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Thursday 31 December 2015

The Best of 2015.

Hiii,
So as I've mentioned before I'm not one for resolution posts at New Years but before the day is out and 2016 is upon us (time is flyin' ey?!) It would be worthwhile having a look back at 2015 at some of my proudest posts. I've definitely come a long way in the last year in all aspects of blogging. Between content, image quality and the overall blog design, a lot has changed around here...for the better, no doubt!
2015 was the year of the dreaded Leaving Cert exams, which are thankfully over and done with never to be spoken about again. Once they were out of the way I had one of the best holidays I've ever been on with my friends. No better way to celebrate the end of an era as I finished school and got ready for college (Uni). Amidst all this I made the biggest lifestyle change for me thus far; going vegan. As one of THE best changes I've ever made, I've written a few posts on why vegan and some posts on what I actually eat now! And I hope to continue learning and talking about it around here so keep your eyes peeled if you're interested!
And who could forget the music that I've been addicted to this year. 2015 was define try a weird year for me in terms of my music taste I went from loving a lot of Irish artists(and still do!) like Hudson Taylor, The Coronas, Hozier and of course Coldplay to becoming a fan of 1D?! I don't know where,when or how it happened but I'm glad it did.(for the most part, the part where zayn leaves could of been left out but sure look..). If you haven't listened to any of their recent albums and are still stuck in that mindset that the fandom is comprised only of 12 year old screaming girls..you'd be wrong. Having gone to their gig in Dublin, followed fan accounts on vine, twitter and the rest and having written a few style posts inspired by them, I'd say there's no escape now!
What positive changes did you make in 2015?
                                  X

My most popular and favourite posts of 2015;







Monday 28 December 2015

Resolutions?

Hellooo,

So it's been a fair while since I've been around here. For multiple reasons, that I won't get into, I wasn't able to get posts up the last month or so and to be frank, it may be slow for another little while from here on out but I'm determined to try my best!

So I'm not one for news years resolutions to be honest. Personally I think if you were really going to do something successfully you would have done it or at least tried already...but hey, you do you! 

I'm currently typing this on my phone using my 3G because I don't have wifi! (I know, struggles) but I wanted to get a post up so I did my best to get my mini tripod out and get the grain-iest photos possible. Apologies on that front, this was honestly the best I could do. Gotta' work with what you have, eye?


But I stil keeping things relevant to the Christmas theme I guess..this is an outfit that I would definitely wear on a night out and what better night than New Years Eve! You could throw on a nice shirt to cover up a bit more but still have the lace detail or you could pair this with any sparkle, sequins or glittery top to jazz it up a bit!

On a separate note, thank you to all of you guys for the support over the last year and a bit. I feel like I've a bit more direction for the blog in the coming year so hopefully things will be bigger and better!

P.s HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Missguided coat// River Island Trousers// Penny's Bralet// New Look Shoes 


Wednesday 2 December 2015

What I eat in a day #3 // hclf vegan.

Winter has well and truly arrived with big scarves and heavy coats galore! Thw weather her as been pretty dull with way too much rain for my liking which is really the reason why there's been a lack of outfit posts around here. With that in mind I thought I'd get a follow up post to my last one ((click here!) to tide me over untill this weather sorts itself out! 
(PS, please bare in mind that these arer just the main meals I have in a day, this doesn't include snacks!)



Yellow melon with some frozen berries and 1 banana. Not sure if I like the berries with it to be honest, but it made for a great photo so I just went with it. I ended up eating most of the berries separately!



4 frozen bananas, a handful of frozen berries and gluten free,vegan "Jammy Dodgers" from Aldi! 


Spicy Tomato Pasta with some spinach! I added chilli flakes,paprika, garlic powder, oregano and some black pepper to season. No need for salt!

Follow me on Instagram- hailandharmonyef or on Snapchat: xemmajanefx for more! 




