My Hair!

Personally I don't think my hair is any different to other peoples' hair, except for the fact that *touch wood* it is relatively healthy. Quite a few of my friends have recently asked me what I do with my hair and what I use, so I thought it would be a nice idea to do a post about it. all of the details, prices and links of the products will be at the end.

So, starting with the shower. I use the Kerastase Bain Satin shampoo in level 1. For conditioner, I use the Kerastase Lait Vital in level 1. My hair is normal to very slightly dry, so level 2/3 is a bit much for me. Both products are full of nutrients and I love the way they make my hair feel soft and shiny.

Shampoo and Conditioner

If I ever want to treat the ends of my hair with something a little thicker, I use the Nice'N'Easy Colourseal Gloss for Brunettes. It is for coloured hair, but I have honestly never used a more effective mask, and the price is perfectly reasonable. It comes in Brunette, Blonde, and Red, so you can pick the one for your hair colour.

The mask

When I get out of the shower, I towel-dry my hair and use the Shu Uemura Satin Design Polishing Milk. This is a lovely leave-in cream for the hair, and helps smooth down rebellious ends. It is a little more pricey, but the bottle will last for well over 6 months.


Leave-in cream

Next, I brush my hair with a Tangle Teezer. I think this is one of the main products I need to thank for stopping breakage. If your hair is always knotting and breaking, this may well make your year! I have the full size in purple (LIKE ZOELLA- WOO!) and the travel size in pink. The travel size has a lid too, so it is great for a handbag.
 


Tangle Teezer (left), Tangle Teezer travel size (right)

On a normal day, this would be it. I would just leave my hair to dry and go about my business. I used to style my hair all the time, but it left me with a sea of split ends and hardly any hair, so one day, I braved my natural hair. I trimmed off the dead hair, and I now only style it about 2-3 times a month.
If I do decide to style my hair, I first use the Tresemme Heat Defence to protect my hair. This protects up to 230 degrees, which is higher than most straighteners go, and is very affordable.


Heat Spray

When I had short hair, I liked straightening it to make it look longer and sleeker. I don't straighten it much anymore, but I do still recommend the Babyliss Pro 230 Styler. I got mine for about £20 from Tesco and I think it's really good. I have used more expensive ones, and sure, they come in nice colours and nice pouches, but they perform exactly the same.

Right now, I have been liking the Babyliss Pro Curl 210. I like the loose curls it creates, as they are straighter than my natural hair, so it leaves me with the Kate Middleton look.



(L-R) Babyliss Pro 230 Styler, Babyliss Pro Curl 210, Babyliss Waving Wand

When my hair grows out a little more, I'm going to start using the Babyliss Waving Wand. it creates really effortless waves, but my hair is too short to pull it off just yet.

Finally, I like the L'Oreal Elnett Flexible Hold hairspray. I hardly ever use hairspray though, as my hair usually stays put. Instead, as a finishing spray, I use Tigi S Factor Shiny Happy People. It smells like strawberries and cream, leaving the hair shiny and very attractive.


L'Oreal Hairspray (left), Finishing Spray (right)

This has been a HUGE post. Thank you, if you made it this far! 

See you soon,

Rabbit.

Kerastase Bain Satin 1 (shampoo)
Kerastase Lait Vital 1 (conditioner)
Nice'N'Easy Colourseal Gloss (mask)
Shu Uemura Satin Design Polishing Milk (leave-in cream)
Tangle Teezer (full size)
Tangle Teezer (travel size) 
Tresemme Heat Defence Spray
Babyliss Pro 230 Straightener
Babyliss Pro Curl 210 (tongs)
Babyliss Waving Wand
L'Oreal Elnett Flexible Hold
Tigi S Factor Shiny Happy People (finishing spray)

Review: Lush's Mint Julips

Hello again! (I can now say this as I am positive other people have viewed my blog- woop woop!)

So the other day, I was in town for a quick buy-things-that-you-need trip but Lush, and it's twirling window display literally picked me up and put me in the shop. (that's what I told mum, hahah). I ended up handing over my beloved money and walking away with one of those cool carnival-esque paper bags. 

Among other things, I bought Mint Julips, one of the famous Lush lip scrubs. I tested all three out in the shop, and decided I wanted to get Bubblegum (no prize on what that tastes like). They didn't have any in stock though, and instead of being a calm, patient person, Shoppers' Syndrome came over me and I decided I would buy Mint Julips (my second favourite).

Mint Julips

Mint Julips has a mint chocolate flavour, and although I don't like mint chocolate, I quite like the taste of this. The scrub is really nice! It exfoliates your lips, but isn't too harsh, as the granules melt in your mouth. It is also totally okay to eat, so you don't have to walk around like someone has staple-gunned your mouth from the inside.

The scrub itself!

I guess it is a little pricey at £5.25, but the jar is 25g, which is quite a bit in lip-scrub-using units (I completely made that up...). I like the fact that it is a natural product too, so it doesn't contain the chemicals that other products would. It also tells you when it was made, who made it, and when it expires on the bottom of the jar, which is a nice touch in my opinion. (Hey Pawel, thanks for making my lip scrub on 6/12/12!- if you ever read this..which you won't...).

I've had the cheeriest day ever, sorry for the quirkiness. I hope my first follower comes soon,

Rabbit.

Happy New Year!

In a few short hours, it will be 2013. 2012 has seen many good moments for me, and many, many bad ones. In hindsight though, even those bitter moments have taught me a lot, and opened new, more significant doors for me. This year, I finally saw the truth in two of my mother's signature quotes; "what goes around comes around" and "there is always a reason for everything". I now believe in these two ideas because of a number of important events in 2012.

