Today I am off on my travels to somewhere cool (I hope!)….Reykjavik!
We are off to get some culture and see some sights, hopefully including the Northern Lights aka Aurora Borealis, as well as seeing everything else Iceland has to offer. I am all set, and have my money and everything else, I got a good new lens for my camera, some Air Max all black trainers, and everything else I need for my travels 🙂
I imagine I will be updating my Instagram and Twitter, you can follow me on those, and I will update my blog properly when I get back (I may do little updates). 🙂
I have always had a wet shave, which means buying a lot of blades over the years. There’s almost always a time where I have to think, “Do I need to buy blades” and when I do, it means having to go into town and get myself a pack, which are getting more and more expensive.
Shaving is not just about the blades, you’ll also need shaving gel or foam, and as I always mention you can’t forget about post shave balm. If you’re like me you, you’ll not run out of these things at the same time which is quite annoying.
Cornerstone is a men’s shaving brand with a difference. It’s a subscription based service, and their philosophy is to create a more simple way to shave. Their shaving kits comprise of a face scrub, shave gel and post shave balm, as well as a pack of blades and your very own, customised stick with your initials inscribed.
The service costs £30, and they have three plans you can subscribe to, which depend on how often you shave; You can opt to get a box send to you every 6, 12 or 24 weeks depending on how often you shave. The box will contain:
1 stick (Your first box) 6 blades Face Scrub (100ml) Shaving Gel (150ml) Post Shave Balm (75ml)
For myself, shaving 3 times a week they recommend a box every 12 weeks, which would mean using one blade for 2 weeks. This seems a long time to me, since I currently use one blade every 10 days or so, however I’ve been reading that they actually last a lot longer.
I really love the box and the presentation, each component has it’s own compartment, everything is laid out well and the packaging is really cool.
How does it stack up against old fashioned shopping?
I usually buy 150ml King Of Shaves Gel (£3.69), 150ml Dove MenCare face scrub (£2.86), MACH3 blades, £13.99 for 8 and 100ml Dove Mencare Post-Shave Balm (£3.86). That is a total of £24.40 which is slightly cheaper, and you get slightly more than the Cornerstone box.
Final Word
The Cornerstone box is slightly more expensive than the DIY options of buying your own products, however you’re getting them delivered to your door, without the need to go out to the shops which can make this service worthwhile.
If you’re the guy on the go, living a busy life and don’t want to worry about your shaving regime being disrupted because you’ve forgotten to buy something, this takes all the hassle of buying essential products for your shaving needs.
Forget about forgetting that post shave balm, with the Cornerstone box it’s as simple as choosing your plan and letting them take care of the rest.
Bonbar is a fairly new drinking establishment and restaurant in Newcastle, and has taken over The Old Assembly Rooms. It’s located on Fenkle Street, just off Westgate Road, up from The Milecastle. It’s a classic style of place, offering the best in cocktails, wine and champagne, as well as the traditional drinks you’d expect to see at a bar.
I do love the layout and the décor and building is really nice. The bar is in the middle as you walk in, with plenty of room to get served which I think is important. Down each side there are booths if you fancy chilling in one of those, or get on the dance floor at the top of the room. Everything is open and easy to get to, it’s a large space without feeling too big. There’s an exclusive VIP room called the 467 Club, and an outside terrace for the warmer months or if you need some air.
The £8-£10 entrance fee on a Saturday night is just above average for an upmarket type of place such as this, and it’s open from 11pm until 4am which is pretty good.
Dress Code
The dress code is smart casual.
Club Nights – Beau Monde on Thursday nights, open till 3AM; Makeway Fridays and Be Somebody Saturdays At Bonbar
Bonbar, The Assembly Rooms, Fenkle St, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 5XU Closest Metro Station: Central Station Other Nearby Bars: The Milecastle, Union Rooms, Revolution Official Website:
I needed some dark coloured trainers, so the obvious colour is black, and wanted something super smart, but also really comfortable for walking round in for when I am in Reykjavik, if I actually get there! 🙁 . I love my Air Max 1 which I got earlier this year, I love the colour, but they can get dirty easily, and I want something more neutral and dark.
I am back into Nike Air Max, like I was as a kid, and I love these Air Max 90 trainers. They are so minimal, sleek and unnoticeable! I could probably even wear them on a night out and they’d go pretty unnoticed. I still like my Converse, but if you’ve ever walked a lot in Converse you’ll know they aren’t the greatest trainers for walking long distances for long periods of time. Air Max are so comfortable, and these are really smart and stylish. They seem more durable than the Air Max 95 because of the construction, but are still breathable and are slightly narrower than the 95’s.
