January Sales 2019 Part Two - My First Haul of the Year

Pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up. Put it down.

We've all been there; that agonising debate when we are at a sale and we are trying not to get carried away and blow the budget right out of the window. You wander is it really a good deal, is it really cheaper, and most importantly, do I really need it (right now!).

 Well, to be honest, the answer to the last question is generally a loud, resounding NO, whispered into my ear by the metaphorical angel on my one shoulder, masked by the din of a little devil cavorting on the other, convincing me of how much better my immediate future would be with said random item.

In my previous post, I talked about shopping with my girls and what I bought Liora. For myself, I did far more putting down than picking up, only partly, I must confess, due to my prudence and self control. No I have not sworn off consumerism, We are simply moving house soon so it seemed kind of pointless to buy stuff only to have to pack it in box almost immediately. A deal is only a deal if it’s something you need or want without it.

OK. Enough with the drama. Let's get to the good stuff.

From Boots, I got this gift box of Soap and Glory Products for a tenner. I was pretty happy about this because I almost never indulge in body stuff. I have always wanted to try the shower gel because it smells awesome, but I use Original Source shower gel which is much much much much cheaper (and when my stock is finished, I will be moving to a bar of soap because I can reduce my plastic too). Bottom line, the price of the whole box was only marginally more than a whole bottle of the shower gel by itself, so hand cream, shower gel, body butter, body scrub and a pair of bath bombs, Yeah! That'll do.

From Superdrug I bought this little duo. There was a promo where some products were two for £22. At the time, I thought it was a good deal because the Dragons Blood Hyaluronic Shot was more than that on its own. I later discovered that on the brand's own website, the products were on sale for less, so meh for me.

I also picked up a couple of sets of Superdrug makeup brushes, I don't know why. I actually only wanted a fan brush, which I probably could have gotten from elsewhere, wait. This is not a buyer's remorse post! Let's try that again, shall we.

I made a cheeky little purchase of some brushes I didn't quite need, but I am sure I will have fun trying them out and getting back to you about how they rate. There. Better.

I also took a picture. I know my pictures are not great. I like to prattle and write, photography is not my forte. I am working on it though, promise.

I then popped into one of these no name brand beauty shops on my high street and had a little looky loo. Nothing grabbed my attention, except on of those microfibre makeup removing cloths where you just need water. It was about £2 so I had to try it, its my duty to you to try these random things.

Liora wasn't cranky yet, so I had a bit of time left. Imogen is never cranky when she is in her pram; she just watches the world quietly and plots her takeover. I made one more stop, just for fun.

I went Primark and bought things.

Since I bought the random cleansing cloth from the random shop, I obviously had to buy  the mitts to compare.

And then I spotted this collection of novel makeup tools that I thought would be fun to play with, and who can say no to a bit of whimsy? Also Glitter. I am not a huge glitter fan per se, but I thought I would scootch out of my comfort zone and at least give myself a chance to try some. Also, they may be fun to use in blog photos, if I'm brave enough. I was tempted to let Liora have them, but I don't think I will ever be that brave.

Just to recap - there is a two pack of silicone makeup sponges (weird), eye shadow guards, eyeliner, eyebrow and even contour stencils.

I may, or may not use these in a YouTube video, we will see.

So that was my little shopping day with my girls. what  do you think of my purchases?
Which ones do you want to know about?
Let me know in the comments!

Honorable Mention

Items not bought on the day, but in the same time frame

An honourable mention goes to Nip and Fab. The website was running an amazing sale last week with a ton of products reduced to £5. I bought the Glycolic Fix Body Cream and the Dragon's Blood Fix Plumping Serum. Nip and Fab threw in a set of five Glycolic Fix Daily Cleansing pads deluxe for free. Thank you!

The body cream is supposedly a 'dupe' for Ameliorate Transforming Body Lotion which is designed for Keratosis Pilaris, which I have and Liora has. The original is priced at £22.50 which seems a bit eye watering to me, so an alternative at £5 is really worth a try.

The pumping serum was bought so I could get free shipping. (I'm sure it's going to be great.)
Don't judge me, we all do it.

What is the weirdest or most pointless thing you've ever bought to make up a free shipping threshold? (and did it cost more than the shipping cost?)

January Sales 2019 Part One - Liora's First Haul Ever

January sales in the UK are legendary, with many people crossing The Channel to indulge in some great shopping deals from all sorts of retailers from high street to high end.

I am not immune to the siren song of 50% off so I did a little bit of recreational shopping of my own. It all started very innocently - to buy my three year old daughter some of her own makeup so she would leave my stuff alone. There were, however, a few little bits that I could not resist buying for myself.

