Winter Haircare

Hello! I've had such a busy weekend, and I'm finally able to relax now, I put on my fuzzy socks, knitted cardigan and am nibbling on some Thorntons chocolates (because everyone needs a yummy treat after a tiring weekend!).

Yesterday I went kayaking again, I had such a great time and didn't swim once (lucky really as the river was incredibly cold). However when I got back home I realised what a state my hair was in: knotty, dry and generally feeling a bit sorry for itself. So I decided to throw on a hair mask and get my hair into great condition this winter.

If you're not going in cold rivers every other weekend there are loads of hair products to keep your hair in good condition over the winter (they're still good even if you are going in rivers too :P). Here are my favourites:

Firstly my Tresemme heat defence spray. When the air outside is cold it's really bad for your hair to go out when wet, so after a shower I spritz this all over my hair and blow dry.

When I don't have to go outside right away I let my hair dry naturally (as I try and limit the amount of heat I use on my hair over winter). Because my hair is naturally frizzy I use John Freida's Frizz Ease Curl Reviver Styling Mousse to keep my hair looking good. I really love this product, I've been using it for about 3 years and it works wonders.

I have a few hair masks I like to use, but my favourite is the Percy & Reed Totally TLC Hydrating Mask. It smells gorgeous (marshmallowy ^ - ^) and it feels really pampering to put it all over your hair and wrap your head up in a towel for a while. Once it's washed out my hair always feels extra silky.

Whenever my hair's had a bad day and I don't have time to put a mask on I use the Umberto Giannini Overnight Beauty Moisture Balm. A little goes a long way with this product, so it's lasted for ages. I put a tiny bit on my hands and run it through my hair, from the middle down, it feels and looks a little greasy at first, but when you wake up it's all melted into your hair and the result is soft and smooth.

Hope you've liked my favourite winter haircare products ^ - ^

Getting my hair ready for winter :)

Sunny xxxxx

(p.s. a month today until Christmas! I'm so excited already!)

Updated Skin Care Routine

So technically I've only been using this current routine for about a week, but so far I'm really liking it, and I'm going to stick with it, because I've used all the products before and I know that they're safe for my skin. A while ago I had a horrible allergic reaction on my face (this post) and for a while after that I hardly touched my face. Now that it's better (thank god) I decided to only use products I was 100% sure on, so here is my updated skin care routine.

After my allergic reaction I went out and bought the amazing Liz Earle cleanse and Polish (review here) which I had been using and loving a few months ago. I've been using this as the hot cloth cleanser every morning, and in the evening I use it with my Clarisonic Mia. Because of my allergic reaction I stopped using the Clarisonic Mia for agesssss, and so now that I've been using it again for the past couple of weeks I've had a bit of 'purging' going on on my forehead, but that's pretty much cleared up now. I'll probably put up a Clarisonic Mia review soon, because I reallllly love it ^ - ^

The only moisturiser I've used in the past 4 or 5 years has been Simple's hydrating light moisturiser. For the price I think it's fantastic, no perfumes or colours, and it works.

Once a week I use my Cure Natural Aqua Gel which is another incredible product. I bought it online (from ebay I think...) and it was around £10. To use it you rub a tiny amount all over your face and it gently buffs away the dead skin...and you can see it coming off...it's kinda disgusting....But once you've rinsed the nasty skin bits off your skin just feels so smooth and lovely!

At the other side of the week (so it's not on the same day as my Cure day) I use a sheet mask. Since going to Korea 8 months ago (I can't believe it's that long! > . <) I've fallen head over heels in love with these. I've been using The Face Shop's Pearl sheet masks (yes I bought so many they've lasted me 8 months - not every week though :P). Over the summer I used more mud masks to combat the oiliness, but now that it's getting colder and my skin is getting a bit dry I've been perking it up with these masks.

Finally at night I use my BareMinerals Pure Transformation Night Treatment (review here). I stopped using this for a while as I thought it wasn't giving me the same results and it was just an added extra to my skincare routine, but for the past week I've started up again, and I've remembered why I first loved it.

