The Coffee Life

back track to march when i initially had the idea to blog everyday in may, i was in a "stable" job, had a shit ton of motivation, and a lot of things to write about.

now go back to the beginning of may, when i was really organised, had planned out the first week and a bit of blogging, i was fired from my job (oh lol, totally over it now) 

i lost my motivation, i lost my passion, and everything after the 11th day, took a turn

so whats next? 

i'm gunna still be blogging (obviously) i have some great ideas for some posts, but sometimes life hits you hard and you lose your motivation, it happens, you cant stop it. 

and hey maybe in a few months time, i will try and blog everyday for a month again, but lets be honest probably not, unless i'm really motivated.

so here's to getting my motivation back,

i realise this post doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it was word vomit, how lovely.

as someone who's room is filled with coffee, sometimes in the evenings its very hard to wind down with all the aromas of delicious coffee going on. 

last year i invested in an essential oil diffuser, and since then i've been looking and testing endless amounts of blends to see which ones i like the most and the ones that seem to relax me.

so i've thrown this post together, to show that it is pretty easy to create different blends with not a lot of oils - and the basic oils at that.

find the diffuser i use here*



my diffuser fits around 340ml of water in, so the amount of drops of oil is can vary if you have a bigger or smaller diffuser 



starting off simple

4 drops of lavender essential oil
4 drops of chamomile essential oil



4 drops of peppermint essential oil
3 drops of lavender essential oil
3 drops of eucalyptus essential oil
2 drops of tea tree essential oil






4 drops of lavender essential oil
3 drops of peppermint (or spearmint) essential oil






3 drops of eucalyptus essential oil
3 drops of peppermint essential oil
2 drops of spearmint essential oil







4 drops of lavender essential oil
4 drops of ylang ylang essential oil






4 drops of lavender essential oil
3 drops of peppermint essential oil
2 drops of patchouli essential oil






6 drops of sandalwood essential oil
5 drops of vanilla essential oil






4 drops of patchouli essential oil
4 drops of sandalwood essential oil

since i am now a whole two decades old, it's probably time i started acting -somewhat- responsible, should have some goals and dreams blah blah blah

so here are some mini goals i am setting myself for being the big 20 

- continue blogging what i love, whether that be coffee, lifestyle and all the rest in between 

- road trip to new places, either alone or with friends

- travel to another country, alone, just because

- run a (half) marathon - setting the goal of half because lets be real, i'll probably need a lot more training for a full one, maybe when i'm 21


- speaking of exercise, get fully back into the gym, without excuses

- do and complete another online course

- listen to podcasts instead of music (and keep track of what podcasts i've listened too) 

- write handwritten letters more 

- be present with friends and family - try and rebuild the family connections i've lost through being a bit of a dick


- complete my good-reads book challenge for 2018, i was really good between January and March, but it's taken a back seat 


- say yes to more opportunities 

holy shit, i am 20 years old.
today the lovely 10th of may, is my birthday (happy birthday to me) 
i am finally two decades old (cue the quarter life existential crisis)
none the less, i've learned some things over the past two decades of being alive, and i always love reading these posts, so here are 20 (a few more than 20, because i couldn't quite condense it down) things i have learned by the age of 20





1 - life is too short for crappy coffee - seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how much i pretended to enjoy crappy chain coffee when i was younger. get yourself some speciality beans roasted to perfection and brew them yourself


2 - don't put things off for 3 years, and then complain to everyone that you "cant do it" and that you "quit" just get your shit together and do it, because you'll regret the last three years that you've been paying for something that you weren't using (oh yeah, car insurance is expensive when you're not actually using the car) 


3 - not everyone thinks the same way you do - everyone has their difference in thinking, and that's ok, not everyone is going to think that this particular thing you like is amazing, likewise the other way round


4 - if an idea doesn't exist, create it 


5 - your sister will forever be your best friend and free therapist, even when you don't see eye to eye (and you're being a bit of a dick), you'll always be there for each other.


