Posted on: Saturday 25 March 2017

Copenhagen Lookbook



Hi all! I haven't done a lookbook in a while, so whilst I was out in Copenhagen for a few days we filmed one. I hope you enjoy :).

Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :).

Posted on: Thursday 23 March 2017

WHERE TO EAT IN LONDON #3: HOTEL CHOCOLAT & BURGER AND LOBSTER




Hello, bonjour, hola. Today I'm coming at ya with a London foodie inspired post where I ramble a little bit about my favourite places to go to in L-town. 

Let's dive straight in and talk about Burger & Lobster.

We went to the Holborn branch for my husband's 30th birthday and had a cracking time. We both went big and indulged in the burger and lobster combo. It was fairy pricey at £32, but it was sooo good and oh so worth it! They do have lighter options too, where you can choose between a lobster or burger dish if you're not mega hungry. 

Also, I can't believe I had gone twenty seven years of my life without trying lobster. I've been missing out!
I had mine grilled and it was cooked to perfection, and it came with the most incredible sauce. Mhmmm.

So yes, if you're in central L-town, I would highly recommend popping in. If you have a large group then I would recommend booking in advance. You can click here to see all locations.




If you live in London or are planning to visit for the day, you must check out Hotel Chocolat's cafe on Monmouth Street. They do the best hot chocolates - you can choose from chilli, milk, dark and white! Just look at that mouthwatering whipped cream in the snap above... Seriously what dreams are made of...

(Joe's face says it all!)

I opted for the milk option and I can honestly say that was one of the BEST hot chocolate's I've ever had in my life. Joe went for chilli and he said it was amazing too.

Just a little heads up, there aren't many tables inside. There are only four small round tables, but most people take there's away or people tend to stay for ten minutes and leave. So if you hang about for a few extra minutes, you will definitely get a spot.

If you enjoyed this little read, you may also like my last where to eat in London post, focusing on Dishoom and Workshop Coffee.  And my first feature on London Grind and Honest Burger.

Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :). 

Posted on: Saturday 11 March 2017

Charlotte Tilbury Lipstick Collection



I've been meaning to film this for ages, so a few weeks ago I pulled out my tripod, lighting gear and camera and filmed my Charlotte Tlbury Lipstick Collection. Be warned it's quite poser-ish, but these types of videos always tend to be. It's always a little cringe when you're editing it and like, oh god... did I really pull that face, ha! Any who I hope you enjoy seeing what I have in my collection.

Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :). 

Posted on: Thursday 9 March 2017

An Honest Review of Kat Von D's 'Tattoo Liner' Liquid Eyeliner


I was SO excited when Kat Von D's make-up range launched in Debenhams, London last year. I've tried some of her lip products before and loved them. So I was really keen to try the 'Tattoo Liner' that everybody raves about. So, er, yes it was one of those "the internet made me buy it" moments, oops. What can I say? I'm easily influenced.

So what's so special about this eyeliner?  It's said to be a superfine flexible brush tip for fluid, effortless and precise application. It's paraben-free, highly pigmented and waterproof. It also features a non-fraying brush tip.

I like it, but I don't love it, and I know this is a holy grail product for a lot of people, but I don't get the hype. It's not the crème de la crème of eyeliners, but perhaps that's because I prefer gel formulas, such as the Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Eyeliner.

However, what I do like about it is how 'jet black' it is and how easy it is to apply. It would be perfect for someone who wants to create the classic cat eye flick, but can never quite master it, as it will give you that precision and is really easy to hold. It feels like your holding a felt tip pen!

But for me, there are far too many downsides. I have noticed that after using it everyday for a few weeks, the ink has faded and it has dried out a little bit - when it goes like this, it's quite tricky to apply as it goes clumpy.
As well as this, I have noticed that if I put my liner on in the morning it is perfectly jet black, but by the evening it fades a lot and looks like a dark grey shade, which isn't ideal!
Another problem that I had with it was it has a tendency to smudge, and for someone who rubs their eyes a lot, I can end up looking like i've got two black eyes without realising, which is never a good look.

To be really honest, I am a little disappointed with this one. I had such high hopes for it as so many bloggers hyped it up, but it just isn't my cup of tea as there are too many downsides. Some drugstore eyeliners are much better than this and they are a third of the price - try Rimmel's Liner, I've used it since I was 14 and it's amazing!

What are your thoughts? Have you had any problems with Kat Von D Tattoo Liner?



 Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :). 

