November Favourites

Glossier Boy Brow in Brown
Anastasia Beverly Hills DipBrow Pomade has been my go-to brow product for the past three years. However I've recently started using two new things that have completely changed the way I do my eyebrows. The first one is Glossier's Boy Brow. These kind of tinted brow gels are nothing new; ABH, Benefit & Essence all do really good ones. There's just something about Glossier's offering that makes it stand out from the rest. The colour is great, it's a deep ashy brown without a hint of red. The hold is really impressive & keeps my brow hairs in place all day long, which is something lacking from other tinted brow gels. The brush is tiny so it coats the individual hairs well & you're less likely to blob product on your skin. It's so quick & easy to use, giving your brows just the right amount of definition. Of course it works best if you already have a good eyebrow shape but overall it's a great product for beefing up your brows without making them look unnatural.

Laneige Eyebrow Cushion-Cara in Two-Tone Grey
The other eyebrow product I've been loving is Laneige's Eyebrow Cushion-Cara. I recently saw people using Iconic London's eyebrow cushion on YouTube & as with most cushion type products I knew that there would be a cheaper Korean alternative. I ordered it off eBay & immediately fell in love with this product. Inside this tiny compact you get two different brow colours contained within a cushion sponge & an eyebrow brush with a spoolie on the other end. I never normally use brushes that come with makeup but this brush is great quality. It picks up the liquid inside the cushion & applies the product with extreme precision. You can easily draw on individual hair strokes with it as well as filling in your entire brow. The liquid is highly pigmented but blends out really well so you can get that beautiful gradient fade at the front of your brows whilst making the tails super sharp & defined. The pigment tends to stick to the skin rather than the eyebrow hairs so that's why I like to use it in conjunction with Boy Brow. I would definitely recommend trying out one of these new eyebrow cushions, they are simply incredible!

Bravura London First Cleanse Oil
I always double cleanse at night to make sure I get rid of every trace of sunscreen & makeup. Oil cleansers are my preferred method of makeup removal & I've been using Bravura's First Cleanse Oil for about a year now. I rarely repurchase skincare but I picked up a new bottle in their Black Friday sale as I've been so pleased this product. The packaging is beautiful & it comes with a free pump for ease of use. The cleanser is made up from a blend of safflower seed, coconut, avocado, chamomile, lavender & rosemary leaf oils with added Vitamin E. It has a lovely scent & feels really luxurious on the skin. It attracts all the dirt on my face & washes off easily leaving my skin feeling super soft & clean. It even works well on waterproof mascara & doesn't make my eyes sting at all. Some cleansing oils can leave a weird film on my eyes which makes me feel like I'm going blind but this stuff is completely fine to use on the eye area. This cleanser does a wonderful job of cleaning my face & has also helped to improve the condition of my skin. It's especially good when it comes to dealing with the sebaceous filaments on my nose & balancing oil production.

Bleach London Smoky Shampoo
Getting my roots done is the bane of my life. I haven't been bothered to go to the hairdressers since our holiday got cancelled this Summer so I'm currently rocking six months worth of regrowth. Not only are my dark roots massive but the blonde parts have been looking rather brassy too. It's a real mess! I've used Bleach London's shampoos before & they're actually really effective when you need to quickly refresh your colour. I decided to get their new Smoky Shampoo instead of the Silver one I usually buy & I'm so happy with the result. The Silver Shampoo brightens up blonde & grey hair whilst removing yellow tones but this one almost darkens it, giving it a deeper, ashier tone. My brassy yellow barnet has been transformed into a beautiful smoky grey with minimal effort. I love how it looks & no longer feel quite so desperate to get my hair done professionally. There is a hint of purple running through it & this shampoo definitely seems like it would turn your hair properly purple if you were to use it too often or leave it on too long but if you stick to using it every other wash you should be fine. Just like the Silver Shampoo it can also be quite drying so make sure you follow it up with a hefty dose of conditioner!