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Sunday 22 November 2015

"Bacon tho"

     




























Veganism. Chances are you're hearing that word with a negative connotation so this is a slightly more contoversial topic for today and I guess I should state the usual disclaimer that I'm not trying to ram veganism down anyones throats or come accross as agressive I'm just simply sharing what I've learned,why I think it makes sense and the misinterepretation the majority of people have about it.

  
So it's been nearly 5 months so far, not that long in the grand scheme of things but still since making the change I've noticed the similarlities in people's responses once I tell them I don't eat anything from an animal. "So what do you eat?" " Isn't that really hard?"  or the most bizarre of all "So where do you get your protein?". Never have I ever heard more people concerned about the possibility of me developing a "protein deficieny" -which to be honest doesn't really exist, if anything the world eats too much 
protein or at least from the wrong sources but thats another story..
   
So with this in mind I've gathered some images that set out clearly where you an get iron, protein, calcium, and all your other vitamins and nutrients from plants in case people don't believe me.  Alongside this though, I should point out that the reasons for why one should go vegan are endless. Love animals? - dont eat them, Care about the environment? - stop adding to it's destruction, Want to lose weight, tone up and be healthy LONGTERM?.. these are just the basic foundation reasons as to why most people go vegan  but not the only ones of course. 
Health 
I cannot stress enough the importamce of looking at the long term when wanting to be healthy. Everyone knows that juice cleanses, eating vast abouts of fat in a bid to burn more of it, cutting out carbs, the "80/20 diet" or anything else you're doing to restrict your food intake, is not sustanible long term and never will be and are pretty determental to your health. Sure you'll lose weight- no question but it won't be long untill the pounds have climbed back on and then some.
     
The "everything in moderation"  rule is another one, one that I actually used to tell myself. While I can see why it sounds like it makes sense, if you're being healthy during the week and binging on the week end you're not really being healthy are you? You're not only wasting your time,you're also reaking havoc on your digestive system and your metablism and your body in general. Your body was made to take in 2000 calories a day or more if you wish.Carbs and glucose are what your brain and cells run on, if you cut them out you're obviously going to be litargic, irritable, and lazy?! and besides carbs are the best thing since sliced bread! You aren't eating "clean" if you're plate is full of dead animals now are you?!
It shouldn't be about the amount of calories you consume but rather the food sources of them. 
  

Animals and us
Specisim is something that society tends to forget about or leave out of the list of injustices and 
prejugudice of today, so to put it simply I'm going to list various animal products with my reasoning for not eating it.

        
* Milk- 
What many may not know is cows milk is in fact breastmilk. It is produced by a female cow when she is pregnant and like any other mammal, is to be feed to her calf. However, in order for us to consume it we must strip the mother and calf away from eachother once he/she is born in order to get the milk from the mother for ourselves. That alone, is pretty sickening to think about. The calf is then used for veal- if it's male whereby it lives for a few months before being slaughtered and if female, the calf will suffer the same fate as it's mother- milked to death before being killed for it's meat and most likely inseminated/ raped at some stage too in order to produce more milk to supply demand. 
Now once you let that cruelty sink in, you realise that this milk is intented to make a 500 pund calf into a 1500 pound fully grown cow, right? Therefore it's got to be loaded with hormones and chemicals to grow the CALF,  just like our own mother's did with us when we were babies. Along with this you have the bacteria and contamination that spreads during the milking process which tends to produc e pus, scientifically called stomatic cells. These are produced when there's  an infection that the body trys to fight by producing this pus. Just like when we have a cut or indeed a spot. So basically you're drinking bactera, hormone infected pimple breast milk! Yuk!

 *Cheese & Butter-
These are just additional products to milk,  seriously high in fat with no health benefits that can't be gotten from a plant source.
  
*Eggs-
The result of the menstration cycle in the female hen, the egg is the same egg that women pass during that time of the month. The fact in itself stopped me from eating them. On top of that the process of producing the egg is just as devastating, with appalling conditions for chickens even "free range eggs."  Not to mention that eggs contain 12 times the amount of colesterol needed, when the body makes it own colestorol so theres really no need to eat them.
   