I've also been using my free sample of Ren's Radiant Eye Gel to help combat my dark circles and puffy eyes. I like this product, but it's nowhere near as good as Chanel's Beaute Initale Eye (my last eye cream free sample), so I intend to buy the Chanel one once the Ren one has run out, even though it's expensive the sample took me a good couple of months to run out, and it worked so well.

I'll keep you updated about how my skin feels about this (relatively) new routine, but so far (once the purging has completely gone) it's really good :)

Sunny xxxxx

(p.s. my housemates are evil, one of them woke me up with the fire alarm this morning after burning his bacon, then tried to convince me the house was haunted, and then, after hearing thudding noises upstairs I went to check on my other housemates, but their rooms were empty. I was about to head back downstairs when they jumped out of the cupboard...giving me a heart attack and making me hate them a lot > . <)

All of the Happy Things!

After my not so happy last post I thought I'd share a few of the nicer things that have happened this week :) I'm loving the fact that it's Friday and I don't have any lectures (yessss).

Happy things:

Walking up Snowdon at the weekend and eating lunch on top of a mountain with my boyfriend :)

Half way to the top ^ - ^

Going out dressed as a mouse.

My mum's Christmas pressies arriving in the post.

Listening to Disney music (Mulannnnn).

FINALLY finishing my algae report and handing it in on time (phewww).

Watching Game Of Thrones (and staring at Khal Drogo...).

Doing an exam and realising it wasn't too bad (hopefully the results won't be too bad either :P).

Sunny xxxxx

Horrible Migraine Times

Hello :) I've just wasted my entire afternoon with a migraine, I had so much better things to waste my time with (including a kayaking pool session > . <). But instead my body decided a migraine was a much better way to spend my time on.

Right now I still have a pretty big headache, but oh wow, it just feels so good for the actual migrainy bit to be over. I haven't suffered from one in nearly a year (I used to get them quite a lot) so it was a really big shock to my system. I think I freaked my housemates out a little...after about an hour of trying and failing to sleep I completely flipped out and started crying/screaming. I'm not exactly good with pain, especially the kind that makes it feel like you're being tortured from the inside.

The somewhat worrying thing is I don't know what caused it, usually I stay away from fruit squash drinks because they're normally a trigger, but today nothing out of the ordinary happened :S

This is a weird post, but I'm in that weird post migraine 'Oh my god I can't believe it's actually over' stage. Now my head isn't so painful, I don't think I'm going to throw up quite so much, I'm not hot and shivery and I can stand to have the light on, hear noises and actually sit up.

If any of you guys suffer from migraines have some hugs from me *hugsss*, they're awful and I can only say that I've been so lucky to have had such a big gap between them for the last year.

Cute pictures of cats are a well know cure for migraines, so here, have some migraine treatment on the house :)

Sunny xxxxx

Party Eyes

Instead of doing my report like a good girl, I've been procrastinating all day. On the plus side, I have bought my mum her Christmas pressies, done a load of laundry, done the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, and now I'm writing a blog post. For an unproductive day I've done a surprising amount...(even if I feel guilty every time I look at my report on the desk, blank except for the title).

So this is me daydreaming about going to Christmas parties. Yesterday on the way back from the library I dragged my boyfriend into New Look and I fell in love with every single sparkly, glittery thing there. Oh I wish I had money > . < At this time of year all I want to do is cover myself in glitter and sequins. Apparently most people seem to think it's too early for Christmas (*sadness*), so I thought I'd make a toned down Christmas look, a gold twist to my usual going out eye make up.

Ignore the messy brows :P

I used my Naked palette: Virgin, Naked, Creep, Gunmetal and Half Baked.

Now I suppose I better get a wiggle on with this whole report thing...It's on seaweed...just so you can feel sorry for me...

Sunny xxxxx

Ask Her Friends Website Review

I love Christmas. Really really really love it. I love the cold weather, curling up in woolly things and fluffy socks, the food, cinnamon candles and the festive spirit. But most of all I love giving presents! (And lets be honest, I love receiving them too ;) ). So when I got an email asking me to check out a new website called AskHerFriends to help present buying I was really interested.

