Why I started Blogging

So I gathered that lots and lots of people join the blogging world everyday and I wanted to share with you the reasons that I started a blog. For a couple of years now, I have been following multiple blogs and still enjoy reading them daily, infact I loved reading them so much that I wanted to start my own. The only problem was that I didn't know what to write about, and then it occured to me that surely I should write about anything I have a passion for. Shouldn't blogging be a place where you can share opinions and views on things on any topic that takes your interest? I think so. I feel like blogging is an escape from the normal world and a way to connect to people who enjoy writing and doing the same things as you, if anything, it's a great way to make a wide variety of friends with different interests. It's also a platform where we can express our interests that contrast from school work and gcse's and it's often a great escape to sit at a computer and just write about the things you love. 

I genuinely think of blogging as a big community where everyone is supportive of each other's ideas and opinions and a place where other bloggers have the chance to offer their own advice, opinions and stories. Recently, I have read a few posts about bloggers who want to quit blogging because of the way it has changed from what it used to be and I want to let you know that that is something I really don't want to happen. I may only have had my blog for two months, but I have already love it, I've fallen in love with the community where everyone is supportive of each other. It's so surreal to me to think how we can make friends with people so similar to us through writing about things we love.  I think it would be nice to think of this blog as a sort of diary for myself where I can look back in weeks, months and who knows, maybe even years and be proud of the person I've become, and look at the changes I made on that journey, whilst remembering the wonderful memories made along the way. 

I do want to make it very clear though before carrying on with my blog, that by any means, I am not doing this to see how many followers I can get, or see how popular I can get, I am simply doing this because it is what I love doing, writing and sharing my opinions about the things I love. So long as the people who read my posts, get something from them or at least enjoy them, then that's all that matters to me. Blogging definitely shouldn't become a competition between bloggers and who can get the most followers because all I want to do is to be able to express my opinions to a community where I am not judged for showing you who I am, what I like and what I do. I really would like this to become a friendly, positive, supportive platform of people who are honestly proud of what their blogging friends have achieved. I just love blogging, it's that simple. 

My main aim is to be able to make people happier and interested in reading my blog, I hope do this by posting on Sundays weekly, I also hope to blog with the idea to inspire other bloggers and give them advice and ideas on blog posts. Although I haven't had my blog for long, I feel like I have learnt a few essential tips along my journey so far, and what a better way to share them with you than on this post. 

My five tips for starting a blog: 

1) Have a reason to start it, it can be simple, maybe you have been inspired, or maybe you have a strong passion for the things you want to blog about. Once you have that reason, write about it and share your opinions with your readers. 

2) Post regularly, this can be weekly, fortnightly or daily, but make it manageable so you don't feel like you are letting your readers down. I suggest weekly as most blog posts take a long time to write as there is a lot of thought that goes into each and every one of them. 

3) Always keep in contact with the viewers who show you love. If someone takes the time to comment, leave them a comment back, this is a great way to create a happy, loving community. 

4) Make each blog post interesting and have a similar amount of passion into each one. If you can't think of anything to write about, then don't write, always write with interest. 

5) Try and leave advice, tips and comments on other people's blogs that you find interesting. It helps them to improve and gives them a self-esteem boost to know that you like what they are writing. 

I hope you liked this late introduction on why I started blogging and I hope to continue doing what I love. I really have become so interested in writing weekly, it isn't a chore and I have found a hobby that I've instantly fell in love with. Until next week, goodbye!

Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

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Where do I want to travel?

I have already decided that I need to take a gap year, I want to travel so much that I just have to! The places I want to go to sound so amazing and so full of life and the different cultures interest me so much. I thought that I would share my top five places that I definitely want to travel to when I’ve finished university.

1.  New York

Since I was a little girl, I have always aspired to go to New York, especially at christmas. It is full of places to visit and attractions to see, I would love to go with a friend for a week and go shopping and sight-seeing. Places I would love to see would have to include the famous Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. If I went at christmas then I think I would definitely be paying a trip to the Rockefeller Centre and go ice skating! I am a massive fan of art, culture and architecture and the museums in NYC are world-class! I would happily spend a day in the Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Museum of Art and just take photos and draw. Adding to New York's amazing attractions, its parks are beautiful and know for being green, the perfect place to go for a picnic in the summer or go for an early morning run, play games and catch up with friends. In my gap year, I would love to live in New York for a bit and see what it’s all about!

