No. 5

Oh Chanel No.5 I try to hard to like you. I spray you at pulse points, on clothing, I even tried you in my hair. I've tried the perfume and the EDT but to no avail. You are just too strong for me, you shoot straight up my nose and smack me in the head and bring on a headache at first sniff. I will say that your lasting power is amazing though, it takes a good scrub to wash you off.

FOTD

Nothing special, i'm far too down for that. I do have the Lush event to go to today though so I have to try to look presentable at least. I'll update for the Lush event later on this evening.

List; Clinique superpowder, Sleek Kohl, Bourjois liner effect mascara,

RIP Lucky

One of my fish passed away today. He was only a few years old. Goldfish as i'm sure the more astute among you know, have the longest life of any aquarium fish and can easily make 20 years.

I take good care of my aquarium, I maintain the water well and I keep a good stock of medicines in case of illness. Unfortunately for poor Lucky the treatments didn't work this time.

I like to think that he had a good life. He was won at a fair by my sister's fiance's brother. I wonder if he ever thought he would end up living in a big posh aquarium when he was a baby fish at the fair? I'll miss you Lucky. I gave you all that I could and I hope you enjoyed your time with me. <3

New Haircut and FOTD

Got haircut yesterday and am very pleased with it. Though today I feel and look pretty rough (migraines again) I've uploaded a quick FOTD with my attempts to brighten and make me look more alive.

Base - Clinique superpowder in Matte Cream
Eyes - No.7 Antique Rose and No.7 Sultry eyes palette on the crease, Bourjois liner effect mascara, GOSH liquid liner
Cheeks - Origins Brush on Colour in Pink Halo
Lips - Body Shop Christmas Ltd Edition Vanilla and Nutmeg Balm

I assure it looks much more alive IRL than on screen XD

Eyeshadow, I choose you!

Think bright colours, you think pokemon. Or at least I do, and apparently so does Etsy shop Shiro Cosmetics.

Eyeshadows cost just $5.00 for a large pot of mineral goodness, and what's more all the products seem to be vegan friendly. With a whopping 15 mini jars for just $36.00 and free shipping you really can't go wrong. Colours come in rainbow brights, shimmers and all with the richly pigmented creamy texture that you know and love from mineral make-up.

Shades I'm loving;

Pikachu - Buttery smooth yellow with subtle red sparks.
Meowth - Creamy toasted Vanilla with a slight shimmer
Zubat - Blue toned pewter shot with silver

Sci Fi Perfume

Sci Fi and Fantasy fans looking for a perfume reminiscent of their screen idols can rejoice. Starwarsshop.com are stocking a perfume reminiscent of the thinkgeek.com Trekkie offerings.

Slave Leia Perfume

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what does Leia smell like? Cashmeere musk and jasmine apparently.

Slave Leia can be purchased here for $39.99

New skincare routine

After years of eyeing up the Clinique three step skin care system I've finally taken the plunge and purchased the set!

Oooh exciting! Watch this space for reviews. The products should be arriving on Wednesday from Boots.com Hurrah!

Caffeinated make-up primer

Just when you thought that there could be no more caffeinated products left to make....

Youthful Trends Caffeinated Make-up Primer

 This nifty little product can be purchased here and promises lots of lovely things such as;

" Youthful Trends™ Makeup Primer is the world's first caffeinated primer with 100% natural ingredients. Makeup primers are all the rage these days, and they are used to help set your makeup and reduce the appearance of lines while absorbing oils and binding makeup to the skin. Unlike sticky primers and serums, this water based spray dries evenly while hydrating skin and tightening lines. Our spray also helps pores breathe and keeps makeup looking beautiful all day long. It also reduces facial sweating and protects skin from UV damage. This proprietary formula outperforms all other makeup primers and one bottle lasts for many months. It's fantastic stuff works for all skin types and colors, as well as all types of makeup including mineral powders, creams and liquids. Supercharge your makeup regimen today for flawless beauty with the world's first caffeinated skin primer." - Blurb from YouthfulTrends.com


If this little beauty does half of what it says I'd be doing a happy dance. As soon as I can get my grabby hands i'll let you know!

