Back to Red

Hello readers!

For autumn I decided there are a few things I want to do. One of them being going back to having red hair. And because I did not want to ruin my hair any further, I decided to dye it with henna.

Here's a nice picture of my before hair, dark blonde with highlights.

I bought a few bags of skin quality henna from Amazon and latex gloves, concentrated lemon juice and cling film in the local Tesco. I used a mixture of 200 gr henna (2 bags) and 500 ml lemon juice. I left the mixture to sit in a glass bowl under clingfilm for about 24 hours before the long suffering hubs pasted it all onto my head. This is no easy task and I would definitely hate to do it alone. The stuff dries quickly and is very claylike, not as easy to apply as other hair dyes. Once it was all on I wrapped my head in clingfilm and put a bathing cap over it. I slept in that (somewhat poorly) and the next morning the rinsing process began. I read a tip to run a bath and just lie back in it, soaking your hair until the henna rinses out easily. I did that and it worked pretty well. 

The initial results were quite orangey, as predicted. But here is the result after a couple of days of oxidising. 

I am very happy with the results and will be repeating the process once necessary. Getting used to red again was remarkably easy ^^!

Quick cosmetics review

I bought a few new bits of makeup this week. I was looking for a nice autumn colour for my nails and a way to do my eyes a bit more smoky as I love my Lavera shadows, but they are a little light for when I go out in the evening.  So first up, Essence's new shade: Red Ahead. 

This is the photo from their website. 

This is my bottle and my (badly) painted index finger beside it. 

As you can see, the website photo makes the colour look a lot lighter and in my opinion, not as nice. To me it looks like a beautiful rouge noir and I must say it with an emphasis on the noir, it comes out very dark with just one coat. I have been very happy with the Essence nail polished. Their price/quality is amazing. I always use a base coat and as long as I am patient with my application, the colour stays on well.  

Now over to my new eyeshadow. This is the first time I bought something from Swedish brand IsaDora. I went for quad palette Muddy Nudes. Not the nicest name, but I do like these kinds of colours. I mainly wanted the taupe shade in the bottom right corner to use as a liner with my Lavera shadows. 

The photo from the website in all its glory. 

With this one, the photo from the website is very accurate. These are 3 nice matte shades. The only one with a hint of shimmer is the brownish shade in the bottom left. I used Urban Decay's Primer Potion under my makeup and their Deslick setting spray over it. I was quite happy with its staying power and colour payoff. It's not particularly dark, but that is not what I wanted. It's perfect for a hint of definition. I used the taupe from the lashline to the crease as well and that was nice too. It's a lovely little palette for travelling with I would think, or for just having in your bag for whenever you need it. 

Quick shot of the look. So basically Lavera's shadow in Golden Ivory all over the lid up to the brow bone. Then Lavera's shadow in Chocolate brown from lash line to crease. Then the taupe colour from above palette used as a liner. I used Lush's Eyes Right Mascara and you will recognise the nail polish as the one above. 

So, there's 2 products I would recommend trying out if it's your kind of thing! Both cruelty free of course, otherwise they wouldn't end up with me.

Thanks for reading!

Products I am loving right now!

I have done a few reviews in the past of my nail polish and Lush purchases. Now I decided to list the products I am happily using right now!

As you know, I am against animal testing, and I research the brand I am interested in before I buy. All of these products are blissfully cruelty free so no reason not to indulge!

Now, look at these beauties, posing on my couch.

It's the following:

Mineral eye shadow from Lavera. In chocolate brown and golden beige.
In June, I decided to send all my Urban Decay shadows away to me makeup loving sister in the Netherlands. I did not like the fact that they are now part of L'Oreal and I also did not think I was really using the two palettes (including Naked 2) to their full potential. I am quite lazy when it comes to makeup and the less I have one -while still looking the part- the better. So now these two shadows are the only ones I own. I wear them over primer and with mascara. I use the golden beige all over my eyelid up to the brow bone. Then I use chocolate brown from my lash line to my crease. The colours complement my eye colour very well and the quality of these shadows is the best I have seen so far.
Castana perfume from Cloon Keen Atelier.
I recently ran out of Thierry Mugler's Angel perfume. This actually took some effort on my part, my parents in law kept giving me a bottle for every occasion. But after I did run out, I fancied something a bit less common. So I turned to Google for niche perfumes. I found one of those slideshows on the subject through a beauty website and behold, I found a niche perfumer located in Galway itself. As the website was UK based, I reckoned there must be really something to these fragrances. I visited the place which was, as expected, intimidatingly posh. Their perfumes however all smelled amazing, one in particular. It gave me a certain sense of nostalgia as the scent reminds me of something in my childhood I still have not placed. A few weeks later my birthday came along so I bought a bottle. It's such an unusual scent, quite impossible to describe. I love wearing something different.

Organic Coconut Oil (cold pressed) from the Redwood Co..
A friend of mine whatsapped me that all she used these days on her skin and hair is coconut oil and that it was doing fabulous things. So of course I had to get me a piece of that action. This stuff is a truly versatile beauty product at a very affordable price. It is edible too, though I have yet to use it in recipes. I use it on the ends of my hair, as body lotion and as night and hand cream. It certainly does the job. And if you mix it with some sugar, it makes a mean scrub as well!

