As many of you may have read in my previous 'hair journey' post, me and my hair have a love-hate relationship. I cut off a lot of my hair (to just above shoulder length) a few years ago and ever since have been desperately seeking the perfect hair growing methods to get my hair back to its original state with long flowing locks! I am by no means an expert at hair growth, but the tips I will share with you today help me personally, so feel free to try them out and good luck with growing beautiful hair!

♥ The main and most important tip for hair growth I feel is to have a heat ban. Whether it is a complete and strict ban or just cutting down on the straightener action, this will drastically help your hair to get it into good condition and consequently grow out nicely, without needing a million trims to banish those pesky split ends! I have been on a strict heat ban for about 2 years now after being a straightener addict and ruining my hair, and I now never use any heat (including hair dryers) on my hair except for the most special occasions e.g. Christmas, birthdays etc. I think this has really helped my hair to be healthy, strong and generally to grow quicker and fuller!

♥ When growing hair, a lot of the theories for quick growth is to trim the ends of the hair every 6-8 weeks. For me, this just does not work at all, as having a trim that often just puts you back to square one after your hair has finally started growing. I generally get my hair cut every 2-3 months and by using no heat on my hair it doesn't usually need any more trims than that.

♥ Of course, the old hair growth secret is just to be healthy. Fresh fruit, vegetables, and 2 litres of water a day will do no end of good with your hair growing plight! Try foods such as fish and nuts which have been linked to helping hair growth and try to avoid caffeine, excess sugar, fat and fizzy drinks which can be detrimental to your hair!

♥ Find a fantastic shampoo and conditioner which really suits your hair type to get your hair into perfect condition. Also deep conditioners such as Aussie 3 Minute Miracle will help to soften and revive your hair, making it healthier and subsequently easier to get longer!

♥ Be careful with the hair accessories you choose. Rubber bands are an absolute no-no, tugging on the hair and other heavy clips or bands may also pull on the hair and weaken it!

♥ Don't wash your hair more than once every two days, this will enable the natural hair oils to restore the hair and by washing it too often you are stripping it of these oils. Use dry shampoo as a substitute for daily washes!

My dry shampoo-ed barnet!

♥ Keep in mind that one hair can grown from 2-7 years, meaning that as your hair grows longer, a lot will fall out as it reaches the end of it's growth cycle! Some of the hair on your head may have seen up to 7 years of damage, so be gentle with your hair so that it can grow to its maximum potential!

♥ And finally the only thing that can really help lengthen those beautiful locks of yours is patience. Time is the main factor in hair growth so give your hair time and space to grow long long long!

I hope I helped in some way with your hair growing plight! If you have any other tips or questions pop them below! :)

batiste 'tones' dry shampoo.

A few years ago I was a huge fan of dry shampoo; it was a complete life saver when my hair was a huge messy grease-bomb and I just could not be bothered to wash it out. However after a while I started to notice my normal Batiste dry shampoo was making my hair look dull and almost grey (eeek!), so to prevent this 'premature ageing' of the hair, I switched to washing my hair more regularly, not using the Batiste product. However, when Batiste sent me their relatively new 'tones' dry shampoo I couldn't wait to try them out, hoping it would solve the 'dull' hair problem!

As I have a really weird hair colour- not really blonde but not really brunette- they offered to send me both the blonde and medium to brunette version of the tones shades, so I could pick which one suited my hair better.

Upon receiving them I immediately sprayed them onto plain white paper to see if their claims of a tinted colour was true...

As you can see they do indeed spray a tint into your hair, although when rubbed into your hair this isn't too noticeable, so no yellow barbie hair here!

These perform in exactly the same way as normal dry shampoo, making your hair fresher and a lot cleaner looking, while not leaving that grey 'granny' residue in your hair.

I found that the blonde version suited my hair colour more than the brunette version as it brightened up my hair colour, and the darker spray made it look more flat. I think the blonde version would be perfect for someone who wants to lighten their hair very subtly!

blonde version ↑↑

Overall I was really impressed with these 'tones' and they have definitely re-kindled my love affair with dry shampoo! A definite future re-purchase for me! :)

my weekend.

I've seen so many of these type of 'life' posts on so many other blogs (namely the lovely Laura's) so as I adore reading them I thought I'd have a go myself. Let me know if you would like to see more of these slightly more personal posts!