6 - pinterest is without a doubt the best social media to exist, feeling shit? scroll through pinterest. feeling great? scroll through pinterest. need motivation? scroll through pinterest - you see where i'm going here


7 - you will never find happiness in other people - you've got to get your shit together and find your own happiness within yourself 


8 - certain things will never be how they used to be, and that's just life 


9 - be your own date - take yourself out for dinner, treat yourself to a spa date, go to the cinema, heck it's great


10 - it's perfectly fine to not know what the hell to do in this world - we were always broken kids with no plans, i saw a tweet a while back (pictured below) and i relate to it a shit ton - but great things will come

coffee oil is something that has been quite raved about in the recent years, and finally after researching and researching, in January of this year, I decided to make some of my own.

i used the ratio of 4:3 (4 parts oil, to 3 parts coffee) and left to infuse for 6 weeks.

i also made sure i gave it a good stir every 4-5 days

I spent months and months researching all about coffee oil, the benefits of coffee oil, the best way to use, just everything about it.

Coffee Oil is used mainly for skincare, haircare and diy beauty products (according to pinterest)

the way that coffee oil is made, is simply coffee and a carrier oil, you can use whole beans or very course-ly ground, for my carrier oil, i used Vitamin E Oil just because i did want to use it on my face and hair (oh i'm that white girl who makes her own beauty products now) 
other oils you can use are, olive, rapeseed, avocado, almond, coconut 



Coffee obviously has it's own benefits, including quite a few antioxidants
- chlorogenic acid
- condensed proanthocyanidins
- quinic acid
- ferulic acid

caffeine also increases blood flow to the skin and when you have more blood flow, it's "possible" (according to scientists, apparently) that expression lines wont be as visible 
also according to research (lets be honest though) the oleic acid (which is a mono-saturated fatty acid) helps to improve wrinkles and pigmentation

other benefits of coffee oil
- soothes insect bites and stings (hopefully in summer i can test this)
- improves mood (i feel like that's the coffee part)
- alleviates stiff, achy muscles (actually proven, i used it after a pole session, and didn't ache as much as i usually would, but who knows)
- reduces nausea
- soothes allergic reactions / rashes
- helps sooth puffy eyes (also tried and tested, yes, it works!!!)
just like when you drink coffee, the caffeine is a diuretic which means it draws out water. the caffeine stimulates the skin and gets rid of puffiness from the added moisture.

coffee oil for hair growth
 -caffeine has growth-prompting effects on human hair follicles
-along with vitamin e oil, which reduces inflammation and repair damage to hair folicles 




after 6 weeks, it recommends straining it through a cheese-cloth (but the closest i had to that, and a genius moment of mine, surely, was a v60 and filter) 




so far, i have used it under my eyes (i'd like to say it's worked but who knows at this point), used it as a little hair mask (i mean it sort of worked, my hair was soft af, but it took a lot of shampoo to get the oily residue off), used it as sunburn cure (works like a freaking charm), i've used it in my oil diffuser, which had mixed opinions as my room already smells like coffee 100% of the time.

all in all, i am loving experimenting with it, and finding new things to do
i've seen a recipe for a lipbalm which includes coffee oil, so you bet i'll be making that soon.

since it is my birthday month (yes i'm making a whole months affair out of it) i thought no better time to do a gift guide for coffee lovers




Hario

a classic place to start, hario is pretty much the place where you can pick up most of the essentials you'll ever need for home brewing, including beginner kits and pretty things like siphons and cold brew coffee makers






Coffee Subscriptions

i feel like i would love to receive a couple of months of a coffee subscription as a gift, nothing says love like coffee 

my lovely friend James at Williams Coffee Company has recently set up a coffee subscription at just £20 a month, which gets you two new coffees every month (I KNOW)




Find Williams Coffee Company subscription here



Girls Who Grind Coffee

no shock to anyone, that i had to include the girls in this post




Department of Brewology 




Department of brewology have some amazing merch, from prints to apparel, everything is amazing (and i want everything please and thank you) 




My favourite ever things on their website are their pins, i want every single one of them.
Everything is reasonably priced and recently they have made their postage to the UK more affordable (bye bank balance) 




Caffeine Galore - Etsy 


by now, you all know Izzy, who has a fabby etsy store, filled with t-shirts and tote bags and dreamy things




Another site I want basically everything from.



This post could literally go on forever, but these are just a few places I love and lust over (mainly lust lets be honest)

something i'd love to (and will be) talking about more on this blog is tea - i love me a good cuppa tea

i discovered this brand Good and Proper at the London Coffee Festival (ironic right) and instantly fell in love with their loose leaf tea's (i think it's one of the only things i actually ended up purchasing at the festival)