The Body Shop Camomile Sumptuous Cleansing Butter Review

In my recent trip to The Body Shop I picked up a few cleansing items from the Camomile range in the hopes of getting my skin care routine updated, locked down and working in perfect harmony with my skin.  

The Camomile Sumptuous Cleansing butter retails for £12.00 an having heard some great things about it on twitter from bloggers I love and trust, I jumped straight in purchased it without hesitation. 

How the product works is really quite simple, you take a small amount and in circular motions, work it into dry skin (on top of make up if you're wearing any!), next, soak a muslin cloth in warm water and gently wipe away, ensuring that all the product is taken off... follow up with your usual toner and moisturiser. 

I'm always up for trying new products and I loved how simple and easy this one sounded to use, however sadly,in this case, the reality didn't quite live up to the expectations. Now skin care is always subjective, and what works well for one person may not work well for others and that just happened to be the case in this instance.

I switched to using the Camomile Sumptuous Cleansing Butter for a few weeks and it made my skin feel incredibly clean after using it in conjunction with the muslin cloth. During week one, I noticed no improvements in any troublesome areas, and a few extra breakouts I attributed to hormones, and the time of the month. I kept going with the product in the hopes of seeing an improvement, however, sadly by the end of week two, my face was in in an incredibly bad way. I had self inflicted clusters of acne all over my face including breakouts that were under as well as above the skin that were fairly sizable and quite painful. I can't actually remember the last time my skin looked this bad, and I immediately ceased using the product, instead switching back to my trusted Eucerin Dermopurifyer Cleanser and after about 48 hours, my skin calmed down and is on the way to being back to it's normal self. 

Although this product didn't work for me, It may work for you. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this product, did it work for you? Let me know in the comments.

Em xxx

My Skin Type - Combination.

How To Take The First Step Towards Self Improvement...

You know that list, that's stored away in the back of your brain, where you mentally take notes and ensure to criticize yourself about the items on said list on a weekly, if not daily basis... You know the list i'm talking about? 

Well, I actually decided to do something about it, and today I made a positive step to crossing things off said list. You see, I've always had a thing about my teeth... I'm an ex smoker, and my teeth wear the stains to prove it. It never used to bother me, that was until mean spirited comments from two separate people on separate occasions crept into my brain and made me begin to hate my teeth. 

The silly thing is, I let said comments seep into my mind and that made me hate smiling, I learnt to cover my teeth to hide them, to not feel ashamed, embarrassed or have more mean comments directed at me. 

I always felt like there was an excuse for not making a positive change, be it lack of time, lack of money, or lack of knowledge on how to really take that first step and go for it, when it hit me...

I could easily justify spending money on clothes, make up I didn't need, or spontaneous impulse purchases, yet I always had an excuse or a reason I couldn't spend the same amount or take the leap and make a positive change - and I'm not just talking about the colour of my nail polish... but a truly positive change that will help me move forward to being the person I want to be.

For some reason, today it clicked, and in a moment of motivation I decided to take control, and stop hiding behind reasons on why I can't do something and start looking for reasons on why I can.

And then it happened... I made the decision to purchase some Crest White Strips in the hopes of reaching my dream smile. 

I found my motivation, now it's time to find yours! So step forward and ditch the reasons you can't do something as now is the time to start searching for the reasons on why you can! You may even surprise yourself with the results.

I'd love to hear what positive steps and changes you're going to make to your life! Let me know in the comments... 

Em xxx

Sudocrem As A Moisturiser?

Sudocrem. It's a product that conjures up the image of nappy changes and thick white cream being smothered onto dry knees and elbows as a child. Of course we all know that it does wonders for changing babies bums, but did you know it has many other uses too?

Word in the blogosphere is, that Sudocrem can also do wonders for your face and over the past few months I've been dabbling and rediscovering Sudocrem -  because you never know what might work for you until you try it.  There are so many blog posts and comments out there online from people who have had their lives transformed by using Sudocrem as a moisturiser and face mask and I for one, certainly wanted in on the action.

Now, Sudocrem Skin Care Cream isn't like using your typical moisturiser. It goes on as a thick white cream and after some time, it eventually sinks in to your skin. I like to warm it up slightly between my fingers (in the hopes that it makes a difference) and then I do my best to apply it as evenly as possible. 

