S.O.S. Products

We all have a bank of products which are our 'save me' products. Those ones where when everything goes wrong in your day, you know will make you look and feel a million times better. This is my team of S.O.S. products - no matter how little sleep, how tired or disheveled I look, these guys make me look and feel presentable. 

Let me start with Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water. I use this in the morning before putting on my moisuriser and make up and at night after a deep cleanse to get any remaining makeup or daily grime which has landed on my face and neck. It helps make me feel more awake first thing in the morning and soothes my skin after a long and stressful day. I had been using the L'Oreal Micellar water for a while and picked this up based on the fact it was on offer in Boots, however I do feel that this removes more grime and feels more gentle on my skin so I will choose Garnier in the future.

I am never, ever without this next product. Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Skin Protectant is my holy grail product. I have memories of pulling faces whenever my mum pulled it out to use on sore and chapped skin when I was a child, I hated the smell and the tacky texture. These things don't bother me anymore, in fact I quite like the smell now. I use it on sore and broken skin, as a lip gloss, brow gel, highligher as an intensive moisturising treatment. The list is endless, which is why I have a tube on my dresser and another is always in my handbag. I never want to be without it.

As far as mascara is concerned on days where I need an S.O.S. I'm probably not going to be sporting a full eye makeup look so something slight and delicate yet still widens my eyes is what I want. Seventeen's Doll'd Up Mascara in Black does the job lovely. It gives me enough definition to make me look more awake yet not enough that makes me look daft without a full makeup look. It strikes a good balance which is why I always reach for this. 

A gentle pop of colour is welcome to my face when I need some extra help. Benefit Posietint is the perfect shade of pink which gives me enough of a flush to my cheeks and enough colour on my lips to make me look more on the land of the living. This on my lips with some Eight Hour Cream over the top to add gloss makes me look more 'done' and polished.

When I am tired, my skin looks it. It can get very dry and can require a good moisturiser to replenish moisture and keep my skin looking healthy. Superdrug's Vitamin E Intense Moisture Cream is an amazing budget ultra-hydrating cream. This entire range is fabulous if I am totally honest with you and I use quite a lot of the products available from Superdrug but this is my go-to cream when I need a little extra pampering. 

I have blogged about Seventeen's Phwoarr Paint Concealer before. It is without a doubt the best under-eye concealer that I have ever used. It can hide nights with little sleep, stress and when you are just feeling under the weather. I cannot recommend it enough, for the price it is I am never without this in my kit. 

Avon Advance Techniques 360 Moroccan Argan Oil Treatment is great when used on damp hair before blow-drying to give a shine boost to your locks. My hair can look flat and lack-luster if I am under the weather and this helps to make my hair look and feel that little bit better. It is also good used (sparingly) on dry hair to tame fly-aways and to give some extra shine. 

What are your S.O.S. products?  

Vintage Hairstyle Love

As you may well know I have a love for vintage style and this love encapsulates everything from kitchens (did you see that kitchen on Antiques Roadshow tonight?!) to hairstyles. Where I may not be able to fulfill my love for retro kitchens as we rent our home and of course they can be very costly, hairstyles and circle skirts will do me for now.

I have been sporting a Joan Harris-esque up-do for my day to day and work wear; an early 1960s style up-do with lots of volume up top. It is very easy to achieve and holds brilliantly all day when you are running about; I'll do a tutorial post on how I achieve this look a little later in the week, it really is very easy.

On lazier days I lean more toward Brigitte Bardot for my inspiration, I have always loved her slightly disheveled looking hairstyles, they are so easy to create and the best part is it does not matter - in fact is actually helps - if bits fly away or start to fall out, it makes the whole style look more tactile in my eyes. I do normally prefer the more polished styles of the 40s, 50s and early 60s but there is something about this look which I have a soft spot for on my lazy days and especially when I have a curl set which is staring to fall out.

I'll finish up this cold Sunday night with some lovely pictures of beautiful vintage hairstyles which I am currently lusting over. Let me know what you think! I always love to hear from you!

