Hijab & Jewels | SLHijabs and Kira Official Handmade Purse

Hello! I today I’m going to add to my ‘hijab and jewels’ section of the blog, with reviews from two wonderful companies that are worth checking out ^_^

 

Starting off with South London Hijabs, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do a full on review for hijab companies on my blog. However I reminded myself that ultimately its my blog, if I want a little section for headscarves and jewels and gems from small hardworking companies, then I shall have that! So to kick it all off I present to you

South London Hijabs

They sell hijabs (obvs)  and the range is really impressive ^_^

Standard plain colours, two colour ombre, three colour ombre and the patterned ones too (including mosaic and floral). You can also purchase the Dina Torkia range of super high quality hijabs and the fur cape too.

I was kindly sent two of the ombre ones, pictured on the left which I am so grateful for, thankyou so much Mariyah! My absolute favourite is the grey and pink ombre one because it is so versatile. On one end it is dark grey which fades into a lighter grey and then becomes a pretty pink shade. I usually wear it with the majority of the grey showing and a little of the pink peaking through, but sometimes I just wrap it around quick style and have the pink on the side.

 

 

I’ve owned both hijabs for a good few months now and I’ve worn the grey and pink probably twice a week which is pretty excessive, but when I love a scarf I just cannot get enough, and this was no exception. Considering the price, I would expect this to have frayed or warn a little, considering how often I wear it, but much to my surprise its holding up really well! I also love the material, its 100% viscose, and great for all types of weather. I’m normally always hot, which is weird considering I’m from England but apparently it’s runs in the family..ANYWAYS point it, this scarf doesn’t ever make me feel hot and bothered and when I take the time and actually use pins, it also stays in place all day.

Affordable yet good quality, a variety of colours and styles to choose from and most importantly a range which is so wearable. Even if you don’t wear a headscarf and you’ve been looking for a lightweight scarf to add a pop of colour to your wardrobe I’d highly recommend checking out this company - oh and you can purchase/view the store:

slhijabs.tictail.com

The second company I want to share with you all is quite a new one, based on instagram and the uniqueness of these gorgeous purses* really drew me to them! There is something so special about handmade items and also items that are not available to purchase from your typical topshop or newlook store. A sort of exclusivity and specialness about them y’know?

It is about the size of my hand, and closes with a sturdy button. The colour was so hard to capture on camera, and there is a much more accurate colour on their instagram found here as well as pictures of the other 4 colours available! I adore this teal colour and the tan one, they’re both so stunning! The embossing on the purse gives it an ethnic touch and I love how you can see the hand done stitching, again that whole unique one-off piece look.

Inside the purse, its lined with two different patterned fabrics, another touch I LOVE. There is a zip compartment which is ideal for things you don’t want slipping out, such as money and lipsticks. Personally this is going to be my new ‘emergency’ purse, I did have a heart shaped one from ASOS but unfortunately it was too small to fit in half the things I feel that I need in case of an emergency. In the zipless compartment I’m going to keep paracetemol, my pocket mirror and a small bottle of handcream. Inside the zipped one will be lip balm, travalo, an emergency fiver, a concealer, lipliner and a mini sized ‘they’re real’ mascara because those are my freshening up makeup essentials. This purse fits ALL of that in with room to spare!

The envelope design of the purse means it can slot easily inside all shaped bags. For someone who swaps bags between uni, work, social and likes to go between two or three, one of these emergency purses are necessary to keep everything I could possibly need (plus extra) altogether and move it between one to another without wasting time and space.

This purse is multi-functional and would make a gorgeous gift for pretty much anyone! I know my sister would love and make use of it just as much as my bestfriend, plus with an affordable pricetag of £10, it’s a total bargain ^_^ As they are all handmade I would recommend you having a look as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Check out the full range and how to order by clicking here!

Which colour purse is your favourite?

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Hijab & Jewels | SLHijabs and Kira Official Handmade Purse

Hello! I today I’m going to add to my ‘hijab and jewels’ section of the blog, with reviews from two wonderful companies that are worth checking out ^_^

Part 2 - Smoky Not Smudgy - KDivision, Natura, Jawhara Jewellery and more ^_^

Part two and the final post on Smoky not Smudgy 2014! Read part 1 here

K Devision | Website

This was without a doubt the most creative and interesting stall my sister and I came across! It is run by the sweetest girl ever, she was so friendly and answered all our queries with patience. I was SO intrigued by how everything was made! It is essentially a laser cut company which produces personalised items such as chopping boards, wooden spoons, weddings invites (such a cool idea!) and the most unique and clever notebooks I have ever seen! I couldn’t decide if I loved the notebooks or the OOTD hangers more - which is something all you #fbloggers NEED because who doesn’t want a personalised OOTD hanger?? What I especially love is that the prices are so reasonable, I’m used to seeing personalised items come at high costs but not at K Devision!

