University and What the future holds . . .

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It's been a really long time since I've done a lifestyle post hasn't it. Well, today a friend and I were talking about what we wanted to do in life after we leave school. As some of you may know, I've just finished up high school and am now attending sixth form - basically community college. I only have so much time left before the real world kicks in and I actually have to put things into action. I do actually know what career I'll be going after for once I've left school, but I've found myself asking, 'If today was your last day of school, what would you do?'
It scares me that I have no answer for that question.
I know where I want to go but I don't know how I'll get there. Through the jumble of looking into different universities and stressing about how exactly I'm going to be able to pay my tuition is just a lot to deal with. Taking out a loan is the last thing I want to do. Being in debt before I've even hit 21 is just not an appealing thought. 
Do I work for a few years before I go?
Do I work while I'm there? But then how is that going to work out with me being an international student?
Do I try to get a scholarship? But what if it doesn't happen, what then?
All these questions just stress me out because I know where I want to go, but I don't know how to get there. I've been looking into universities since I was 14 years old and of the colleges that I've looked into Parson The New School (NYC) and Istituto Marangoni (Milan) for a course in Fashion Design stand out the most to me. I would think that a lot of these concerns would resonate with a lot of people who have been through similar situations.
I guess in the next few years we'll see what happens, but I just don't want to get in a situation where I'm just stuck.
Yes, this post has been way off from the usual. I wanted to share a bit more of myself with you guys away from the beauty and fashion posts and this is a topic that I've been thinking about a lot as the time comes closer to make a solid decision. But, as always, thank you for reading.
If you've attended university, what was the initial process like for you?

I'll talk to you guys in my next post!

AW Beauty Wishlist

Good Monday everyone, so this post may or may not be rather shorter than my usual wishlists and posts in general but regardless it's time for the second half of my AW Wishlist Series - beauty. I hope you enjoy.
ZOEVA Brushes I have an obsession with makeup brushes, I could never have too much of them and at some point you all may just see me on Hoarders walking around my house two feet deep in the stuff. These Zoeva brushes are the current focus of my obsession, but can you blame me?
These brushes have a classic, yet professional, yet femme fatale way about them that comes all wrapped up in a nifty carrying case. I like the sleek black handles and how the bristles are either all white or white tipped. It's always that much easier to maintain the cleanliness of your brushes when you can see that they're dirty. On top of the look, I've also seen beauty bloggers and vloggers alike raving about their excellent performance - I mean that's what we all look for in our brushes, right? Something pretty to look at that gets the job done.
Besides, rose gold is just a girl's best friend.

Revlon ColorStay For foundation at the moment I don't have any long checklist of things that it must do. All I'm looking for is something that has long-lasting full coverage with SPF and the Revlon ColorStay seems to be the one to give exactly that. Through research I found that it gives a natural-dewy finish and leaves your skin feeling soft and nice. Those qualities are quite appealing and I can't wait to get my hands on some of this.

Clarins Autumn Makeup Clarins has released an Autumn Makeup Collection for this year and its quite impressive. I have mentioned this so many times in the past, but just in case you haven't heard, I am a sucker for neutral eyeshadows; they are my absolute go-to's. The sleek gold packaging only heightens the reason of why they're on my wishlist. Admittedly though, it seems like only 2 of the 5 shades of lipstick would go well with my complexion. Sigh.

Givenchy Lipstick  I like this more for the colour than anything else. The deep, mellow pink really appeals to me for some weird reason. I don't usually lean towards pink lips and this I think would be a good step in that direction. This was a last minute addition to my wishlist really - it caught my eye last minute.
So there you have it, the final bit of my AW Wishlist Series and I hope that you've enjoyed every word of it. I just had to add this part, it's been nagging at me: Doesn't Zoeva sound better as (Zoh-e-vah) instead of (Zoh-ee-vah)? 
As always thank you guys so much for reading.

What's on your AW wishlist this year?
I'll talk to you in the next post.

EOS Balm | REVIEW

For a long while I’ve been wanting to try out the EOS lip balms and recently-ish I got myself the Strawberry Sorbet version. Really I’ve had this since early August and I’ve just been conflicted about how I really feel about it. As you can see by the pictures – or maybe you can’t – the balm is halfway gone after 3 months. That’s a very long time for a balm to last, but then again I don’t use it every day.

My first impression after application numero uno was that the balm feels really nice going onto my lips. The indentation in the packaging makes removing the cap and applying the balm really easy. The packaging overall is smooth and I’m a fan of the spherical concept – really unique and stands out in the crowd.

