Confessions

Confession:

I am 300% more likely to bring my own bag to the grocery store now that I have a £3 Guns n Roses tote bag from Primark.

Whatever it takes, I guess!

Primark chic: dark florals edition

As I wrote about here, I'm trying to work some British looks into my style without breaking the bank.

A look I've been really drawn to recently is the idea of dark, winter florals (for examples, see Domestic Sluttery and Vogue). Florals have always seemed very English to me; before moving here, my idea of the quintessential English cool-girl outfit involved a floral dress over black tights with cool rock-and-roll booties, and perhaps a denim jacket or slouchy cardigan and "infinity scarf" (which the Brits call a "snood" - so much more fun).

However, straight-up floral just isn't me. I need something a little darker and edgier, with just a hint of punk or goth. So when I started noticing these floral blouses with black trim all over the place, I was excited. The combination of floral and buttoned-up was a look I loved, and the black trim kept it from being too girly.

As I always do, I shopped around. Here are the results, at various price points.

If you have £80 lying around, head over to Topshop for this one (or, you know, buy one of the other ones and give me the rest of the cash!)

For a more reasonable £35, you can have this darker, more subtle print from Miss Selfridge.

And compared to the other two, this offering from New Look is an absolute bargain at £22.99.

However, as a graduate student paying my own way with no income to speak of, all three of those are well outside my budget (the New Look one would feed me for a week!).

So, as I tend to do in this case, I headed to Primark, as I'd noticed a GORGEOUS dark floral shirt there on an earlier trip, and even though £12 was a little more than I'd like to spend, I figured it was pretty enough to be worth the splurge.

HOWEVER.

When I got there, I found that this lovely:

had been reduced to £5. Yes, you read that right. I wore it yesterday and got so many compliments on it. I'm thinking of replacing the garish gold buttons with more subtle black ones, but really. You can't beat that.

Moral of the story: know what you want, and shop around!

Charity shop WIN

One thing you may not know about me is that I read a lot of fashion and style blogs.

I say that you "might not know" this because, well, I don't LOOK like I read a lot of fashion or style blogs... or ANY, for that matter.

Sadly, I was born without a style gene (and the languages gene, and the music gene...). Things that look cute and put-together on other people look random and frumpy on me. Most of the time, if I get a compliment on an outfit, it's because I spent a LOT of time thinking about it, or I copied it from was inspired by someone else's look.

I've spent a lot of time here in England looking at the way girls dress. There's something so effortlessly layered, so hip and indie and just a little bit grungy and twee (mixed in with just a touch of posh horsiness) all at the same time, that I will never in my life be able to emulate.

That doesn't mean I won't try.

HOWEVER, as we all know, I am on a budget. A hardcore, dollars-to-pounds, bank-taking-my-money-in-exorbitant-fees (more on that later) budget.

So here is part one in my efforts to look a little more stylish and a little more British without breaking the bank.

First: I'm working on killing the impulse buy. While 10% of the time I end up with one of my favorite items ever, 90% of the time I end up regretting it. Partly because I often end up seeing the same item for less not too long after.

This step is extra-essential when you're in a new town or a new country, especially if you're working on a new currency system. I have no idea what's trendy, what's likely to show up in all of the stores, what's a unique one-off, and what a good price is. Therefore, like my momma always said, I shop around.

I figured out pretty quickly which stores I could afford and which I could not. Since buying clothes is pretty low on my priority list (you know, after rent and food), and I have no income to speak of, I'm on a budget of... nothing. Enter cheap fast-fashion stores and charity shops. Obviously, I feel better about shopping the charity shops, as buying second-hand is more ethical (also, there's the potential for finding higher-quality clothing!), and the money is going to a good cause, but I'm also not perfect.

One of the great things about shopping charity shops is that the merchandise turns over pretty quickly. At first this bummed me out - a pretty powder-blue sweater I was thinking about disappeared in a matter of days - however, it also got me in the habit of going back every few days, trying a few things on, and not buying anything I didn't love.

Last week this finally worked out for me at Mind, as I found a super-cute plaid Topshop shirtdress in my size, and a mid-weight cotton Esprit cardigan, for the grand total of £13.25 - just over $20.

The cardigan was an awesome find, as any sweaters I've seen in the stores that are even REMOTELY in my super-tight price range are 100% acrylic, which I cannot STAND. Call me a snob, but between the weird slippery itchiness and tendency to pill, I just cannot do it.

The dress was an ever awesomer find, as it turns out; I was browsing Refinery 29's slideshow on flannel, and saw a Gap dress that looks JUST like the one I bought, only much more expensive!

Mine isn't flannel - it's a lightweight cotton - but I layered it with a pair of fleece tights (more on those later!) and a cable-knit sweater, and it totally worked (I think). Plus, layering is TOTALLY British.

Dorm Decor: Making it homey

One thing I knew for sure when I found out I'd be living in a dorm was that I had to make it pretty. If I'm going to be spending the majority of my time in one room, it has to be somewhere I'm happy to be.

Obviously, I had to do this on a pretty strict budget.

I started with my sink area. I decided that a bath mat would be a fun way to add some color to the room, while also keeping the industrial carpet from getting damp and growing mold. I saw a cute purple one at Marks & Spencers for £8, but held out. I'm glad I did, because I found an even cuter purple one for £4 at Primark. As if I needed another reason to love that store!

I looked around for some kind of storage for my makeup, extra shower products, and random crap, and ended up finding this five-drawer tower at Argos for £17.49. Argos is definitely a store you should check out if you're living in Oxford and on a budget. You go online, place your order (without having to pay online), go down to the store when you're ready, and pay and pick up your stuff. Bonus: there's no penalty if you order something and then don't ever pick it up (I got a little overly ambitious in ordering decorative storage solutions, and by the time I got to Argos I realized I'd rather have the £9.98 than a cute set of wicker baskets).

