How To: Curl/wave hair, no heat, not effort.

This is the tutorial for the style I use. It's basically an easy crown braid with only two strands of hair, very easy, even I can do it and I can't do crown braids!


Anyway, I use this as a sleep style. I found it accidentally when I wore it out one night and couldn't be bothered to take in down when I got home. I didn't think it would stay, but if you do it tightly enough, even with my tossing and turning it stays put all night.
It's also not uncomfortable to sleep in. I've tried a lot of styles to try and curl/wave my hair and a lot of them involve having big bulges on your head, which are not the nicest of things to lie on. This is not like that because it's all even and I only use two bobbi pins, crossed over to secure the end to my head. Of course they lie flat against the scalp too.

<< This is what it looks like in the morning.... Or afternoon if you're like me and can't sleep till late :p Bit loose, but still intact.
I love the waves this gives me and they seem to stay for ages (it's even batter when done on wet hair).

Anyhoo, don't brush it, just let it down and finger comb it. I've put some styling spray stuff in to make it hold better today, as I did it on dry hair last night.

And here it is styled for NYE at work (come as you are night, no uniform yey!). I love this because, unlike braiding, this protective sleeping style gives me nice little defined waves that I can finger comb because all my of hair stays in it. When I braid, bits fall out when I sleep and I have to brush it, meaning I just get a puffy frizz ball on my head!

(Please excuse the lack of makeup, I'm not leaving till 8pm and didn't want to put makeup on just for a blog post)

So there you have it, a comfy, protective style for you to sleep in and get lovely waves in the morning :)

Thanks for reading :)

Trying out my new goodies

Jorge's sister got me 3 crackle polishes from  Avon for Christmas. I tried Barry M's crackle polishes as soon as they came out (or should I say 'it', as it was only the one black one), but I've never tried any from other brands. So far I've tried a pink one and this turquoise one...

I have to be honest, I don't think they are as good at the Barry M ones, they don't seem to split and crackle as much. However, I do like the sparkle about them and how opaque they are. I have a gold Barry M crackle and I always use it over a lighter colour because I find that it won't  cover a dark, like this purple very well.

Do I like them? Yes. I couldn't tell you which I thought was better because I haven't compared prices, these being a present and all, but I like these Avon crackle polishes and will continue to use them.

Thanks for reading :)

Should I start making videos again?

This post if anything, is just my thoughts written down.

I stopped making videos on Youtube complacently this year. I stopped because I felt that I no longer had the time to think about makeup and beauty products because of work and my boyfriend. I also didn't have a camera with which to film videos, that is always very useful ;)

Every post needs a picture, here's my Christmas day booze :)

However I do miss it and now that I have my D90 I could start making videos again.
Problem is, I was doing it for 2 years and only ever reached 200+ subscribers and hardly ever got any comments on my videos ect. Now although this didn't both me hugely, I'd watch others who seemed to put significantly less effort into their videos get thousands of subscribers in a matter of months. This can be very disheartening and considering that I have a little bit of a complex anyway, I just ended wondering why no one liked my channel. Sounds sad really, but that kind of thing is off putting and when my camera broke I ade no effort get if fixed.

I'd love to hear from anyone who feels like this, or anyone who can tell me what I should be doing to get people interested in my channel. I do want to make videos again and although I don't wish for millions - even tens of thousands - of people to watch them, I would like to generate some interest.

Thanks for reading :)

Finally I'm see some progress!

Looking after you hair can really make it grow faster! Ok, I don't think that it is physically growing faster, but it's getting treated better which means that it's not breaking off at the ends or splitting, meaning I've only trimmed it once in the last 6 months to get rid of splits. And even that was only 1 cm or less. I'm finally feeling like my hair is growing, healthy and it's starting to feel like long hair!!

June to December

If anyone wants to know more about my hair care 'routine' I can do some posts if you would like. I'm always trying new things so it's easy to talk about!

Thanks for reading :)

A very merry Christmas to all!

Right now we are being merry and about to have a humongous meal, consisting of 3 types of meat!
I wanted to take this opportunity to post some Christmasy images, taken with my new toy and present from my lovely Jorge! It's a Nikon D90 and although it's not the most up-to-date model it is amazing and much better than my previous refurbished Canon 400D - which is now in the hands of Jorge's dad, who is very pleased with it.