Nelly and Khadz | Website

This quirky little stall caught our attention first because of how beautiful the pins glistened and the because it was filled with all sorts of quirky nick-nacks. We got chatting to the two owners - Nelly and Khadz and we found out that their business was actually very new. They sell beautiful pins, organic skincare and makeup, gift sets, leather purses, mirrors and clothing. Of course after spotting the ‘lets make up’ mirrors I had to purchase one! I’m really impressed without their website, it’s clear professional and best of all there is an offer on at the moment where you can get £10 off when you spend £20! Bargain ^_^

Jawhara Jewellery | Instagram

Another stunning jewellery store, just look at the detail! I really thought these pieces were breath-taking, especially the necklace in the above photo! It was a pleasure meeting the lovely owner, and we stood admiring the stunning pieces for a long time. If you check out the IG page you can see how pretty they look on people and I also loved the display here. All the pieces would make such beautiful unique gifts as they’re hand made - loved them!

 

Vintage Hijab Collection | Website

By far the COOLEST display of hijabs in the whole building! Couldn’t stop marvelling at the creativity of the display and the quality of the hijabs are wonderful too.

The Natural Stuff | Facebook

I really like the name of this brand, its pretty neat. In fact if I was to start a company selling soaps, body butters and gift sets it would be something along these lines! And how pretty is the soap? All hand made and all natural. Seeing the number of women who have set about making their own range of skincare and body-care is really inspiring, and from ‘The Natural Stuff’ I loved their gift set range the most. They have put together great sets, displayed beautifully and again priced well.

Shasmin Accessories | Facebook

One of the most sparkly and glamorous stalls there - how beautiful is this head piece? Shasmin has accessories nailed, didn’t get much time to speak to them as it was always busy around that stall but they have some great quality pieces. If you’re got an asian wedding approaching and are stuck, I point you here!

Natura Cosmetics | Facebook

And finally we have the awesome brand that is Natura Cosmetics! Another natural kinda brand run by a student! which is pretty amazing. I mean I find it tricky running a little blog along side doing a degree too haha. I adored this stand, LOOK AT THAT MOSTACHE SIGN! It’s really nice to see natural brands catering for their male customers too and as 2014 has certainly been the year of the beard - I imagine this is quite popular ^_^ The packaging and range looks professional and I’ve seen lots of excellent reviews of this brand! I purchased the lip scrub and I’m really enjoying it.

And finally since this is a beauty blog I thought I’d show you a few snaps of the makeup room they had there! This is from the beautiful Annam’s collection as she was the makeup artist there and it was such a HUGE pleasure to finally meet her!! Check out her youtube channel here she’s well worth subbing too ^_^

Another highlight for sure was the scrummy chocolate foundation, the lady running the whole thing was so lovely and eating warm waffles drizzled in chocolate and topped with cream GAH too good!! The lovely lady was also selling this beautiful little rings and I picked up two, as they were only £2 each. I wasn’t expecting much, knowing that cheap jewellery tends to go green after a while but amazingly this ring has changed colour at all and it looks ever so pretty on my less than feminine fingers!

Overall it was a fantastic event. The organisers did a great job and there was plenty to see and lots of lovely bloggers and vloggers to meet! If I could change one thing about it, I would request that the fashion shows be later in the day rather than one hour into the event. Sadly we missed both because of a train delay in the morning and the last one was a little late for us as we were traveling for over an hour after the event and didn’t want to hang around too long. Aside from that the day was a success and they amazingly raised a total of £12,860.49! Amaaaazing ^_^

I hope you enjoyed reading these posts! I’m not used to event blogging, and probably put too many photos in but I had to give credit where it’s due! I think all these businesses are amazing, seeing all the lovely ladies was so inspiring and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Part 2 - Smoky Not Smudgy - KDivision, Natura, Jawhara Jewellery and more ^_^

Part two and the final post on Smoky not Smudgy 2014! Read part 1 here

Hijab | Lulu Bag Review!

Hello everyone! I want to introduce a new section into my blog titled ‘hijabs and jewels’. It’ll probably only be once a month at the most, but as you probably know I wear a hijab and there are so many companies out there offering lots of hijabs (and jewels) that I thought it would be beneficial to review some of them here on my blog! The first review is on an awesome concept and very similar to beauty boxes but with hijabs instead! It’s called a ‘Lulu bag.’

