This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.

You don’t need to look tired and worn out when going out with friends on a Friday night after office hours. You can still look fresh and sensational by just adding up something to your everyday office look. Let me enumerate a few ways to change your look when going out on a date or with friends for drinks after work.

Sexy Top

I must admit that this is the easiest way to up the ante to your work day look. I often bring an extra top with me on Fridays to make sure that I am ready to party the night away with friends after work. I just have to change my top into something sexy and voila! Ready to party the night away.

Gorgeous Locks

This is something new that I learned a couple of months ago. Instead of taking so much time styling your hair differently for a night out, I found that using a wig is so much easier and less time-consuming. In the beginning, I thought that wearing a wig, putting it, would be difficult but I found one that is easy to use and easy on the pocket. My find: a Sensational Instant Weave Glam Series half wig – Lena from Divatress, a company that offers not only wigs but also hair care products. It is 100% premium fiber wig which you can style in 60 seconds. What I like about using a wig is that it not only adds to the beauty level of a woman but it also adds some mystery to a woman’s persona.

Bouncy, wavy, gorgeous locks of hair at night… it is an instant wow factor for a woman out at night!

Night-time Make Up

Smoky or glittery eye shadow. A darker shade of lipstick. And heavier make-up. That’s an idea for a night-time look for a woman about to have some after-work fun.

There are so many other ways to change your look when you are about to go out and have fun. The three I mentioned are just the basic ones. What else have you thought of?

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Buying a new home needn’t be a complicated process. In fact, there are plenty of professionals who can be hired to guide you along. Here are just a few people you may wish to looking into.

Estate agents

Whilst there are plenty of listing sites and independent sellers on the internet, estate agents can come in handy for helping to take away a lot of the stress. When selling your old home, estate agents can help to market it in the best light. They can also arrange visits whilst you’re at work or out of the house. They will take some commission from the sale but this can often be worth it for those struggling to sell their home (you can also often negotiate rates). Generally estate agents won’t charge buyers, although there are some shifty realtors that do – something worth asking about first.

Surveyors

Surveyors can be used to check that a property is in good condition. This can be useful for checking that there aren’t any expensive repairs around the corner. Whilst mortgage lenders will generally do a valuation of the home you’re moving into, this is not the same as a survey – they will only be checking that the price matches the property and not looking out for any potential damage that may need repairing.

Solicitors

Home-buying solicitors (or conveyancers as they’re commonly known) are needed to transfer the legal ownership of the property. Whilst you can do this yourself, there’s so much legal paperwork required and so many implications if it is incorrect that it’s almost always worth handling a professional. You may be able to hire a conveyancer from a local law firm or from a specialist conveyancer company. Don’t be afraid to negotiate rates.

Moving companies

It’s possible to move all your belongings yourself by hiring a van, but if you’ve got lots of possessions, you’ll be taking lots of trips back and forth. Moving companies can shift your stuff quickly and efficiently. There are long distance moving companies for those that are travelling across the country. There are even specialist overseas companies. Some removals companies will be able to provide a packing kits including cardboard boxes and bubble wrap and other useful materials.

Mortgage brokers

If you haven’t decided on a mortgage yet, it could be worth hiring a mortgage broker to help you try and find the best deal. These brokers can do research for you and advise on the best mortgage company for you. It’s possible that through relationships with multiple lenders that they may be able to get you a special deal that you wouldn’t find on the high street. They may also be able to accommodate for low credit ratings or specialist properties. Estate agents can help to recommend local brokers and may be able to get you a deal.

It’s easy to tell whether or not you’re a computer person or not. If you get excited when your machine has problems, instead of feeling dread, this field is probably a good fit for you. Or, if you like to tinker with your computer in your spare time, you might love a job in IT. Securing a role in this sector isn’t as easy as you might think, though. To help you out, this post will be going through some of the steps you’ll have to take on your journey to the perfect job in computing.

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To start this adventure, it can be best to look for a job related to the field. This first job doesn’t have to be anything spectacular. It can be an entry-level job which doesn’t pay too much. This will help you to start building valuable experience for when you start to look for jobs which are a little more in-line with your dreams. A lot of people don’t realise how important experience is. Employers will expect at least a year or so of working in the world of computing before they will take you on for better jobs.