Morphe x Jaclyn Hill Eyeshadow Palette
As much as I love watching beauty gurus on YouTube, I have never bought any of their merch or collabs with cosmetics companies. Neither have I bought any Morphe eyeshadow palettes before despite my love for their brushes. That all changed when I purchased Morphe's much-anticipated Jaclyn Hill palette. I love Jaclyn, I think she's great at teaching eyeshadow techniques & I've personally learned a lot from watching her videos. She seems really sweet & always looks flawless. Morphe eyeshadows can be very divisive but I saw how hard she worked on this palette, perfecting the colours & formulas over a two year period so I knew it was gonna be well worth the investment. I spent a couple of hours in a queue on Beauty Bay & the palette was mine the very next day! There are a couple of minor things I don't like about this palette, the typography makes me want to cry & I wish it wasn't made out of cardboard but the actual eyeshadows are utterly dreamy. The colours are rich, highly pigmented & look even more beautiful in real life. It's full of warm eyeshadows but there's also some gorgeous jewel tones that really make it stand out from other Morphe palettes. It's really versatile & you can create so many different looks with it. I'm so impressed with the quality of the eyeshadows. The mattes are creamy & almost blend themselves! The shimmers are absolutely stunning, I'm a big fan of the purple at the bottom & the pinks at the top. This palette is easily one of my favourite purchases this year. I honestly can't recommend it enough & if you see it in stock on Beauty Bay, don't hesitate to pick one up!

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Bleach London Rose Shampoo & Conditioner

Bleach London Rose Shampoo / Bleach London Rose Conditioner

Bleach London & I had a pretty rocky start to our relationship to say the least. I remember being so excited about the launch of their dyes into Boots last October... and then the horrendous purple/blue/green mess of Parma Violets happened which stayed in my hair for six. whole. months. Since then I've come to realise that if you ignore the terrible quality of their dyes then they actually make some brilliant & fairly cheap haircare products. They recently brought out a few new additions to their range including their Rose shampoo & conditioner. I always find myself going back to a pink tint when I get my hair toned so I figured I'd give them a whirl. Although it's super easy to whack a blob of dye into whichever shampoo & conditioner you're currently using (and I would recommend doing that to prolong the colour of any dye job) these are the first pink toned haircare products on the market. They're also very convenient, readily available & only cost £6 per bottle.

I really like the formula of these products. The shampoo cleanses well & the conditioner is incredibly nourishing. I have to commend Bleach London on how soft their products make my hair feel & how shiny my hair looks afterwards. If you already have pink hair then these can be used to intensify the colour. I never got round to using my Rose dye but other reviews I read seemed to mention how quickly that particular dye faded. These would be perfect for topping up that colour and making your hair look more even toned. In fact I would recommend just using these for all over colour instead of bothering with their pink dye at all. On light blonde hair this duo gives a hint of a tint that can be built up by washing with them continuously. You don't need to use them together either. I started off just using the conditioner & that alone imparted a soft pink tone to my hair. If you're a bit nervous about dyeing your hair a weird colour then these would be a great way of easing yourself into the world of pastel locks. Above you can see how my hair looks after just two washes with both the shampoo & conditioner. I'm very pleased with the results & I'm loving my hair colour at the minute. Apparently they can also knock out any green tones that you might've developed from using some of Bleach London's dodgier products. If only they'd brought these out last year eh?

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Maintaining Platinum Blonde Hair

Although I'm no stranger to dyeing my hair unnatural colours, most of the time I prefer to keep my blonde locks looking as clean & white as possible. I always get my hair bleached & toned at a professional salon. My natural colour is a very dark ash brown so it requires a lot of skill, time & effort to lift it to my desired level of platinum blonde. If you're considering going for a drastic colour change like mine then I would definitely recommend going to a salon as too many things can go wrong. Whenever I get my hair toned they always use a L'Oréal Professionnel Luocolor toner in either P01 or P02. P01 is slightly bluer and P02 is slightly pinker in tone. They both help to further lift the colour & make everything look more even. They also give the hair a lovely pearlescent multi-dimensional finish which makes it look shinier & healthier.

