when I was out shopping I picked up a HEMA day cream. HEMA is a Dutch shop which sells a huge range of things from homeware to food to beauty items. I've used some of there beauty range before and so I know they're pretty great, which is why I picked up their day cream to try out. The one I chose is particularly good for oily or combination skin as it has ingredients in it that help to stop the skin from producing excessive oils. It's a very gentle day cream, but has a lovely rich, thick texture to it. And HEMA is incredibly affordable, with this day cream coming in at just £3! Plus, bonus points because it's cruelty-free! HEMA literally ticks all the boxes when it comes to beauty products.

SOAP AND GLORY ARCHERY D.I.Y BROW BAR

Because I'm really good at packing when I come home from university I managed to leave my Naked 2 palette in my university bathroom...  which is not good for my eyebrows! For about 2 years now I have been using the shade 'Tease' from that palette to fill in my eyebrows, and so when I didn't have Tease to hand, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to test out some of the eyebrow products from Soap and Glory as I'd heard so much about them. This D.I.Y Brow Bar has four products within it - a Clearfix wax, a light brown powder called 'Love is Blonde', a dark brown powder called ' Hot Chocolate' and an Arch Highlighter (plus two brushes for application). I found it a little hard to match my eyebrows at first as I was mixing the two powders, but once I got into a routine of mixing one dip of Love is Blonde and one dip of Hot Chocolate until my brows were done, I managed to get on top of that problem. I actually prefer using this to using Tease as I find it creates a more precise and defined brow, and I can get my brows to look a bit darker and more dramatic (is dramatic the word?) than I could when using Tease. My only issue with this palette is the highlighter as I find it has that weird texture and finish to it sort of makeup you might use when you're a child and you're playing dress up. But that might just be my own personal taste toward highlighters, so don't let it put you off!

TESTING COMPLETE
And that's it for my new products at the moment. Other than the Yes To Carrots night cream I would recommend all of these products, plus they're all quite affordable (even the primer potion, considering it's from Urban Decay - a high end brand!), so if you like the sound of them definitely go pick it up!

Thanks for reading, remember to follow my blog for new posts at least once a week.

Hope you're having a rad day and I'll see you agin soon.

Love Chloe x


HAVE SOME LINKS
> BIODERMA: http://www.feelunique.com/p/BIODERMA-Sensibio-H2O-Make-up-Removing-Micelle-Solution-250ml
> PRIMER POTION: http://www.urbandecay.co.uk/eyes/eye-shadow-primer/eyeshadow-primer-potion
> NIGHT CREAM: http://yesto.co.uk/product/yes-to-carrots-fragrancefree-intense-hydration-night-cream?product_id=1317102
> DAY CREAM: http://www.hemashop.com/gb/shop?fh_location=%2F%2Fgbhema%2Fen_GB%2Fpgb_product_type%3E%7Bshop%7D%2F%24s%3DDAY&fh_secondid=pgb_17800011
> D.I.Y BROW BAR: http://www.soapandglory.com/archery-d-i-y-brow-bartm