Spotlight on the Tuxedos instead of the dresses at The Oscars 2015!

All we seem to see after The Oscar's are photographs and articles about what the women wore, well I think this year the guys looked pretty good overall, so here's a look at what some of them were wearing.

Looks like shawl collar tuxedos were the "in thing" this year, more so than in previous years at least, and of course Dolce and Gabbana were very well represented on the red carpet, as always, including the ravishing Channing Tatum and  David Oyelowow, who chose the more unusual burgundy for his Tux.

So here's a little treat for all the ladies out there, and some of the guys of course, who are fed up of seeing the spot light on only the women on the red carpet.

Chris Evans (Hollywood Reporter image)

Eddie Redmayne wearing navy Alexander McQueen (Getty Images)

Adrien Brody in Dolce and Gabbana (Getty Images)

Jared Leto...in lilac! It's not the colour of the tux that I find most odd but the shoes he chose to wear with it, and the too short length of his trousers! Not Jared's best red carpet look, but hey that is not saying much!!

David Oyelowow in burgundy D & G

John Legend in  Gucci tux with velvet shawl collar

Ethan Hawke also rocking the shawl collar look

Chiwetel Elijofor in another shawl collared tux!

Mark Ruffalo, you guessed it, wearing a shawl collared tux!!

Josh Hutcherson, looking very short in deed! Maybe it's the cut of the tux? 

Steve Carrell with the Mrs.

Host Neil Patrick Harris wearing grey, which I really don't like him in to be honest.

Justin Theroux wearing...who cares when he's got Jennifer Aniston on his arm looking stunning?

Benedict Cumberbatch in a white number that I actually quite like!

And, just one of the ladies, worth looking at I think as we don't usually see Reese Witherspoon looking so sexy. It suits her!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of Hollywood's leading men in their red carpet finery for a change, you can check out what the women wore on a million other blogs I'm sure.

Who looks best, out of the men that is, in your opinion? I think for me it's a draw between Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne for not going down the usual black tuxedo route and changing it up a bit. Although my least favourite also steered away form black...Jared Leto!

Unless noted all photos from Huffpost

Joss & Main at Bargain prices!

I love Joss and Main, so many beautiful home decor things at lower prices than the RRP, but most are still too expensive for yours truly these days unfortunately. So, I went on a bargain hunt, something I love doing, and found some of my favourite things from the current Joss and Main offerings. I stuck to Amazon this time when bargain hunting, simply because it's one of my favourite places to shop, but some of the things I looked at may well be available from ebay and elsewhere even cheaper.

Some of the things I found are the exact same item that is for sale on Joss and Main, same brand exactly, others are the closest I could find at a lower price, I even preferred some of the cheaper items to the Joss and Main ones. Check them out below...

                                           Joss and Main 3 Drawer Storage Bench

Beautiful but £224.95!

Amazon 3 Drawer Shabby Chic Storage Bench

Similar for £69.99 and Amazon have dozens of similar benches to choose from.

Marie 6 Light Chandelier

Original price £300 now £131.95 at Joss and Main

                                         Amazon five arm Marie Therese Chandelier                                                                                                                                                                      

Obviously not the exact same chandelier but once it is

 hung it will still look beautiful, and for only £49.99

Sarai Dressing Table from Joss and Main

I love this dressing table but at £253.95 I think

 it's quite expensive for such a small piece of furniture

Amazon French Cabriole Shabby Chic Dressing Tabke

For £109.95 plus £9.95 shipping this

 beautiful version even includes the mirror!

Amos Dining Chair

Fabulous Eames style dining chair at Joss and Main for £121.90

Amazon Eames Style Dining Chair

Looks almost identical to me for £49.99 plus £1.47 shipping!

Or this one, even cheaper and a choice of colours!

This one is only £39.99 on Amazon!

Joss and Main Payoja Indian Cushion

I love all things Indian and found this when looking 

for plain white Indian cushions, not a bad price £15.95

 not forgetting shipping  £6.95

Amazon 16" Mirror Embroidery Cushion

Identical I would say, but only £6.99 and free shipping,

 and they even have it in the white I want!

At the end of the day I still love Joss and Main and they do offer great discounts off RRPs of a lot of quality home decor items, but I love them mostly because they give me ideas for things that would look great in my house, and to spur me on to search for a cheaper version. So far I have never ordered anything off Joss and Main,because everything I ever want I have found cheaper else where. I still enjoy getting their emails and also emails from lots of Home Decor companies, they give me ideas for  things to look for elsewhere at lower prices yet still enable me to have lovely things in my home.

So next time you are wondering what to buy to make your living room, or dining room etc look finished and beautiful don't be put off by companies that you think are out of your price range, just find something you love and search online for a cheaper version of it...Happy Shopping!