A few weeks after my hair appointment I start to notice some yellow tones creeping through my hair. A lot of things can cause brassiness including the sun, hard water & using hair products with sulfates. To help maintain my light ash blonde colour at home I use a purple shampoo & conditioner. As purple is opposite to yellow on the colour wheel, it cancels out brassy tones & refreshes the tone of your hair. I've been bleaching my hair regularly since 2006 & subsequently I've tried a lot of purple haircare products over the years. Different shampoos & conditioners contain different colour pigments which can alter the tone of your hair. Lee Stafford's Bleach Blonde products would always turn my hair pink (his Hot Shots 4 Blondes are awesome though!) & Clairol Shimmer Lights would always turn my hair grey. It just depends on what look you're going for really. In general I prefer a pure white blonde. For a clean blonde look I would recommend Provoke Touch Of Silver Twice A Week Brightening Shampoo, Fudge Clean Blonde Violet Toning Shampoo & L'Oréal Professionnel Serie Expert Silver Shampoo.

At the minute I'm using Bleach London's Silver Shampoo & Silver Conditioner. I actually think that these products are really brilliant. For just £5 you get 250ml of product and the bottles seem to last for ages. The shampoo is a very deep purple colour which knocks out yellow tones a treat. I love the bright white look it gives to my hair. It doesn't leave me with any random blue, pink or purple bits, the tone is very clean. It also contains wheat proteins & vitamin B5 to moisturise your hair. One of the things I don't like about purple shampoos is that they can often be very drying which is the total opposite of what anyone with bleached hair wants. This one is very gentle on the hair & keeps it feeling soft. When I used the purple shampoo alone I found that I needed to use it with every wash but combined with the conditioner the white tone lasts a lot longer. I adore Bleach London's conditioning products, they make my hair feel absolutely incredible. The silver conditioner is a thick blue-toned lilac cream. It's fantastic at both toning & hydrating. These products definitely work better when you use them together than just the shampoo alone. The one thing I don't really like about them is their scent. It's very strong & masculine and sometimes makes me sneeze. But for the price you can't really complain!

Of course if you use too much purple shampoo then any of them can add unwanted pigment to your hair. To balance things out I only use toning products every other wash. Be careful not to leave them on your hair too long either. I still want to make sure there aren't any brassy tones in my hair though. In between my washes with the Bleach London products I use a toning mousse. Color Wow are one of my favourite brands for hair styling products. I've been reaching for several of their products over Bumble & Bumble ones lately so that's really saying something. Their Brass Banned Mousse For Blonde Hair* is a wonderful dual-purpose product. Not only does this pretty lavender mousse counteract harsh brassy tones, it also gives your hair masses of body. It contains plasticisers for added flexibility & to eliminate stiffness, distinguishing it from other mousse formulas, which harden & stiffen the hair. It holds a style well without making your hair feel gross & crunchy. This mousse is also alcohol-free which means that it doesn't dry out bleached or highlighted hair. I love how bouncy this makes my hair look & it's the perfect stopgap between toning sessions. What are your favourite products for maintaining bright blonde hair?

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January Favourites

Arran Aromatics Feel Good Formulas Sea Salt Scrub*
I do love a good body scrub! I feel like a shower isn't complete without some hardcore exfoliation. I've tried so many that just did nothing at all. It seems like many brands are afraid to put some real grit in their scrubs. So I was amazed when I tried this one from Arran Aromatics. This is a lovely sea salt scrub packed full of seaweed, mint and plenty of moisturising oils. It's exfoliating & moisturising at the same time. It leaves my whole body feeling soft & fresh. I wish it had a bit more fragrance to it but otherwise it does it's job incredibly well. Full review here.