*Pork, Beef, Duck etc-
I could go on a lot about this but instead I'll leave links below to documentaries  that are far more telling than I could be. One thing I will say is that there is no "humane slaughtering". The two words contradict eachother- halal or any other system can't possibly kill the animal nicely or without them knowing,  also all animals must be alive when being murdered, it's how the blood is drained from them so we can comsume their meat- there is no system or country that eats meat from animals that died of natural causes or anything else.
   
*Chicken & Fish-
For whatever  reason society seems to be taking longer to see that chickens and fish don't escape the pain or slaughter either despite being sliced up on your plate as well as being unhealthy.Chickens have as much of a cruel death as any other farm animal with most being hung upside down, have their nails and beaks clipped before being electricuted on a conveyor belt. Meanwhile fish are collected in their droves and suffocated as they're picked up from nets in their dozens. As for anyone who thinks the seas they live in make them healthy- where do you think all the slurry and feaces from the factor farms goes? 

Environment
Again, I could go on  about this until next year but the damage animal agricultture does to the earth is staggering. As someone who was never particularly interested in the environment or being "green" the facts from these videos and research I've done is still astonishing. In fact, it is said that if aliens were real and if they were to look at earth from space, the first tthing they would see is all of the land we use for agriculture! 

VIDEOS
* "The best speech ever by Gary Yourgovsky" - Genuinely one of the best speeches I've  ever heard 
A MUST WATCH -  Link
  
* Cowspirarcy- directed by Leonardo Dicaprio, it's available on Netflix and really focuses on the environmental side of it all. -
Link

*Earthlings- first hand insight into these factories, how they handle the animals and the conditions. A hard one to watch.  - Link

*101 reasons to go Vegan- Super informative and not aggresive at all! - Link

* The Friendly Activist- really well made, shorter video such a good watch -Link

Youtuber love: 
*BonnyRebecca
*CheapLazyVegan
*TheFriendlyActivist 
*NaturallyStephanie
*Freelee the banana girl
*Vegan Gains 

To see what exactly it is that I eat, I've written two posts on "what I eat in a day"- Here and Here!

EDUCATE YO'SELF PEOPLE! 

                                                               x



Sunday 15 November 2015

The Bomb.









Helloooo,

So naturally I've found myself addicted to wearing my new Boohoo bomber. You can mix it with anything and it comes pretty well, and it definitely adds something to any outfit, an edgy vibe or a pop of colour. My mission of incorporating more colour into my wardrobe is still underway. Pretty much with any money I have to spend on clothes I spend it on as much colour as possible!
With the colder weather coming in and the winter pieces in full swing in the shops, they are filled with deep, rich colours so at the moment I've been eyeing up mostly pastel colours as that's all that there seems to be in the shops. That said, before you know it we'll have spring upon us once again sure so maybe I'm better off embracing it , right?

                                                    Instagram // Twitter // Bloglovin'
                                                                             x

Sunday 1 November 2015

#CharliXCX4Boohoo.













Hello again,

So my question for you today is what do you think of when you look back at the 90s era? 
Well for me, I instantly think of the obvious 90s fashion staples like holographics, chunky shoes and chokers but I also look to the style icons of the time. The likes of Kate Moss,Johnny Depp, The spice girls, Nirvana, not to mention the ultimate 90s throwback of Saved by the bell, Friends, Sabrina the Teenage Witch..the list goes on. These guys were the epitome of the 90s and lets face it we all miss Friends from our daily lives! 