I have a lord of the rings monaply which only seems to come out at Christmas, and Jorge always wins. We've had 3 games today, he has won all 3 against me and his mum!

Anyway, I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas day. I will be blogging in the near future as I got some very nice stuff which I think you might be interested in!

Thanks for reading :)

Christmas shopping

It sounds really selfish (and it is), but when I'm walking round town looking for presents for people, all that catches my eye are things that I want! This happens every year, without fail, and this is why I hate buying presents for other people.
This year I've managed to buy myself a bat onesie, a fluffy hoodie and pay and charge kit for my Xbox, when I should have been spending money on presents for other people!

My tip to everyone? Go online. less stressful, less tiring, more selection. The only problem is that you've got to be organised and give yourself plenty of time for things to be delivered. And this is where I have failed this year. I've been s busy working that now, on the 23rd of December, I have forgotten a great few presents and have had to run around town trying to find something!!

Sorry, but I just had to let it all out somehow ;) Summery? Indigo buys herself too many presents, can't find things for other people, panic buys. ;) Many Christmas!

Thanks for reading :)

Home education: adult perspective.

I feel that this is not talked about often so I am going to provide my personal experience. Please remember that everyone's experience of home education are different, this is just mine.


So lets start; I'm Indigo, I'm 20 and I have never been to school. Every time I hear about home education I hear about children and young teenagers, never adults and none who went from reception to year 11 without attending school.
Let's give you some background: I didn't every really have 'lessons'. My mum gave up on reading with me on a regular basis when I was 7 because I didn't understand and didn't want to do it and maths wasn't her strong point so she couldn't go past K2 with me. I learnt mostly from watching educational programs on TV and learning with friends and their parents. At 16 I went to college, after 4 years and 2 colleges I now have 6 GCSEs, 2 AS Levels and 3 Levels.

I'll address these problems, shall I? I am dyslexic, this was confirmed at 17 when I was at college, had I gone to school I do believe that this would have been picked up and therefore I would have had help reading/writing ect. My mother did not pick up on this so she just thought I would 'get it' at some point. I didn't read a book till I was 12. Now don't get me wrong, I did learn a lot of other things, I learned how to cook and feed myself, I had the responsibility of looking after animals and when my brother and sister were born I learnt that I never want children because I know what it's like to be about babies 24/7! I also picked up a lot from listening to adults and from my mum's husband who was a carpenter.
Obviously my situation will have been different from others, however I have known a lot of parents of home ed' kids, who don't think it's important to follow the national curriculum and keep them up to speed with other kids. Just because you don't have to follow it doesn't mean it's not a good idea to!

College: Because I wasn't up to speed with a lot of people and had never been in a learning environment I did have some problems in my first year or two of college. Maths was a particular struggle for me as I didn't even know the basics that you learn in junior school. I ended up taking it 3 times (once fast track 8 weeks) to get my C (in the end I got maximum marks for the paper I took though *gloat*). When as a child I had been good at maths, when it came down to it I was one of the worst because I didn't know anything. To give you an idea of how bad it was, I didn't know how decimals worked.
Another point I'd like to bring up is that because I was aware of that fact that I would be behind everyone I was limited in what I did. In my first year I wanted to take science GCSE, but didn't pass the pre test they made me do because I had no clue how to work a graft. I wanted to do that particular subject because I wanted to be a paramedic, but I lost all confidence at this point and thought that I was too stupid to do that. I ended up taking an art course, which I took further and I'm now going to university to study photography.
Now although I love photography, I am aware that it's not the most lucrative, useful or stable career choice and I do wish I'd had a chance to do something... better. In school you are not given a choice in most subjects you take for GCSE. At 16 I wanted to do something fun and didn't think about how it would affect my future, now I don't really have all that many choices.
In addition to this I was very shy and didn't really know how to talk to people, this meant that I had few friends, no close friends and was very unhappy for my first 2 years. In the second year when doing AS levels, I stated having panic attacks when I was 'told off' by tutors and became very frightened to talk to anyone.