Oribe Maximista Thickening Spray
Oh Oribe, your products are so damn expensive. Sadly for my bank account, they are well worth the money. If your locks are on the thin or fine side then this thickening spray could be the answer to all your hair woes. A few spritzes of this heat-activated body builder before blowdrying is all you need for thicker, fuller, more voluminous hair. It's so light you can use it all over your hair to plump up your ends as well as your roots. This product also acts as a heat protectant spray which is a bit of a Brucey bonus! The effects seem to last in my hair for about two days. It adds so much volume & you can see a huge difference in thickness after using it. I like to combine it with a smoothing creme for big, bouncy hair that still looks sleek & healthy.

Bleach London Silver Shampoo
After my total hair disaster with one of the Bleach London dyes, the brand lost a whole lotta respect from me. I didn't really want to give them another penny of my money. I was in need of a new bottle of purple shampoo though & as I had enough Boots points for it, I figured that I may as well try out their Silver Shampoo. It is a surprisingly good shampoo that manages to knock out all the yellow tones without being too drying. All too often when I use purple shampoos I end up with purple, grey, blue or pink tones left in my hair. This one doesn't leave any kind of tint. It just gives me really bright pure white hair. My roots end up a bit yellow again after about a week so I find that I need to use it every time I wash my hair instead of every other time. There's plenty of product in the bottle though so I'd say it's very good value for money. I've tried a LOT of purple shampoos in my time as a blondie & as much as I am loath to say it, this ranks as one of the best.

Maybelline Color Show Brocades Nail Polish in Knitted Gold
I never used to be a huge fan of glitter polishes but they're such a foolproof way of creating some cool nail art. Who doesn't like to spend hours staring at their sparkly nails?! I recently fell in love with the amazing range of top coats from the Maybelline Color Show collection. Brocades was the name of their limited edition Christmas polishes & I'm obsessed with this beautiful glittery colour. Knitted Gold is a clear base packed full of golden shimmer particles. It also contains two sizes of pink hex glitter. It looks incredible as it shines in the light. The combination of gold & pink gives a gorgeous glittery rose gold glow to your nails. Full review here.

Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in Rose Shimmer
There's been tons of blogger hype about these lip balms for years & I am probably the last person to jump on the bandwagon. I finally got round to buying one of them a couple of months ago & I ended up with a beautiful baby pink shade called Rose Shimmer. This Lip Perfector is very moisturising & isn't sticky at all. It contains shea butter, wild mango & vitamin E to nourish and repair the lips. The gel formula makes your lips look plumper & feel kissably soft. I absolutely love it! Full review here.

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Bleach London Parma Violets Hair Update

Bleach London Super Cool Colours Parma Violets - £5

A lot of people have been asking me how my hair looks now it's faded a bit so I'd thought I would post a little hair update for you all. Incase you missed it, two weeks ago I ruined my hair by dyeing it with one of Bleach London's Super Cool Colours in the shade Parma Violets. You can see how the original results looked in this post. Basically I was annoyed because it looked incredibly dark, patchy and had loads of random blue bits instead of being a pastel lilac colour as Bleach had claimed. If you Google the London blogger event they held you can see pictures of their wall of dyed hair samples. Parma Violets looks completely different to the results I had. I figured it was a problem with the dye and turns out I was right. A few days later Bleach recalled Parma Violets and removed it from the shelves of Boots. I don't know if they ever released this information publicly or not but they got in contact with some of us who had complained about the product. Here is the information they sent to me via Twitter:

"We are sorry you have experienced problems using Parma Violets, this product has received similar feedback from other customers so we are removing it from stores to investigate an improvement in the colour formulation and its fading effects. Parma Violets is a mixture of blue, red and orange - Blue is the dominant colour so it stays longer on the hair, as the red/orange washes out faster, this is dependant on the different conditions of the hair. You can try and strip the dye with Washing Out Liquid or any other strong shampoo - Meanwhile if you are looking to get your hair back to purple you could mix I Saw Red and Out of the Blue, or Rose and Blullini for paler colours. A pink based colour will neutralise the green. If you wish to take your complaint any further this needs to be taken up with Boots Customer Care, the phone number is 0845 0708090 and the email is boots.customercare@boots.co.uk. You can also go in to any store and get a refund on this product, or exchange for the other colours, perhaps one we have suggested above. I hope this helps, let me know if we can help any further."