Once you’ve found a job to satisfy your immediate needs, you can start to look for ways to do some studying alongside it. You will have to dedicate yourself to your work and studies if you plan to do this. It could be hard to use so much of your spare time for studies. But, they will make it much easier to get into a good job. In fact, getting a qualification like an online Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems degree may only take a year or two. But, it could knock over a decade from the time you’d spend working your way up without it.

After you’ve been working for a couple of years on your job and your studies, you’ll be ready to start looking for something a little better. There is a vast variety of jobs you can get in this field, but the roles you look at will mostly depend on the qualification you got. You could find yourself working as a network engineer, solving problems for businesses and individuals on a daily basis. Or, you could look into something like game design, if you are more creative. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you’re passionate about.

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Of course, you could take a riskier route. Working for yourself in IT can mean skipping all of the hard work you’d have to do in a normal job. You will still have to work extremely hard, though. If you make the right moves in business, it’s possible to be very successful in just a matter of years. This will give you a lot more freedom than working for someone else. To pay for this, you’ll have to take on some added risk.

Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start following your passion for computing. Not a lot of people realise how easy it is to change your path in life. If your job isn’t satisfying your needs, it’s best to try and find something else. It’s never too late.

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Our liver helps to flush out toxins from our body. When it stops functioning properly, these toxins build up inside of us and slowly damage the rest of our body. Incidents of liver disease are on the rise and so are liver disease related death. Here’s how you can look after your liver and live longer.

Drink less alcohol

It should be no surprise that booze is the biggest culprit when it comes to liver damage. Every time our liver has to process alcohol, a few cells die. In the case of large amounts of alcohol, more cells get killed off. Our liver is one of the few organs that can fully regenerate, but it needs abstinence to do that – or at least a lower intake.

Generally, the odd drink won’t do any lasting damage. Irregular binging is likely to do more damage than regular consumption in small amounts. One drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men is the recommended safe amount.

For those that feel that they may have an alcohol dependency, there are plenty of services out there such as AA groups and therapy sessions that can help you curb the bad habit. For going full cold turkey, you may even be able to book yourself into an addiction treatment centre. Admitting to oneself that there’s a problem is never easy – friends and family are usually the best judges.

Drink more water

Drinking lots of water helps our bodies to flush out toxins more easily. This is because our blood is thicker when we don’t have enough water (toxins are sent to our liver through our blood and so will reach our liver more slowly if the blood is thicker and flowing more slowly). Men are recommended 3 litres of fluid a day, which equates to 13 cups, whilst women are recommended 2.2 litres (9 cups).

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Eat less fat

Eating too much fat is thought to be a major cause of liver damage – if not more so than alcohol abuse. In fact, up to a third of the population is thought to suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – largely associated with being overweight.

Regularly going over your daily calorie limit will cause this fatty build up, although you can counteract this with regular exercise. In fact, staying active not only burns off calories but increases blood pressure, causing blood circulate more quickly to the liver where it can be cleaned out of toxins.

Saturated fats as found in French fries and burgers are among some of the worst offenders for fatty liver disease. More natural fats will be easier for your body to process and have less of a negative impact on your liver.

Eat more nuts

Nuts are a great source of vitamin E, which is an essential nutrient for cell regrowth. This can help to combat liver damage. Almonds are one of the best sources of the vitamin. Peanuts can also be a great way of getting this nutrient, but you should watch out for those sold in bars as the salt can often counteract any positive health qualities.

Other foods that are rich in vitamin E include spinach, pumpkin, asparagus, red peppers, mango and avocado. For those that have a vitamin E deficiency, there are supplements out there that might be able to help you get your daily dose. This vitamin is important not only for liver repair, but healing and your immune system in general, so a deficiency shouldn’t be ignored.

Fizzle out fizzy drinks from your diet

Too much sugar can eventually take its toll on the liver. This risk is increased through fizzy sugary drink consumption with one fizzy drink a day linked to fatty liver disease (as you can imagine, soda and spirits is therefore the worst thing you can do to your liver).