Success! Or not. I mention that I'm going to uni, but of all 4 of the girls I was friends with when I was a teenager who were HE as well, I am the only one. Three have had 'opps' babies and the other works as a shop assistant. I do not speak to them any more, nor do I consider this an achievement. However I do live in a town which has quite a few teenage pregnancy jokes, so many that has something to do with things :p

The recluse stereotype: the thing I hate the most when I tell people that I've never been to school it that the reaction is always the same; "But you're so talkative and loud, I would never have guessed that you didn't know anyone growing up!!" Yes, I am loud, sociable and talkative, I know I mentioned that I didn't have any friends in college, but I did have friends as a child. There are local communicates of of HEers, who normally meet up and do activities together. Wiltshire, where I primarily grew up is not good for this, however Gloucestershire where I lived as I young child is. I think it does depend on the area you live in, much as it does with good and bad schools. Whatever, my point was that not all home educated children are little hermits who can't/don't speak to 'normal' people. In fact most have friends just like any other child.
I personally had HE friends and also played with other kids who lived near by who went to school. When I got into my teenage years I had older friends who had been home educated and then went to college and I made friends with their friends. Having said all that however, by this point there weren't many people my age who were still in HE groups and I didn't see a lot of my friends because they lived a little while away. I think all this, coupled with the fact that I must have been festering with hormones and rather insecure contributed to the fact that I found it hard to talk to people, and did up until I started working in a bar at 18.
My mum's favourite saying was - and still is - "school is for learning, not for socialising", but I do not agree with this, seeing as she said the same thing about college and all I did was talk!

One last thing, work. It took me two and a half years to get a part time job. I looked constantly for that time and eventually got the job I am in now, that I have been in for 18 months and I hate. I can't get out for this job because I can't find another one, and although there is a crappy job market ect. ect. I believe that I lot of the reason I find it so hard to find a job is because I didn't go to school. Remember that stereotype? Yeah, people think you're 'weird' and don't fit in with the rest of society. That is Ultimately why I think it would have been good for me to go to school, at least secondary school. "But school is an unnatural environment!!"  I hear all you HEers saying. How is it unnatural? We have created something which most people go through, it may not be the nicest of things to go through, but the rest of the world is just as unpleasant, if not more so. You could say that not being in school is unnatural, if you wanted to pick an argument.

Did I ever want to go to school as a kid. Yes, when I got to about 11 I wanted to, but was put off by the idea of not being able to keep up academically and by my mums own school experience. I was made to believe that I wouldn't fit in and every school child was a horrible sheep stupid by the other HE parents around me.

My conclusion? Yes, home education could be a very good thing, if done right. Yes, I am still shocked when I find people who don't have 'life skills', people who can't cook a roast or use a washing mechine and I think that is an advantage to HE.
In my personal opinion, if your child isn't happy in school then you should take them out if you believe that you are capable of teaching them all the things they need to know yourself or if not you can get that information to them somehow.
I do not think that your school experience or your opinion of the schooling system in your country should affect your child's decision. If they like school, good. If they don't there is another option there.
I think that secondary school should be something everybody goes through, but how can I say that when I didn't experience it, I just wish I had. Not only would I have more qualifications, but I may have had more social skills earlier on.
Everyone should have a equal choice in what they want to do in their lives, this should not be restricted by what your parents did for you as a kid so please think about whether or not you think you can give your child an adequate education.

Like I said at the beginning of this post these are just my feelings, experiences and views. I hope they were helpful, maybe there are some different people out there, but my non-schooling experience has had an over all negative impact on my life. I do not mean to offend anyone with this post, I just wish to voice my opinion and my story.

Thanks for reading :)

Today I bought...

More than I should have. But it did all come in under £10 and I have run out of an everyday conditioner... excuses excuses!

But I've been reading about people who've brought out the curly side of their hair by changing their routine. I started to play about with this in September, but gave up because of working/not having time/patience ect. But I went to superdrug today and picked up some things to try it out again. Ignore the dry shampoo, that's just to do with my oily head!