Ask Her Friends is a website which helps guys to pick out presents for their female loved ones (although I've been using it to find my mum pressies!). The website asks you who you're buying for (for me I chose mother), then price range (I chose £30-£60) and then there are two options 'That's all I know' or 'Wait there's more'. If you select 'That's all I know' you get loads of possible presents turn up, which isn't too helpful. But if you chose 'Wait there's more' (and hopefully most people know at least a little about the person they're buying for :P) you get further questions about the person to help narrow down the presents.

Ask Her Friends homepage

The question part is called the 'Idea Map' and I always find these things fun :P It has a couple of questions about what she normally wears and a couple about what activities she likes to do. The best part is that you don't have to select just one answer, useful when the person falls into more than one category.

Idea Map

Ask Her Friends finds presents fitting your answers from loads of different retailers, so there's a great variety. Here are the top four picks for my Mums present, and apart from the first dress I think my mum would really like them, so I was quite impressed :) Luckily there's a handy little 'She won't like this' button under each item, so it can switch with another.

Top four present choices

 Next you can create an 'Advice List' of the top three picks and if you need to there is an option to email these choices to the persons friends to ask if they think they'd like it (very useful for the slightly clueless males using this :P).

The website also acts as a normal shopping website if you want to, so you can just browse what's on there. Once you click on something to buy you're redirected to the original website for the item and buy it through them.

Overall I'm really liking this website, it's fun to use and I can imagine boyfriends, husbands and brothers finding it especially useful when they want to buy something nice, but don't know what! I'll be recommending this to all my male relatives (and probably some female ones as well :P).

The only downsides I can see are the fact that you have to know the person relatively well (but if you didn't you probably wouldn't be buying a present for them anyway) and that if you have lots of people you're buying pressies for the whole question part could get a bit time consuming.

Sunny xxxxx

Diorskin Forever Foundation Review

Hello! I've caught the dreaded winter bug that's been going round, so I'm curled up in bed (as I often am :P) with tea and tissues. It's days like this where I just want to go home, curl up on the sofa, watch tv with my darling mum and eat her delicious leek and potato soup, I hate being a 'grown up' sometimes :(

Anywayyyy, a couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted a foundation for nights out. I have Chanel's Perfection Lumiere, which is perfect for daytime, but I wanted something else. I decided to try out Dior, as I'd been eyeing up their foundations for a while now. The assistant slathered my face rather inexpertly with Diorskin Forever in shade 010. It looked ridiculous so I asked for a sample so I could take it home and try it out properly.

When applied with a sponge, and being not too heavy handed this foundation is just lovely. It feels so smooth and fresh on my skin, not heavy at all. It's a light to medium coverage, but I just added a little concealer over blemishes. I had enough in the sample to test it on two nights out, one with dancing and one just drinking with friends. It was fine for a quiet night, but I found that when dancing was involved I needed a little powder to set it.

My little sample bottle

One thing I did find is that it doesn't have incredible lasting power. It's fine for a night out, say four to five hours, but any longer and it will fade. I used my Smashbox photofinish primer and powder to keep it in place, and it worked well.

As this is a high end product, it comes with a high end price tag, £31 from Debenhams. Personally I think spending a little more is worth it for a good foundation as it really pays off. I'm going to have to save a bit before I can get this though > . <

Sunny xxxxx

Happy Halloween!

After going out two nights in a row I am dead...or as close as you can get whilst not technically being dead. I'm going to curl up, eat soup and recover today, but it was so very worth it.

I love dressing up for Halloween, or any other occasion really, it's just so much fun! As my brain isn't really working well enough for an actual post I thought I'd just show you what I dressed up as for both nights :D

The day before Halloween I was a zombie, such an easy choice :P White face paint and some fake blood. I decided to be a zombie in a cute dress because I hadn't worn it out yet...

On Halloween I went to a house party and everyone was dressed up really really scarily. Everyone put so much effort in, and with the smoke machine making the house misty it was terrifying > . < Especially my friend dressed as a ghost girl with a pale face and one white contact lens *shudders*. I decided to dress as a broken doll.

Now I'm going to crawl back into bed and vow never to drink again...

Sunny xxxxx