Doll me up wants new hair!

I've pretty much always had long hair, used to dye it black until the hair dye incident i'm sure you are tired of reading about by now. As it is, I've come to terms with my reddish blackish natural colour, and finally embraced my curls instead of burning them away. My hair is in pretty good nick but as I'm about to embark on a new teaching course, and my housemate has an 8month old who just adores hair - and tries to steal it for her gorgeous self in gallumphing great handfuls (!), it might be time for me to treat it to a good solid pruning.

The hair now;

Digging through the depths of the intertubes I stumbled across a glorious hair style that I think would help me cope with not having lots and lots of princess hair to comb. I present to thee...Marilyn Manson's new girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood. Honestly, first Dita wears the exact dress I had in my head for my own wedding (and looks glorious in it I might add), then Manson goes and finds this deliciously coiffed wonder. If I could I'd hire him for all my sartorial decisions, he's a bloomin gold mine for stunningly styled women.

*Grabby hands*

Lanolips is finally here!

Hurrah hurrah hurrah!

Since I first read about lanolips over at Lipglossiping I've been really excited to get my hands on some. A natural, animal friendly product that does exactly what it says on the tin, yes please!

In my eternal quest for a "my lips but better" shade, I've tried balms, glosses, lipsticks, you name it! Unfortunately there's always something that puts me off. Balms can be too sheer, glosses too sticky, and lipsticks tend to rub off me quickly, leaving a stain round the edge of my lips. Not a good look.

Lanolips on the other hand comes in two styles at present. The natural clear ointment (which can be used for a multitude of things) including for me the very exciting, "makes your lipstick less dry and doesn't smudge off unevenly" lip base effect. The coloured tubes come in 5 styles, ranging from soft dove pink through to glorious apple red and stain your lips without drying them out, with the added bonus of SPF 15.

These lovelies are due to be launched online at Boots, then to follow in stores from January or so I've heard. If like me, you just can't wait that long then http://www.victoriahealth.com is allowing you to pre-order them RIGHT NOW! ^_^



In fact, here's a direct link to the page i'm swooning over right now. RUN RUN RUN Which will you choose?

Stamping out Intolerance

                           



I remember back in 2007 when it broke in the headlines that a young woman named Sophie Lancaster had been murdered. Kicked and Beaten to death by thugs because she looked different to them. 


It's something that I find particularly disgusting, more so now that I work as a teacher. Growing up this sort of casual bigotry was always tolerated, by schools, the press, largely everyone. It was thought that bullying was an accepted part of growing up and that nothing could be done about it. That is not the case however. 


When my sister was bullied at school by a group of ignorant thugs, my parents, after years of following the school's attempts to end the problem with no success, came up with a simple solution - if you can't make your playground and corridors safe, then my sister would be given access to the safety of the staffroom or a staffed classroom, or not come in at all. Sure enough suddenly the bullying was taken seriously and things began to get done. 


Of course not all bullying is done in the enclosed and controlled area of a school. Thugs and lowlifes who torment others in parks, shopping centres, even the streets - are hard to keep track of, hard to stop. Some areas have resorted to curfews, stopping young people from gathering in public places and loitering, stopping them from going out at night unaccompanied. I don't know the success of these programs, but something tells me we can still do better. The problem of course that accompanies such laws, is that the people they are meant to influence, think that they are above the law. Hence the saying "perhaps one day we will have a law against all crime!". 


That's not to say of course that all laws will fail when such resistance to social cohesion is met. On someone who would be ashamed of an ASBO, and ASBO is a great deterrent, but with press murmurings about ASBOs being viewed as trophies, even seen as a joke, it's clear that we can't rely on them to deter the type of people who need deterring. 


Logically then, if deterrents aren't working, perhaps another approach is required. Intolerance, thuggery and bigotry are things that need stamping out long term, not just from one target generation. A deterrent may put some off doing something, but far easier is to teach them early on the empathy and social skills required to understand that these actions are horrible things to do, not because you will be punished for doing them, but because they are de facto wrong. 