Posted on: Monday 6 March 2017

Bali Travels | Where to eat in Ubud: Mozaic and Kubu at Mandapa


Before I dive straight in to where to eat in Ubud, I'm going to give you a little back story as to why I was in the beautiful calming land of Bali.

I had always dreamed of visiting Bali, it looked so picturesque and beautiful in pictures. So for mine and Joe's honeymoon, we decided Bali was the one. And being the foodies that we both are, we went to some pretty lavish restaurants. It was our honeymoon after all...

Firstly let's talk about Mozaic. Mozaic is claimed to be one of the best restaurants in Ubud and is listed in San Pellegrino Top 100 restaurants in the world, pretty darn impressive.

I did my research before we went here and everyone had nothing but great things to say. So we booked beforehand, and then indulged in a beautiful French fine-dining experience.

"The big adventure at Mozaic has been discovering new ingredients, new flavours and incorporating them into French techniques. I strive to raise little-known Indonesian ingredients to the prestige level of truffles, caviar, foie gras." - Chris Salans.

Chris Salans is the Chef Owner and has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris and the US. So we felt extremely lucky to experience one of his restaurants during our honeymoon.

We indulged in an six course menu ('The Discovery Menu'), with an additional special honeymoon dish which was completely unexpected, but so lovely of them to do.








All dishes were beautifully presented and delicious. Out of all the dishes, I'd say the tiger prawn dish was my favourite! But every single one was interesting in their own individual way.

I also liked their choices of cocktails - they were so unique and had so many to choose from.
If you prefer wine with your dinner, they have a wine tasting menu to go alongside the dishes too.

What I really like about this restaurant was the idea that the 'Discovery Menu' focuses on fresh seasonal Indonesian ingredients but still creating these beautifully presented European styled dishes.
I can't say it was the best food I've ever eaten in my life but I enjoyed the experience none the less.

The only downside to this restaurant was the service was a little slow. But aside from that we really enjoyed our fine-dining experience here and would highly recommend coming here if you're in Ubud.

Kubu at MandapaFirstly let me start by apologising, I'm really gutted that I didn't get the photographs that I wanted here to do this review properly, it was so dark and the quality was not great (damn my perfection ways). They just didn't compare to my Mozaic photo's so I was a little ashamed to put them up. However, I used flash on two of the dishes and I thought it would be better to include these ones than none at all.

Anyway, oh my, what a heavenly beautiful experience. If you're in Ubud and love fine dining or perhaps your on your honeymoon too, you have to go here!

We sat in a romantic private cocoon overlooking the river. It was night time when we went, so we couldn't really see the river, but it was calming to listen to. A really lovely atmosphere.

The food is fine Mediterranean-European. You can choose from the Degustation courses where you can choose between six courses or eight. They do have other main courses if you don't fancy little tastes of everything.

We went for the six course and each individual course was absolutely amazing. And they even brought out a lovely honeymoon cake as an extra dish (likewise to what Mozaic did), which was completely unexpected too! It was an interesting chocolate bomb. AH-mazing.



The service was also outstandingly good. We did over stay our welcome a bit - we were the last ones out the door as we didn't realise it was closing. We got carried away chatting and reminiscing about the wedding... But, they let us take our time and fully enjoy our stay, even if it was gone midnight...

I highly highly recommend coming here. Every time I think of Ubud, I remind myself how amazing the food was here. Everything was cooked to perfection and it's in a beautiful location.

I standby and can happily say that Kubu at Mandapa was one of the best food experiences and best atmosphere's I've ever had in my life. Each dish was so stunning and I was impressed with all the little details as well as making it taste perfect.

A little tip from me would be if you plan on going here, do book a couple days beforehand as the cocoon's do tend to get booked up as there are only nine of them.

Also, I know it's hard to fully appreciate what every course looked like when I only shared two photo's, but check out my honeymoon vlog where I recorded snippets of all the courses towards the end of the vlog.

I hope this was some what helpful if you're planning to come to Ubud and fancy some lavish meals.
I've never actually experienced fine-dining before and now I'm happy to stay I experienced two highly rated places in Ubud. If I had to choose one out of the two, for me personally it would be Kubu as it was to my taste, but they were both incredible experiences.

Right, time to crack on with the day. I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend!

Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :). 

Posted on: Sunday 5 March 2017

MY HOLY GRAIL LIP LINER | Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Lip Cheat Lip Liner Review


Be hold the infamous cult classic Lip Cheat Lip Liner from Charlotte Tilbury in the shade 'Pillow Talk'. This little beauty is massively hyped up on the interwebs, it's loved and adored by so many people so I wanted to get my hands on it and see what the fuss is all about.

