Happy Saturday my lovelies! I can’t believe we’re already half way through September! Everyone keeps saying how they can’t believe shops are already putting out Christmas decorations and presents but for me, I love it! Plus, the seasons are changing so you can’t blame shops for prepping early.
And speaking of seasons changing, two things that I change with the seasons are my hair routine and my skin routine. As for today, I’m going to be taking you through my skincare routine!
Here’s the products in my routine:
My morning routine:
Step 1: Face wash. First up I wash my face with my face wash and warm water, rinsing it off with cold water.
Step 2: Cleanser. I put cleanser on a cotton pad and use circular motions all over my face.
Step 3: Toner. I put toner on a cotton pad and swipe it all over my face, and let it absorb for a few minutes before my next step!
Step 4: Eye gel. I dab a small blob of eye gel under each eye and eye lid to help with puffiness and dry eyes.
Step 5: Serum. After letting my toner sit and applying my eye gel, I apply two pumps of my serum onto my face and gently rub it in.
Step 6 : Moisturiser. I then add moisturiser to my entire face, especially because I tend to get dry skin.
Step 7: Suncream. Finally I add a little sunscream to top it all off because you can never be too careful with those uv rays.
So that’s my AM routine! And as for my PM routine, it’s very similar but it goes like this:
(Potential Step 0: Micellar water. I only use this to take off my makeup at the end of the day if I’ve been wearing it, it’s much gentler than makeup wipes and is a quick way to take off makeup.)
Step 1: Cleanser. I first cleanser my face of everything my skin has been in touch with during the day.
Step 2: Toner. Next up I tone my face and let it sit for a minute of two like in the morning.
Step 3: Eye Gel. I then refresh my eyes with my eye gel, after staring at screens all day this is a must.
Step 4: Serum. Two pumps of serum is then swiped over my face and left to sink in for a minute.
Step 5: Retinol. After my serum has sunk in I use a small amount of my retinol cream (the retinol cream I use is my Adapaline acne cream) on the zones of my face that need it, and with retinol less is more rather than more is more trust me.
Step 6: Moisturiser. After I’ve let my retinol cream sink into my skin I add my moisturiser. And that’s it! All done and ready for bed.
So that is my entire skincare routine from waking up – to going to bed to get my beauty sleep haha.
Whenever I try anything new for skin I always get a bit worried because I’ve suffered with adult acne for a few years and I get worried that new things will set it off again. Medication seemed to be the only thing that helped my skin clear up for the last two years, and I’ve recently tried to come off of all of my medications except my retinol cream.
Since starting this new routine my skin hasn’t yet exploded with spots other than the first week adjusting to it so so far so good! I like to use any time that I spend on my hair and skin and just general appearance as some selfcare/me-time.
All of the products I use for my skin are from Superdrug’s own brand and Wake Skincare; I like trying to use products from the same brand and line because I find they always work better together, but it takes time to see what works out for you.
What’s your favourite skincare staple? Have you got a specific skincare routine or are you more of a wash and go kinda person? Let me know in the comments if there’s any skincare brands you’d like me to try!
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:
First thing in the morning I take my first lot of acne medication, ‘Doxycycline’ with breakfast.
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.
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.
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!
I brush my hair to get rid of any knots or tangles before I wash it in the evening.
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!
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.
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!).
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’!
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.
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!
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At the end of the day (this bit is typically once a week) I use a
I then wash my hair with warm water, using 
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.
When I get out of the shower I wrap my hair in a micro-fibre hair turban (
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 
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