It's from these icons that the fashion staples of the era were establish. Denim on denim, crop tops, dungarees, mini skirts, tops under dresses and leather jackets became the "it" pieces for your wardrobe. With that in mind Boohoo have collaborated with the 
P
fabulous Charlotte otherwise known as Charli XCX on a 90s themed collection #CharliXCX4Boohoo
I honestly love when celebrities collaborate with online, affordable brands, it makes it so much more accessible for the rest of us to get our hands on some pieces! The collection is very much grunge meets girly, which I love and they've got some gorge pieces! From holographic pieces to animal prints to pops of colour! Just see for yourself here

So the lovely people at Boohoo let me pick out an outfit  I pretty much just tried to sum up all of the above. Grunge meets girly girl  meets sports luxe with colour, oversized pieces and mixed textures. This look would look perfect with some Doc Martens too but sadly I had none so I had to do without this time. That said, the jacket is the perfect size and is actually super warm while the skirt adds a nice amount of texture.

Thanks again to Faith and all of the Boohoo team for this opportunity!

                                              X


Tuesday 27 October 2015

1D style vibes?











Hiii,

So last sunday myself and Zara headed out to see 1D in the flesh. Yep, this is where I'm at- NO REGRETS...anyway we didn't do the whole "queuing up for 12 plus hours" malarky and still had a decent enough spot in the crowd. 
Now first off, this was the first time I've ever been to a 1D gig, secondly they're real?! 
I've probably been standing to more concerts than I've been sitting so with that in mind, I can definitely say that 1D fans are something else!
I was buzzing for each song considering I hadn't even heard Kiss You live let alone Drag Me Down or any of their current songs so I don't have many pictures because well, I was way too busy enjoying the actual show! 

Aside from all that, the guys put on a pretty amazing show thanks to their own skill as well as the atmosphere and the crowd in general (no sadness over a certain someone being missing surprisingly..you may even be able to see a certain poster in these pictures that had someone hung to say about certain someone...) since I've only recently become obsessed with their music and their performances, I can honestly say that the fandom is one of the best parts about it all. During Little Things there was a fan project set up for each night, our night seen fans who were standing holding up signs reading "Go raibh maith agat" which is something I don't think is seen in any otheer fandom to be honest.

With all of this in mind I recreated the outfit I wore that night, because well with all the excitment I kind of forgot to take photos on the night. I planned on getting proper photos but the wheather appeared to think otherwise!  Anyhow, I basically wanted to try and channel their style a little bit but without much effort and without spending a fortune (we don't all have money for ysl, Harold) I did a post on taking style inspiration from Harry which you can catch here!
Now if my Adidas trainers still fitted me it all would have "wrked out" and I would have had a bit more of a Larry vibe (oi oiii) but sure I took the "chonce" anyway. So I've got a funky shirt thats pretty much wide open with some long chains and some pointed shoes for some Harry inspo.
All in all, I dare anyone to go to one of their gigs and not enjoy it..

What would you wear to a concert?

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Sky High.








New look shoes// Forever 21 jumper// Topshop jeans//Pennys shirt. 


Hello again...

Very much a chilled post compared to my last  (which you can catch here) this time around.
In an effort to gather more colourful pieces in my wardrobe I bought this sky blue jumper which I surprisingly love. I'm not usually  one for blue pieces unless they're a really deep,rich shade as I tend to find that blue kind of washes me out and can seem a bit cold to be honest.
That said, I figured it was a nice piece to start off with. I've recently put myself on a spending ban for anything black so as a first purchase I thought this was a decent option. Granted, I know I'm wearing this with pretty much all black but..baby steps,baby steps..

Have you put yourself on any spending bans lately?



Sunday 11 October 2015

Formal.

Hellooo,

I've got a formal outfit this time round for a change. But first off, I've got a legit question: how in the world do models wear heals on the runway? Honestly, anything that has my foot at a 90 degree angle with anything less than a chunky heel, kills me. I lasted about an hour in these shoes before I died. Without being too dramatic, it was pretty much a calve workout and I still felt the muscle pain days after! Pretty much convinced it was a workout...

Aside from that though I had a pretty good night. I don't think anyone can resist a good formal occasion sometimes. In this instance it was my debs/prom and basically the final hurdle as regards school related events. I'm not quite sure how much wear I'll get out of this dress but regardless it was a worth it!


Have you had your debs/prom yet? 






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