What is Lulu Bag?

Lulu bag is a subscription where you can get a scarf with lovely accessories that compliment it. (Jewellery, hijab pins, hijab cap are all some examples although it varies from customer to customer) and its all wrapped neatly in purple paper and slotted into a lulu bag!  Now I apologise for the state of the purple crepe paper, it was NOT like that when I opened it, but as you can probably tell I can’t wrap things well at all ._. ANYWAYS back to the review. So the best element of the lulu bag in my opinion is that everything in the bag is a surprise, and it’s a wonderful way of adding to your hijab and accessories collection without going for the same old that you normally pick!  There is also a brand new option called the ‘Scarf Bag’ which has TWO scarves rather than one and an accessory. This is probably more suited to a hijab wearer, however the first option is brilliant for those who wear the hijab and for those who like to accessorise outfits with scarves!

One of my favourite things about this subscription bag is you do have some level of control for what kind of bag you’ll get, without ruining that element of surprise. There are three categories to choose from are Classy - which are more plain and ‘elegant’ scarves, with classic jewellery pieces. Funky has more printed scarves and is a little more ‘fun’ and the third is a blend of the two. You can also leave the lovely people of Lulu bag a message stating anything you don’t want (e.g necklaces if you know you wouldn’t wear them) and also what you might like to receive.

My First Lu’ Lu’ bag

So unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of each bag because as you can tell by my lack of birchbox posts, subscriptions clearly make me a little bit too excited and one moment they’re all beautifully wrapped up and the next I’ve used everything, separated it and probably missed me chance, tsk! Anyways my first lulu bag included this lovely welcoming note, which introduced me to the concept and I think it’s such a lovely touch - indeed surprises are fun!

n my first bag I received this lovely blue, green and white stripped scarf which is the perfect for the summer time in my opinion. It came with a lovely matching underscarf piece, the blue colour matches perfectly and is also so useful for many of my other hijabs!

My jewellery pieces from this bag were this silver and white necklace. I love how the length of the necklace is long enough to wear with a hijab, and it even has a matching fancy hijab pin! For someone who doesn’t always make a huge effort with my hijab (I normally leave it to last) these accessories have prompted me to make more of an effort and I really appreciated all these things put together for me.

And finally my favourite part of my first Lu’ Lu’ bag was without a doubt this beautiful pin cushion! Most hijab wearers tend to use pins to secure their scarves, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am ALWAYS losing mine! Or sometimes I’ll dash out of the house and need to secure my scarf in the car on the way to work, so having a little pin cushion for my handbag is perfect. I have one for home, and through my three month subscription I will now have one just for my car ^_^

Options When Purchasing

You can purchase one bag alone for £17, a three month subscription for £15 each or a 12 month subscription for £15 each, receiving the final bag for free! International delivery is also available and all details can be found here. 

My final Lu Lu Bag (for now)

I’d just like to share my last lulu bag to give you another flavour for what you could get, and my final thoughts ^_^

This is by far one of the most beautiful hijabs I have ever seen in my life and honestly these photos just do not do it justice! It is a dark blue and emerald green ombre scarf which is super soft. This is such a versatile scarf in my opinion, it can be the centrepiece of the outfit, by wearing plain prints and colours, or it can match a skirt/jacket etc; I am in love!

And these are my beautiful accessories from the bag! I have my first ever pin book, which is so space efficient and can literally be slipped into the pocket of any handbag or even pocket! This green bonnet hijab cap which again is lovely as I have so many neutral colours, it’s great to add some coloured ones to my collection. The bangles are amazing! Two are metal and two are cloth like. Personally I love having jewellery in my collection that ISN’T from the high street and has more of a uniqueness about it ^_^

Overall...

I think Lu’Lu’ bag is such a wonderful concept! The people I believe will benefit most from the subscriptions are ladies new to the hijab who would really appreciate getting a beautiful bundle of essentials AND treats! Also ladies who aren’t able to purchase a variety of hijab related items as well as those who aren’t sure how to match things up (like me!). It is such a special monthly treat and two of my favourite hijabs as of late have been from this (one being a black to grey ombre scarf with paisley pattern) which is super soft and made of viscose. GAH Until you hold a viscose scarf in your hands you won’t understand just HOW wonderful they are! Although it could seem a little pricy for a student budget, the amount of things you get, as well as the high quality mean its actually such great value for money. They also make WONDERFUL gifts for any sister, mother or friend too. I would recommend every hijab wearer and also every woman who enjoys accessorising with scarves to give this service a go - if I didn't have over 25 hijabs in my collection already I would be signed up still ^_^

Thank-you for reading ♥

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Hijab | Lulu Bag Review!

