New hair yay!

I'm going to sound like a stupid Dove or Special K or Activia advert right now, but it's so true that when you feel confident about how you look, you have a brighter outlook on life and feel better about everything you do.

And there are few things I love more than getting my hair done to boost my mood - whenever I leave the hairdresser, be that after just a blow-dry or a cut and colour, I sassy walk home, unable to resist checking myself out in every window I pass (and trying not to sniff my hair too much in public because that would be weird.)

Last week, I paid a visit to a Headmasters salon for the first time. There are tons of salons and I'd heard such good things from my friends, but had yet to get around to visiting. I'm one of those awful people who waits till her hair is super straggly and horrid before actually sorting it out, but hey. Life is expensive.

One of the best things about Headmasters, however, is they regularly have offers on such as 50 per cent off colour which, let's be real, makes a huuuuuge difference.

Getting your hair done is pricey. But I love it SO much.

I love the whole experience of a visit to the salon. I love having my hair played with, I love being pampered, and I love the excitement of a transformation.

My hair was long overdue a cut (cheers to my sister and her brutal honesty for pointing this out), but I decided I wanted a little more of a change so decided to go for a balayage.

I wanted to be blonder, but still look natural. It needed to be noticeable, but subtle. I'm a picky customer.

But folks, I was so so pleased with the outcome. The wonderful Clare Hollywood from Headmasters worked her magic and I am so so chuffed. I feel like a new woman! Well, the same woman but with better hair, perhaps. (Apols none of these pics are great cos they're nighttime selfies but what can ya do?)

The great thing about colouring your hair with an ombre balayage is that it's so low-maintenance and it continues to look good no matter how much longer your hair grows.

And I'm excited to be a little blonder. Change is good, after all.

The dreamy waves, however, were sadly not a permanent affair. I am either cursed or blessed (I can't make my mind up) with deadly straight hair. Whilst it is indeed easy to manoeuvre and very low-maintenance, it's also just a bit meh. A bit flat. A bit boring.

Sure, I could curl it, which I do occasionally, but I'm too lazy to do it often.

So I've decided just to embrace the straightness. And this is where my new fave hair styling product comes in...

The kind people at Revlon generously sent me their new Pro Collection Salon One Step Hair Dryer and Styler to play with. Yeah, it's quite the name. Essentially it's a hair brush and hair dryer in one. So yeah, a gadget you never knew you needed.

But I'm a big fan - it leaves my hair super sleek and got rid of any sneaky kinks.

The brush is very easy to use - you simply plug it in, choose the power setting (dependent on the thickness of you hair) and gently brush your hair, miraculously drying and smoothing it at the same time. No frizz allowed.

You want to use it on towel-dried hair (otherwise you may be there all day), but it's more efficient than I was expecting, taking probably just a smidge longer than a normal hair dryer.

I also like the styler because you can use it with your head at any angle and don't really need a mirror either.

It's not too loud, which is always good, but it is quite big so not the most portable of stylers.

The first time I used the styler I was concerned it would leave me with really dried out ends, but that wasn't the case at all.

So now I can go around with sassy hair and check myself out in every window again. (I need to stop this.)

Also how adorable is this ballerina necklace? I've received tons of compliments on it so just wanted to let y'all know it's from Ted Baker. So cute, right?

I love the rose gold and as a gal who did ballet for 20 years, it will always have a special place in my heart.

Aaaaand this concludes the blog post of probably the most selfies ever. Were I a Serious Blogger I'd have got someone to take a million pictures of me on a fancy camera, probably outside houses in Notting Hill. But I'm not. Sincere apologies.

Wine and pizza girls' night in to celebrate Friendship Day

Whether you're someone who has a huge circle or a select few, life would be horrid without friends.

Who would you send ugly snapchat selfies with a million chins to? Who would commandeer your phone on a night out to stop you sending messages you'd later regret? And would would get sloshed with you on your birthday but not quite as sloshed as you to make sure they could always look after you?

Obsessed with birthdays as I am, I forced kindly asked my closest pals to put the Saturday night of my September birthday in their diary back in April.

When I started actually organising birthday things a few weeks ago, the girls told me they'd had the whole weekend booked out for my birthday months ago without me even asking. I was so touched. Bit emosh really.

That's the lovely thing about friendship: you'll do anything for the people you care about, especially if you know it's important to them.

Urgh so soppy.

But this was something we celebrated last weekend, which was, in case you didn't know, international friendship day.

With my oldest best friend, flatmate and sister - so arguably friends from all different areas of my life - we settled in for an evening on the sofa.

To be honest, that's quite a rarity for me. As someone who loves going out for food, drinks and dancing - and living in London where there are endless exciting options - I don't often have a night in.

But that's exactly why I enjoy a rare one so much.

I feel like you know you're with top pals when you plan on watching a film and doing face masks but don't ever get round to either because you can't stop chatting.

We ordered a deliveroo and of course, cracked open the wine (which let's be honest always helps keep the conversation and lols flowing).

And considering how long it took for our pizza to arrive - note to self, never order deliveroo at 7pm on a Saturday night - it was most fortunate that we had plenty of wine, courtesy of the kind people at I Heart Wines.

We started with the rosé because summer and girls and basic.

Hand modelling and pouring by the beautiful and expert pourer, Jessie.

It looked quite heavy but was actually light, mediumly (not a word but go with it) fruity and totally delicious.

And then our pizzas arrived, praise the lord.

Guys, Franco Manca is life. It was so bloody worth the wait.

The original sourdough pizza company, which started out right on my doorstep in Brixton, if you've never been to Franco Manca you need to remedy that asap.

The pizza bases are so soft, chewy and doughy but not greasy like, ahem, a certain popular pizza takeaway company.

It's pizza, but tastes high quality.

What's more, it's such good value. A margherita is just £6.40, pals, and who can argue with that?

Having been eating nibbles for about two hours while waiting for our pizzas, we weren't actually that hungry. But did we still finish them? You betcha. Because a) they were that delicious, and b) who gives any f***s about your figure after a bottle of wine? Quite.

We cracked open the Sauvignon Blanc next which I knew I was going to love because it's my fave wine.

It was crisp and oh so drinkable. (Apologies but by this point I was past taking pictures. You've all seen white wine before.)

And because no meal is complete unless it ends on something sweet™, we proceeded to demolish a bar of chocolate between three of us.

And I mean a giant, sharing bar. After pizza.

If you're judging us for this, you've clearly never tried Dairy Milk peanut caramel crisp.

Yeah, you try not eating it all. It is so damn good.

We had originally entertained the idea of going out out after our dinner and draaaanks. But you will perhaps be unsurprised to hear that in our very full, tiddly states, we ended up getting no further than our beds. In my case, face-planting and starfishing (man I love being single).

In bed by midnight on a Saturday? A revelation. I think it could catch on.