Beauty and The Beach 2 - Travel Supermarket

I did enter the Travel Supermarket Beauty and The Beach competition last year but I literally only had 1 hour to do everything I wanted as Laalaa (who won btw . . . I actually cried out of happiness for her) only told me about it the night before it was meant to end.

This year Travel Supermarket are holding Beauty and The Beach 2 and I'm doing a triple whammy and entering both the hair, nails and beauty competition and going for a Bronzed, Caribbean holiday feel . . . yh this is my way for saying that this is going to be a very long post and I apologise now if my gif's take a while to load up BUT trust me you will want to wait a few extra minutes for everything to load up because my entry is just that good (in my opinion anyway lol).

Since I had a bit more time to play around with my beauty look this time, I've decided to keep it very simple as I don't really wear much makeup on holiday, I'm way too busy adjusting to the heat but  I have to admit that the Beyonce x HM ad inspired me a bit but honestly

My focus for my Beauty & The Beach entry is something simple enough to do that doesn't take up a lot of suitcase space and you don't need to buy a electrical socket adaptor if you wanted to recreate it on holiday. Now enough talking let's get started with the nails!!

Simple right? Well I did say that Nails were not my strong point butI can't lie, I'm please with how this turned out . . .I'm even more surprised that I managed to do this without smudging a nail halfway through.

With my eyes, I just keep repeating bronze, simple, bronze and simple in my head so after applying Urban Decay's Primer Potion all over my lids as a base, I popped on Rimmel's Scandaleyes Eyeshadow Stick in 003 Bad Girl Bronze and blended this all over my lid. Easy Peesy Right?? 

With cream eyeshadows blending is always key. To ensure that my cream eyeshadow is blended out properly and I don't have any harsh lines, I sweep MAC Antique over my crease bone, add MAC Wedge to my browbone and blend in MAC Texture over everything to get a smooth transition between all the shades.

To finish off my eyes, a combination of L'oreal Paris SuperLiner in Perfect SlimBlack Vinyl and Eylure False Lashes in 117 gives me a simple bronzed eye.

I really wanted to do a daytime beach look, something that's easy to put together and light, so you don't feel like you are melting under so many layers. With that said I'm concentrating on light to medium coverage with a sweet, pink finish so I look like I've just been to the beach . . . . or at least benefiting from my hotel's air-conditioning.

I'm using my NARS Sheer Glow and my MAC Select Cover up concealer for a lovely, sunkissed glow. A light dusting of MAC Prep & Prime Finishing Powder under the my eyes will stop my concealer from slipping during the day (and also stop sunglasses from making my concealer smudge).

Now on to my favourite part, Blush time!!! I first applyg my favourite Cream Blush in Betray from Illamasqua on my cheeks and set it with a bit a light setting powder (MAC MSF in Dark Deep). A pink highlight on my cheeks (MAC Stereo Rose) ensures that I don't lose the healthy, dewy glow that I'm after. Now all that's left is a pink, nude combo aka MAC Spice lipglass and MAC Lickable Cremesheen Lipstick and FINISHEDDD!!!!!!

As this post is already running a bit long (apologies), I'm going to whizz past my hair entry. I didn't really want to do much to my hair . . . ok I didn't want to tackle the 'fro, so summer beach accessories was the next logical step. You can get everything used in this tutorial from Boots, a florist/Wilkinsons, Sallys or your local Afro Beauty shop so it's super easy to do.

To get that beach look, Run to your local florist or Homeware store (aka Wilkinsons) and grab some flowers. You can use fresh flowers or fabric flowers for this look, it just depends on what you have on hand. Taking a pair of scissors snip . . or pull the flower off it's stem but be careful not too remove the base holding the flower together. Now get a few hair pins and push the hair pin through base off the flower.

As I want to keep my hair low key, I'm going to do a remix of the standard salt spray - beach waves hair. I mix water and a little bit of conditioner in a spray bottle (shake well), spritz my hair in sections and comb out any knots and tangles. Rather than using a salt spray on my hair, I'm going to take Beautiful Textures Curl Control Defining Pudding and run this through my hair to get some loosely define curls

All thats left to do now is scrunch my hair from tip to root . . .  and slide in the flower pins you made earlier

I would love to see an entry from Adrienne (The Sunday Girl), Laalaa (Dolce Vanity) ((Yes, again!!!) Catrine (Unnakednails), Laura (Laura Louise Beauty) and Jayne (Jayne's Kitschen) as I know they would just blow my entry away to pierces if they entered. I hope you love this look and gif-torials. The Deadline for the Beauty and The Beach 2 competition is June 5th 2013 (Wednesday) and if you feel inspired to enter the competition, make sure you tag me because I want to see it!!!

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Know Your Hair, Love Your Hair

To promote their new  “Know Your Hair, Love Your Hair” campaign; designed to educate women about their hair type and how to best protect it during heat styling. Cloud Nine Haircare hosted their very first bloggers event at the Trevor Sorbie Salon.

As overusing heating tools (regardless of how much protection you put in your hair) can leave it very dry, lackluster and brittle. Knowing this Cloud Nine has redeveloped their website to give customers an interactive and engaging experience. Using a 6-step online questionnaire, Cloud Nine customers identify their hair types and follow an interactive program of styling care tips and recommendations for their hair’s optimum temperature level.