Hello everyone! I want to introduce a new section into my blog titled ‘hijabs and jewels’. It’ll probably only be once a month at the most, but as you probably know I wear a hijab and there are so many companies out there offering lots of hijabs (and jewels) that I thought it would be beneficial to review some of them here on my blog! The first review is on an awesome concept and very similar to beauty boxes but with hijabs instead! It’s called a ‘Lulu bag.’

Review | Dusty Diamonds

Hello lovely people!

Today I want to share a lovely online shop with you, run by a wonderful lady and it sells a variety of unique, on trend and vintage necklaces, phone cases, rings, watches and more. With the name DUSTY DIAMONDS the pieces are all really classy, stunning and finish off any outfit effortlessly. What really separated this particular online store from the others for me, was the fact that with each purchase you make, a certain percentage of that money is donated to charity (a different one each month) I was so impressed and humbled by that because charity is very important to me (and most people with a conscious usually!) and for this shop to be giving away part of their profit, and allowing me to feel satisfied that I’ve contributed to a good cause WHILE treating myself, it just made the whole shopping experience a lot more satisfying!

First off lets start with the packaging. Now I don’t know about you but I think when a company has put that extra little bit of effort into how they’ve presented their goods, I feel happier with my purchase and overall experience with them and more inclined to shop with them again next time! I mean your lovely new item shoved in a brown paper envelope with a printed message asking for good feedback is hardly very inspiring is it?? (im looking at CHU certain e-bay sellers!) Dusty Diamonds package all their products in adorable stripy paper bags and the cute little touches really made my day when opening them

My first order was some lovely plain and simple, yet extremely affordable gold midi rings. They came in that stripy bag, in their own little red envelope with my name written across, and in that envelope were the cutest little heart shaped confetti! Now if that isn’t the cutest thing ever I don’t know what is! Adored the personal touches, it added so much more value and genuine satisfaction ^.^

A set of five midi rings cost £3 which I thought was extremely reasonable as many places are selling similar rings for a lot more money! I was a simple gold band, not twisted or textured or with charms dangling off, I just wanted a set of midi rings that could be paired with some of my simple gold rings from ASOS and these do the job perfectly! Here are some photos of what they look like on my far from delicate hands:

I popped a thin coat of clear nail polish over the rings as all artificial jewellery tends to lose colour eventually and am thoroughly satisfied with the quality and how they look too!

A few weeks later, there was a sale on dusty diamonds and I had had my eyes on this lovely Chanel case for a while. It is by far the most expensive phone case I have, but I don't regret this little treat in the slightest, it's basically a cute little Chanel purse case which fits the phone and two cards perfectly

It is magnetic, keeping the case shut and the phone protected at all times. I just adore the quilted ‘oh-so-Chanel’ look it has, and though of course it isn’t real Chanel it looks very classy to me! Also I’ve never seen this case anywhere else before, you find so many of the same type copied over and over, but none like these, and with a 10% discount code I had to snatch it up! (Watch out for the amazing sales on the Instagram page @dustydiamonds)

AND LOOK HOW PERFECT THAT GOLD CHAIN HANDLE IS ASNWAKFJEDK I LOVE IT

The phone fits snuggle inside, and it’s easy to use headphones and charge it with the case on. It is made of high quality, and though it is pretty lavish, I couldn’t be happier with it! I have saved this for special occasions as I don’t want to ruin in with my day-to-day rushing about! But thanks Dusty Diamonds ^_^

Overall I just cannot express how impressed I am with this online store: www.dustydiamonds.co.uk, the quality of the products and the level of detail and amount of care with the packaging and making everything look absolutely delightful to receive has made my day and I will continue to buy from this site time and time again. 

Furthermore their ‘slogan’ if you like is: The Goal: To provide you with ornate contemporary jewellery and provide relief for countries in crisis which says a lot about them as a company, and I honestly feel so satisfied that someone out there in the world has gained some happiness, or at least relief at the same time as I have, through Dusty Diamonds. They ship to the UK and US but if you want to purchase something and are from elsewhere, you can easily e-mail them asking for an invoice of the shipping costs :)

Make sure you check out their Instagram page @dustydiamonds and/or check out the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/dustydiamondsjewellery and let me know what you think of their beautiful, unique pieces! (Whilst you’re on instagram be sure to follow me too @theblushinggiraffe ^_^)

P.S This was in no way sponsored, nor am I affiliated with Dusty Diamonds, I just wanted to share with you guys her brilliant site and hopefully it’ll be useful for when you want to treat yourself/choose a beautiful gift ^_^