St Patrick's Day

Green Day aka St Patrick's Day

Being half Irish I thought I should commemorate St Patrick's day in some way on my blog. When wondering what to do I decided I would concentrate on all things green from my favourite areas, namely fashion, beauty and of course...bargains! Not a particularly favourite colour of mine, I did however manage to find a few green products that I actually quite like

This pretty green cocktail dress is from ASOS and is currently on sale for £17.50, reduced from £50! I really like the colour of this surprisingly, it would look lovely for a night out and it's a great price at the moment.

 Now I doubt this would be a first choice of colour for most of us, but I have to say it looks very moisturising and would look great on someone with the right type of image. It's an all natural home made concoction available from Etsy for only £8.00.

If you're not brave enough to go with the green lipstick maybe you would prefer to try this Nails inc nail jewellery for £11, you can find it here I think for just a little bit of green on St Patrick's day this would be the ideal choice.

For the emerald lovers out there, how about this 0.6 emerald and diamond cluster ring for 

£1568.50 from QVC? I know there are as many people who think emeralds are unlucky as there are who love them, I don't believe they are unlucky, but I must admit they are my least favourite precious stone. However I think the design of this ring is beautiful. It is actually a fairly perfect symbol of St Patrick's day with its' green white and gold!

If you would rather not splash out over £1500 on an emerald ring but still fancy treating yourself to something, how about this Oasis watch? It has been reduced from £30 down to £20 at ASOS and I could actually see myself wearing this watch.

Now these are labelled as "Men's" Vans but aren't all Vans unisex really? Either way, if you would like to treat the man in your life, or the woman, or even yourself - you can pick these up for £21.99 on ebay I have noticed the price of Vans can vary wildly but this is a fairly good price.

If you have a little boy to buy for I bet he would look so cute in this Green Nippers shirt, I love this. It is currently reduced to £10.99 and is available from birth to age 2. You can find all the details here

On the same site I found these cute little girls leggings. I know they are not a true green but I don't think a true dark green is nice on a little girl, apart for the exception I have posted below. The leggings are also on sale, and for £8.99 I think they are very reasonable for an all natural and organic cotton product. You can buy these in ages 2 though 5 at Green Nippers

This is the exception, a little girl would look beautiful in this dark green Tudor dressing up dress and would feel like a princess I'm sure. You can buy this dress for £13.99 at Amazon and it would be a different look to all the pink and frilly dressing up outfits little girls usually wear to fancy dress parties.

If you need to find a flattering alternative to the usual LBD for a special night out, you could perhaps consider this stylish fishtail Phase Eight dress. As it is such a dark shade of green it would still have a flattering, slimming look on, and at £250 from House of Fraser you know it will be well made and not likely to be worn by several other women at your occasion or special night out.

When I lived in America Dooney and Burke were my go-to work bags, they were always great quality and never looked worn, so when looking for green handbags of course a Dooney caught my eye. I found this one at Zappos for $328, which even if you have to pay international shipping is not a bad price for a quality leather handbag. 

Finally, I would just like to wish you all a very Happy St Patrick's day, Sláinte  And if you are going to celebrate on Sunday I would love to hear about your plans. Will you be wearing anything green? xx

** By the way if you haven't already entered the current giveaway for a MAC make up product of your choice, you can do so here **

MAC INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY

MAC Eye Shadow or Lipstick Giveaway

In collaboration with the lovely Tara from Tara's Treats, to celebrate her blog reaching 200 followers and mine reaching 400, we have decided to host a fab little giveaway to thank you all for your support. The prize will be your choice - of either an eye shadow, or lipstick, from MAC cosmetics! We can not promise to be able to supply any limited editions as they may not be available when our giveaway ends, but apart from that, any lipstick or eye shadow from current MAC ranges, that are available in the UK, are up for grabs.

• You will have a choice of ways to enter.

• All entries will be through Rafflecopter.

• The giveaway is open internationally.

• The giveaway will be open for 30 days

We hope you will love this giveaway and maybe share it with your friends so they have a chance to enter also. Personally when I am shopping for MAC products I tend to use Debenhams or Selfridges so if you aren't sure what to choose perhaps you can browse their MAC products to help you make up your mind. I think there is nothing nicer than lovely MAC cosmetics, well except FREE MAC cosmetics :) so if you share my, and Tara's, love of MAC get entering below xx

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Freebies, a prize win & a Company Style Blogger Award Nomination!

Freebies

First I want to apologise for not having been here for almost a week. I have an ongoing health problem that affects pretty much every aspect of my life and this past week's absence was due to that health problem. So, my first post, now I am back, is just a short one showing you a couple of my freebies and even a prize win, from the past couple of weeks.

