Clothes Shopping...on Ebay???

I would say about 50% of my wardrobe is off of ebay. I love it when people say 'I love that skirt where is it from' and I can reply "99p off of ebay". You can get some great items. My favourite is a faux fur crop puff sleeve jacket in animal print that I picked up for £10. My tip is - never spend more than you would be prepared to lose, just in case you don't like it or it doesn't fit. (though you can always sell it if you don't want it). To start with, why not try searching for items in your size from a shop you know. E.g. I often type in 'Topshop size 6' and see what comes up. You can usually get some current season things, and some older, vintage style clothes. It's great for unusual finds. As long as you don't mind wearing second hand clothes - it's kind of like charity shop shopping without the musty smell and childhood associations. My friend even got her Vivienne Westwood wedding dress off of ebay. One word of warning though - it can become addictive! Not handing over cash or your credit card each time, it can become easy to lose track of how much you're spending, especially with the wonder that is Paypal (where would I be without paypal), so make sure you keep checking your credit card statements.

My latest ebay bargain is this fab Miss Selfridge dress which I bagged for the bargain price of £4.76 including postage!

Battle of the Brunette Shampoos

I wash my hair in the morning, every other day, and use a hairdryer to dry. I don’t use many products, and wear my hair down mainly.

Firstly, I tried Redken Colour Extend – a product that claims to extend the length of your colour, whilst leaving hair soft and silky. At around £11 a bottle you would certainly hope so. After just a few washes, Redken was already living up to its expectations and no only did my colour remain reasonably vibrant until my next salon appointment, it was also soft, shiny and quite frankly gorgeous! I recall my hair even ‘squeaking’ when washing it. It took literally a few minutes to dry and, was so manageable. Even on second day, my hair still felt soft and silky. If it wasn’t for the fact that I can’t afford to spend £22 every few weeks on shampoo I would be a true convert.

After my next colour I tried Pantene’s Colour Expressions Brunette - for glowing velvety brunettes. After all, Mylene Klass makes it look so good on the advert. This cost around £3 a bottle, so was much easier on the purse. Although perhaps Redken left my hair feeling slightly cleaner, softer and silkier, I was probably more impressed with Pantene, given its reasonable pricing! The colour lasted reasonably well, and at my next hair appointment, my hairdresser even commented on how soft my hair was! My hair dried reasonably quickly in the morning, and the following day still felt clean and healthy. It’s not surprising this is becoming the nations favourite.

The next product to come under the scrutiny of my testing was John Frieda’s Brilliant Brunette. Coming in at around £4 - £4 per bottle this wasn’t over priced at all and was quite reasonable for a professional brand. However, after the first wash I was less than impressed – my hair felt dry and brittle and going outside made it knotty and in constant need of brushing. It took ages to dry with the drier, and on the second day my hair felt in desperate need of a wash – already feeling greasy, and my colour was fading rapidly. This was probably my least favourite product, and despite the price I wouldn’t even buy again if it was in a BOGOF offer!

Lastly, I am now using Garnier Fructis Colour Last, costing the bargain price of £1.50 a bottle. My colour certainly isn’t lasting, but at least my hair feels clean, soft and easy to handle. It dries relatively quickly, and on the second day feels just a tad greasy. It smells absolutely lovely, and quite unsurprisingly fruity. I would buy this again, but probably only if they didn’t have my first choice, and wouldn’t use on a permanent basis otherwise I fear I may end up having to have my hair coloured more often.

The winner for me was very close, but in the end I had to give the honour to Pantene Colour Expressions Brunette for providing a close to salon brand product, but at a drugstore brand price.

hair using pantene

Getting Rid of Cellulite...first update.

I desperately want to get rid of my cellulite. Just seeing it in the mirror makes me feel sad, and the realisation that my body is starting to do more and more things I don’t want it to creeps in.

I’ve decided to try various methods to get rid of it, the first being using a firming lotion, and having monthly massages.

I’ve had two massages now, and I can’t say I’ve noticed much difference yet, though I do enjoy the experience, so it’s not something I plan on giving up on yet!

The Art of Eyebrow Etiquette

Being someone who used to pluck on a daily basis, and now gets professionally waxed, I like to consider myself well versed in the art of eyebrow etiquette.

Yet some of us like to experiment, and my friend Lucy recently road-tested Veet Waxing Strips. A leading name in all that is self waxing, her expectations were high, and she certainly didn’t expect to end up covered in green gloop with a black eye!

Though in fairness to Veet, perhaps it was her technique that was amiss here and not the actual product. For most people, reading ‘warm in your hands’, this would simply mean ‘warm in your hands’, yet to Lucy this meant put on the radiator to heat. Minutes later, when the wax is now hot, she peeled off the back and applied to her brow.

Plucking up courage, she gave a firm yank, and looked at the wax strip to see the results. Sadly not a single hair could be seen on the strip, and in fact more wax seemed to remain on her brow than on the strip. Slightly frustrated, she reached for a tissue to clean off the wax, only to find the tissue then stuck to the wax, and she now had green wax and a white tissue hanging off her eyebrow causing her more pain than waxing itself would.
Flushing with water seemed like the only option, but soon the wax started to melt and dissolve and she found a green liquid dripping down her face, which she then had to dry with a towel which is now in the bin as the green stain won’t come out!

Waking up the next day with a bruised eye, Lucy finally conceded self-waxing wasn’t for her and returned to the trusty tweezers with confidence!

www.hairmixer.com

Only the funniest, most amusing, distracting and time wasting website ever! You upload your photo, select a photo of a famous person, or upload your own, line up faces, press a button, and wham…your face is on her body with her hair!

I’ve never seen such freaky and in-bred looking photographs in my whole life. My friend thought it would be a good way of finding out what she’d look like with different hair styles. Wrong – it was a good way of finding out how she’d look having her face on sideways, and two sets of eyebrows.

The problem comes in not being able to find a photo of yourself face on, and then when you do, your face is inevitably the wrong size, and you either have to end up stretching it or scrunching it up to fit in. Your skin turns out to be the wrong shade compared to the rest of the body, and you of course suddenly have the body of a film star.

Does anyone remember that game from when we were kids – Misfits????????

Saying that though, I kind of liked how mine turned out – my face,
Katie Holmes’ hair and body…. Not bad!

Fake Hair...

I bought some clip in extensions for a party. Not the real hair type, just the cheap synthetic type. They were a perfect match to my hair colour, or at least they were when I bought them, but by the time I came to wear them, my hair colour had faded slightly and they were slightly darker than my hair, though not significant enough to be too obvious.

When I finally managed to get them in, after about 20 minutes of trying, they looked pretty good – if you didn’t know I was wearing extensions, in the dark pub light of the party you’d never tell.

Despite that, I could definitely tell they were in – not being used to thigh length hair, the first problem I encountered was when I got in the car, and accidentally sat on them, dislodging them slightly. Then I kept fiddling with them, and couldn’t brush my hair because I would knock them out. They became heavier and heavier as the evening wore on, until about 10.30 p.m. when I finally gave in and went back to my natural below the shoulder length hair. Never before has my head felt so light!

Worth the £4 – definitely. Worth paying more for better ones? I’d probably say no. After taking them out they became tangled in my bag, and the thought of washing and brushing them was too mind numbing, so they ended up in the bin.