Strawberry Rollers (and a sick day)

If you follow me on Twitter then you will have seen that I haven't been well today. A mixture of the cold and what appears to be a lovely chest infection made an appearance yesterday to remind me that it is no longer Summer. So I have been on the couch in my PJs watching films and reading my back issues of Vintage Life magazine (my favourite magazine - more on that in another post soon!) which arrived this morning with a little freebie from them too. Which was a lovely little surprise. 

What is it about being sick that makes you want to watch old cartoons?!

Anyway! On to today's post!

So I bought myself some strawberry curlers to try out after reading reviews on the wonderful web.  I read a real mixed bag of reviews, some people raving and others said that they were useless so I didn't really know what to expect. I bought mine from this seller on eBay. They did take around 2 weeks to arrive, but at £1.73 for 12 rollers and free P&P I wasn't all that bothered.

So far I have tried them out once, easy enough to put in but a little frustrating if you are like me and like your curlers tight against your head as they slip quite a bit. I put them in slightly damp hair after I applied some setting lotion which is what I normally do for my heated bending rollers. I bought myself 24 of these strawberry rollers as I have a lot of long, thick hair - I used all 24 of them which made putting my scarf over my hair before bed very challenging as it made my hair very, very big. After a small struggle, my head scarf went on and I went to bed. 

They were very comfortable to sleep in, especially if you are like me and are used to sleeping in rollers of some sort. The following morning was the part which the reviews that I had read mostly slated as hair seems to miraculously knot around these rollers very easily. Twenty of my rollers came out without a fight, very easily. The other four put up quite the fight. After a few minutes of teasing the knots I got them out without breaking any hair - I do think that because I somewhat expected this I was less angry and a little more prepared to spend some time de-tangling. 

The results were alright. Not spectacular, but not horrendous. The curls weren't as tight as I normally like but were still nice.

I didn't take any photographs of my first trial as I plan to try them again with a slightly different method in the hope that I get results that I really like - so look out for those!

Have you tried rollers like these? Am I missing a trick with them?

Quick and Easy 1940s Style Hair

Hello again! Today I am sharing with you how I quickly do my hair in an easy 1940s style. This style works great for day to day wear, which is what I use it for and it stays put all day in work no matter how much I am running around. In the tutorial I have dressed it up a bit with a flower but you could even incorporate victory rolls into it too - it would look amazing with them!

Let's get started! As you can see I have long and naturally straight hair. I haven't had any rollers or pin curls in for about a week now as I have been working loads over the last couple of weeks and I always wear my hair up for work - I never want to wear my hair up when I have freshly curled hair!

This style works if - like me - you haven't curled your hair and want a pretty vintage style. Although, it works even better on an old curl set - so the second or even third day depending on how long yours last as it gives the hair more grip and it works amazingly!

Start by pulling your hair into a low pony tail, keep it loose though!

Remember in the 90s when everyone wore topsy turvy poytails? We're almost doing that! split your hair above the hair tie and then fold your hair neatly into the gap - just don't push it straight through!

Add lots and lots of kirby grips (or bobby pins depending on where you are reading this from!). You want to pin the hair in that roll, so keep one hand holding it in position and use your free hand to insert the pins.    

You should know yourself when it is secure enough - I use about 10 pins to get it secure enough to let it go and move on to the front. You can also leave this as messy or neaten it as much as you like - I prefer it a little messier which works better on curled hair!

Ok! So you'll be left with a weird mushroom-y shape at the front after that so put a finger on the side and push it towards the back to smooth it - keep your eye on the mirror when doing this and just pin it down when you are happy with how it looks! You can see the difference in each side o my hair after pinning one side down! So when you are happy with the shape/volume repeat on the other side!

As you can see I think to leave a small amount volume around my face (as opposed to the hair being very tight against my scalp) with this style but it is completely up to you! That is where I normally leave it for heading to work but you can dress it up with a pretty hair flower if you wish! If you want to try it with some victory rolls then I would do those first and then do the rest of the style you wouldn't then have to do the steps for the front of your hair as it would already be styled!

I like to mess about with different techniques and styles when I have time doing this to test out what works and what I think suits me. Through practice I can now style my hair like this in less than five minutes! The first time you try it it might take longer, but persevere - you'll get it eventually!

Let me know what you think! Have you tried this out or do you use a different day to day up do?