If you've seen my Pillow Talk Lipstick review, I mentioned that I already purchased the lip liner a few months back and I've been meaning to do a review for it. So without further a do...

Pillow Talk is a beautiful neutral pink shade that works for so many skin tones as it adapts to your lip colour. It's amazing at reshaping your lips to appear fuller and even.
It's perfect to wear under any nude-pink lipstick. I usually pair this with 'Bitch Perfect' or 'Stoned Rose' from her lipstick range... as well as of course her newest edition 'Pillow Talk', which works perfectly, obviously! But I also enjoy pairing it with a variety of nude MAC lipsticks too. 

I really love applying this too... the formula is so smooth and velvety, it applies like a dream. It's really pigmented too which saves a lot of time when filling in. And it's fairly long lasting - I would say about five to six hours.

Now I understand what all the fuss is about. It's pretty much perfection in lip liner form. My ultimate holy grail lip liner, the one that's on my list of things that I couldn't live without! Have you tried it?


(I haven't done a great job here at filling my lips in as I was in a rush... but you can see how beautiful the colour is!)

Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :). 

Posted on: Saturday 4 March 2017

Life Update & Bali Honeymoon Video Diaries Part 3



Hello! Happy Saturday everyone... It's been quite a while since I've sat down and wrote a blog post on the actual date instead of pre-forward planning and scheduling weeks in advance.

But whilst spring cleaning the flat this morning, I realised that I had nothing scheduled for March... well I have tons of ideas but not enough time to execute all of them. So I'm going to dedicate this afternoon and evening to catch up on a few things and get my blogging life in order.

I also just wanted to have a little heart to heart on my blog. I said to myself last year that I wanted to create things with more heart, soul and voice in 2017, so I'm trying to open up a bit more on my blog and YouTube channel. What some people tend to forget is that you put your best version of yourself out there online (and that takes guts anyway, because you're putting yourself out there to be automatically judged), and realistically life isn't perfect all the time, we're all human, we have down days too.

So, I just wanted to be real with you all and say that this week has been a bit of a tough one  - physically and mentally. I really haven't been very well this week. If you know me personally I'm usually the type of person to not complain about my illness's and solider on. My family and friends have no idea too... unless they read this, then hi lol!
You will know that if I'm suffering in pain, I will silently deal with it because I'd rather not talk about it or burden any one with my problems. And this is where my blog comes in handy, it's almost like an online diary where I can speak from the heart and do what I want because it's my own platform and I feel like I'm not burdening anyone.
Also, Joe hasn't been around this week, he's been on a work trip and he's usually my first and only source to blurt out how I'm really feeling.

Anyway, I sprained my ankle last Saturday in Copenhagen. It went all rubbery and swollen, and I couldn't walk properly! It was actually really gross. But that wasn't what threw me off my game... It was my endometriosis (the devil I swear). Pain and swelling for near enough a week solid. For two days I was bed ridden because of it (and my swollen rubbery ankle) and do you know how that feels? You feel pretty pathetic and hopeless. And, then you return from the dead (lol... cause you might as well be) to continue and play catch up on your work load and pretend like you're doing ok. Now I'm letting the cat out the bag here... but when you put on a brave 'i'm ok' face every day, everything hits you when you get home. This week I have spent most evenings in bed upset, confused and lost, as well as losing all motivation to tidy, blog and even to eat. Which is very unlike me (them cray hormones). But don't worry, next week I will be back and ready to take on the world, unless the devil comes back and then I might as well jump out the window... I hope no-one takes that last bit seriously... it's just my sense of humour, I don't think I have the courage or will power to jump out of a window because truthfully I'm a little scared of heights.

Moving swiftly on...  to happier times! Here is my final video diary of my Bali Honeymoon! I'm really excited to share this with you all. Joe and I spent our last days in Lombok chilling, soaking up the sun, exploring waterfalls and wandering around the beautiful and peaceful Gili Air. Heaven.

Also, I just wanted to mention... the music choices I made for this one make me super happy - they are so jazzy, upbeat and up-lifting. So, I really hope you enjoy watching this and grooving to the beats.

If you're interested, you can watch the first part of my Bali honeymoon here. And, second one here.
Follow me @zoeyoliviablog to see what I get up to daily, and leave a comment, I'll always respond. You can also reach me on twitter: @zoeyoliviablog. Or, if you like Bloglovin', I'm kind of new to it but follow me on there. I also have Pinterest, I'm often procrastinating and pinning my life away... So do get in touch :).