2.  Australia

My closest auntie, uncle and cousins live in Brisbane, Australia and this is one of the main reasons I would like to go to Australia, I really miss them and they only come back to the UK to visit once or twice a year so it would be lovely to visit them instead. Another reason I think Australia would suit me is the sun!! I absolutely love hot weather and the sun and no matter where you go in Australia, it is pretty much always warm and I am also a great lover of the beach which they have plenty of on the coast. Australia is a very active place to live, another reason it’s the perfect place to travel too, it would be great to surf, sail, ride, run, fish and swim all day long. However, I definitely wouldn’t like the insects they get there as I am absolutely terrified of spiders, but the other animals that live in Australia such as koalas, kangaroos and wombats are things that I would die to see! Finally, the sights and views of the insanely beautiful land in Australia are a must to see before I get old! 

3.  India

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a huge passion for different types of culture and I think travelling to India would be a great place to learn about different ones. I love how there is so much variety in India, there are amazing sights, the Himalayas, beaches, tribes and deserts which almost makes it sound like a perfect place to go travelling around! Living in Britain, you almost adapt to taking everything around us for granted, whereas I think India is the place that everyone advises you to visit at least once in your life. The reason being that it broadens your perspective on life so much and puts you completely out of your comfort zone. I’d love to travel to India as I think I would come home realising how fortunate we are in the way we live. India is known for spirituality, it can be very inspiring and refreshing for the soul and I’d love to spend a day learning yoga and how to meditate. 

4.  Paris

I live in the UK, so most people would assume I had been to Paris, but guess what, I haven’t! But it’s somewhere that I really want to visit and it has reasonably good weather most of the time! My grandparents live in France and say that the sights are gorgeous, especially at night, I used to study French but didn’t really enjoy the language so I don’t think I will be speaking any of it! It has been my dream for ages to visit the Eiffel Tower as it is just so magnificent and one of the world’s most iconic constructions, another place I would love to visit would have to be to the Louvre Museum as I love art and the building itself is incredible, not to mention that it holds the Mona Lisa, which I would love to see. I am also a huge fan of culture, and Paris definitely has lots of it with so much art and history, especially at the Notre Dame and the museums. I almost forgot to mention Disneyland! I have never been to Disneyland or Disneyworld and I really want to before I grow up, it’s one of those places that every kid wanted to go and still wants to go, full of magic and excitement.

5.  Brazil

Brazil is known for its amazing landscapes and ecosystems, and that’s one of the main reasons I want to travel here. I love Brazil’s choice to preserve as many endangered places as possible, after all, this is the only reason that travellers can actually visit Brazil. The Amazon River and Rainforest looks absolutely mind-blowing, and to see that in person would be a dream come true, it’s one of the reasons that Brazil looks so special and alive with wildlife and nature. Brazil holds lots of culture, including celebrations and events such as the famous Carnival which looks like so much fun to be involved with.

So those are my top five places that I want to travel, let me know where you want to go travelling and where you have already been in the comments and please help me by sharing, commenting and following my blog. I will try my hardest to upload a new blog post every Sunday. Bye for now!

Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/alex-lauren-13970129

My Skin Care Routine

As with most teenager’s skin, mine is unfortunately very un predictable and sometimes it will be really nice and other times it will be my worst nightmare. However, I do religiously follow a simple skin care routine morning and night which does help in the process of clearing my skin. There are 6 products I use that I would like to share with you and hopefully help anyone suffering from bad skin at the moment, and the best bit about it is that it only takes 5 minutes! Bad skin can make us very self-conscious and worried about what other people will think, so hopefully by following a simple skin care routine, everyone can start to feel more confident with their skin and look happier.

I first take off all my makeup from throughout the day with the Clarins water purify one-step cleanser. When looking for a good (affordable) makeup remover, I wanted something that wouldn’t clog my pores, wasn’t too oily and took off my makeup quickly. I don’t like to use makeup wipes much as I tend to find that they are quite harsh on my skin and leave it feeling sore and red. So I found this cleanser, and I love it as I find that the remover leaves my skin feeling really soft, probably down to its addition of mint essential water. It’s really important to remove makeup before going to bed as if left on as little as twice a week, it can make our skin red and cracked with very clogged up pores that can lead to very serious damage over time.

Next I wash my face with a simple boots own tea tree wash which is great for most skin types as it contains antibacterial tea tree oil and witch hazel. I find that it doesn’t dry my skin out, leaves my face feeling fresh and clean, and unblocks pores. Although, sometimes it can leave a shine to my face which can be easily fixed with a shine control moisturiser later on in my routine. It is just as important to wash your face as it is to brush your teeth everyday, as it removes the gradual build up of dirt and oil from throughout the day and gently removes dead skin cells, which boosts hydration in my skin leaving it looking fresh and revived.

About twice a week I add in an exfoliator to my routine after cleansing my face and I use the Clarins one-step gentle exfoliating cleanser. Exfoliation is really important as it helps to achieve healthy and glowing skin, as well as removing dead skin cells. The more you remove dry dead skin cells from the surface of the skin, the less oil that will stay trapped in clogged-up pores on the face. So if you suffer from oily skin like me, then you could be missing one of the most important steps in a skin care routine. The Clarins exfoliator, although excellent, can sometimes be a little harsh on my face, so I often find myself switching to the boots tea tree facial scrub, with active charcoal which may seem like a strange conception, but works like magic!