The Tresemme is something I've seen a few people use to bring out curls and it was on offer for something like £2.50, as they had run out of my coconut conditioner (*sad face*) I picked that up instead. The Shockwave's are a styling gel and a styling spray. I was only going to get the spray, then realised that I could get another thing from that range and it would cost me an extra 50p, so I picked up the gel as well.
I think the problem I had before was that I could bring out a wave in my hair, but it would just go frizzy and limp very quickly because I didn't have anything to hold it in place. Being someone who was always told I had - messy - straight hair I don't have any gels or styling products because I don't need to keep my hair in a certain way.

This is what my hair looks like, untouched after plopping. Problem is that it doesn't stay like this for the whole day and just falls limp...
Maybe I'm just fighting nature here, maybe I really do have straight hair, but I've always wanted to have wavy/curly hair and the idea that I might be able to achieve that if I use a different method of hair care is something that I'm not willing to ignore.

Thanks for reading :)

Hair length update...

So, my hair is now defiantly APL (armpit length) and although I wish it would grow faster, I do see an amazing difference in the speed at which it is growing now that I'm taking better care of it... i.e. oiling, protective hair styles, conditioning treatments and cutting off split ends when I see them. I think it's the first two which are making the most difference as they're the one that I do the most (I don't have the time to S&D and deep condition all that often).

However, let's have a look and compare. 

These are two pictures from this year, obviously they're dated. Now lets look at some pictures from last year, taken around the same times...

Ok, so you don't get as good a picture as to how long my hair really was, I wasn't in the habit of taking pictures of the back of my head them. However you can see that my hair hadn't grow anywhere near as much compared to what it has this year and I am very happy about this.

My advise if you want your hair to grow faster? Go to the Long Hair Community and have a look around this site. It's been very helpful - and slightly addictive - to me and if you want to know anything about hair and hair myths you will find your answer there!

For now, even though my hair won't grow lightening fast, I will contiune to grow it till it's long and enjoy getting there

Thanks for reading :)

OMFG pretty shoes!!

I picked these beauties up at New Look a couple of months back. They were in the sale for £12 (down from £30 I believe, but don't quote me on that). I was looking for peep toe black wedges, but couldn't find any I liked in my size. Because these weren't wedges I didn't seriously consider buying them at first, but the heel is wide and the sole is thick in the gap the heel and the toe (if that makes sense)... Anyway, because of this they feel very much like wedges when walking, which I like because I like to know I'm not going to go arse over tit and land on my face :p

I wore these on a night out last week and didn't take any flats out with me (which I normally do). I wore them all night and even though I got a taxi home in my socks, I had been out till 6am and walked to my friends house in them! They were comfy as hell and I didn't fall over, all in all a good buy! The only down side is that I can't wear them when I go out with Jorge because they make me about 3 inches taller than him, which makes up both feel uncomfortable! 

Moral of the story? Look in the sales, don't be afraid to bend what you want a little bit - you like something you thought you wouldn't - and make sure you're not so tall you dwarf your boyfriend ;)

Thanks for reading :)

Hair growth over the last 3 months...

June 4th

July 5th

August 6th

In the last few months I've started looking after my hair with much more care than I was before. About a year ago I was looking on an online forum for people who have, or want longer hair (The Long Hair Community). The things I read on there really inspired me to start taking care of my hair, however when I started working more and going to college I stopped looking on the forum and forgot about taking better care of my hair. In Febuarey of this year I started reading the forum again and have been looking after my hair like I was doing before all the stress of college and work.

I won't say that my hair was in bad condition, but it has certainly improved in the last few months and I thought I'd share my grow with you all!

I haven't hair hair this long in around 7 years! And the condition of it is lovely now! If you want to know more about how I've been caring for it let me know in the comments and I'll do a post about some of the things I do/use :)

Thanks for reading :)

Yet another way to try and go blonde!

Yeah that's right, even after all those bad reviews I'm still trying it out! I have only bought the conditioner though. I don't use shampoo enough for me to warrant buying this one, and I thought that maybe the conditioner on it's own wouldn't be damaging.