To ensure that future generations are safer from social failures like these murderers we need to start young and make sure that it is simply unacceptable to behave in such a manner, on any scale. From the earliest days of education it should be made clear that good people, do not do bad things, and this, this aggression, intolerance and indeed arrogance, is a bad thing. 


Of course the biggest hurdle to overcome in such a goal is the home life. A school can teach all the sound social skills in the world, but with parents who find the social failure of their children acceptable, and perhaps most disgustingly of all, funny, this is a considerable challenge. Perhaps an entire social rethink is required, and due. Perhaps we might have more success if these parents no longer thought of "their" children as property into which they can pour all the resentment and anger they feel from their own lives. Instead thinking of them as they really are, future citizens of a society they would do well to treat with care and kindness if they expect the protection that they are currently afforded. 


"the mother of one of the murderers laughed and joked all the way through initial interviews with her son" - (http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=11) 


On a brighter note - Illamasqua have come out in support of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, offering wristbands where all proceeds go towards the charity, and with special eyeliner purchase a £3 contribution for each one sold will be given to the foundation. Illamasqua's bold dramatic look fits perfectly with the type of tolerance for creativity that it is frankly ridiculous that we have to ask for. 



http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/

SLS Free Shampoos - A relationship

Before the hair care disaster that was my hair dye going painfully, and more importantly permanently wrong; a reaction to the PPD in dark dyes leaving me with a monstrous allergic reaction, severe contact dermatitis and scarring on my head and neck; i'd always been able to use shampoos with SLS in them without negative effects.


Ever since then they have caused blistering, flaking and soreness on my scalp. Every now and then I'll convince myself that maybe this time it won't do it, perhaps, for a change, my skin won't treat the latest shampoo as a guerrilla attack. Alas this never happens, I should know better by now but the lure of miracle hair care claims pulls me in time and time again. Who knows? Perhaps their promises of sleek, smooth, yet bouncy and volumised locks are true, sadly I can never find out. Each time the reaction is the same, the familiar burning feeling on my scalp, the flakes of skin, pieces of my (glossy, bouncy and sweet smelling!) hair begin to fall out. With a heart too heavy than it should be for a shampoo related problem, I hand them over to Mr. Doll me up Scotty, who makes a fuss about not needing fancy shampoos and conditioners (though I suspect that he secretly revels in having such treats).


So what is a girl to do? With long curly hair and an obsession with gloss and bounce I yearn for luxurious lathers that many SLS free shampoos struggle to provide.


There are a few products that have become standbys for me over the years following the hair incident, and if I'm honest my hair itself has never been in better shape.


The first is a (possibly literal) lifesaver for me. Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to the glory that is Neem Shampoo. I bought this exact product when I was suffering the initial allergic response and my goodness. After 10 miserable days of weeping, showering hourly to cool my burning scalp, and not sleeping a wink I was ready to try anything. The creams the doctors gave me worsened the problem, great time to discover new allergies! In desperate late night google searches I found this glorious beacon of a product. When it (and the other general treatment products) arrived I wept with joy. It worked! my poor bleeding skin was saved and that night I slept for the first time in ten entire days. Now I always keep a bottle or three around for skin emergencies. When you have skin as sensitive as mine is now, this stuff is like a gift from God. ^_^


In terms of the product as an actual shampoo, it lathers up surprisingly well, feels soothing on your scalp and has a pleasant reassuring smell thats slightly medical, but not enough to bring out my fear of doctors.




To feed my product whoring, and because I love using conditioner! I also regularly purchase the TIGI sulphate free shampoos. My favourites being;


Foxy Curls and Superstar


Foxy Curls smells of lemon meringue, lathers well and lasts for ages, ecspecially if you get the fantastic giant size bottles. I use this one if i'm planning to leave my hair to dry naturally, it really helps fight frizz.


Superstar is a strawberry shortcake scented volume boost. Unlike other volumising shampoos and conditioners which I find dry, this one still feels moisturising, but light and leaves you with bouncy glossy locks that smell definately good enough to eat.