At the blogger’s event,  Cloud Nine demonstrated 6 different celebrity inspired hair looks using their products. The stand out for me was the “MicroWand” (RRP. £89.95) which is perfect to get Kelly Rowland Curls (and you know how much I adore Kelly Rowland) and also small enough to pop into your handbag or suitcase for travelling. Marin looked so amazing with her curly ‘Fro after the staff at Trevor Sorbie were through with her AND I’m quite proud that I resisted the temptation to pet her hair because it looked sooooo soft!!!!!

The Core Cloud Nine Electrical Styling Range holds 9 styling products. The Irons (Original, Wide and Micro) which are ceramic plated straightening irons with a one-touch, variable temperature control that can be used on long to short hair lengths. The O pods and rollers which where introduced in 2012 and are fast heating rollers that heats the hair from the inside out for longer lasting curls and of course the Wands (Original, Waving and Micro) which are designed for a beautifully formed curl or wave for short to long lengths.

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How To: Soft Curls with Heated Rollers

I love curls. I don’t care if it’s tight or loose, as long as it has a lot of body and volume. I normally go to bed every night with foam-wire bendy rollers in my hair so I have a heat free way to achieve beautiful curls without damaging my extensions.

Although I put my hair in rollers every day, I was going to Kettners last week for a close friend’s birthday and over the course of a 12 hour day my curls looked very depressed and needed sprucing up. As I didn’t have 8 hours spare to sleep in my foam rollers and didn’t want to use my straighteners or curlers, I dug out my Babyliss Pro Professional 30 Piece Roller Set instead.

Here's how it goes. . . 

I start by prepping my dry hair with a heat defence spray to avoid any extra heat damage. I’ve been using John Frieda’s Heat Defeat Protective Styling Spray for as long as I can remember, as it helps to condition as well as protect. I’m not going to add anything else for now as I don’t want to add too much product to my hair and weigh it down as I’m working with 2-day-old washed hair right now.

Dividing my hair into 4 parts; usually right down the middle of my head and across ears, I then clip everything up and out of the way. Taking the hair just above my ears on my left side, I part my hair into small sections and place the a medium rollers halfway down the length of the hair and curl it away from my face.

As I only have a limited amount of rollers to use, I use the largest rollers (red) on the crown on my head, the medium (blue rollers) on the sides and the smaller rollers (yellow and white) on the back of my head, this is what it looks like when it is all done.

Now I’m going to use a scarf and cover up my hair and get ready. I’m using a cap as I want to retain as much heat in my hair as possible without adding to it.

Now all that is left is to take out each piece of hair from the rollers and then brush out the rollers with a paddle brush to give it a soft look and of course use my L'oreal Paris Elnett Satin Hairspray in Diamond Hold to make sure all my curls stay in place

So what do you use to get a lovely curl without using too much heat? I would love to pick up some tips. Also my Babyliss Roller Set reached its early demise right after this taking the pics for this post where taken, so if you have any recommendations for a new one LET ME KNOW!!!!!

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Review:- Goldwell Kerasilk Instant Silk Fluid

Goldwell Kerasilk Instant Fluid is a highly concentrated leave-in serum designed to be used on dry or towel dried hair, to revive dry, dull hair. It’s Vitamin E, UV filters formula is suitable for all hair types and is meant to leave hair feeling silky and manageable. After I saw this on Hairtrade.com, home of hair extensions and haircare products, I was really interested to try this as I heard it was a great, lightweight shine serum and works as detangler. I then bought the Philip Kinsley Gloss Drops as a replacement for the Organic Roots Stimulator Anti-Frizz Olive Oil Gloss Polisher (which fyi is HORRiBLE!!)

As I’ve been really hung up on my ingredients lately thanks to Grace and her article on Toxic Beauty Ingredients, I’ve really been checking and double checking (and binning) a lot of products, so the first thing I checked when I received my Kerasilk Instant Silk Fluid was to check its ingredient list and honestly everything was alright until I got to the bottom of the list  . . .then I had some issues. , My first issue lay with the fact that this conditioner contained Alcohol Denat (aka Denatured Alcohol) an ingredient normally used in hair sprays, and is not terrible good for your hair as it dries it out and sucks the moisture out (which is not a great ingredient choice for a serum).

The Goldwell Kerasilk Instant Silk Fluid also containsPhenoxyethanol, Butylparaben Ethylparaben, Methylparaben and Propylparaben . . .that’s a lot of parabens & preservatives. I just did a blog post recently highlight the controversy with Parabens and Phenoxyethanol (which is meant to be a parabens alternative) so this did make me a bit uncomfortable. If you consider than Alcohol Denat is sometimes used as a preservative, you do have to ask why does a product formulation need to contain 6 different types of preservatives? Keeping positive as these ingredients are listed very low on the ingredient list, I decided to use this on freshly washed damp hair with a little bit of Sweet Almond Oil and 3 drops of Rosemary Essential Oil to moisturize my scalp

The Goldwell Kerasilk Instant Silk Fluid comes in a muted gold pump bottle which I always feel serums and hair products should come in, as it makes dispensing so much easier when my hands wet. The serum formula is very light in the hair and doesn’t take on a thick serum that some serums have which I really despise. This did do exactly what it said it would do on the bottle as it left my hair feeling very manageable as well made my regrowth (natural hair growth after a chemical hair treatment) a lot flatter and silky . . . very, very silky (strokes hair).

I think this works quite well for me on my hair but I think this would be a godsend for the ladies rocking the Brazilian/Peruvian extensions as it is a lot light than the majority of serums currently on the market and wont weigh down the extensions.

Do you normally use Serums in your hair? Have you tried Goldwell before?

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