The shampoo and conditioner from this line don't have any peroxide or ammonia in them, they claim to use camomile and citrus to lighten hair gently. Now I am aware that I could use camomile, lemon juice and honey, but I've tried all these things and they don't do much, if anything to my hair. I though maybe if I used something in a bottle form that it may work for me :)

I used to have lovely blonde/gold hair. Till I dyed it and ruined. I've been trying to get back a nice blonde for a while and nothing has worked. All I get now is a mousy brown which I hate, it's dull and has no depth to it.

I'm hoping that this will give me some of my blonde back. I've been using it as a leave in deep condition treatment and I'll be doing a review soon, but I want time to see if it actually works :)

Thanks for reading :)

Tangle Teezer and a dupe for those on a budget

I love this thing. I really do. I'm going to say it again, even though I say it everytime I write about my hair, I have really thin/fine hair! And something that is upsetting when you brush through your hair as a fine haired person is the sound of "snapsnapsnap". I'm always really careful, but even the gentlest brush doesn't compare to this for me.

I was really skeptical about this working as it is made form plastic, which I didn't think would be soft enough. If I'm honest I thought this would rip my hair apart, but it doesn't! 

The original Tangle Teezer of £10.99 from Boots, which I thought was a bit steep for a hair brush, however it really has helped with my split ends so I think it was worth it.

However the other day I was in Primark and saw a rip-off version for £1.50. I thought as it was so cheap I'd get it to test it out and I do quite like it.

It's smaller than the original so I've decided to put it in my bag for when I'm out. I have to say that it's not as good as the original either. If you look at the er... 'brisles' you'll see that the Primark ones are a lot thicker...

They're also harder, with less give in them and I think this is how the Tangle Teezer works, as well as having the different levels of pointy-brushy-bits. If you don't want to spend eleven quid on a hair brush I say check out the Primark one. It's not as gental and I still use my original when I'm at home, however for out and about this one is perfect!

Thanks for reading :)

I smell cheap!

I was buying something from CheapSmells.com last week and decided I wanted t treat myself to a new  perfume. Knowing I couldn't afford anything I really wanted, I settled for a random 'cheap' sent. This 30ml bottle was around £10 and I have to be honest, I picked it in the end because the packaging was pretty and the name indicated that I may like it.

And I do like it, now I'm not great at describing sents, however I will try for you. I reminds me of the talcum power my granny used when I was a kid. It's not flowery (I hate most flowery sents) and has a musky 'clean' tone to it, if that makes sense...

I haven't noticed till recently - when I was going through my perfumes with Jorge - that I go for quite 'clean' sents for the day, things that smell nice but, in the words of Jorge, ''don't really smell like anything in particular'' (he doesn't like most things I do). As for night and winter I like musky  fragrances , so this is a nice mix of the two, and for £10 I was pleased with it.

The packaging is pretty (which is stupidly what made me buy it) and the bottle will look nice with my others. I only realised this morning that a lot of the perfumes I own are celebrity ones. And I've decided I don't really mind that. I generally think that celebrity fragrances are tacky ad just another way for someone who already has loads of money to make more money. However if it smells nice I don't really care, and because it's an old Kate Moss fragrance and not an old Chanel it was cheaper :)

What do you think of celebrity fragrances?

Thanks for reading :)

And I can finally throw this crap away!

Whoo!!! Since people have started doing these 'empties' videos and blogs I've been intrigued. Normally you're shown/showing new things you like, not old things which you may not like... Anyway I've been saving all the things I've used up, and I even started to find myself trying to use up things which were almost empty which I'd replaced with new things and never touched again.
In two months I've used up 13 products and it makes me happy. I don't have a huge amount of space right now and using that last bit of shower gel which is in an enormous bottle is really useful!

If you want to see my talk about these things you can watch the video I made talking about everything. I'm starting to make videos again, and although they won't all be makeup/beauty related, a lot will be so if you would like to go over there and subscribe. Or not. Ya know, whatever you wish ;)

Thanks for reading :)

The experiment that worked!! (Superdrug colour effects)

 Anyone remember when I was trying to get the Superdrug hair tint to stay longer and be more like a dye? Well I do believe I've cracked it!
First of all, I concluded that Rich Red was the one which works best for me. I have mousy blonde hair, but it has a slight red tinge to it in some light, using a red tint just seems to bring it out, as well as staining my hair.