I also went back to Poundland and picked up a shower caddy. It's like undergrad all over again! You can tell from my decor choices what my favorite color is, no? The rest of my suitemates have left their shower stuff in the bathroom on the windowsill. While that's fine, one of them has started leaving his or her stuff in the shower itself, which I think is rude. But I'll probably write more on my inconsiderate suitemates later.

The next order of business was lamps. As you can see in my previous post, my lighting was limited to a single, energy-efficent bulb glaring bleakly from the ceiling, and an institutional fluorescent light above the sink. I personally feel that light can make a huge difference in the feel of a space, which is one of the reasons I made sure to ask for a south-facing room (the window in the room is really awesome; it takes up the whole wall and lets in a ton of light whenever the sun does decide to shine).

To perk things up, I went back to Argos and got this set of two fuchsia lamps for the unbelievable price of £11.98. I love the bit of color they add to the room! I also had to do something about the bulb in the center of the ceiling, as it was horribly depressing. I went to BHS and snagged a very neutral lampshade (I wanted something more fun, but the crystal chandeliers were out of my price range. Maybe for Christmas!).

Finally, in a bold move, I decided that the curtains had to go. I went back to Linens Direct in the Westgate shopping center, and they had some gorgeous curtains, but I would have ended up paying almost $100 total, and I wasn't sure I cared THAT much.

On a hunch, I checked Argos' website, and found curtains at a reasonable price. I'm really happy with the way they brighten up the room, and make it feel just a little more like mine, instead of a generic dorm.

Dorm Decor: in which coffee

Ok. Obviously, living in a dorm room, I don't have my own kitchen. I'm lucky that the kitchen that I share with my suite mates is pretty decent; it's a good size, I get my own half of a mini fridge and half of a mini freezer (well, in theory. In actuality I get about a quarter of each because my suite mate hogs them).

Now, I knew from the get-go that there would have to be a way for me to make coffee in my room, without having to see or speak to anybody else. The last thing in the world I need is to try to make conversation pre-caffeine.

My goal was to create a little coffee station not unlike the ones found in hotels and B&Bs, while spending as little money as possible.

So, click back to the previous post for a reminder of what I was working with.

It was around this point in my decorating that I discovered Poundland, the English version of a dollar store. It's pretty much a dream come true if you're having lame fantasies of creating a coffee station in your dorm room on a budget.

I snapped up two adorable purple paisley coffee mugs, a vintagey-looking tea tray, and a glittery purple scarf.

Then I went over to Boswells, where I picked up a kettle for £15 (even with my student discount, I obviously paid too much for it!) and a hinged glass jar for £2. The jar was to store my coffee "whitener" (feel free to judge; I needed a way to doctor my coffee without leaving the room!) in a way that was airtight and more attractive than a box of coffee "whitener".

Behold, the finished product!

Cookies go in the drawer, and extra coffee and whitener go in the cabinet, along with the wine and wine glasses.

Not bad for the pound store!

Dorm Decor: the basics

So, at 31, it’s a little unsettling to have to move back into a dorm room. I thought I was done with cinder block walls, loud suite mates, and shower flip flops. I was wrong.

Obviously, my dorm-decorating strategy now is a little different from what it was at 18, when I went with collages of photos of my friends from home, posters of rock stars, and Yaffa blocks.

However, I am still on a budget (even more so this time - last time I moved into a dorm, mom bought my linens, towels, and other essentials!) and suffering from a weak dollar as compared to the pound.

So, the goal: make my room comfortable, homey, and personal without breaking the bank.

Let’s take a look at what I was working with. Pretty standard dorm fare;

puke-colored carpeting, regulation cinder-block walls,

bare bulb…

and the Ugliest Curtains in the Universe ™.

Clearly, something had to be done.

I began my search with the essentials: sheets. While I could technically survive with the UCITU™ for a while, I obviously couldn't sleep on the bare mattress.

I purchased my purple sheets and purple patterned duvet cover from Boswell's;

the duvet cover was 14.00 and the sheets were 12.00. After the 10% discount that Boswell's was offering for students, I was feeling pretty good about myself and my savvy purchasing... until I saw the same duvet cover at Linens Direct in the Westgate Shopping Plaza for 9.99 *sad trombone*.

Oh well. We can't ALWAYS get the best price.

Next time: Dorm Decor, sink and coffee edition.

UK Tip of the day

Something I have noticed since being in England:

My skin is very, very dry.

So dry that I've had to borrow my mom's face and body moisturizers almost every day, and I'm glopping my Rosebud Salve on my cuticles like there's no tomorrow.

Even though I never, EVER use moisturizer.

(Yes, I know, I'm ALWAYS supposed to use moisturizer even though I'm pretty sure my forehead could singlehandedly end our dependence on foreign oil).

I don't know if it's because summer is turning into fall, and the change of seasons can do weird things to a body (sniffles, sore throats, etc.).

I'm tending to blame it on the water, as I think this is what's called "hard" water.

So anyway

my point is

even if you don't usually use any moisturizer, you might want to pick some up just in case.

And if you do, maybe spring for something thicker and more hardcore.

I, for one, will be heading to Boots to look for a gentler face wash (even though it will be hard for me to buy something WITHOUT salicylic acid) and an oil-free, light moisturizer. If I'm feeling indulgent, I may also treat myself to something luxurious from the Lush on Cornmarket.

Anyone else having this problem?