If I have breakout areas or dry patches, I'll apply a slightly thicker amount on that area and then it's off to bed in the hopes of perfect skin in the morning. Just a note, this is where the pale skin comes in handy, as this stuff is white, so you will look a little odd - just go with it.

Upon waking up, I can't say I've been blessed with miraculously healed skin with breakouts banished forever... however what I have noticed is that any dry areas seem to have disappeared, and any break out areas seem to have calmed down and appear less red, and It certainly hasn't caused any fresh breakouts on my skin which is always a positive as my skin seems to be so sensitive at the moment. I don't think i'd use this cream every day, however a couple of times a week seems to be doing the job for me and keeping my skin calm during any bad flare ups.

At £1.99 for 30g, it's by far one of the cheapest creams I've ever put on my face... but having seen it out perform more expensive products, it's certainly deserving of it's place on my beauty shelf.

Would you use Sudocrem as a moisturiser? Let me know your thoughts in the comments...

Em xxx

Mondrian London, Agua Bathhouse & Spa Launch

On Thursday, April and I headed over to the  Mondrian London Hotel at Sea Containers for the launch of the Agua Bathhouse and Spa.

Spa's are places that intrigue me and although I've visited one before, I rarely venture into them. It's likely because I grew up with my mother not really into beauty, she isn't one for make up or skin care products as much as I try and push them in front of her.... I'm also in the mindset that If I spend a day lounging, being pampered and just relaxing - I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I know there's a million other things I'm meant to be doing during that time.

What I loved about the ' Spa Playground' is how it's different to your everyday spa. It's modern, inviting and utterly beautiful. Designed by Tom Dixon, there's a space for everyone in the lounge area and the glamour room is set out wonderfully for Ciate manicures and pedicures. 

For treatments, the spa is packed full of 'boutique' brands such as Glamglow, Dr Jackson's Natural Products, Estelle & Thild, Billion Dollar Brows, Lola's Apothecary and many more... 

The staff are polite, friendly and highly trained and surprisingly the prices aren't extortionate for Central London- with an express manicure starting at £25 and a day packed with treatments up to £260.

Would I go there for treatments? A full day, highly unlikely - as I'm not necessarily a 'spa woman' and can think of better things to spend £260 on. However, for an afternoon with girlfriends, I feel like I've been converted and I'm pretty tempted to pay a visit and have that niggling pain in my lower back ironed out. 

Do you enjoy spa visits? I'd love to hear your top tips to make the most out of them. Let me know in the comments.

Em xxx

A Self Confidence Journey...

One of the things I get asked about fairly frequently is advice on learning to love the skin you're in. I'm the last person to ever say my blog is all about natural beauty, what with my love of make up products and bleaching my hair.. However, I love finding new ways to feel beautiful from within, and the biggest thing that can affect that beauty is confidence.

Sometimes it's easy to lose track of where you've come from, when you constantly looking towards where you want to be. I took some time this week to reflect and remind myself of what I've achieved in my self confidence journey in what is almost 10 months of blogging and I wanted to share my confidence journey with you too.

Here's a list of all my inner beauty posts so far. It helped me more than I realized writing these posts, and even more reading them back. I hope they can help you too.

Dealing With Hate & Criticism

Why It's OKAY To Feel Lonely

The Fear of Never Being Good Enough

The Ugly Side of Beauty

How Blogging Helped improve my self esteem...

How Learning To Love My Pale Skin Made Me Happy

Why Life Is Too Short For Matching Socks

Why It's Important To Compare Yourself... To Yourself And Nobody Else.

Top Tips For Dealing With The Blogger Blues

Tips & Tricks To Feel More Confident At Blogger Events

How Blogging Helped Me Get My Confidence Back

Thanks for reading, and If you've ever written a self confidence post, leave me a link below! I'd love to read it. 

Em xxx

Hair Rehab London Event with Lauren Pope

Last night I headed over to Kleins Hair Salon in Canary Wharf, London for a night of nibbles, hair and blogging fun at the Hair Rehab London Blogger event. After a bit of dodgy map reading ( I rarely leave Central London), I made my way to the hair salon and was greeted with a gorgeous glass of pink lemonade and smiles from the team. 