If I ever need some smart looking trainers for something low key, I have these beauties 🙂
So last night we went out in Newcastle, nothing planned and I did not expect to go out, but did, and it was a really good night 😉 We went out late, but went to places like Jalou, Mimo, Union Rooms and a new-ish place called Metropolis, which is above Mimo…I actually heard of it a few months ago, but never really noticed it. It’s a pretty cool place, nice space but since it’s so new and a bit out the way it was not too full, but it’s big enough to be great, I think they need a better selection of drinks though, I was on Amstel beer, it could be the first time I ever had an Amstel! 😛
Yesterday it was freezing! August? Where did that go!?!? I wore an Armani black T-shirt with my All Saints Denim Jacket and some PRPS jeans.
Going to Jalou means one thing…I get to have my favourite cocktail… A Cookie Monster 😀 If you read my blog regularly you’ll know what they look like already, but here you go 😀
We have planned a trip to Reykjavik, it’s been booked for several months, and we’re finally going in a couple of weeks…If you have been following the news you may of heard that they have been having strong earthquakes, and thing that one of the volcanos, the Bardarbunga volcano could erupt any day. Earlier this week they increased the warning to orange, which is the second highest, and yesterday it was increased to RED! 🙁 They are now saying that it’s almost certainly going to erupt, they just don’t know when, and already small eruptions have happened under the glacier! 🙁
If you remember back in 2010 the Eyjafjallajokul volcano erupted, and not only knocked out flights around Iceland, but the whole of Europe!
I hope we get there, it’s been planned for months and we were going to see a lot of cool things, it was a holiday of a lifetime kind of thing, seeing the Northern Lights etc. I have never been to Iceland and it’s not your every-day holiday destination where you think of going. I can only hope that it doesn’t effect our holiday and we actually get there.
UPDATE – They’ve downgraded the warning to Orange again…Hopefully good news.
Dolce and Gabbana released an anthology of unisex fragrances back in 2009, each one numbered 1, 3, 6, 10 and 18. The idea of the range was that each scent was in fact a unisex scent, but later this was marketed slightly different, and they changed up the way they were marketed, with clear distinctions between the male and female scents. This is D&G Le Bateleur 1,a masculine scent.
After getting my nifty fifty only the other week, I have added another lens to my now-growing collection. I wanted and needed a wide angle lens, and after reading reviews and info for a couple of weeks, I finally decided on the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 AT-X 116 PRO DX lens, and took the plunge and bought it. I do have a specific reason for this lens which will come clear later in a few weeks on my blog 😉 but I have always wanted and needed a good wide angle lens for my camera.
If you have a Canon 600D or any of the crop sensor cameras you’ll know that it’s 1.6x factor; That means even with the lens kit which is 18-55mm the actual range you get starts at 28.8mm, so it not too wide. This lens has been made for the APS-C sensors in mind, so the 11mm is really wide, and you get a great range. This is also the first “good” lens I have bought….The others have been the standard, plastic-cheap (although not cheap!) lenses, and they have been really good so far. When I got this I was impressed with the build quality, I read everywhere that it was “built like a tank” and it is! 😀 The first thing you notice is the weight; As I say I have only ever used the Canon lenses at the entry level range, and in comparison this is so heavy and feels very well built.
I am not a pro photographer so this lens is absolutely brilliant for me, at £425 it is hugely expensive for my usage, but since I do take lots of pics for the blog as well as taking it with me if I travel, it’s worth me having. If you are into cameras then you’ll probably know that this is not that expensive for a lens, such as a £2,000 Canon L series for instance 😛 For the regular folk who just like taking good pictures, this is expensive, but it is an investment 🙂
It does have a zoom feature, it’s only a few mm but I decided it was better than a prime with no zoom. The other lens I could have got was a Samyang 14mm, it was quite a bit cheaper, but this had far better reviews, it’s wider and has that little bit of zoom. The autofocus and manual focus are easy to operate, just slide the larger ring either up or down depending on what you want. It comes with a hood, which is detachable, it’s larger at 77mm so my filters I have for my other lens will not fit, but I am not worried about that.
This will be a great lens for landscapes, travel photography etc. so I really look forward to using it, I’ll probably be using it for general blog photography too, we’ll see how it stacks up for that 🙂
A classic timeless scent which has been around for a long time, I am talking about Acqua Di Gio by Giorgio Armani. It may have been around for a long time, and is loved by many, however it’s one of my newest fragrances.
After all the hype surrounding it, I decided that I had to get myself a bottle, it almost felt like a crime not having this in my huge fragrance collection. It first appeared in 1996, and is still going strong, it’s a firm favourite with many, and makes a lot of people’s lists for a must have scent.
I finally got myself a new lens, the infamous cheap “Nifty Ffity“. I read good reviews on this, and it’s a “must have” if you believe what you read. It has some good features such as 1.8f aperture which lets in a whole load of light which is great, coming from a 3.5f aperture on my lens kit.
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