BlackMilk Dresses - Real VS Fake

As a blogger, I know that BlackMilk are pretty much everyone's favourite clothing brand and up until recently I'd not had the pleasure of wearing one of their designs. Not to mention the fact that I've never really been able to afford anything from them. Their designs are always on-point, so fashionable and versatile, and I've spent many an hour starring at their website hoping and praying one day I'd have enough money to own one of their drop-dead gorgeous dresses. 

With any popular brand there is always going to be fakes. For me, this isn't such a bad thing (though I know many others wouldn't agree). I just think it's essential that designs should be available for the mass market and at a fair enough price. Plus, let's be honest, BlackMilk aren't the only company on the internet that make these sorts of dresses in these sorts of materials. It's a copy of a copy of a copy and aren't at all original. Which brings me to the question - why do we find copies to be such a bad thing when really everything is a copy anyway? 

I personally now own two BlackMilk dupes and one original BlackMilk dress, so I feel like I can at least give you an honest review on each of these. This way you can make your own mind up about buying fakes. In this post I'm only going to be looking at the quality and design of each of the dresses, how they were made is a completely different and moral thing and that's for you to decide and not for me to dictate. 

I don't know if you can tell from the first photograph which two are fake and which one is real. The real one is the absolutely gorgeous Beauty & The Beast dress which is now sitting in my wardrobe waiting for my birthday on Saturday. The other two I bought from one of the many ebay dress sellers out there. The lowest quality of the fakes in my opinion is the Lord Of The Rings map dress. You can tell this is a cheaply made dress as the print is quite wishy-washy and pixely. It's also got a bit of a strange shape to it so if you're lacking in the boob and bum department this dress could look too big on you. It's definitely designed more for the curvier lady. Regardless I still really like it, the dress looks fantastic on photographs and unless you looked really carefully you wouldn't know this was a fake. Plus it cost my about £5 instead of £47....so I can't really complain about it! 

The second dupe is this Zombie Nation dress. This was a really popular design for BlackMilk a while back but is no longer stocked by them, so I had to find it elsewhere. Googling Galaxy Milk will find you thousand of BlackMilk rip-offs on Ebay, some good, some bad. This one is a lot better than the Lord Of The Rings dress. 

Firstly the material is very similar to BlackMilk's material. It's so silky and soft and feels like it is of quite good quality. For me there is only two small differences between this dress and the real one - 1. the pattern is a little bit pixely, though not to the same degree as the Lord Of The Rings dress. You can clearly tell what is on this dress and it looks great. It's just the black colours are a bit greyer, that's all. 2. The dress fits differently to BlackMilk's. The top part of the dress is a lot longer than it should be therefore making the dress more midi than mini. It doesn't look bad though and I think it would be fine for taller people! I'm just super short. 

Finally, the real deal! I'm pretty sure you can tell just from these pictures how brilliant the quality is. The design is crisp and bold, there's no pixels and no wishy-washyness. It's literally so perfect. The material is great and you can tell it's high quality but then of course it should be for the price! This bad boy was over £50 and took three weeks to arrive.

In my personal opinion I think if you can afford it and you are willing to wait then you should definitely go for the real deal. The quality of the others just doesn't compare to how fantastic the real deal is. But of course, not everyone has £50 to waste on one piece of clothing, and not everyone wants to wait a month for it to arrive, which is completely fair enough. There's nothing ridiculously wrong with the fakes, they are completely wearable and very pretty. Plus for the cheap price they are absolute steals and I'd never try to put someone off wearing a fake. 

What do you think about fakes? Would you buy one? 

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Bleach London Rose Shampoo & Conditioner

Before I start this review I just want to point out how much I ummed and ahhed over buying these products. Obviously I know a lot about purple shampoo and how it tones your hair but never before had I heard of pink or "rose" shampoo or what it was used for. In the end, my need for candy floss hair with minimum damage took priority and I decided to pay £6 each for these products. When I got home, I couldn't find many reviews for them online. In fact I think I managed to find two, so once again I started to worry that this was one of those products that there was no need for and I kept telling myself it wasn't going to work. I don't know why I'm so negative all the time, I just hated the thought of spending money on something that was going to be an absolute pile of rubbish.