Luckily I had kept both the bottle & the receipt so I went straight back to Boots & got my 500 Boots points back, no problem. However this still doesn't fix my hair so I am tempted to make a formal complaint to Boots. I think I'll see if it will go on it's own first though. After four washes my hair has now faded to a sky blue colour. There's not a single purple tone left in my hair. It has turned my ends quite silvery which is pretty cool. I would've washed it more but I don't want to completely ruin the condition of it. I want this out of my hair as quickly as possible so I've been washing my hair with Vosene as recommended by Carlyn. It's a medicated anti-dandruff shampoo containing salicylic acid that really strips the hair. I think it has helped to fade my hair but it has left my hair feeling rather dry even after using some deep conditioning treatments. I really need to get my roots done soon but the blue needs to go first. Otherwise my hairdressers are blates gonna bleach bath the rest of my hair & that's the last thing it needs! None of the colours my hair has been since dyeing it with Parma Violets were bad but they definitely were not lilac and that's the problem. If you still have a bottle of this laying around then you should take it back to Boots immediately for a full refund. Even if you have used some of it or have lost the receipt you'll still be able to at least get an exchange. Obviously this only applies to this first batch & if you're reading this post in a few months time, they will have probably fixed it by then. None of the other Bleach London products are affected by this recall & as far as I know there are no problems with the other dyes. It's just my luck that I chose the dodgy dye!

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Bleach London Super Cool Colours Parma Violets

Bleach London Super Cool Colours Parma Violets - £5

In the words of Gob Bluth 'I've made a huge mistake'. I have been seriously excited about the launch of the Bleach London hair dyes for weeks. They finally came out on Tuesday and I made a beeline for Boots to pick up a few bottles. I ended up with Rose, Awkward Peach, Washed Out Mermaid and Parma Violets. After much deliberation I decided I fancied going lilac first. So I blobbed out some Parma Violets into my mixing bowl and got on with applying it this morning. What an error. I followed the instructions exactly: shampoo and towel dry hair, apply dye and massage into hair, leave on for 15 minutes and wash out with lukewarm water. But as you can see I don't have lilac hair. I now have a patchy blue and purple mess. My hair is bleached to the extreme & the colour is very even. Therefore my hair should've been ideal for these dyes. I even sectioned out my hair and used a dye brush to apply it evenly so I can only guess it's down to the quality of the dye. When I normally dye my hair pastel colours, I mix in some conditioner to dilute the dye. However this dye is supposed to come out as a pastel colour without adding any conditioner. Obvs not true. I was expecting this kind of colour from the shade Bruised Violet but not this supposed lilac shade. The colour itself isn't completely horrendous, just a bit patchy & not at all what I was expecting. I don't think patchy dye is necessarily a problem when you're using pastel colours but because this is so bright, it doesn't look right. It actually looks pretty nice in these photos but it's much worse in real life, trust me. The only good thing about this dye is how soft it makes my hair feel.

These dyes are completely overrated. I fell for the hype because Bleach London are such a well established hair salon (although I have heard they actually use crappy old Crazy Colour in there). These dyes are supposed to wash out in 2-10 washes but I have a feeling some staining will be involved. Hopefully it'll look better when it fades a bit. Bleach also make a Washing Out Liquid to help the colour fade faster but I've heard some people on Twitter saying it hasn't worked for them & they had to give their hair a bleach bath instead. It might just be Parma Violets that's a bit rubbish but it's still disappointing when I had such high hopes for these dyes. If this purple ever washes out I'll be testing the other colours I bought but otherwise I'll be sticking to Directions from now on. You can see how my hair looked when I used Directions to dye my hair lilac here. If you do still want to try these, either do a patch test or dilute them out first. Don't make the same mistake as me.

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