By drinking less fizzy drinks and more water you can stop the occasional lemonade or coke from having any negative effect. Sugar-free soda alternatives may be healthier in some respects, although research has shown that artificial sugars can stay trapped in the liver and gut for longer as your body doesn’t know how to efficiently flush them out. A glass of non-fizzy fresh fruit juice might be a better alternative is you’re craving a sugar kick.

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Stub out your smoking habit

There isn’t a single part of your body that smoking isn’t bad for and this remains true for the liver. Nicotine raises fat levels in the blood, which makes the liver have to work much harder to get rid of toxins. Quitting could decrease the fat content in your blood, making your liver function at its full potential and lowering the risk of fatty liver disease.

Other things that can damage your liver

There are other things that should be used in moderation to keep your liver happy. If you often reach for paracetemol whenever you have a headache, this could be taking its toll on your liver. Whilst the exact effects are unknown, it’s thought to be the chemicals that the liver has a hard time processing (overdosing on paracetemol will cause immediate liver failure).

Various herbal foods and medicines can also be worth taking in moderation. Everything from kava kava (used to treat menopause symptoms) to green tea has been found to damage the liver when overindulged in.

Largely you should be careful of ingesting too much vitamin A. This is generally found in brightly coloured vegetables, but it’s more likely you’ll suffer an overdose from taking vitamin A supplements.

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If you have a spring mattress, then the chances are you’ve had it for years. Over time, a spring mattress can start to exhibit many flaws. With the external material weakening, you may start to feel the springs in quite a lot of detail as you try to sleep. As you can imagine (or as you already know), this is far from comfortable.

Replacing your mattress: leaving springs altogether?

People sometimes brush aside concerns about their mattress. After all, they can be pretty expensive to replace. And not only are they expensive, but you spend most of your time on the thing asleep, so you’re not really even fully conscious of the complaints. But the fact is that you spend about a third of your life in your bed. Even if most of that time is spent asleep, any problems you have with your mattress could become problems with your body soon enough. If your mattress is uncomfortable, then it will be harder to fall asleep. You’ll also risk doing mild injuries to your muscles over long periods of time. It may be a pain to replace your mattress, but it could be even more of a pain if you don’t replace it!

You’ve probably figured out by now that you don’t have to replace it with another spring mattress. You have probably heard about the wondrous and sometimes confusing world of memory foam mattresses. Now while maybe will sweat that foam mattresses are objectively superior to spring mattresses, this isn’t true. Everyone sleeps differently and everyone’s body is different. You may very well find that a high-quality spring mattress is right for you. The world of spring mattresses is also not as simple or limited as it may appear at first. Make sure you research all the different kinds to see if you’re actually better off sticking with springs.

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The bed itself

Don’t let yourself become too preoccupied by the mattress if you think your sleep problems stem from other sources. It could very well be that the bed frame itself isn’t that great. Even a very supportive mattress is going to suffer in effectiveness if the bed itself is a bit flimsy. (And yes, do remember that beds and mattresses are two different things in this sense!) If it’s not that supportive, or it makes too much noise, or moves around too much, you should consider getting a new one.

If you have other problems that are preventing you from getting a good sleep, then you need to tackle those first. Back problems might not be the fault of your mattress: you may want to see a doctor if you have persistent pain which is troubling your sleep.

Memory foam, part one: the traditional one

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, NASA was trying to develop a comfortable material that could absorb huge amounts of shock. They were needed for protection and comfort in both their aeroplanes and their spaceships. The result was temper foam, or, as we call it more often these days, memory foam. Applying pressure to it results in the shape of that object being imprinted slightly on the material. The idea in their use as mattresses is that they can better contour to a person’s specific body shape.

Traditional memory foam is the most widely available version of memory foam. In the 1990s, a company named Tempur-Pedic brought memory foam mattresses to the world. Tempur-Pedic still sells memory foam mattresses to this day and are the clear market leader. They prefer that you don’t refer to them as memory foam mattresses, though. You can give one a try at pretty much any bed retailer these days. Many people love the comfort that memory foam can provide, but it’s not for everyone. Try one out before introducing one to your bedroom!

