Hair Update.

Hello my lovelies! I hope you’re all staying warm during these dark and colder days. I’m loving these colder days, but I will say that this year I’m feeling the cold quite a bit more because I cut all my hair off in March as many of you know! My last hair update was around April, which I can’t believe was 8 months ago; so I figured I would give you another update because my hair has changed a lot recently!

So, let’s jump in to how my hair has looked over the course of the last few months!

First up, we’ve got March, where I finally took the plunge and shaved my hair off, which is still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made not only for my hair health but also for my mental health. I never believed everyone when they said that shaving their hair off was super liberating and freeing, but it really was and it completely shifted my views on my own beauty.

March 2020!

Next up we’ve got April, where I made the decision to trim my hair every two weeks and then at the end of April I made the decision to grow out my hair and see what my curls look like when they’re completely healthy!

April 2020!

After deciding to start growing my hair out, we’ve got May, and my hair is a little bit longer; but it’s not a length where it can be styled yet!

May 2020Q

Next up we’ve got June! June is when my hair got to a length that it could actually be styled, and I ended up going pink for about 2 weeks!

June 2020!

In July I was able to actually get my hair trimmed and then I went back to being a brunette so my hair could grow out as my natural colour without my roots being super bold! Here I had a brief moment where my hair was long enough to be styled, and due to my hair type I could make it fairly straight when I brush it out and dry it without a diffuser, so that’s what I started doing.

July 2020!

Next up is August, and here is when my curls and waved started to come back in full force! I stopped drying my hair to avoid any heat damage, but on the off chance I did dry my hair with a diffuser I used heat protectant spray.

August 2020!

In September I had about 2 weeks of straightening my hair to try and make myself look a little more presentable when going out and about because my hair was getting to a length where the sides were sticking out a bit too much, and then I decided to just go for it and let my crazy hair be what it wants to be.

September 2020!

Next up is October, where my hair health is back in full force and my curls are finally at a point where they’re crazy bouncy and feel super soft. This month I also decided to dye my hair with a semi-permanent dye, which ended up staying permanent (a happy accident!).

October 2020!

And finally, here I am now! I’ve found a method/routine that works well for me, and my curls are now insane! My hair is finally shiny, soft and super bouncy, which I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get before I shaved my head! Some mornings my hair looks absolutely insane, a bit like I’ve been dragged through a hedge, but most mornings that can be hidden with a headband or refreshed with my spray bottle.

November 2020!

So.. that’s where I’m at with my hair now! I’m not going to lie, I now don’t feel like myself when my hair isn’t its natural texture, even if it does look a little crazy from time to time!

My current routine involves washing my hair with shea moisture manuka honey shampoo, following up with shea moistures manuka honey conditioner, then shea moistures strengthen and restore styling lotion and finally a little bit of twisted sistas gel! Then I go in and add a spritz of heat protection spray and diffuse until my hair is 90% dry. Then I scrunch it out and fluff!

I straightened my hair yesterday to check its length and I’m nearly at a short bob/mullet length now, so I can’t wait to check my hair length again in a few more months to see how long it is!

I used to hate having to look after my hair, but now I love looking after my hair and usually dedicate one day in the week to do a hair mask and just chill.

How do you like to take care of your hair? Have you had any big hair transformations over the last year? Show me on insta!

And with that, that’s all from me for today! Have a great weekend my loves!

Love,

in

My July Favourites.

Hello lovelies! Can you even believe we’re in August already?! This year is going so so fast, and I’m not going to lie.. I’m already getting excited about the festive season. Autumn and Winter are by far my favourite seasons, everything is so cosy and the food is so good! Anyway, onto today’s post, my July favourites.

This week I’ll be telling you about my favourite makeup/beauty products, fashion pieces and other little things I’ve picked up over the last few weeks.

So, without further adieu..

Noughty Thirst Aid Conditioning and Detangling Spray

I absolutely love this spay, it’s been a godsend for my hair, and makes it feel amazing. As someone who religiously straightened her hair for years this is a must, it also helps that I haven’t touched the hot tools for just over 4 months, but since my hair grows so slowly the damage is still on the ends, this is an essential in my hair routine now!

Yoga Mat

This one has become a very new favourite of mine, I’m a bit of a yogi, but I stopped practising for a while due to back issues (post to follow in a few weeks) but I’ve just started up again. I found it’s good for my mental health (don’t worry, I won’t start preaching saying yoga solves everything – because it doesn’t) and I treat it as self-care along with helping with my back pain.

Cacti Packing Organisers

I’ve done a fair bit of travelling/staying away from home the last few days, so these have been amazing since I have a habit of being an over-packer. These have helped me stay organised and only pack what I need to, plus they are so cute and cheap (gotta love amazon!)!