Percy & Reed

Glamour magazine this month was giving a variety of Percy & Reed hair care products.  I received the Volumising No Oil Oil, which is probably the product I would have chosen out of those available. It was a double freebie for me as my Glamour magazines are from a twelve month  subscription I won in a competition last year. The RRP of a 60ml size is £14, therefore this 30ml freebie is worth £7, not bad hey? I haven't tried it yet but will do a full review when I do.

Eau de Lacoste

Next was an Eau de Lacoste roll on perfume freebie. I believe I signed up on their facebook page in the hopes of being one of the people who received this. I apply for so many freebies and enter so many competitions it is difficult to keep up I'm afraid, so hopefully it was from facebook :) I received a 6ml roller ball bottle that is perfect to throw in my handbag and smells wonderful, very light and uplifting, and one I wouldn't mind purchasing in the future. I have never considered buying a Lacoste perfume so this is a great marketing move, much better than the little wipe on samples, which I actually received one of in the post today! This perfume retails at around £40 to £45 for 50ml making this freebie worth around £5, not too bad.

Elemental Herbology

My final freebie worth noting was a 30ml, Elemental Herbology cell plumping facial hydrator, with spf 8. I did have to pay postage for this, £3.50, but considering a 50ml size retails for around £42 and this is a 30ml size, therefore worth around £25, I think it was well worth it. It does feel nice on my face, I feel it fully moisturises even my ageing skin, and even leaves my face with a brightened, almost glowing look. As I have only used it a couple of times up to now I will wait to make up my mind on whether to repurchase or not, but I am very pleased with this product that only cost me the price of shipping.

Competition Prize

Makeon Princess

Finally, I also received a prize that I won last month through a facebook competition with WISHTREND. I won my first Korean make up product and I am thrilled as Korean make up is definitely the current big thing in the make up scene. The products I won are  from the Makeon Princess limited edition collection - Super Long Lasting Waterproof Gel Eye Liners. As with all Korean make up the packaging is very pretty, and as it is a tin I will be able to use it to put my little bits and bobs in once I take the products out of it and into my make up storage. There are 5 eye pencils in the tin that range from a charcoal/black colour through brown and right up to a bright gold. They are very pigmented but blend down easily and are so smooth to apply, not dragging my eye at all. I would definitely buy this brand again when I see it, as from the packaging to the quality of the product I am very impressed.

 How cute is this packaging? I love it!

What a great range of colours.

Have you had any great freebies or won any nice prizes lately? Let me know in the comment section, I would love to hear about them.

                                    ********************************************

COMPANY #style blogger awards 2013

I almost forgot to mention that I have been nominated for the Company Magazine new comer blogger award. Now I doubt very much I would get anywhere near the short-list but I thought I would let you know and ask that if you have the time, and like my blog of course, perhaps you could go and vote for me here You need to enter your email and my URL, which is http://british-bargains-and-beauty.blogspot.co.uk/    I know it's a lot of messing around to vote but if you do I would really appreciate it, and fully understand that you may have already found a blog to vote for. xx

Beautiful Blogger Award

I've been nominated for an award!

I am so pleased to see that I have been nominated for the Beautiful Blogger Award by http://thoushaltnotcovet.net  I haven't been nominated for this award before. When I first started my blog, all the way back in January lol I did get 5 nominations for the Leibster Award but it was for blogs with under 200 followers and by the time I was nominated and was going to do the tasks involved in it I was at over 200 followers, and I also didn't know which nomination to use, so naughty me didn't do it. But thank you for nominating me for this award, I am definitely going to do this one.

There are some rules for accepting the award…

   1)  Copy the Beautiful Blogger Award logo and place it in your post.

   2)  Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.

   3)  Tell us 7 things about yourself.

   4)  Nominate 7 other bloggers for their own Beautiful Blogger Award, and comment on their blogs to let them know.

7 things about me

1. I emigrated to America in 1999 and stayed there until 2009, when I moved back home to England.
2. I have a very nasty spinal disease that means I am in severe pain 24 hours a day.
3. I have two amazing children of whom I could not be more proud, Steven who is 29 and Suzanne who is 28.
4. I have a degree in English and History, Social Work diplomas, a Massage Therapist License, but only for Texas, and I became a Reiki Master back in 2006. 
5. I have a lovely boyfriend, who is kind, generous and loving, and everyone who meets him loves him, he is the complete opposite of my ex husband!
6. I believe in karma and therefore try to not think badly of anyone or wish bad things to happen to anyone, because karma is a product of our thoughts as much as our actions.
7. I have a tattoo. It is on my rear hip and is a red peace heart with my children's initials either side. I didn't get it until I was 50, my rite of passage into middle age :)

My wee tattoo

These are my 7 nominated blogs, I hope you will check them out as they are all amazingly good.

• http://pennyforthem1.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://vanzthemachinee.blogspot.co.uk
• http://wwwblackstarrynight.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://tarastreatsreviews.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://atouchofslap.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://toxylicious.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://mrsgaeul.com/