Let me give you an example. In 2012, I didn't make the bursary shortlist for a very popular private school. I didn't make the shortlist, because I stuck up for myself in the interview. I entered that interview with every grade an A* with the exception of two A grades. Not once was I asked what I could do for their school, instead, the 'gentleman' interviewing me did nothing but talk about how those two A grades where unsatisfactory. After about 20 minutes, I very politely said farewell and walked out of the interview.

I was mentally kicking myself for a good while, thinking I had lost the opportunity of attending what I then considered a superior school, until I got home to realise that the man had sent four emails to both of my parents asking whether I would like to be interviewed again. Without telling me, my dad replied with a rather extensive email highlighting all the reasons why he didn't like that establishment, and for a good few days I hated him for it. That was however, until I realised that the school don't even use the well recognised exam boards of Britain, but rather a 'Mickey Mouse exam board' (as my grandad called it). The exams are nowhere near the level of standard of regulated exams, and this is why the school achieved like it did. This is something that I am really glad I experienced, even though it made me shed a few tears at the time because now, I am more determined than ever to get into a good university, so I can scan my acceptance letter and send it to everyone who said I wasn't good enough to make it.

Not all of 2012 was bad though! I started this blog in August, and it is something that I will never ever regret. Nobody reads this dark little corner of the web yet, but hopefully in 2013, that will change. I have made a few resolutions that I hope I can keep, because losing weight is just not a realistic goal.. :L



My Resolutions!

I hope 2013 brings new opportunities, both for myself, and those around me.

Thanks for reading!

Rabbit.

Review: Urban Decay Naked Basics

To celebrate my good report and the fact that the Christmas holidays had started, my mum bought me the new Urban Decay palette while we were out shopping. 

The exterior packaging

 

The new palette features 5 matte colours, and one 'satin' shade (It's shimmery. There. I said it.). Urban Decay have released this palette due to many of their customers saying that there was not a useful balance of matte and shimmery shades in the Naked/Naked 2 palettes.

 (L-R): Venus (satin pink nude), Foxy (matte buttery yellow), W.O.S (matte champagne), Naked 2 (matte mocha), Faint (matte cool chocolate), Crave (matte blackest brown)

This palette was, therefore, designed as the bigger palettes' sidekick, but I think I will truthfully use it much more than my Naked 2. I am someone who prefers matte colours, and personally, I like that there is one slightly shimmery shade for the inner corner/brow bone highlight. The shadows are good quality, but very light and neutral- some people seem to confuse the two.

 

The packaging is also something that has improved drastically. The Naked palette is covered in a flexible felt-like material that you have no hope in hell of cleaning. The metal exterior of the Naked 2 does not attract dirt, but it attracts twice as many scratches, and has a pitiful plastic hinge. The new palette however, is made of a very sturdy heat-formed plastic shell, with a similarly secure hinge. I have not had mine for very long, but it seems very hard to scratch and can even be cleaned with a dry tissue.

The Naked 2 (top), and The Naked Basics (middle). The Naked palettes are about twice the width of the new one.

The palette retails for £20, which is a decent price drop from the £36 price tag of the full size palettes. It is much more present worthy too- I don't know about you, but I don't have a steady run of money to buy expensive gifts, and £36 is really pushing it.

Thanks for reading!

Rabbit.

Review: Revlon Lip Butters

It's not that I'm exactly late on the bandwagon with this product, it's just that the first one I bought, I didn't really like. I didn't hate it- it was sort of a 'meh' moment for me. The colour (Cotton Candy) didn't really look that nice on my lips. To be honest, I had so many other products with a similar effect but in better colours, I forgot all about these lip butters.

My two shades (L-Raspberry Pie, R-Cotton Candy)

A few days ago I was shopping with my friend, and I swatched some of the new colours in the range. I fell in love with the colour "Raspberry Pie" and decided to give them another go.

010, Raspberry Pie

Raspberry Pie is a creamy colour with no glitter, and one of the main reasons I didn't like Cotton Candy was because it had small flakes of gold glitter in it.

One coat of Raspberry Pie

I love the consistency and I always have, so I have been wearing the new colour a lot! It really is the bee's knees, especially for this time of year. I really like the packaging too, its really classy and not at all cheap looking- unlike some of the things one sees in pharmacies.

Revlon Lip Butter packaging

Sorry I have been away for a while!

Rabbit.

Happy Halloween!

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick note to say Happy Halloween. I didn't have the most adventurous night. Only 5 or 6 kids came to our door, but they took enough candy to feed 50 people. I enjoyed my amazing film-a-thon though. Here is the pumpkin I carved, looking a little worse for wear, even with a witchy nose!

Our masterpiece.

I promise I'll have a proper post up soon,

Rabbit.

Red Velvet and Cream Cheese Madness!

At my school, we do something we call 'Cake Friday'. Every week, we take turns, making cupcakes or biscuits for the class. Last week it was my turn, and I decided I didn't just want to make the standard cupcake with a bit of buttercream. Instead, I went online, and found this recipe for red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

The cakes I made this weekend

The recipe is a little unusual, because it contains a few ingredients one wouldn't associate with baking, let alone cakes. The important thing is though, the cakes turned out amazing!

The cake batter

 

I found following it closely to be the best method, however some measurements I took into my own hands, such as the amount of colouring and vanilla essence.

There was only one major issue with my batch; the recipe did not specify how big the cases were. I doubled the original recipe, aiming to make 24 instead of 12, but I ended up making more. A lot more. 36 more.

When I made them again this weekend, I didn't double the recipe, thinking I would get 25-30 cakes from the amount listed. I used different, bigger cases though, so I only ended up with 15 very heavily iced cakes.

Cream cheese frosting!

Overall I do think it's a lovely recipe, but one may not end up with the number of cakes desired.

Sorry I have been away for a while,

Rabbit.