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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Review:- Curl Harmony Intense Repair Deep Conditioner

It seems that the only hair care products I ever review on my blog are intensive conditioners but to be honest, they are the only haircare product I frequently use and finish on a monthly basis. As I have started become more and more product ingredient focused, I’ve been checking the product list of EVERYTHING I use and choosing more products that are either natural or have natural ingredients in them. Just before the Christmas break; I received the Intense Repair Deep Conditioner (RRP £14.50 for 250ml) from Curl Harmony to test out.

Curl Harmony is a haircare brand that promotes natural products or naturally derived products that are paraben and formaldehyde free with just a small amount of fragrance oils to revitalize and moisturize wavy, curly or afro hair. I really love what this brand is about because they are focused on creating products that don’t include ingredients which are particularly drying for the ladies on the curlier side of life (which just also happens to be the dry-hair side of life).

To really give you and honest view of what this product is like. I am going to be posting mine and my sister’s (aka Bunny) results and opinions on this product. Though we both have the same curl type, my hair is relaxed and in Brazilian hair extensions while my sister has a cropped-relaxed, pixie cut, so I thought it would be a much more honest review to get two opinions on this product as we are both looking for different results.

Smell

You guys know that I am big on smell, more so than Bunny is but both of us were in agreement that the Intensive Repair Deep Conditioner smells like an afro-hair relaxer. It’s not super overpowering smell but it does have that distinct chemical smell which did confuse us at one point (and I receive a lot of ‘Annie, Are you sure this is hair conditioner??’ comments).

Ingredients

The Intense Repair Conditioner is infused with Shea butter, Jojoba oil and Coconut Oil, which are some of the most enriched ingredients known to haircare so I felt very positive seeing this.

With a mixture of oils (coconut, jojoba) fatty acids and protein (wheat) this will definitely rich in terms of moisture. It also contains Behentrimonium Methosulphate which is one of the gentlest detanglers on the market (it is so good it can be used on kids), which made me just love this product even more.

This product does contain Phenoxyethanol which is a synthetic produced organic compound used as an alternative to Formaldehyde and Parabens. This is a bit higher up in the product ingredient list than I would have liked but considering how short the ingredient list is for this conditioner, it is not something I am overly worried about.

Application

Repeat after me . . . 

‘This conditioner is THICK!!!’

While I normally welcome a thick conditioner into my routine, I found that I used a lot of product on my extensions and when applying it to my Bunny’s hair than I would normally use . . .though this might say more about my technique than anything else (as Bunny says I am very heavy handed). I did make sure to coat the hair evenly so it would be very obvious what the effects were but we both felt that the effects were not amazing.

Bunny said her hair did not feel as soft or as shiny as when she normally washes her hair while my extensions felt a lot lighter than when I use my normal conditioner (which honestly is a plus), I did feel my extensions were a bit dryer than normal but once I added a leave in conditioner and my Aveda Hair Polisher, the effects from using this conditioner really shone through.

Comments

Neither one of us were really blown away by this product. While I loved the ingredient list and was very happy at the natural alternative for my hair, Bunny; who is not ingredient-conscious, did not feel that this product was anything special and she didn’t get any amazing results, which would make her switch products.

I think the Curl Harmony Intense Repair Deep Conditioner is a good product for all my natural haircare lovers. Those who are specifically looking for the best conditioner with the simplest ingredient list, which gives them the same effect as their favourite deep conditioner but without the gallons of silicones and preservatives. The Intense Repair Deep Conditioner is basically for the ladies who know a bit better (and this is not a wise crack, with me saying I know better than my sister . . .although I do).

So there you have it. Two different opinions over the same product, what do you guys think? What are you after when choosing your haircare products?

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