After cleansing and exfoliating, I use the Clinique all about eyes cream which works so well, it gets rid of the bags under my eyes, brightens them up and makes my skin generally look healthier! Finally, I use the Aveeno moisturiser which is actually for dry and sensitive skin but works perfectly for my oily skin! There are many different moisturisers out there for certain skin types and I am yet to find a better one than this but if you have any tips on moisturisers let me know!

And that’s it, it’s as easy as that to keep skin healthy and unblocked! With this simple routine I think it makes my whole attitude to the day lighten up as I feel fresh and ready to face whatever the day brings me. If anyone has any skin care routines that they use please leave suggestions in the comments. Thank you for reading and sticking with me, that’s it for now!

Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/alex-lauren-13970129

Lou Lou Jane's Cafe

Last week for a friend's birthday we went to a little cafe situated in Lingfield called "Lou Lou Jane's" and I have to say it was the nicest, cosiest cafe ever! The food was to die for, endless cereals, fruit, delicious teas, coffees and hot chocolates and then we had pancakes with hot syrup and berries. I would strongly recommend this cafe to any one, it's also nice for a morning catch up over pancakes and coffee! Places like this, although near to where I live, make me want to travel the world even more and find other interesting cafes and buildings. In a couple of weeks I will be travelling to Italy for 5 weeks and sightseeing, which should be great, I will definitely do a blog post on that as soon as I get back from what should be an amazing trip!

Last year, I bought a new DSLR camera, the Nikon D3200 and so far it has been great and therefore I love finding new things to take photos of, hence why this was a great opportunity. Here are a few of the photos I took whilst I was there, you will probably crave all the lovely things after reading this post! Next Wednesday I am going on a trip to Hastings where I will visit art museums, the old town and the pier, I will make sure to take many photos and upload them on a blog post to share with you. At some point once I have used my camera more, I would like to create a post to talk about my camera and how I first used it, what tips I used and if I have any of my own that would be useful to share with you all. I'm not sure how many people reading this post are interested in photography, but if you are let me know in the comments what sort of things you would like me to post about and if you want to see any of the previous photos I have taken.

Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/alex-lauren-13970129

Skiing in Andorra

So in the February half term, I visited Andorra which is a small country between the borders of Spain and France, for eight days on a holiday with the school and my friends. We travelled by coach which took a massive 25 hours but it wasn't that bad as we had fun and slept for a lot of it, but the ferry over was very windy and I didn't enjoy that part of it! The hotel we were staying in was great and we had lovely rooms that we shared in groups of four or six, there was a lounge area downstairs where we could all meet to chat and have fun. By the evening we were very excited and ready to ski the next day! 

On the Sunday we had to wake up early for breakfast as it was our first day of skiing so there was a lot to sort out, the food wasn't too bad but I missed it back home! I was in a group of skiers who were also my friends and I made friends with the others as well, we had lots of fun learning new skills and creating bonds. Our instructor was really fun and we learnt that he only had one dread, and that the rest of his hair was cut short haha! When we came back from five hours of skiing that day, my best friend had blood down her salopettes, she had a very deep cut in her leg and had to go to hospital and have three stitches! The rest of us went on the coach again as we were all going bowling that evening, it was in a town about half an hour away and it was great fun, we got into seven teams and got to know the group a little better. I won out of my group but our team lost against the other teams as we were so bad. 

Monday was a more chilled day where we got to get up a little later (only a little!) and went skiing for the day, we had lunch in the canteen up in the mountains which made it a very nice view to sit and eat lunch! Throughout the week, I sometimes would ski in just the morning and not the afternoon because of my injured knee that I explained about in my first blog post, I really wanted to ski but the teachers wouldn't let me, it was definitely the right decision though :) In the evening we were allowed to sign out and walk down in small groups to the local village where there was a supermarket and a few souvenir shops, it was a very scenic town which I loved. 

Tuesday was by far my favourite day as once we had skied, in the evening we travelled by coach for about an hour to do tubing and igloo building! It was the best experience ever and very enjoyable, we split the group in two, and we went and did tubing first. Tubing was so much fun, we were eventually allowed to go down in the rubber rings in groups of three or four which made us go much faster with our friends and spin each other around! Then we went for the other hour do learn how to build an igloo, they taught us how to cut and carve blocks of ice out of the snow and create the shape of a normal igloo, but they also taught us how to build a simple igloo where there are no blocks because of limited resources. The evening was just as fun as the day and we returned to the hotel for dinner and chill out time, overall a great day. 