So, what I've been doing for the last couple of weeks is mixing Rich Red with one of the Herbal essences conditioning masks on about a 1:6 ratio. I can't say whether or not it works and how well with other hair masks, I haven't tried it as this worked so well.... however I have just ran out of it so I may up date you on that...

So here's the method I use:

1. Wet hair (sometimes shampooing but not always)
2. Apply mixture of tint and mask (1:6) to damp hair making sure it's even.
3. Leave for 1 hour or more, the longer the better
4. (Optional) Cover after you apply it. I've used cling film and a hair turban, it seems to be better when the hair is kept warm.

And it's as simple as that! The colour does fade of course, but I do this about once a week, sometimes less if I don't get the time, and still manage to maintain a good level of red/ginger. I can lucky monitor this by the amount of ginger comments I get from my work colleagues ;)

                                Before                                   After

This before isn't quite my natural colour as I don't let it fade right out very often, but this is pretty close and you can see a clear difference. I believe I left the mixture in for about 2 hours on this particular occasion.

I do like this way of hair colouring. I used to have an obsession with dying my hair, but I want to grow it long now and so don't want the damage. This seems like a really nice way of colouring your hair without much, if any damage. And at the end of the day, you're adding moisture to your hair with the mask, so I can't see where any damage would come form :)

Let me know if you've tried this and how it went for you!

Thanks for reading :)

Nikon Is RUBBISH (hunf!)

And every blog post needs a picture!

Maybe some of you are wondering why I haven't been making video...? I'll tell you why:

About a year ago now I bought a new camera to replace my Toshiba with was on it's way out. I bought a Nikon Coolpix S3100. I liked this camera, it wasn't too expensive and it did nice video. 

Three months after I bought it the charging cable stopped working.... I bought a new one, no big deal, and it worked fine. HOWEVER after one use(!) that cable stopped working too and I am not buying another one for that to break too. 

Now I take care of my things, particularly cameras and I am pissed off! So now I don't have a camera to use as my old one died (like, badly, it was old!) last time I tried to film and therefore I can't make videos.

So really there was no point to this post, I just needed to rant (yey!), but it has told you why I don't make videos anymore. I will make them again, but I need to renovate my channel a bit. I also like blogging, you can do it in you PJs :D

Does anyone know about any good, cheap cameras I should look at?

Thanks for reading my rant :)

May favourites, 2012

So, I'll start with the Naked palette, because I don't really need to talk about it very much as it's already been talked about by many, many people over and over again. It's a nice palette to grab for and over the last month I've used it's rather a lot as I've been getting back into wearing eyeshadow at work. It was an expensive palette, but I do love these eyeshadow and they are beautiful quality!

Elf SPF lipbalm in Blissful Berry, very nice product for this time of year as it's sfp and conditioning, but it also has a nice colour to it. I was using the lighter pink one more for the last few months (I can't remember the name of that one) but this seems to suit my darker summer complexion better. 

Superdrug Essentail face cream, I love this, but I don't think they make it anymore which makes me sad as it's a lovely cheap, fragrance free moisturiser that my skin loves!  .

MUA Kiss Me, this another tinted lip balm. but this one it a much thinner consistency than the elf one. More of a gloss finish which feels more along the lines of Vaseline does on the lips.

Britney Spears Curious Perfume. Now I'm not proud of liking this, however it was bought for me when I was about 12 and that bottle recently ran out so I bought another. What can I say, I like it. I'm not very good at describing fragrances so I wont' try too hard, all I can say it that it's a clean, slightly flowery sent.

Superdrug Coconut oil, I've been using this instead of baby oil this month and it seems to be working better for my hair now. I think because of the sun my hair has been drying out more and coconut oil seems to be better for my hair this month. 

Superdrug (I seem to have a Superdrug obsession) Colour Effects in Rich Red. I need to do another post about this so I'm not going to go into great detail here, all I'm going to say is that this has helped bring out the red tones in my hair and then add more on top of that, which I loooove :)

So, that was what I have been using this month, leave me link to your May favourites and I shall time time to read them somewhere between work, college and spending time with Jorge :p

Thanks for reading :)

I can fit all my beauty products into one place!!!!