Regardless of my fears I decided to stick it on my head and hope for the best. I'm so glad I did.

First things first, I love how simple Bleach London's packaging is on all of their products. These little bottles of hair dye/toner look so cute and fit perfectly in my bathroom. They also hold a lot of dye/toner and you can usually get a few applications out of them. Bleach London products also have a lovely floral smell which is such a nice change from normal hair dyes - there's no icky smells here, just a pleasant application experience. 

Both of the shampoo and conditioner are extremely pink toned, much like a purple/silver shampoo they are quite thin and apply easily onto the hair. On the back of the bottle they both suggest wetting your hair first then applying the shampoo. You have to lather the shampoo into your hair and leave it for 5-10 minutes, then wash and apply conditioner to which you also leave on for another 5-10 minutes. It's a little bit of a tedious process and a lot like dying your actual hair, but it's definitely worth it. 

The first time I used this product I wasn't expecting any sort of colour change. You don't tend to get a tone change the first few times you use purple shampoo so I really didn't think there would be any change. But sure enough once I'd dried my hair you could tell that the lighter sections of blonde had gone a very pale shade of pink. It looked lovely and was a great start to my pink toning experience. 

I have used both the shampoo and conditioner every time I have washed my hair over the last few days and slowly but surely my hair colour has built up. I won't lie and tell you that my hair is bright pink but I know this is because I have dark strawberry blonde hair. Seeing how this toner reacts to the lighter parts of my hair makes me believe that your whole head of hair is light blonde or bleach blonde this shampoo and conditioner will work fantastically on you! For me, however, I'm having to deal with baby pink streaks on peach hair - it looks cute but I'd prefer it all to be pink!

For hair updates and photographs please check out my Instagram!

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I'm Going To Paris For My Birthday!

I am very excited to announce that Kieron is taking me to Paris and Disneyland for my 23rd birthday! This time next week I'll be eating cheese and drinking wine in one of the most gorgeous cities in the world. I really cannot wait, it is truly going to be absolutely spectacular. I'm looking forward to seeing all of the sights and meeting Mickey Mouse! If any of my followers have ever been to Paris or live in Paris then please leave a comment below with lovely places to eat or places to go and see. 

On another note, LOOK, LOOK! I've updated my blog layout. I decided to go for a much sleeker design. I'm absolutely in love with this layout which was bought from Pipdig. What do you think of this layout? Do you think it's better or not? 

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Motel Rocks Wishlist

Motel Isla Bodycon Dress in Hounds Tooth Black and White / Motel Babydoll Dress in Navy Velvet / Motel Amy Cut Out Playsuit in Rose Revival

Motel Damita Bodycon Dress in Spiral Lace White / Motel Jude Kimono Sleeve Playsuit in Winter Rose / Motel Sky Babydoll Dress in Polka Reverse Black

I just thought I'd do a quick wishlist like the good old days, I absolutely adore Motel Rocks and their clothes fill my wardrobe. At the moment I'm lacking in "going out" clothes so I've mainly focused this wishlist on dresses and playsuits. Things I can wear during a night out or for casual. My favourite piece has to be the polka dot dress, I am obsessed with polka dots and literally half of my clothes have polka dots on them! I'm also really loving the Hounds-tooth dress, that pattern is fantastic and I think it just looks so classy and sophisticated. What do you think? 

If you like any of the clothes here then don't forget you can get 20% off at the checkout by using the code MINICHIMP2001 - go use it quick! You won't regret that discount! 

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Bleach London - Washed Up Mermaid - Super Cool Colour

I really love to experiment with my hair and the best way to do that is to use semi-permanent hair dyes in loads of crazy colours. A few months or so ago I got rid of my lovely pink hair to rock Bleach London's Washed Up Mermaid. I'd heard so many amazing, rave reviews about Bleach products and when I saw it on sale in Boots for £3 I just had to snap it up. 