Bare Minerals Powder Foundation, Highlighter and Brush

In Edinburgh I spent some time shopping in Princes Street and went and got my makeup done at a Bare Minerals counter. It was my first time having my makeup done by someone else and I loved it. I finally found a foundation that I could wear without it looking cakey, too dark/the wrong tone and it covers my acne scars and rosacea! And the highlighter is a pretty with pinky lilac tones you can see in the light.

Overcooked – Nintendo Switch

Overcooked is a cute yet manic cooking game made for the Nintendo switch where you have to run around the kitchen in all sorts of areas completing orders before time runs out. I love playing this when I just want to disappear from reality for a little while. And it can be played by yourself or with as many as 4 people!

Oversized T-Shirt Dress

I picked this up the other day and it’s already a favourite of mine. With it being so hot at the moment this is perfect for staying cool, and it’s great for travelling. I’ve paired this with bike shorts and vans for a casual look and as a bonus – it feels like wearing pyjamas! And who doesn’t want to walk around basically in pyjamas all day?

Dungarees and Balloon Sleeve Top

You might remember the dungarees from my last post, where I embroidered them with a small sunflowers to brighten them up a bit. And I absolutely love my balloon sleeve top paired with them that I embroidered myself too! I just love that sense of pride when you’re wearing something you had a hand in making.

So those are my July favourites! What have your favourite things been for July? Let me know in the comments. If you like these posts then maybe I’ll make this a monthly or bi-monthly thing! Well, that’s it for me today, have a great weekend!!

Love,

My Hair & Skin routine

We all love having silky hair and smooth skin. And for me that’s been a bit of a journey; over there last year I’ve managed to put together my own extremely simple routine that does everything I want it to whilst still being pretty cheap.

I’d definitely recommend trying these quick and simple routines out for yourself as all of the products I use are less than the price of a fancy coffee.

I can’t guarantee everything will work for you, but it’s always nice to try something out!

So, my skin care routine. Well as some of you know, I have suffered with adult acne for a long time and also suffer with psoriasis, so finding skin products that work for me is sometimes a challenge. (Check out my Acne Journey here!)

I use acne medication prescribed to me along with a few other things to keep my skin in tip top form. (If you think you’re suffering with any form of acne then I highly suggest going to your GP where you can find something that works for you.)

My skin routine goes as follows:

1. First thing in the morning I take my first lot of acne medication, ‘Doxycycline’ with breakfast.
2. Then after breakfast I wash my face with just cold water and put some ‘Simple Kind to Skin Protecting Light Moisturiser SPF 15‘. That’s it for the morning, nice and quick!
3. Lunchtime is when I take my next acne medication, ‘Co-Cyprindiol’ (you have to have frequent check ups when you’re on this one as it doubles up as contraception.
4. At the end of the day (this bit is typically once a week) I use a microdermabrasion skin care machine to exfoliate, promote blood flow and just generally get any nasty stuff out of my pores.
5. Before I go to bed I then apply my ‘Adapalene’ topical acne cream medication.

Some things I also do to help my skin stay clear and healthy are:

• Drinking mostly water. I know I know, we hear this one all of the time, but water helps keep us hydrated and out skin looking moisturised.

 

• I try to not touch my face as much as possible, (don’t want to spread any oils or any traces of stuff that could be transferred onto my face!).

• Wash/Change my pillow case often. (dead skin cells, sweat and all sorts get on these and can cause breakouts after build up!)

 

• I ALWAYS take my makeup off before bed. – I cannot stress this one enough!!

• A balanced diet; this doesn’t mean eating super healthy all of the time, it’s about not eating mountains of sugary, oily, fatty food all of the time, you can still have your favourite guilty pleasures, but just in moderation.

 

• Speaking of food: I always wash my face after eating any form of takeaway; I always feel super greasy after eating foods like Chinese or Fish & Chips, so washing my face after stops me from developing mountains of spots around my chin.

 

• Sun cream. Wear sun cream no matter what weather it is, you skin is always vulnerable to the sun even when it’s cold outside. And if you’re not great at remembering to put it on, get a moisturiser with SPF already in it!

 

Now, onto hair care!

A bit of background on my hair journey:

My hair has been through it. Like really through the ringer. It’s been blonde, brown, auburn (so jealous of all you natural red heads out there!), orange, red, pink, green, strawberry blonde and several other colours. There was once a week where I decided I wanted to go from bright red to blonde.. my mum and I decided to do it in the space of two days; it involved 4 lots of bleaching and a lot of laughing. I’m incredibly lucky to still have hair on my head to be honest.