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Memory foam, part two: the gel one

Here’s where memory foam gets a little confusing. You may have heard about gel beds, which work in a similar way to memory foam. The weird thing is that not even the mattress manufacturers themselves can seem to decide if a gel mattress is a memory foam mattress of not. Sometimes they’re advertised as a great alternative to memory foam. Sometimes they’re advertised as the best version of memory foam. Generally, a gel-based mattress is a memory foam mattress with gel infused into the memory foam.

Gel mattresses have a number of advantages to regular memory foam mattresses. One of the major complaints about the traditional ones is that they get hot. Really hot. This may be okay for someone who isn’t a very warm sleeper. But for someone who can’t sleep when it’s too hot, it presents a big problem. Gel mattresses are a lot cooler as the gel retains less heat than foam. There is still foam in the material though, so it will be a bit hotter than your average spring bed.

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Gel mattresses also tend to be cheaper than full-foam mattresses but there’s something you should keep in mind. These mattresses are much newer than regular foam mattresses. This means that there isn’t an amazing amount of data about how long they can last. So until manufacturers are able to tell how long they can last, you may be taking a small risk.

Memory foam, part three: the plant one

Plants? Huh? Yes; there are memory foam mattresses that are made mostly of plants. Don’t confuse this with the kinds of beds our ancestors slept in. (They used mattresses that were literally stuffed with vegetables.) A plant-based (or organic) memory foam mattress tends to use material like soy or bamboo.

These mattresses offer the same pressure-point benefits of the full-foam and gel-based alternatives. But they are far and away the cooler of the three. The material doesn’t retain much heat and has high breathability. They also have very low motion transfer. This basically means that if you’re sharing a bed with a partner that the nocturnal movements of one are unlikely to disturb the other.

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One of the problems with these mattresses is that they’re often not as ecological as they’re sometimes made out to be. You need to be very careful who you’re purchasing the mattress from. Due to the use of organic material, you run the risk of buying from a company who doesn’t get the material responsibly. So if you’re ecologically-minded, do your research on each mattress you’re interested in. If the manufacturer maintains soy plantations at the expense of local forests and wildlife, you may want to stay away.

One of the biggest purchases a person can make in life is that of a house. It doesn’t matter whether you’re aiming for a one bedroom apartment or a five-bedroom detached affair; a house is a big responsibility. The responsibility doesn’t just come with cleaning the space you’ve purchased, but keeping up with the new mortgage payments, having the cash to hand for any repairs and generally being able to get by. A decision as large as purchasing a home should always be led by your finances first, and your emotions later. Most people buy a house to have a secure future, others do it for their expanding family and the potential for leaving an inheritance behind.

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Getting yourself ready to buy a new home is easy but getting your finances in order is definitely not as simple. It would be too easy to simply have the full cash amount for buying a new home outright. It takes a lot of planning to make enough room in your life and your finances to go through the motions of buying a house. It goes without saying that you are making a huge investment and commitment when you buy property. However, most people don’t consider that the return on that investment can make the difficulties in saving worthwhile! If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you may feel like purchasing your own home is too far off to think about. Realistically, you can change your current circumstances to make buying a home a lot easier, as there are a lot of avenues out there for buying your first home.

Deciding where to buy your home is just as important as when you should buy it. The housing market fluctuates at a surprising level. Financially, there are a lot of things you can do in your planning to get you to your dream home. it may take some time, and it will absolutely take a lot of hard work, but it can be done! Check out our rules below to help you with your financial planning for your first home:

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Look First. One of the first things you should do is look at your current financial outlook before you buy. Never feel pressured into buying a house you are not financially ready to buy. Your financial picture will dictate to you whether you are ready to buy a home or not, and if you are swamped in debt or stretched thin at the end of every month, then you likely aren’t quite ready yet. You have to work on straightening out your bigger picture before you start planning to buy a house you won’t be able to keep. As much as you can, pay off your debts. Not only will this go a long way to getting your credit score up, it will relieve you of financial pressures. This can include any student loans, as a mortgage will be far easier to obtain and keep up with if you’ve paid off a huge chunk of debt. Have a projection of your income for the next three to five years, so that you can determine whether you can even afford to keep up your mortgage payments. Doing this can help you to determine your risk when it comes to having a mortgage.