Udder Cream from Moo Goo.
I only bought this yesterday after testing it the day before and loving the scent. A sucker for all things animal, I was quite taken with the brand from the start. I am just using this when my skin gets irritated as it seems very soothing. My interest in their line is definitely peaked as my scalp and rest of skin could do with some TLC.

I hope I peaked your interest! I wholeheartedly support these products so go forth and shop!

Thanks for reading!

Lush Cosmetics Review

I tried spelling make-up, makeup, make up a few times. Nothing felt right so I settled for cosmetics instead.

This post is a bit overdue, my attention has been elsewhere. But I have been using the products I bought for a while now so at least I know what's what.

So without further ado!

Eyes Right Mascara (I was about to spell massacre :-S)

This mascara has claims to not irritate the eyes like other mascaras sometimes do. I too suffer from irritated eyes when wearing mascara sometimes and I have to say the claim holds up! The other thing I like about this is the compactness of the packaging, which has actually been held against it. People have not enjoyed using the little brush but it took very little getting used to from me and I like that it does not take up a lot of space. When my online order arrived, it even came with a normal sized mascara brush but I haven't used that yet. Other than that it is a nice, normal mascara. It may make the lashes feel a bit nicer, but that could be a placebo effect from its lash conditioning claim. It clumps no more and maybe a little less than other mascaras. I will say it is not waterproof. I think I have been getting a touch of hayfever because my lunchtime walks often have me end up with watering eyes. Last week I got some looks in the office and when I went to the bathroom it turned out I have panda eyes. But as long as you're not tearing up, you're good with this one!

Strong Liquid Lipstick

This is from Lush's Emotional Brilliance line. I don't take the spinning wheel thing overly seriously, but I would no say no to feeling stronger. But essentially it was part of my purchases to make my outlook a bit sunnier, I wanted an lippy with orange tones. This one certainly has that and I love the colour. It comes out a little bit pink on me unless I wear a lot but I have gotten compliments in the office that the shade suits me so it's all good. It's not overly drying but not moisturising. It goes on quite nicely with the little applicator and I use my fingers as well. It is highly pigmented and quite liquid so you have to be careful when applying and I recommend kissing a tissue. Another word of advice is to apply this in daylight if you can because it is quite intense and nobody likes clowns, I know I don't. 

I have a new phone (Nokia Lumia 820=awesome!) so decided to take a few shots of myself wearing the makeup (plus shadows from Urban Decay's Naked 2 Palette and their BB Cream Urban Defense). Here's one. The lippy looks very pink here for some reason. It's a daylight shot. 

Thanks for reading, I hope it was useful!

The Transition Phase

Due to my transition to the cruelty free lifestyle I am still in the posession of a (fortunately) limited amount of cosmetics that is not cruelty free. I have been asking myself what to do with this. So far I have been throwing out some of the older stuff but I have been hanging on to some of it too. Having already spent the money I feel I may as well although I am sometimes reluctant to use it. I welcome any thoughts on this.

Another transition is the one of companies to used to be cruelty free but give it up. Would you hang on to the products you already bought or would you chuck it all out straightaway?

Then there are the companies like The Body Shop and Urban Decay. Cruelty free in their own right but also owned by decidedly cruel L’Oreal. I am very conflicted about this. One the one hand they now slot money indirectly into animal testers’ hands, on the other they are now more widely distributed, giving more people the chance of discovering the cruelty free lifestyle (the latter being PETA’s stance). I still have some products by both brands, which I intend to use up. I will not buy any additional products from them for now until what I have is used up and will make my final decision then.

I welcome thoughts on all of the above!

Going full time cruelty free.

In the last few months of 2012 I started living with an increased awareness of how our consuming styles affect those living creatures that cannot defend themselves against humankind but feel pain and fear just as we do: the animals. This was always something I had in the back of my head and I have been buying freerange eggs and chicken and largely non animal tested cosmetics for a long time. However, my principles were often still overruled by convenience, finances, cravings and whatever else “stood in the way”. But enough is enough and it is time to stand by my principles. And these are that animals should not have to needlessly suffer to serve our purpose.

This does not mean that I will become a vegan or even a vegetarian. I do not see a problem with eating meat, eggs and dairy or using other animal products such as leather and wool, as long as the animal it came from was raised in an ethical way and is not threatened to be extinct. Animals kill and eat other animals and to me the only difference between us and them is that we can feel guilt and can think beyond our need to feed. I believe eating and using animal products is part of our nature, we have done it for many years. Where we have gone wrong is the intensively farming of animals for this purpose; causing pain, fear and disease among those we should protect.

So this is my principle and I will stand by it by reducing my consumption of meat and only sourcing it on rare occasions from local farms of which I know the animals were well treated. The same goes for any other animal products and cosmetics: I make a special point of not buying anything as frivolous as an eyeshadow when the products or ingredients were cruelly tested on lab animals.

I want to continue this blog by sharing my musings and some of the products I end up buying as part of the cruelty free lifestyle and where I source them from. I hope this will benefit some people and inspire them to keep in mind our animal friends when spending their money.

One of my major examples when it comes to food awareness is Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. I very much share his opinions and have recently bought and cooked from his River Cottage Veg! book. It has wonderful recipes that I can recommend to vegetarians and meat eaters alike.