I did not go mad. I controlled myself a lot. In fact, I did not buy myself any makeup at all. No, I lie; I bought one small thing, but we'll get to that in part two.

First, let’s talk about Liora's first ever (tiny) makeup haul. We went to Boots and it was madness but we kept our cool, especially Liora who was so incredibly well behaved and, I am quite pleased to say, more interested in the other children than the sparkly things on the shelves.

We picked up a set of three ombre eye brushes in a liquid glitter pouch by Skinny Dip.  It's basically all she needs - a flat shader brush, a fluffy domed crease brush and an angled blending brush. The brushes are nice and soft and she L.O.V.E.S them. They were the last ones, sorry. They were £7.50.

We also found another 'last on the shelf' item - the Unicorns Want to be Me makeup palette by Missguided.

The shadows are quite pigmented, in my view, and quite soft, so we have a minor glitter everywhere problem, right now. Liora is having a great time using her lovely brushes to apply shimmery makeup all around her eyes, so she can look like Disco Raccoon. Needless to say, she does not have free reign and only gets them when I have the strength to deal.

Anyway, moving swiftly along, we have an additional palette that was bought based on price alone -
£4.25 after a 50% discount for the Colours by technic 48 shadow palette. At that price, you can't really go wrong, well, you can, if you, like, have a massive allergic reaction or something, but failing that, no, less than a fiver for 48 shadows is a pretty good deal.

This palette is not for now. It is for when the other one gets finished or dropped or destroyed in some other manner. It has a nice variety of colours, which, to my mind are not very pigmented, but for a three year old, I am OK with that. 

What makeup do your kids have? Do you even approve? Let me know in the comments!

On to part two!

Goals for 2019 - Back to Basics

I feel inspired.

I just joined a few new Facebook groups for makeup lovers and it took reading exactly one post to fire up my imagination.

Let's be honest, this blog has been going for five years, but has been flagging for an awfully long time. Without focus or inspiration, it floated around with nowhere to go.

Now, in 2019, I have recommitted myself to making this blog thrive and grow. I  know that I have a voice that is rather different from most of those around and I am going to own it. I am not an expert. I am not a guru. I just have an interest and love for skincare and cosmetics, and I am pretty good at looking things up and making them make sense.

So what's on the agenda for 2019?

To start with, I think it is valuable to know where I am, skin wise. I am slightly out of routine at the moment, and I can feel it. While, as a rule, I have reasonably problem-free skin, it is not in it's best, soft and smooth condition at the moment, which could isn't actually a bad thing for the blog, I suppose. It has a tendency to be normal to dry but gets dehydrated really easily. It is over 40 so it is starting to wrinkle a little but no too much, thankfully.

That being said, I will try to be as informative as possible regarding all sorts of skin types and conditions.

I have very long, dark brown curly hair. It has no artificial colour in it and I have very few greys.

The last time I cut my hair I donated it. That was in 2015.

I bite my nails and have desperately horrible cuticles. The problem gets better and worse, but never quite goes away. The only way I can control it is by painting my nails.

I have two daughters. My three-year old is already obsessed by eye shadow and nail polish.

Where do we go from here?

It is hard to achieve things if you don't have goals. So let's make a few in the belief that we will achieve at least some of them.

Social Media Reviews
I love YouTube. For better or worse, I can lose hours watching video after video. So I do plan to have a regular post on who I'm watching and loving... and who is no longer relevant to me. I would love for you to share your favourites with me. Are you an Instafiend? Tell me whose Instagram you follow, or any other platform for that matter!

Skincare Basics
I am not a skincare expert, but I have learned a few things and I have many resources I can use to give you as much information as I can.

I would like to do some posts on skincare routines:
Where to start for the older newbie and for the younger ones too
What are the important elements you need to include in your routine
Where to go next and how to introduce new elements and steps
And some products to try, obviously

Makeup Tricks and Techniques you Need to Know

I hope to make this a regular feature. I don't have any yet, but I will collect them like little gems and let them loose on my readers in batches, properly attributed, of course. 

Products 

Whether it's shopping my stash, looking at ingredients, news on new products or just plain product reviews, no beauty blog is complete without this lovely bit, so expect some. 

Off-Topic

I think I will keep this around and see how we go. I have an invisible little soap-box I like to climb on from time to time and some life updates I like to share. I also think this space is a good place to explore things like fashion, weight loss, and other bits and pieces. I plan to do a hair cut and donation again this year so I will be exploring some hair treatments to get my hair into tip top shape before the big cut.

What do you think?

Let me know what you're excited about for 2019. Send me your burning questions and I will gladly do the work and get your answers. 

A Body Brush for Small Hands

The other day, I spent some online time with my new YouTube bestie, Nadine Baggott.