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Aim High. Most people feel that they should be aiming to buy a starter home that may need some fixing up. The reality is that you don’t have to compromise on what you want. If you want to aim for a dream home from the get-go, you should! Buy the home that works for what you want now. If you are in need of three bedrooms, buy the home with the three bedrooms. Yes, you can always trade up again later, but you should aim for the home you want not the home you think you should be buying. You can play the long game, buying a smaller starter home from foreclosure proceedings and going for a larger house later on. However, it’s not a necessity anymore. What you can afford in the long term is what you should be buying.

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Plan Your Mortgage. It’s an outdated idea that you should do what you can to pay your mortgage off as fast as possible. Staying within the limits of a thirty-year mortgage can offer you lower monthly repayments overall and offer flexibility. Sure, you can add to it as you go so that you can pay it off faster, but there’s no real need to do it if you are comfortable with the repayments that you have. It’s far more important to pay off any debts you accumulate, start a college fund for the children and be able to breathe within your finances.

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Research Correctly. Planning your finances and getting ready for buying a home is going to keep you busy and full of stress. Having access to a computer to be able to search for a home is going to be invaluable for you, and it’s not just the house you’d be searching for. Comparing mortgage deals and school districts is going to be far easier for you if you have a computer at hand. You can easily compare homes and safe districts when you are able to do research outside the box. This is all done at your own convenience and you can still choose to work directly with a mortgage broker if you want to. The beauty of it is that you will have compared all the various mortgage options available to you and you can make an informed decision on your broker.

Financial planning is difficult when you don’t know where to begin, but keep an open mind and get your finances in tip top shape before you start mortgage hunting. It will make your first home purchase a far easier experience if you are ensuring you are as financially comfortable as possible before you begin.

There are always going to be rooms in your home that you pay a little more attention to than others. Most of the time this is simply because you spend more time in them. After all, you’re naturally going to be more concerned with how your living room looks when you spend so much of your free time there, whereas your dining room might not be as much of a priority since you may only spend much time there during meal times. However, there’s one room that you probably spend more time in than any other and yet, it often gets neglected when people are thinking about the design of their homes. That room is your bedroom. You might not have been expecting that, but in reality, many people simply don’t bother to put that much effort into their bedroom since, by its very nature, most of the time you spend in there is spent sleeping. However, you’ll not only enjoy your bedroom more, but you’ll actually get a better night’s sleep if you make an effort to take care of it. With that in mind, here are some things you can do in your bedroom to make it a more enjoyable place to spend your time.

Light

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Light can be a tricky thing for a lot of people since it’s often more about how you feel when you’re in a room than how it actually looks. You might not notice when a room is too bright or too dark, but it will haven’t an impact on the way you feel. A dark room feels small and cramped, but an overly bright one will feel clinical a lot of the time. In your bedroom, it’s all about balancing those two things. Make sure that the room is well lit but use warm lights so that you keep a relaxed atmosphere as much as possible. Things like fairy lights are great for making a room feel cosy and relaxed as well.

Comfort

Is there any room where feeling comfortable is more important than the bedroom? After all, if you’re not comfortable in your bedroom, then you’re never going be able to get a good night’s sleep. Of course, the furniture is the most important thing. Ashley bedroom furniture offers a great deal of comfort and luxury without sacrificing functionality. But you should also think about stuff like blankets and cushions. Not only will these make it more comfortable when it’s time to get into bed, but it will allow you to bring a real sense of luxury to the feeling of the room as a whole.

Personality

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Just because the majority of the time that you spend in your bedroom is going to involve you sleeping, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to inject some personality into it. Put some decorations on the walls, keep some of your books and mementoes in the room. If you don’t have that much space then floating bookshelves are a great option. Get creative with how you bring personality into your bedroom, and you’ll very quickly find that it will make a big difference to how you feel when you’re in it.