On Saturday I met up with an old friend for a jolly little shopping trip into town, and despite having no money I still managed to pick up some cheap goodies while having an amazing time with my friend. Its so lovely meeting up with people you haven't seen in months, but falling right back into being comfortable with each other straight away!  

I picked up this gorgeous Aztec style jewellery from Primark which I could not wait to wear when the sun pops its head out again.

Snake Ring £2

Turquoise Bracelet £1.50

Necklace £2.50

While having a little snoop around Superdrug I just could not resist the 2 for £6 deal on Sleek Lipsticks. I picked up O.M.G (left) and Peaches&Cream (right) for the bargainous price and I could not be happier. They are the perfect bright, beautiful colours for Spring/Summer and have a lovely creamy consistency - win!

I also popped into LUSH, not intending to buy anything, but the lovely shop assistant gave me a free sample of Oatifix face mask, which is apparently good for dry skin. Previously I had not known they gave such generous samples- could that shop get any better!?

Here's a extremely attractive picture of me with Oatifix slathered all over my face. Although this looks reminiscent of if I had vomited all over my face, my skin actually felt lovely when this was washed off, so a possible future purchase for me!

On Sunday I visited my Aunt's house to celebrate Easter Sunday in style... with my crazy family. It was so pretty and sunny out I decided to crack out my new playsuit from H&M, which I love however has to be returned as it has a rip in the back! Sob, sob.

Cardigan Primark

Brown Bracelet Primark

Blue Ring H&M

Chocolate! NOMNOMNOMNOMMMMM!

Hope you'll had an amazing Easter weekend!

sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

Boob Tube: H&M

White Tank: Primark

Blue Skirt: H&M

Spotty Tights: Primark

Tan Belt: Primark

Nails: Barry M Navy

Rings: Shop in Spain / Primark

Summer's here in full force, and while wearing this outfit while prom shopping a few days ago I was forced to remove my tights I was so unbelievably hot, shock horror!

But really I'm loving the sudden visit from the sun and enjoying it while it lasts, because, as you know, England is renowned for not being exactly consistent in it's weather!

Sorry for the slightly strange angles in the pictures, I'm just getting used to doing outfit posts and finding the perfect position seems to be a massive task in my tiny little room!

Have an amazing Easter weekend my lovelies and don't eat too many eggs! :)

what happens when I get bored...

*ZOMGGG* I got attacked by an alien...

 

...or something to that effect.

OK, so maybe that was a slight exaggeration; I wasn't as much attacked by an alien, but by a fit of complete and utter boredom.

Revision seems to be taking over my life and I feel like I am turning into a stay-at-home hermit the amount of time I am forced to sit at home swatting, surrounded by piles upon piles of those damn CGP books (revision books if your not from the UK). There is only so much more of their 'funny' educational jokes that I can stand before I burst out of my little revision bubble.

My only release from this revision hell hole seems to be my ever growing makeup obsession, which is bizarre considering the only person I see while revising is Graeme, the builder. This, quite frankly, rather scary look above was created when I decided I just could not revise Nuclear Reactions any more, and I decided to vent my boredom on something vaguely productive.

The makeup is loosely based on a kind of Avatar-ish sea creature - inspired by my Physics teacher who looks worryingly similar to the inhabitants of Pandora - and was just a random Monday night 'adventure'.

On the bright side though, I did have a day off yesterday and got my prom dress- yaayaayayyyy!

Sorry if I scared you with my Avatar look and revision rage.

my hair journey!

 My hair and I have a very fragile relationship.

Only recently has it reached a length which I deem suitable for my head after months and months of it being stuck at that 'awkward' length which takes forever to grow out.

About three years ago I chopped of my lovely, long hair to just above my shoulder, thinking it would make me look sophisticated and grown up, however it seemed to achieve just the opposite...

*cringe*

I absolutely hated it!

Short hair looks beautiful on so many people, however with fine, flat hair I was just not one of them! As soon as it reached my shoulder it was flicking out constantly and I wasted hours of my life straightening my unruly ends into place. All that heat on my hair did it nothing but damage and it has taken me years to restore it to its original healthy condition. Split and dry ends have plagued me all the way through trying to grow out my hair, and only recently have I discovered my miracle hair product, Aussie 3 Minute Miracle, review here.

As soon as I got the chop I knew I wanted long, luscious locks back, and my solution to this problem, influenced by my sister, was hair extensions. Clip-in ones of course, which as I was only about 13, did not match the colour of my hair one bit, oh the naivety of my youth! ;)

*Insert embarrassing picture of me in my mismatching hair extensions!*

After countless embarrassing moments of half the clips falling out at the worst times, and accidentally nearly burning them off with a soldering iron (whoops!) I eventually realised hair extensions were just not for me  and decided just to concentrate my efforts on growing my hair longer, naturally.