Lauren came over, and said hey straight away and we chatted for a while. It was one of those funny moments where we both tried our hardest to work out if we'd met each other before. We moved in similar circles many years ago and knew many of the same people. Lauren was at the top of her modeling game when I had dreams of being in the same industry as a teenager and I even remember watching her on Tycoon to try and gain investment for her company from Peter Jones. At the time it was rare for a glamour model to be on mainstream television - let alone a business program. I'd also been told that we went to view the same horrendously hideous flat in Central London many years ago, needless to say we both had a little giggle over it when I mentioned it.

I had a quick catch up with Perfectly Polished whom I met at the Gelish Nails Day Event, and then It was on to the hair styling. 

We decided to try the Syn Snap Ponytail* in platinum on my hair to try something different. Lauren and the team worked their hair magic and I honestly felt like a classic pop star with my high pony and tumbling blonde locks. I loved how quick and easy the pony is to apply and I do look forward to trying it out and seeing what looks I can create using it.  

I had so much fun at the event and got spoilt massively with a generous amount of hair products in a goodie bag to take home. Hair Rehab Products can be purchased at Superdrug, or online HERE.

Em xxx

3 Food Blogs I just can't stop reading & a Lifestyle change.

Food is something that I've always had a love hate relationship with... I love to eat, but it seems that almost everything I enjoy eating, doesn't feel the same about me. I've been Vegetarian for 15 years and in my teens I turned vegan for a few years before reverting back to Vegetarianism. I've always felt that it was my personal choice and I never wanted to be a 'preachy vegetarian' as that simply isn't my style and most people don't realize i'm Vegetarian until they have dinner with me. 

 Over the past few years I've been noticing more and more a change in my body - especially in regards to foods. After trial and error over the past couple of years, I've learnt which foods to avoid and which make me feel happy and healthy and what I've established is that I feel the best when I stick to a plant based diet, or a meal made fully of vegetables. So I've decided to try and go for it - cut out the crap and just eat good foods that don't hurt me.

In search of inspiration for new meal ideas, I turned to the blogosphere and instantly fell in love with these 3 blogs and wanted to share them with you.

Oh She Glows

Oh She Glows is a Vegan Food & Lifestyle blog by Angela Liddon. When I found her blog I think I read almost every recipe back to back for hours. Packed full of yummy healthy meal ideas with clearly labelled food tags (e.g Gluten Free, Vegan, Nut Free) it's so easy to read her blog and become inspired. Needless to say I have many recipes bookmarked and I can't wait to try some out.

Deliciously Ella

Deliciously Ella has some of the most inspiring mouth wateringly good recipes i've come across in a very long time. I love the fact that her recipes are so simple and easy to follow and her photography is just amazing. With a few London eatery recommendations mixed throughout, I've got a long shopping an eating list ahead of me.

Minimalist Baker

I first discovered the Minimalist Baker earlier on this year. They have a fantastic range of recipes that are easy to follow and packed full of beautiful photos. Theire Gluten Free Pizza base is on the top of my weekend bake list and I can't wait to get stuck in.

These are my top 3 sources of inspiration for meal ideas and lifestyle changes, and I'd love to hear yours. If you have a favourite blog or website you think I should be reading, let me know in the comments!

Em xxx

The Body Shop Haul

The Body Shop is one of those shops that I often walk past, yet never venture inside, and after finding myself with some time to kill at a train station recently, Curiosity got the better of me and I popped inside and tweeted for some product recommendations.

There were 2  products that stood out among the recommendations with so many people suggesting them. Those products were The Body Shop Honey Bronze, Bronzing Powder and The Chamomile Sumptuous Cleansing Butter. 

I gave the Honey Bronzer a few swatches on my skin and wasn't left feeling too impressed by the colour as I felt it looked a little orange on my skin, meaning I decided to leave that one. Where as the Chamomile cleansing butter is a product I've heard about on the beauty grapevine, but never actually looked into or picked up. I've been wanting to try a 'hot cloth' cleanser for a while so I made sure to add this one to my basket. I also noticed the Chamomile cleansing oil and Gentle Eye Make Up Remover were also available in a gift package set along with a Muslin cloth for not much more money, so it made sense to buy all of them in the hopes of getting my skincare routine to one i'm happy with.