Throughout the week, the weather and views were absolutely incredible, better than I ever imagined. For the first few days it was very cold (apparently -13 one day!) and the slopes were sometimes hard to see because of the amount of wind pushing the snow down it, but for the rest of the week, it was really sunny with beautiful views of the slopes and really nice snow to ski on. The slopes were magnificent and on a few of the days, our instructors skied over to Pal in Spain with us to ski in their resort for the morning, it was lovely with different types of slopes, we were also able to go off piste through forests with jumps, which made a great change. 

At the end of the week, all the ski groups had to create a song to perform to our instructor, we based ours on snoop dog as we thought that he looked like him, he found it hilarious :) We had an awards ceremony for everyone and the teachers made a little award up for everyone - no matter how silly which was really nice as it made everyone feel like they had a purpose for being there. This was definitely the best night, and it actually got quite emotional as we all didn't want to leave :( We were playing music outside our rooms, and in the space of 5 minutes, there were about 15 of us singing and dancing to music, it was hilarious, we started to gather an audience until the restaurant came out, people in the lounge area, people in the rooms above us came to watch and they found it very funny, we were having such a great time. We also made friends with some french boys who came with another school, they invited us to there disco that the school were organising later that night, we ended up going with a lot of the year group and a few teachers, it was such a great way to end an absolutely fantastic ski trip and make lasting memories. I wish I could go back! We went to bed late, skied the next day and then at 4pm we got back onto the coach to do the coach ride all over again, we managed to get an early ferry so we were back by lunchtime the next time. 

Surprisingly, I didn't actually miss home as much as I thought I would and if I could have stayed for just a little bit longer, then I definitely would have done :) It was such an incredible experience with many memorable moments that will stay with me until I grow up, and I urge anybody who is given the opportunity to go on a ski trip with a community to do it as you make so many new bonds with people you never thought that you would get along with! Down below I have shared some photos of my time in Andorra and the views that we had there, enjoy. 

 Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/alex-lauren-13970129

Welcome to my life

Where better to start than with a story of my life so far? It's a long post so make sure you are sitting comfortably with a cuppa.

My name is Alex and I am very passionate about beauty, lifestyle, fitness and photography and so I thought what better way to share my passion than to blog about it? For a while now, I have always loved reading and flicking through the Vogue and Elle fashion magazines, reading blogs and wondering whether I could do it one day - not having the confidence to actually do any of it, but look where I am today! I am no beauty goddess but I do love learning new skills, tips on makeup and general life tips, my aim is to share them with you through this blog. I've always believed that I was a realist, I agreed with things once I had seen them done and never over thought something, I don't see the point in being negative all the time because when will you ever learn to be happy that way, but at the same time I don't understand how people are so positive all the time as what happens when something goes wrong? I admire those people so much, but that's just not me, I think about realistic things, however that doesn't mean that I don't like to dream :)

Before reading my blog you need to know that I love quotes and they are a huge inspiration to me. I feel that they help me when times are hard or when I am struggling a little, a bit like a few weeks ago when something upset me that I couldn't really tell anyone about. I kept going and believed that bad things always happen in life, because if life was easy then what would be the point in living it, but I stared to realise that those things don't matter and I shouldn't let them tear me apart. I am also the type of person who will let things go and even if something upsets me so much, I won't let it out because I don't like other people to get hurt. A quote that gets me through every day might get you thinking: "Beauty begins the moment we decide to be ourselves". And why can't we all just do that? Think what a beautiful world we would live in. Although this blog will feature beauty, lifestyle, photography and fitness posts, it will also feature lots of advice on how to be yourself and be different. At the end of the day, everyone was born into the world to serve a purpose, no matter how small it is and why should we all be the same when we have something to live for? By any means, I am no where near perfect, but at least I am starting to realise that it really shouldn't matter. 

In teenager years I have always thought it was important to have your own space where you can go to escape everything, relax and think. That;s why I have been working on that space in my bedroom - trying to create an organised but cosy space and everyone fees good in different places so it really has to be right for you as an individual. So I have slowly been in the process of trying to add more personal touches to my room - and I am succeeding! It is looking really nice, and I recently added photos in the shape of a heart to my blank wall above my desk - it also becomes a nice way of getting away from revision and homework for a couple of minutes as I can look at them and remember memories from those days. I got a matching duvet and curtain set for christmas and I love them, they are cosy and are just right for my room, especially in the winter. A couple of months ago, I also created a space where I could chill and read magazines, it's a little alcove where I have blankets, pillows and candles. I put fairy lights around the outside of the cupboard and A4 designer posters on the wall.

For now, keep happy :)

Alex Lauren  ♥

Social media:

Twitter: @lexylaw99

Instagram: @alexllaw

Tumblr: http://wrong-n-wright.tumblr.com

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/alex-lauren-13970129