After applying a few more times over a couple of days I noticed that my lips started to peel. My first thought was that my lips were just getting used to a more organic approach of moisturising and I kept using it to see if that was indeed the problem. After a while I began to wonder if the peeling was a result of my extremely cold air conditioned surroundings as during late summer I’d been on an internship. Eventually it did stop - when my internship had ended weeks later. I’d discussed this with a friend of mine who religiously EOS and she too had experienced the whole “EOS + A/C = Peeling Lips” scenario. So in the end my first few weeks of using the balm were invalid.

I continued using the balm after and my lips eventually went back to normal. But even in normal conditions I find that I have to constantly reapply as it doesn’t last long on my lips. The smell is amazing to have waft up your nose every time and I love that. But to have to apply again and again in such a short span of time is just not cutting out for me. I really wanted to like this product but I have to say that I don’t. This didn’t work as well as I expected and I know people who have had the same experience.

That’s it for today’s post and as always thank you guys so much for reading.

I’ll talk to you in my next post!

Gem Eyelash Curler | REVIEW

Gem. Gemmy. Gemma. Gem.
My eyelashes have a natural curl to them, The curl is defined to the point where the tips of my lashes actually go back to touch my eyelid. Although the curl is convenient, time saving, the extremity of it is just annoying. I cannot apply mascara without having it smudge onto my eyelids, so sitting here and talking to you guys about an eyelash curler was the last thing I'd ever expect to be doing. Believe it or not, this curler has actually helped me with my problem. I find that if I use the curler upside down it gets my lashes straightened out enough to the point where there's still some curl to it, but it's not dragging along my upper lids. I don't know how many of you have the problem where your eyelashes are just to much. A while back I' actually looked up how to straighten eyelashes and came up answerless. Before the state of my eyelashes caused me lots of problems, one of which was preventing me from wearing false lashes. Although this eyelash curler from GEM was very helpful, I'm not saying that it's the only curler that can do the trick. Any curler should be able to do the job as far as I'm concerned, but the GEM curler is just the one that I use. Now getting passed my dilemma, the eyelash curler itself is really good.
The silver finish gives it a feel of professionalism, it's light weight and travel friendly.
The one thing I don't like about it is that it's one of those curlers that doesn't come with a replacement pad and I'm left to wonder how long this one will last me. I've had this since the beginning of August so it's been a while, but I guess I'll just have to resort to buying a whole new curler when the time comes.
Bye and thank you all so much for taking the time out to read this. I'll talk to you in my next post!

AW Style Wishlist

Goodbye SS, hello AW.

With Summer over it's expected to see some cooler weather about. Here in the tropics though, there's only that much cooler the weather can get. Autumn or not, the sun seems to have gotten hotter than it had been this Summer, as impossible as that may sound.

But as tropical storm Gonzalo passes through today, the sky is nothing but a cover of thick grey clouds and I can finally catch a break from the heat. I love cold weather and the rain, call me crazy but that's just how it is.

My AW style wishlist wont necessarily be appropriate for anywhere else but the the tropics and any other places that don't experience drastic temperature drops around this time of year. So, for those of you in the colder regions, I'm sorry if you can't relate. Here's my wishlist.

AW Style Wishlist by vanityroseofficial 

Floral Skirts

I don't know, I just have a thing for floral prints at the moment and I think that these skirts are great Autumn staples, whether your Autumns are a bit colder or not. I really like these skirts from H&M, Amazon and Debenhams. They're all very versatile, just dress them up with some heels and a top not or dress them down with some flats and a loose braid. I'd love to make these a part of my AW wardrobe.

Handbags

I actually used to hate handbags a while back. I hated them because I'd always have to be holding them. I actually preferred toting around the bare essentials in my pockets - spoken like a true tomboy, not that I am one. But now they've really grown on me - a lot - and I really like these ones from Lane Crawford and Rebecca Minkoff - it's the floral print. What do you think?

Sunnies

I have a slight obsession with these things and I can never really pick just one when is comes to them. Hence, why I have multiple sunglasses in this wishlist. I've recently come to like aviators and these ones from Ray-Ban are quite tempting - polarized, yes please. These cat eye sunnies from Vince Camuto are a real looker, they're one of my favourite styles of sunglasses. And speaking of favourite sunglass styles, the round ones from Net-A-Porter seem like real keepers. See my dilemma?

Ankle Boots

I actually don't have any ankle boots at the moment and I've been wanting a pair for quite some time now. The ones from Charlotte Russe are definitely my style - love the laces.

Watch

I have a fascination with rose gold. It's such a subtle feminine colour and I especially like it on watches. I haven't been wearing any watches as of late and this watch from Michael Kors seems like just the piece to get me started again. Of course I know what time it is!

This is is for my AW Style Wishlist, but tune in for my AW Beauty Wishlist same time, same place next week. Another thing, I Van Rose now has a solid posting schedule. Posts go live on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays each week.

Thank you truly for reading.

