february favourites 2017

Spring is drawing closer and despite the likelihood of me even realising it is spring due to the lack of good weather we have in Manchester, knowing we should at least have a few more sunnier days is always a good thing. Spring also means my birthday is soon too, which is always exciting.

As February comes to an end, I wanted to blog about my favourite things of this month, as always, so hopefully, you can love them as much as I did too.

YOUTUBE

If you know me personally, I'm sure you will be aware of the amount of time I spend on YouTube. It is possibly my favourite platform on the internet and you could probably say I spend far too much time on there. Every month I find that my 'Subscribed' count increases and I thought this month I'd let you know what channels I've been loving particularly.
Sarah Close - Her channel consists of her performing covers of varies songs. She uploads regularly, and I love them all. I'm personally a huge fan of covers in general because the idea of putting a personalised aspect on songs we all know and love always makes the songs better for me. She has such a lovely voice and I've been listening to her covers so much this past month and I'd highly recommend her channel, specifically the cover of Somebody Else - The 1975.
The Film Theorists - Earlier this month, a friend of mine recommended this channel to me, as he was aware of my slight obsession with the Harry Potter series and thought I'd enjoy one of the theories made on the channel, and rightly so, I loved it. I'd heard of MatPat in the past as he has featured on other channels like FBE, but as soon as I watched the videos, I regretted never checking out the channel before that point. To summarise the channel, it's basically a rather funny guy who analyses some of the best movies to a tee and changes your whole perspective of the film in general, as well as including some pretty good graphic animations which give the videos such a great atmosphere. When I discovered the channel, I found myself saying, "okay, one more", then I'd find the Batman theories, then the Doctor Who theories, and then suddenly it was 2 am. It's certainly a great way to spend your time because honestly, who doesn't want to know the science behind Doctor Strange?
WatchCut Videos - The last channel I'm going to talk about today is WatchCut. The channel is a rather raw, simplistic channel with such a diversity of rather meaningful concepts. The channel has several playlists, which I have indeed watched them all when I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago, however, the one I wanted to specifically talk about today was the One Word series. The idea of this series is that they gather a certain community of people, whether it's gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion etc. and they say one word which has some form of association or impact on those as a group, and therefore leaving them to respond and give their point of view on this particular word. It's a rather eye-opening series, and the individual videos are only short, varying from 3-6 minutes long, but I'd honestly recommended them to you all.

FILMS

Shawshank Redemption. Despite knowing this film is listed as the greatest movie ever created on various film critic websites, it has taken me just under 17 years to watch it. Agreeably, I do think it is possibly one of the greatest films I have ever watched. If you haven't watched it and you're just like me and in fact chose to ignore the IMDb movie reviews despite visiting the website consistently, I'd highly recommend it. The plot is basically a story of a man who was wrongly accused and convicted of the murder of his wife, and how he spends his time in prison, as well as meeting various people, specifically 'Red' played by Morgan Freeman, which subsequently makes the film 100 times better.
Good Will Hunting. Again, this month I found myself watching movies I have continuously told myself I will watch 100 times and never got round to it. This movie is again claimed to be one of the best films ever made, and it didn't fail to impress. Matt Damon plays a rather mistreated kid who is an unclaimed genius, who is then discovered by a University professor and is then introduced to a therapist, played by Robin Williams, who is possibly one of my favourite actors, ever. It is a rather heartwarming film and it's definitely worth the praise it has gotten in the past.

Birdman. I've been meaning to watch this film since I found out how much it was praised at the Oscars in 2015. The concept of the movie is rather strange, but I still found myself loving every moment of it. The way in which is was filmed and produced was quite simplistic and individual compared to other films in the industry during the modern day, and despite the storyline not specifically sounding the most thrilling, it definitely kept me watching all the way. 

All of the films I have mentioned are found on Netflix.

BEAUTY

This product is one I have had for a few months, although this month I've been using it particularly a lot more since I've been attempting quite a wider variety of makeup looks. It is the Golden Sugar Ultra Blush Palette by Revolution. The palette consists of 8 different shades. It includes highlighters, blushers, contour shades and bronzers. The palette also has both matte and shimmer shades which I think makes it so much better. The pigment of the blushers and the white-based highlighter particularly is so good and lasts an entire college day for me. The palette, as well as all of Revolution's products, are also cruelty-free and vegan!

SONGS & ALBUMS

This month I just wanted to mention two songs I have been loving a lot lately, as I have not particularly listened to any new albums.

The first is Coffee Brown Curls - Jake Mirador, I found this song on Spotify as I've never heard of him before, but this song was too good not to mention. The other song I wanted to include was Goodbye - Lewis Fieldhouse, which I also found on Spotify, and it's honestly such a lovely, uplifting song and such a good listen.

As always, here are a few photos to summarise my past week!

Thank you for reading,
J. I. Smith x