I've never dyed my hair (although I was considering ombre ends recently- I chickened out!) but I did have highlights a few years ago. To be honest they made no difference to my hair at all! I have naturally blonde-ish highlights in my hair and the ones my hairdresser put in for me just did not show up enough for me to even bother putting in a picture of me with them!

So after months of struggling to get it past the 'awkward' length of sitting right on my shoulders I have finally got it to a length I am reasonably happy with. Nowadays I wear it in a side parting, wavy and am on a strict heat ban to prevent any more of those pesky split ends!

I'm thinking of doing more 'hair' type posts in the next few weeks such as heat free styling and how to grow out your hair, would any of you be interested? And please post any of your hair journeys in the comments, I'd love to have a read!

hush cream colour base.

As a reward for finishing my Art GCSE course a few weeks back I decided to allow myself a little, sneaky purchase from MAC, taking full advantage of their 'free mascara with every purchase' offer. At the top of my wish list was Hush Cream Colour Base, a product which I had been lusting after ever since a visit to the store in half term, so I parted ways with £16 (including postage) and received my free mascara and of course my beautiful Hush Cream Colour Base. Bargain, me thinks.

The colour of Hush is most definitely the perfect highlight colour for me, a peachy, bronze glow which delivers the most beautiful 'soft candlelight' look when worn on the cheekbones. It looks amazing for everyday wear and is easily my favourite highlighter of all time, so far. It also has a consistency to die for, creamy and buttery, and I just cannot get enough of this on my cheeks, definitely one of my favourite MAC purchases.

I also received MAC's Haute & Naughty Lash Mascara along with my Cream Colour Base purchase for free, woo hooo!

In a way this mascara is like two wands in one, with the purple part giving thick, voluminous lashes, and the pink part giving more natural, daytime lashes.

'Haute' Daytime Lashes (Pink)

'Naughty' Nightime Lashes (Purple)
 

  

Both parts of the mascara deliver well, giving lovely long thick lashes, however my only fault with this product is that after using the 'daytime' lash mascara, this makes the 'nightime' lash wand go very clumpy, however this can be fixed by wiping some mascara off with a tissue before use.

Overall though, its a lovely mascara, and an absolute bargain getting two mascaras in one for free!

Did you pick up the free mascara with MAC latest deal? What do you think of it? :)

time to blow out the candles...

Today is the 15th April, which although may be an ordinary date for some, for me it is my blogiversary-

woo whooooo!

Precisely a year ago today, this little blog was born, and it has been thriving even since. I want to thank all of my amazing 629 followers for all their support, help and kindness that you have given this little blog in its one year running, and I couldn't be more grateful!

I feel like what started as just an outlet for me to freely express my makeup and beauty addiction, has transformed into a world where I can meet new people, learn so many new things, and generally have a great place to go and be proud of my work.

One of the main aspects of blogging that I love is meeting new people, and thank you to all the lovely girls I have met and spoke to on here! I especially want to thank...

Vivianna - She is almost my 'blogger big sister' and the first person I ever followed on Blogger, although her amazing blog makes me want to buy everything she posts about! :)

Nicola - She has been supportive of my blog since my very first post, and she is such a lovely girl!

Laura - Her blog is absolutely beautiful, and such a sweetheart too!

Fern - Again, a stunning blog, and so soooo nice!

Holly - Such a lovely, lovely girl, and looks good in every single lip colours she owns! :)

Check out all of their blogs, they are amazing!

And of course I want to thank YOU, just for reading my blog, without you I wouldn't be here! :)

If there's any requests or comments on what you would like to see in upcoming posts, don't hesitate to comment below... <3

Lets hope for another year blogging! ♥

mug shots!

Trying to attain the perfect beauty blogger picture, showcasing your makeup to the max and having perfect expression/lighting is certainly not as easy as it sounds. Over the past few months I've accumulated quite a few mug shots/bloopers which, to be honest, are shameful! But hey, they were destined for the blog so here they are...

'how you doinnn'?'

*oink oink*

My sister is going to murder me... mwahahahahahaha

dopey

fattyyyyy

  

fish face

Oh dear... I'm sure you've had enough of my unphotogenic-ness for today!

Adios amigos! :)