I'll talk to you in my next post.

Being a Better Blogger

Having been away from all things blogging for a while and now coming back and catching up on some of my favourite blogs, I feel really refreshed and more dedicated to my blog. From the content that I've read from other bloggers, I've come to realise that most if not all of them plan out how their going to manage their blog.

Personally, I've never been one to plan for my blog and that has resulted in me just posting whenever about whatever and I'm coming to dislike that flow of things. I want to be more organised and take things more seriously. I don't want to be like 'oh, I could've done this today but now the lighting is gone.' I'm more invested in this now and I want  things to pull through.

So, tomorrow I plan on buying my first planner, but with the year almost finished I'll end up using less than half of it, and some other pretty stationery - love the stuff - so that I can start being more organised and productive. I want to start doing OOTDs and I realise that that's not going to happen without planning and I really need to get myself a better camera - but everything in its time.

Of course I could just do the planning on my computer, but there's something about just taking the time to write it all out and actually being able to hold it that just appeals to me. Anyone else feel that way sometimes?

I should be able to sort myself out in terms of planned posting by sometime next week. This post is really just let you guys in on what I'm planning, what's going on. Sometime soon I'll be getting template of Van Rose professionally done, right now I'm checking out different people and templates to see which I like best and all that. Decisions, decisions . . . . It's so sad that I'm a person who could never make up her mind.

But thank you guys for reading through this post and have a great rest of your day.

I'll talk to you in my next post!

Summer Internship | Final Update + My Exam Results

As some of you know, I'd been doing a series of posts about my experience of interning this summer, but as I've been on hiatus from blogging for some time now it's about time that I filled you guys in from where I left off. So the updates stopped right around the time that I found out that I was accepted for the job. So sit back, relax, and enjoy eight weeks summarized.
The first day reporting for work was nerve racking, I didn't know where to go, who to see, but I just walked in stated my business to the first person I saw and then everything was taken care of after that. I was placed to work in the accounting department - yeah! 
At first, it was hard getting used to the flow of things and the people. I kept making mistakes at first and I hated having to ask for help. Such was the torture of week one. That continued on until the middle of week two and by Friday of that week I was n cloud nine. Heck, slip ups would still happen here and there but I felt confident in the work and I was getting used to the people around me. At this point, the only thing I didn't like was having to wake up early in the morning during summer to get ready for the day - oh well.
In week three everything was flowing along smoothly; I was doing invoices, writing cheques and all that other accounting stuff. On Friday of that week the company hosted a barbecue for the staff, it was awkward for me being around those people in a social setting, sure I was just starting to warm up to them but I have this issue of taking forever to really be comfortable around new people so . . .
The barbecue though, was nice and through the minor panic attack I was able to have some fun. Week four consisted of a few holidays that resulted in me not having to go to work until Wednesday . . . or was it Thursday? Let's go with Wednesday, and with that I was able to enjoy some of summer. 
By this point I had already realised that that place, like some other businesses, had quite a bit of drama going around. I really don't understand why it always has to be the girls.
Week five was suppose to be my last week working there, but by that time I'd gotten really attached to the place and the people and I was encouraged to ask for an extension. So, I did and it was approved. Since I'd been planning to attend Sixth Form at the starting of the school year, I only extended my time by three weeks - which would end my stay right before school started.
Those last three weeks were a learning experience just as the others had been. Working there made me think about and realise a lot of things about myself and what I wanted to do. It really cleared my head when there I was thinking that I had everything figured out. Previously I'd been terrified of the idea of the day I'd have to say goodbye to school, I mean I've spent the last 11 years of my life there and then all of a sudden I have to go out into the real world. But, this helped me to see that it wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting, it may be an awkward transition but it's not so bad that it would kill you.
So if you, like I had been, are worried about that, don't be. You'll be fine. 
I made some friends during the experience, I see them around sometimes and I'm planning to go back there during the Christmas vacation.
Oh and also, I promised you guys that I share the results of my exams. For those of you who are not familiar with the way that the CXC or GCSE exams work a 1 is equivalent to an A, a 2 is equivalent to a B, a 3 is equivalent to a C and so on and so forth. So, quick reminder:
1=A 2=B 3=C
So my results are as follows:
Office Administration   =   1 Spanish   =   2 English A   =   1 English B (Literature)   =   1 Mathematics   =   2 Food and Nutrition   =   2 Information Technology   =   1 Clothing & Textiles   =   1 Human & Social Biology   =   1 Caribbean History   =   1
So in all that, seven 1s and three 2s.
I started sixth form four weeks ago and I'm studying Sociology, Art & Design, Management of Business (MOB) and Communication Studies. Hopefully after my two years I can fly off to Milan and study Fashion Design.
That's all for now everyone.
I'll see you in my next post.