I have recently moved into a new room. Now only is this room smaller than my last one(which I never considered to be big), but I am sharing it with Jorge (boyfriend). And as a result I've had to condense all my makeup and beauty products in as small a space as humanly possible... 

This is the outcome and I am pretty proud of myself for being able to fit everything (yes, that includes shampoo, conditioner, hair treatments, spray, skin care, perfumes and makeup!) onto 3 small shelves. However I do still have some things to bring over (like my huge amount of Sassy Minerals pigment samples, no idea where they're gunna go :s), but hopefully it will all fit in.

Of course, I would like a nicer set up, with a table for me to sit at and do my makeup, but not all things are possible, and dear I say, I like this set up better than my old one >.<

Thanks for reading :)

I think I'm developing a problem...

In the past couple of months I've gone out and bought 4 hair masks. I have never used hair treatments, if I wanted to deep condition my hair I would leave conditioner on it for a few hours, or use honey or egg (though I hate the egg one, it feels like someone's sneezed on your head :s). 

I've always felt that these sorts of treatments were a con and that you could get the same effect from normal conditioner. However it all started with Inecto Pure Coconut which was around £3 in Superdrug. I thought 'why not' and tried it out. It's actually my favourite so far, although I have used it more as I've had it longer.

Next Glamour Magazine were doing free Percy & Reed sample bottles. But I looked around for the Totally TLC Hydrating Mask instead of just settling for shampoo, conditioner or finishing balm. I have to say that I am very glad I didn't pay for this product as this is one of those products I was talking about which I feel like don't do anything more than a bog standard conditioner wouldn't also do.

I've used both these under the same circumstances: same shampoo/conditioner, same amount of time from last hair wash, same amount of time left on for (3 hours) with cling-film over my hair. And you know what, my hair feels nicer (softer, better condition ect.) and smells better after using the Pure Coconut which is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to come by...

And then there were the deals :o Two for £5 on Herbal Essences masks, which I couldn't resist! I can't say too much about these as of yet because I've only used then once each, but I like them so for and I have to say that I like the packaging more too as you done have to get the tube messy trying to squeeze more out. You simply stick your hand into the pot and it's as easy as that :)

Anyway, that is my obsession of late, let me know if you like hair masks/treatments and if you know of any good ones ;)

Thanks for reading :)

900 Athletes, 60 Million strong

I need to start by saying that this is item was sent to me for free to review by Next. I'm always honest about things like this, but it really doesn't effect my opinions. However if you don't like it then you are free to leave now :)

Next UK have launched a new range for the Olympics this year. Having looked through the range I have to say that I do like some of it. A lot of the GB/Union Jack things I'm seeing in shop I find a bit tacky, and I think the same about half the stuff in this range, but not all of it. Some things seem to have a little more class and the designs are more original.

  






















The scarf on the left is the one I have, official Paralympic. The one on the left is the official Team GB. Out of the two, I like the back ground of the Team GB one, but I looove lion on mine! A combination of those two factors would be great for me, but you can't have everything ;)
There're two sizes; 50cm by 50cm which is £5 and 90cm by 90cm which is £10. While I like the look of the bigger ones for wearing around the neck, the smaller is better for using as a bandana (I love bandanas in the summer!) or a head scarf. And that's what I've been using it for :)

The thing with these is that you can support something without looking overly tacky or cheesy. I will not wear the Union Jack (though better than sporting the yank flag which people seem to be doing recently :s) because it looks rather boring. I like both these scarfs - and some other things in the collection - because they look artist and well crafted, like some thought went into them instead just taking the GB flag and putting it on a top. Also, all profit goes to the British Olympic Association, it would seem that not all companies are money-grabbing.

So if you likey either of these scarfs or just want to check out some of the Team GB items, http://www.next.co.uk/ have next day delivery, or you can just go in to one near you (there're 3 in my town so I'm sure most people can find one.... if not, have one of ours, we have plenty!)

Thanks for reading :)