My plan for introducing the line into my skin care routine, is to start with one product, test for two weeks and then introduce another gradually, so I can see a difference and work out which (if any) are responsible for break outs.

Whilst in the store I also bought Satsuma & Mango shower gels as I just could not resist the scent of them as they smell so clean, crisp and fruity.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the products I bought, and if you have any top tips for these products, let me know in the comments!

Em xxx

Blogger Training day with Gelish & Nail Harmony

If there's one area of my beauty regime that i'm often neglectful in - it's nails. Now it's not that I don't enjoy painting my nails or trying to create a new design. It's just that nail polish always chips really easily on me, and I never really knew why... that was until a couple of months ago when I was discussing my nails with a manicurist and they told me why - it's because my nails peel. 

However, I always found that Gel nail varnishes do wonders for my nails. They last a long time, take barely any maintenance and the colour doesn't chip... although a Gel/Shellac manicure does set you back a lot more money and if I had to choose between a manicure and a new eyeshadow palette... well, you know i'd walk away with the eyeshadow.

I've been tempted for a while to buy a Gel nails kit and learn to do them on myself at home, but I always lacked the basic knowledge on how to use it  (plus I kinda didn't want to ruin my nails). So by pure coincidence when Nail Harmony got in touch to invite me to their blogger training day, I jumped at the chance.

I traveled over to Essex and got to spend the day with some fantastic Nail bloggers including One Nail To Rule Them All, The Nailasaurus, Lucys Stash, Talonted Lex and more. 

I teamed up with Lex and we tested out different methods of applying Gelish polish. From one colour application, french manicure to magento (magnetic design) polish. It was a fun and informative day and after I got past my nerves I had fun and even surprised myself. 

Em xxx

Why It's OKAY to feel Lonely.

Sometimes when the sun goes down and I'm just left with me and my emotions, it almost feels as if there's a whole world ticking on by, inside my head. Where every second can be a year of my life flashing through my mind surrounded by thoughts of people and places from past to present.
There always seems to be something constantly and selfishly running through my mind at 2:00am even though i'd likely wasted the previous two or three or four hours browsing the internet and refreshing news articles hoping to see some other form of internet junk for eyes appear in front of me, often in the hopes that it will spur on some sort of thoughts and feelings of happiness, excitement or cause me to reminisce of times gone by instead of wistfully wasting away hours which are better spent elsewhere.

There often seems to be an endless amount of nights gone by where it's just me and my laptop, connecting, chatting and talking online - where fairly frequently one can be found to be the life and soul of the (internet) party surrounded by thousands of friends at the click of a button and the swipe of a finger, although in reality, it's just me and my well loved cuddly animals at home with some sort unhealthy carb based meal that I'll likely regret an hour after finishing.

Sometimes I even close my laptop and imagine what it's like to spend more time outside where i'm surrounded by friends in what most 'normal' people would call real life. At a a venue that I don't have keys for and a place where there isn't a laptop in site, confidence is mile high and there's not a worry in the world.

And when I find myself wide awake at 2:00am thinking of all the things I didn't do that evening and all the friends that I don't have, sometimes I smile. Sometimes I simper and squeeze the duvet that extra bit tighter because I know what it feels like to feel alive.

Because in all honesty, it's better to feel loneliness and stay true to who you are as a person, hold your own thoughts, feelings and flaws close to you, and be in a safe environment where you can spend the whole entire weekend sat around in your pants, where a 'sharing sized' bag of Doritos means 'meal for one' and not brushing your hair for 48 hours is perfectly acceptable. It's better to worry about a lack of social life than fill every precious moment with fake friends in even faker environments to conform to a perception of a perfect life.

There may often be positives hidden away somewhere deep down inside a negative and if you find yourself feeling lonely when home alone, in a crowded room full of people, on the tube, or even in the street.. I try and remember that the only difference between solitude and loneliness is a state of mind and instead of focusing on the negative implications that can come with being alone, and instead think of the positive aspects that come with pure reflection.

Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.

Henry Rollins

And that, my lovely internet friends, is why it's okay to feel lonely.

Em xxx