First things first has to be the smell of this dye. It's insane how nice this smells and it's something I'm not used to when dying my hair. Usually you get that horrible bleachy, ammonia smell but with this it sort of smells like billions of flowers are bursting and opening on top of your head. It's such a nice change and I found applying the actual dye such a pleasurable experience because of the smell. The colour of the dye actually looks a lot darker in the bottle than it is when fully applied and washed off. The blue turns into more of a sea-green colour which I guess is why they named it after mermaids (although when I think of mermaids I think of red hair....Disney problems.) 

You only have to leave this dye on for around 15 minutes to get a strong colour that initially looks absolutely gorgeous. I honestly couldn't fault it at all and for the first four or five washes I was amazed at its staying power and the strength of the colour. It was around the sixth wash mark when I realised the dye was finally starting to fade but to my absolute dismay it faded to a light puke green colour, a colour which after thousands of washes just wouldn't budge. It was a colour that I hated so, so much. 

I tried everything I possibly could to get rid of the horrible faded puke green colour but nothing worked. Not even bleaching over it made it disappear and that's when I realised that this hair dye had completely stained my hair. I was mortified and two months after applying it the colour was still very visible. 

Thankfully the internet saved my life and I found out that by dying over the colour with a pink or a red would make the green go, so now I am actually back to having pink hair. Not by choice. 

I think if you don't mind your hair being potentially stained forever and ever then this is a lovely dye. The colour at first is amazing and it lasts for such a long time. The downside to this is that you might have to dye your hair this colour until the end of time (or you know, just have more patience than me). 

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chill*ed Blonde Shampoo & Conditioner

After writing my "sorry for slacking" blog post I have made the decision this week to try and blog every single day including the days I am at work. I think I owe it to myself, my blog and to anyone that actually enjoys reading this blog... *tumble weed passes by*. I have SO many things to review and so many posts to write so I'm actually going to write them. Yay me. 

So today, I'm starting off with one of those brands that I absolutely love and spend a lot of time raving on about. chill* are literally my favourite hair colouring brand so when I was offered the chance to try out their blonde shampoo and conditioner I found it hard to say no. 

chill* says; “Our shampoo for blondes is a fabulously rich moisturising shampoo with grape seed oil and hydrolysed proteins. We’ve also added violet pigments that assist in the toning down of unwanted brassy or yellow tones in blonde hair whether the hair is natural or chemically treated. Go on…be a blonde bombshell!”

If you don't already know, blonde shampoos are used for when your blonde becomes orangey, brassy or lifeless - whether this is from the sun, bleaching or just general hair related things. Blonde hair can be extremely hard to look after and maintain and sometimes your hair just needs a simple kick up the backside to sort itself out. The purple counteracts with brassy tones which in turn helps to lighten or take away unwanted colour. The more you use it, the blonder you get basically, and if you over-use it your hair can get tinted with purple or silver - a look I personally love on blondes. After all, who doesn't want lilac hair?! I've been bleaching and dying my hair from black to blonde for five years now and because my natural hair is so dark it does tend to get a bit over brassy sometimes. I feel like I am queen of purple shampoos because I've used them so much! 

That being said, baring in mind how many shampoos I've tried over the last few years, I have to say that these two are my absolute favourite. I've been using them for a good month or so now and I have really seen the condition and colour of my dyed blonde hair change and improve. It actually looks and feels amazing, I'm so impressed. These products are the greatest and they smell so fabulous. They are extremely perfumey and the smell lasts on your hair for a good few hours after washing. Kieron even said that my hair smells delicious...DELICIOUS! 

I really have no bad things to say about these products and I would recommend these to absolutely everyone (well every blonde, that is) because they work so well. I'd give them a gazillion out of ten if I could.

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SORRY For Slacking

I just wanted to write a quick post to say that I'm really sorry for slacking with my blog over the last month or so. I think we all get to the point where we feel like our blogs are going nowhere and nothing can make them better or that it's pointless because nobody reads it or recognises you as a blogger. I guess I have just been feeling uninspired and well...bored of my blog lately, which is so sad to say. I know I go through this feeling every 6 or 7 months with this thing, but I'm hoping I can sort myself out and get back into blogging more often. 

Stay tuned.

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