Specifically, I was watching one of the Beauty Hags videos where they talk about beauty hacks.

I quite liked the idea of dry body brushing and thought I would give it a try. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, body brushing stimulates blood flow, removes dry skin, supports good lymphatic drainage and is actually quite good for people who are on the Autism spectrum, or who, like me, have other sensory conditions like Sensory Integration Disorder.  As far as I understand, the method is quite simple; just brush towards your heart. 

I baulked at the price of the recommended brush, so went in search of an Iris priced body brush online. I found a variety of options but finally settled on one that I thought would suite me.

I have small hands so I always have to be mindful of the size of these sorts of products. The product can be lovely but if I can't hold it, it's kind of pointless really.

The H&S branded two pack of body brushes I found on Amazon for £5.99 was exactly what I needed.

They are round, made of bamboo and the perfect level of firmness for me, which is a little bit firmer than a baby's hair brush but less than a nail brush. Also they don't shed. I have not tried them wet but I've tried them for dry brushing on my arms and legs and Mr C brushed my back for me. It felt incredible. It really worked well to get rid of dry skin on my back, and being of a generally itchy disposition, it really hit the spot on that front too. I have keratosis pilaris on my arms and I saw immediate improvement after one use. My skin felt softer and less bumpy. 

I am very impressed with the quality! 

Taking Stock

2018 was a year filled with upheaval, change and stress. As I look back, I marvel, as we all do, at how fast it has flown by. I am amazed at my girls, now two, rather than the one and only child who healed my heart.

I look at how far Liora has come; learning to share her family, her toys and her mommy milky. I see her sister crawling around after her wanting to play with her. At eight months, Imogen is all love and smiles ans silky softness. Unlike Liora, Imogen did not inherit my keratosis pilaris.

Liora started preschool just before her sister was born. She began with two days a week and progressed to three as soon as she turned three. She is now at school full time. To think that she will start reception (primary school) in September, is a step too far.

Our home has been teetering on the verge of chaos all year and my anxiety and self recrimination have been at an all-time high. I have put on a lot of weight and feel Ugly. However, I do waiver between self-loathing, self-pity and a kind of soft sadness about it all with a desire to be kind to the little battered person within. My husband loves me, my kids adore me so I should really work harder at self-care and compassion.

Liora has developed a love of nail polish and makeup (eye shadow). She has also encouraged me to do my routine, after being shown what that was. It is both lovely and a little bit sad to be encouraged by one's three year old. I guess it doesn't matter where the push / inspiration comes from, as long as I do something.

In order to maintain some level of sanity, I though it would be a good idea to get the child her own makeup brushes and eye shadow palette. I now have mixed feelings on the experiment. It is messy, but on the whole, rather harmless.

After more than a year of inactivity on the skincare / makeup front, I feel like I have woken up from a long sleep and I have a lot of makeup and skincare I need to use. So, although I have missed a year of new releases and lovely temptations, I will be "shopping my stash" until further notice. There are one or two new things I may buy when they are released. Nadine Baggott mentioned one in her YouTube video, but other than that, I will be holding back as much as possible.

I am looking forward to 2019 with some understandable trepidation (we are moving house. Liora is starting school.) but with a great deal of excitement over what the future holds. Our girls are growing up and I am enjoying every step of the process.

A Post About Loss

For the last maybe 10 years, Mr C's father had Dementia with Lewy bodies. 

It is the most heartbreaking illness. 

Norman and new-born Liora

Norman Cheerin passed away on December 2, 2018. He was 75.

I wanted to write a little post to acknowledge his life and the loss his family is feeling.

To be perfectly honest, this was originally supposed to be part of my Taking Stock post which reviewed 2018. I wanted to mention his passing briefly so as to not cause more pain to those who knew him and might read it but it was impossible. 

The more I wrote, the more I realised there was no way I could just mention it and move on, also, how do you transition from such sad news to anything else. So I decided it was best to have a dedicated post to him.  

I only met Norman in 2002 but was instantly drawn to his wit and to his manner. His relationship with his son was amazing to me, who had a challenging one with my own dad.

He was a hilarious, kind and gentle man, adored by his wife of 50 years and loved and respected by his children. He loved woodwork, music and photography. He loved reading and knowledge and was just basically one of the good ones. He showed my Mr C how to be a husband and father, and did an incredible job. 

It has been very tough on Mr C. He was very close to his father and despite watching the decline, he was not prepared for the outcome. He is suffering and I wish I could reach his heart and make it better, but at the same time, his pain is a testament to the man his father was.

Most people dread their in-laws. I do not. I love them. I am one of the lucky ones. I hope that I am able to do justice to Norman with this small mention and that his family will find the space and time to heal and remember with fondness this man they were so lucky to have grown with.