Autumn/Winter Hair Care Essentials

evo normal persons Shampoo & Conditioner – I’ve loved every single product I’ve tried from the evo hair care range, and the ‘normal persons’ shampoo and conditioner duo is no exception. It also happens to be a new favourite of mine, and I’ve been washing my hair with it every week for a couple of months now. These products are aimed at people with normal to oily hair (bingo), are nice and lightweight, and feel like they’re gently clarifying my hair with every wash.

LUSH Big Shampoo – I tend to make more of an effort to style my hair in the cooler months of the year (mostly because it’s not as much of a living hell to use heat styling tools on my hair as it is in summer), which means I use more products. I use LUSH’s Big Shampoo once a week to help strip all the excess product from my roots. I’ve repurchased ‘Big’ three or four times now, and it’s firmly cemented it’s place as my all-time favourite clarifying shampoo.

Unico Protein Treatment – I let it go far too long between hair cuts recently, and my hair was in dire need of some hard-core conditioning. I use this once a week as a deep conditioning treatment, and also on the ends of my hair every couple of days to help keep my split ends in check. I really like this treatment because it gives a heavy-duty moisture boost without weighing down my hair.

Tresemme Heat Protectant Spray – Lets face it people. Nobody likes getting out of bed in the morning. Let alone when it’s 2 degrees and pitch black outside. The fastest way for me to ‘style’ my hair is to straighten it, which I’ve been doing a lot lately. I use this bad boy before blow drying my hair on days that I know I’m going to be straightening it afterwards.

Kerastase Nectar Thermique – This is one of my all-time favourite hair products, a ‘holy grail’ if you will. I use this every day before blow drying my hair (except for times like right now, where I’m running out and I’m too scared to finish up the tube without having a back up in my cupboard). This does such a great job of smoothing down the frizziness of my hair. I couldn’t live without it.

August Beauty Routine

I haven’t changed a lot in my routine moving from July to August. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the products that I really enjoy using and those that seem to work for me, so when I mix things up it’s usually because I’m trying to use something up or I simply feel like trying something different. On my face and bod in August:

Skin Care
Makeup Remover: Cetaphil Gentle Facial Cleanser
Face Wipes: The Face Shop Herb Day Cotton Wipes
Cleanser: Dermalogica Special Cleansing Gel
Exfoliant: Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant / Jojoba Company Jojoba Bead + Bamboo Facial Exfoliant
Toner: Echolife Lavender Facial Mist
Moisturiser: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream / Philosophy The Miracle Worker
Night Treatment: Kosmea Rose Hip Oil / Ole Henriksen Truth Serum Collagen Booster
Spot Treatment: Burt’s Bees Herbal Blemish Stick
Eye Cream: Benefit It’s Potent Eye Cream
Mask: LUSH Catastrophe Cosmetic
Lip Balm: C.O. Bigelow Blueberry Rose Salve / Lucas’ PawPaw Ointment / Jack Black Black Tea & Blackberry Lip Balm / Burt’s Bees Mango Lip Balm

Body Care
Hand Cream: True Blue Spa Shea Cashmere Hand Cream / Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Hand Creme
Body Scrub: Burt’s Bees Honey & Shea Sugar Scrub
Shower Gel/Cream/Lotion: Burt’s Bees Shea & Milk Body Wash
Soap: Alchemic Muse Chiquita Soap
Hand Soap: Bath + Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar Foaming Anti-Bacterial Hand Soap
Body Lotion: Haus of Gloi Vice Body Lotion / MOR Marshmallow Body Butter / LUSH Sympathy For The Skin Body Lotion
Perfume: Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille / Firebird Bath & Body Brown Sugar Perfume Oil
Candle: Slatkin & Co Twisted Peppermint Candle

Hair Care
Shampoo: Seven Wonders Moroccan Oil / Carol’s Daughter Rosemary & Mint Clarifying
Conditioner: Seven Wonders Moroccan Oil / Carol’s Daughter Rosemary & Mint Clarifying
Treatment: Pantene 3 Minute Miracle
Shine Spray: evo Love Touch
Hair Spray: O&M Queenie Hair Spray
Leave In Conditioner/Treatment: Kerastase Oleo Relax
Styling Product: Kerastase Nectar Thermique

July Favourites

Kerastase Nectar Thermique – I’ve been mentioning this product a lot lately, and it’s because I’m absolutely obsessed with it. I use it every morning before I heat style my hair (I try to let my hair dry overnight, but I need to blow dry my fringe in the morning to help deal with my double cowlick situation) and it really seems to help protect my hair and combat flyaways.

Lanolips Golden Ointment – This has been a lifesaver for me during the cold weather in July. I suffered through my second headcold for the season which resulted in a dry skin issue around my nose that this product managed to clear up in two days. I’ve also been massaging a small amount of the ointment into my hands before bed at night as a heavy duty hand cream and it’s kept all dryness at bay.

