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I decided to go for make-up this time; I have been sort of dreading this. I have a very limited make up bag. I use foundation, mascara, an eye-brown pencil and gel-eyeliner. If I am feeling particularly fancy I'll use a blusher and/or lipstick. BUT, I sort of hate spending that much on make-up. I think my mascara is £7 and I die every time I need to get a new one. It's one of those things that go into the 'There are better things for me to spend my money on' category, along with professional hair-cuts and socks. I had a feeling this one was going to cost me a fair bit of money, but it definitely wasn't as bad as I expected.

Ditched: Rimmel (Owned by Coty Inc) & Maybelline (Owned by L'Oreal) - I'm ashamed to discover L'Oreal make something that I use daily, they aren't a great company at all. I have trailed the internet trying to find something set in stone about Coty Inc but they seem to be one be ambiguous on if they do or don't test on animals; which isn't good enough.

The Search: I picked up some bits by 'B.', a brand I found in Superdrug. It is more expensive than I would have hoped (£10ish for a foundation). And after spending almost £30 on mascara and foundation I wasn't planning on trying out anything else too soon. But, to my annoyance, I hated the liquid foundation. It sucked. Its super sticky, and somehow thick and thin at the same time... AND, I have used a full bottle already, my foundations usually last over a month, this made it a couple of weeks. The pressed powder foundation, on the other hand, is wonderful. I love it. The 'B. All' mascara also has a lot of plusses; the brush doesn't fall to bits, there are no clumps, it comes off really easily and doesn't smudge. I went back and picked up an 'Eyebrow Kit' the next day, I guess you can't really go wrong with an eyebrow pencil? The colour is good and the waxed end works well too. After the liquid foundation failure I decided to order a couple of things from Barry M, they have a little page on their website about why they are cruelty free. I did play with the idea of using something by Lush too, but holy hell is that stuff expensive. Thankfully, I loved the Barry M foundation. Its the first time I've gone for anything more colourful then 'ivory; but with Barry M I went for a 'nude' and it matches really well!

If you want to look into how your own things stack up, I found that Leaping Bunny, Not Tested and Go Cruelty Free were extremely useful. You can see part 1 of my Cruelty-Free search here.

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As always, I don’t care what other eat/drink/do. I have shared my experiences to help guide others who have the same way of thinking as me and give them the tools to make it easier. If you have any useful references yourself, let me know!

On Friday Dixon, Eva and me jumped on a train to visit Dixons parents (and their two boxers) for the weekend. I was so worried about Eva meeting the dogs, it couldn't have gone better. I mean, they chased each other around for hours at first... but after that they got on sooo well. Eva is not scared of anything. On Saturday we went on a huge humid, foggy walk down the River Wear and onto the beach. Everything looked amazing in the fog, the lighthouse, the shipyards and pier. The rain kind of sucked and my feet ached like crazy but I had so much fun. I love the beach, I could spend my whole life there, and having three pups with us made it even better. Seeing Eva swim in the sea was so amazing. We went back the next day too... The weekend definitely tired us all out.

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1// Eva loves to run around with us. 2// My two favourites. 3// The sleepiest pup with the craziest hair. 4// All the colours waiting to be stitched. 5// Saying hi to the beck near our house.

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