I have cut my hair off numerous amounts of times in order to salvage what was left of it after copious amounts of bleach and box dyes. One time I decided to go red again after bleaching my hair and putting blonde box dye on it and my hair was so damaged that after one wash my hair had millions of blonde and pink patches where the dye could no longer stick to my hair.

That leads me to now, I cut nearly all of my hair off in September last year in order to finally give up what had become a hair dye addiction (fellow hair enthusiasts know the struggle haha). And from January this year I have been growing out my natural hair in order to get it as healthy as possible again and not felling like straw. I am also slowly getting my naturally wavy and curly hair back!

Here’s just a few images of my hair journey over the years:

Here I am as a baby next to my older sister, that’s me on the right, and as you can see my hair is pretty curly and mad naturally.

As you’ll see in these photos, my hair goes from nice and healthy to getting more like straw and shorter as it kept snapping off!

Here’s me at 12 years old, my hair was still completely natural here!

Here I am at 14 years old, I think my hair might have been bleached slightly at this point?

Here is where my hair escapade starts to go downhill.. I had dyed it a few times by here so it’s big, frizzy and very straw like hair!

I dyed my hair red when I was starting sixth form and you can see how damaged my hair had become by the ends of my hair!

About 2 months into sixth form I decided to bleach all of the life out of my hair and fry it constantly by making it wavy every damn day.

After sixth form I decided to cut my hair into a pixie to try and salvage it, I then dyed it brown and then as it was getting healthier and growing out I decided I wanted blonde hair again.

A year later came around and I couldn’t stop myself from going auburn again, and here you can really see the damage!

My hair survived for a little while longer by going brown for a few months and it grew to a good length, then I wanted to go blonde so bleached it to bits, then I decided I wanted red hair again..

As you can see here, when my 21st birthday came around I decided to try and get my hair healthier again by cutting it into a pixie, and it was bleached blonde during the summer.

I actually have healthy hair in this photo! Here is my hair a few months after I turned 22, I’m starting to grow out my pixie here!

So that is what my hair went through, I’m sure there are more photos all over the place of even more hair colours but that’s something for another day, you’d be here for hours!

Here’s my hair now! It’s finally healthy and all my natural colour; I’m working on styling my natural air dried hair as it’s a big crazy at the moment!

So now you know a bit about my hair past, on to my routine!

1. I brush my hair to get rid of any knots or tangles before I wash it in the evening.
2. I then wash my hair with warm water, using ‘Tesco’s Pro-Vitamin B5 shampoo damaged hair’; I stumbled across this when looking for a new shampoo to try, and for 90p it’s a bargain! This shampoo is absolutely amazing on my hair and I definitely recommend it; it lathers nicely and is super cheap!
3. I then use ‘Tesco’s Pro-Vitamin B5 conditioner for damaged hair'(it is nowhere on the website at the moment but you can find it in store!) on the ends of my hair and work my way up avoiding my roots, like the shampoo, the conditioner is also 90p and makes my hair feel so silky and less frizzy.
4. I then rinse the conditioner out with cold water (it takes a bit of strength to not jump out of the shower at this point haha!).
5. When I get out of the shower I wrap my hair in a micro-fibre hair turban (you can get them from wilko for £1.15!).
6. Then, if my hair is feeling a bit dry I put some spray in conditioner onto the ends of my hair. I use one I picked up by chance at Aldi (it was on their special buys) which is a dupe of the ‘Aussie Miracle Hair Detangler Conditioner Spray’!
7. If I have time I’ll let my hair dry naturally and if I’ve got to be somewhere then I’ll dry my hair on the cool setting with my hair dryer.
8. I usually leave my hair overnight and style my hair with my straighteners in the morning, this is usually straight, but if I do style my hair in the evening it will be curly ready to be clipped half up the next day.

And that’s my hair routine!

Some things I do to help with my hair growth and health:

• Brush my hair before washing it so it isn’t too knotting when I wash it and there’s less damage when I wash it as your hair is a lot weaker when it’s wet.

 

• Rinsing my hair with cold water is something I found makes my hair less frizzy, shinier and it helps promote blood circulation to your scalp, which helps with hair growth!

• Use heat protection sprays even when just using the hair dryer. I recommend putting heat protection spray on your hair when it’s wet, as you avoid potentially making your hair feel greasy when applying it to dry hair.

• I avoid washing my hair everyday as this can strip my hair of it’s natural oils and prevents any oils from penetrating into the hair.

So that’s my skin and hair routines! What’s your hair journey? And what is your skincare routine? Let me know in the comments, I love reading and responding to them all! I hope you all have a great weekend my lovelies!

Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still time to enter my giveaway! Check out how to enter here!

Love,