Haus of Gloi Ghost Puffs Body Lotion – This lotion smells like lolly gobble bliss bombs (high five if you remember that deliciously teeth-rotting heaven in a bag). It’s a very strong scent so I’ve never worn it during the day, but boy oh boy is it a delight to smell in the evening. I have another full sized version of this in my cupboard, but if they re-release this scent at Halloween I highly recommend that any fans of sweet gourmand scents pick this up.

C.O. Bigelow Tinted Lip Balm in Lemon & Strawberry – For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about this lip balm so I dug it out of my back-up product bin and opened it up. This was SO easy to wear, gave a hint of berry tint to the lips and smelled like lemon. I’m pretty sure I’ll get sick of the scent if I use it too much so I tucked it back into my makeup collection for a little while just to give it a break.

b Collection by Bloom 3-in-1 Liner in St Mark’s Square – I used this pretty much every day after it arrived in the June Lust Have It box, so I’m including it as a favourite for the month. I really like the wear and the colour, and the fact that it’s a roll-up style eye liner (something I’m leaning towards more and more lately) so I enjoyed using this.

Shop My Stash: July

In an attempt to try and utilise some of the products that I own but rarely use, I’ve been grabbing a few items out of my collection at the start of each month to try and work into my daily makeup routine. I’m going to do a little roundup each month of the products I’ve been using and what I think of them. These are the products that I shopped from my stash during July –

Benefit Girl Meets Pearl – I’m usually pretty loyal to my Benefit High Beam, but I’ve been using this liquid illuminator quite a lot recently. It gives a pretty peachy gold sheen to the cheeks which helps to brighten my corpse-pale face on early winter mornings.

Becca Lip & Cheek Creme in Rosebud – Honestly, I can’t wait to finish this blush. Not because I don’t like it but because it’ll be the second blush I’ve ever finished completely and that is a massive achievement. Hooray for me!

Benefit BeneTint – I completely forgot that I owned this (possibly because it’s so tiny and I had it tucked away at the back of my makeup storage) but I’m really glad that I dug it out to use it again because it gives the prettiest rosy tint to the lips. It’s designed to be a dual-use product but I stick to using it as a lip stain only.

MAC Paint Pot in Bare Study – I wear this on my lids on most weekends when I can’t be bothered putting in much effort. A simple swipe of this across the lids gives a lovely champagne sheen.

MAC Gleam Eyeshadow – My friend gave me this eyeshadow because it didn’t really suit her makeup style anymore, but it is absolutely perfect for me. It’s very similar to MAC’s Naked Lunch eyeshadow in that it’s a neutral champagne colour with a satin finish. Which is what around 75% of my eyeshadows are. Nice.

Etsy Finds: Glitzy Thingz Evil Eye Necklace

One of my favourite things to do at work on days when I eat my lunch at my desk is to browse Etsy for unique pieces of jewelery. On this particular day I was searching for a pave disc necklace, and happened to stumble across the Glitzy Thingz store. Although I was initially tempted by the simple silver pave disc necklace, I opted for the evil eye version and I’m glad that I did because it’s absolutely beautiful. Do you have a favourite Etsy jewelery store? If so please leave a link in the comments below because I’d love to check it out!

June Favourites

Moroccanoil Glimmer Shine Spray – My friends and I have a long running joke about the “shiny hair group” of girls that we went to school with. These were the girls that everybody liked, who were surprisingly well put together for teenagers and who always had perfectly sleek and shiny hair. In the hierarchy of stinky sweaty grubby high school students they were like pretty little mutants sitting atop the food chain with perfectly coiffed hair. Recently, one of my friends passed comment that I could be in the shiny hair group and I think I owe it to this product. This works best for me when I spray it into my cupped palm, rub my hands together and then distribute it evenly through my hair. For some reason when I spray it directly onto my hair it turns into a stringy frizzy mess.

Face of Australia Liner in Purple – One for my fellow green eyed gals, this super cheap liner lasts really well throughout the day. It’s also a subtle enough shade of purple to work well with neutral eyeshadows for wearing to work. I’m just a sucker for purple eyeliner in general really.

Echolife Lavender Mist – I switched to the lavender mist once my rose version ran out and I am absolutely loving it. It’s a really gentle and calming spray and I feel like it’s helping to keep my skin balanced in the colder weather at the moment.

Haus Of Gloi Twice is Nice Body Lotion – Recently, my fellow beauty blogger Neena commented on Twitter that this lotion smelled like a particular Arnotts biscuit. As a connoisseur of biscuits in general, I immediately had to dig it out of my cupboard and see for myself. Happily she was right, this lotion smells exactly like butternut snap biscuits. Yum.

OPI Russian Navy – I’ve never been a fan of blue nail polish in general, but there is something so classy about the colour navy that I couldn’t resist trying this polish out for myself. I really like it, and I think it might be because there is a very subtle hint of purple to the colouring which takes the blue edge off a bit.