Today I ventured into something I never thought I would come across. A sale. Not just any sale, though. A sale on Yankee Candles. As much as I love their candle selection, I sometimes can't really justify spending £20 on a candle. I know they're great for relaxing and making an atmosphere chilled, but the price sometimes does put me off.

I did a candle type post during Blogmas last year, and it went really successful with you guys, so for today, I thought I would do another one featuring my latest Yankee Candle picks. I'll do my best to describe the scents, although I'm not too great at it - I'll try my best!

I managed to get my hands on these due to a Yankee Candle shop in my local garden centre closing down (and I still have 3 more days to grab some more, can student loan please hurry?). On 2 trips I made to this Yankee Candle shop, I managed to spend £28 on 6 candles (one large, one medium, 2 small and 2 votive). Honestly, that's crazy. If these all were regular price, they would have costed me easily over £50. Thank goodness sales exist, right?

These are all the little beauties I picked up today (after having to literally coax myself away from smelling all the other candles), and I honestly am in love with every single one of them. As I said above, I got all these for £28. I'm still baffled, if I'm honest. All of them smell incredible, and I honestly think I have one for every mood.

To me, this scent is more sweet than festive, and it reminds me a lot of vanilla mixed with sugar. It resembles the scent of vanilla buttercream straight out the pot, and it honestly makes me want to eat it (do not recommend, will probably make you ill).

This little cutie was the next one I picked up, and it's the very adorable Cherry Blossom. It smells slightly sweet, but not floral at all, which you think it would. This scent honestly reminds me of something I've smelt before (not actual cherry blossoms), but I really can't put my finger on it. However, it does remind me a little bit of cherries, I must admit! Instead of £8.99, this baby pink beauty costed me only £4.50, which made me tempted to pick up more in this size, as the burning time lasts a lot longer than smaller versions of this.

Apparently this one is part of the Coastal Living selection, which is also new. This surprised me that it was part of the sale, especially since, well... It's new! Sea Air is a very beautiful scent, and it does make me feel instantly relaxed when I smell it. This also cost me £4.50 instead of £8.99, which you can't really go wrong since it's 25-40 hours of burn time.

The scent of Sea Air is rose mixed with sea (obvs), and you can definitely make out those scents when you smell the candle. It's a very beachy style scent, and it makes me feel very at home - if that makes sense?

Another one from the new range, and this one is the very relaxing Coastal Living. As you can see, I actually bought it in a bigger version (which I did on a second dash in there before beating the school traffic home!) This also costed me £1, and the larger one costed me £12, as opposed to £23. This scent is slightly floral, but mainly fresh as there is lavender notes in the candle, as well as sea salt. It's so refreshing and extremely relaxing, the same as Sea Air. Both make me feel so at home!

There were a lot of other ones I wanted to purchase, like:

I'll definitely be investing in some more this weekend, as I'm going to be getting them as gifts for future birthdays and Christmas when they come around, so I'm excited to purchase some more scents!

What are your favourite candle scents? Do you own any Yankee Candles? If so, which ones? What ones do you want to try?  Leave a comment down below and let's have a discussion!

Have an amazing day!

When browsing Netflix about a week or so ago, I saw that there was a new addition, which was '13 Reasons Why'. I didn't click on it, but it looked interesting from the title and the photo for the series, so I decided to pop it into My List for a later time. Until this day, I still haven't watched this series, and I've actually removed it from My List. 

Why? Let's delve a little further.

Note: This post is going to contains mentions of: suicide, self harm and rape, so if these will trigger you, please do not read further. Also, there will be spoilers in this post, so if you're not a spoiler fan, don't read on.

So, what's it all about? 

13 Reasons Why is based off a book (of the same title) from 2007 by Jay Asher. It follows numerous high school kids after a girl, named Hannah, has committed suicide. She had recorded on 7 tape cassettes as to the reasons why she had decided to take her own life (hence the title name). The series essentially is all flashbacks, with the final episode being Hannah taking her own life.

I've seen people raving about the book and the series, saying that they loved the book and couldn't wait to watch the visual adaption. However, I had no idea it was a book, previously, or what the content was. Only, I looked on Twitter a few days ago to see that a few of the people I follow have watched the series, and have actually been triggered by the series. Now, I know that the aim of this show and for the book is to show that actions and words have consequences, and it shows how horrible and nasty some people in this world are.

This post/review may seem a bit biased, since I haven't seen the programme, or read the book, I'm merely going off the research I have done.

Sometimes when I want to watch something I haven't seen before, or heard of, sometimes I check IMDb for their parents guide just to ensure there's nothing I'll come across that will trigger me. In my life, the things that have triggered me are: rape, sexual abuse, self harm, so I have been skeptical on things. However, I don't really get triggered by these anymore (as tested, I have watched the horrific scene in Game of Thrones featuring Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton, and I didn't get triggered off it), but I'm still cautious in case I'm caught off guard.

Now, I have read that in 13 Reasons Why, rape is a theme which is mentioned and occurs in the series. However, I don't think you see what is going on, but it is mentioned quite a bit from episodes 9 onwards (10,11 and 12, I think). IMDb does claim that "There is no graphic nudity, only buttocks were shown" and that the perspective is on the person witnessing what's happening. Now, I'm not sure if that would trigger me, but for others, even the mere mention of the word 'rape' can make skin crawl, tears form and for people to become to shaken up by it. It's so unfortunate and horrific that nowadays, this still happens to people. It's honestly disgusting, and I wish it didn't exist at all.

This is a reason why I really like the parents guide by IMDb. It lets you know what can be particularly intense, bothersome. This is something I wished that Netflix would do in the season and episode summaries, as it would benefit a lot of people who may not know or not if something triggering will come up. However, the downside of this is that Netflix would have to trigger warn a lot of different things, as there are so many triggers out there (for example: outer space, aliens, zombies, blood, gore, serial killers). So it would be a lot of effort for them to go through, thus meaning that releases would be out a lot later than planned.

Another topic in 13 Reasons Why I'd like to address is the concept of self harm. I know it's essentially a big part of the show, as that's how the main character has ended their life. I've read in the parents guide that it's only shown in the last episode, and it is pretty graphic, as stated in the photo above taken straight from IMDb. Mentions of self harm, personally, don't bother me... Just seeing it does bother me. It doesn't trigger me anymore, just makes me feel a bit upset and a bit sick. This occurred during the first season of American Horror Story with Violet, and it made me feel so uncomfortable and ill, I had to skip it straight away.

Overall, 13 Reasons Why is informative as it delves deep into the consequences of people's actions and it's powerful in its messages, so hats off to them for that, because I feel like something like that is needed nowadays, as rates of bullying are still high and mental health issues resulting from it. I do find the main character related, as I was bullied myself and it did cause me to become depressed, so yes, it is relatable. However, I've heard that episode 9 onwards is a bit of a slog due to the feelings and vibes people were getting from what was occurring in the show.

Will I give into the hype? Honestly, probably not. That's just my opinion, and as much as it would be relatable and informative... I'm taking the triggering issues into account more so than anything else.

What are your thoughts on 13 Reasons Why? Is it triggering, is it informative, both? Let me know in the comments and let's have a discussion!

Disclaimer: Header image is not mine, so credit to the rightful owner(s)!

Have an amazing day!

Saturday was a pretty hot day, so what better way to spend your time in the sun than meeting up with a good friend, browsing some shops and grabbing some lunch together?

Have an amazing day!