Thursday 28 February 2013

My Ten Beauty "Commandments"

I am the baby of the family, and my sister is 12 years older than me. With this, brought endless makeup samples for me to "borrow", wanting to grow up at nano-speed so I could wear all of the colors she was, or try out the newest trends like she did. But, this also brought some seriously jacked moments in my own personal beauty vault. You know, DIY "henna", burning the skin off of my legs, converting my poor hair to little frizzly trees waiting to break off, and learning some painful lessons along the way.

Monday 25 February 2013

Welcome to my Sanctuary.

Almost. Okay, here's the thing. I have never decorated a bedroom top to bottom. As in, my mom decorated my room when I lived at home, and when I moved in with my boyfriend, he was already set up. Even though I added a few feminine touches, we still slept underneath a huge canvas of a surfer, all of our furniture was covered in snowboard/surf stickers, and our mattress was on the floor. It was such a bachelor's room.

Saturday 23 February 2013

Fighting Oil with Oil

**UPDATE: I have stopped using this method. I finally figured out why my skin was acting up; since it's straight up hormonal, there isn't much I can do to make it stop, except ride it out (miserably), until my hormones balance themselves out again. I also stopped wearing makeup unless I had to, to try and let my pores breathe and figure out their shit. (Like I said, I was pretty miserable. I'm sorry, but who enjoys going out in public with a face full of blemishes and no makeup to hide them? Not I.) I will probably give this another go once my skin is normalized again, but for the time being I just wasn't seeing enough results to continue, and really, when my face was already a mountain of regular blemishes and cystic acne, putting oil on my face just no longer appealed to me. I still use coconut oil every couple days mixed with sugar to act as a scrub, and use it sparingly at night for moisturizer, but like I said, until it all clears up, I am sticking with my Neutrogena naturals purifying cleanser. This one, here.**

 

Stress affects all of us differently; for me? Stress affects my face the worst. I lovingly sum it up with the phrase : "Stress is an A-hole to my face." If I am dealing with something stressful, the first thing to happen is I get a few "underground pimples" - you know the ones, they're mean, sore, red, look like you are sprouting a unicorn horn on your face, and the only thing to remove them is time. They're special.

With my exam this month, my face has been worse than I have ever seen it. I told my mom I was being cursed with the hormonal acne I had escaped in high school. It's a viscous circle, the worse my face became, the more makeup I piled on to hide them, and the more my skin fought back. So, apart from drinking water like it was my day job to "flush" them out, & eating anything from the earth that was considered to be "skin food", I was running out of hope and really, as vain as it sounds, feeling really ugly.  My girlfriend was in town around this time with her newborn, and she was using coconut oil in lieu of diaper cream. I love coconut oil; I use it as a hair mask and love it in my cooking, but I've never considered using it on my skin. It's oil. No way am I taking that risk. But Rae told me she uses it to remove her makeup, and uses it for almost everything. Intrigued that night when I got home, I settled down to do my favorite research: Googling natural beauty regimens. If you are interested, these were the sites I found the most helpful. I have looked at probably 15 websites and blogs with so many different reviews/tips on this method, and have only found one bad review about how a woman's face reacted.

To sum it up briefly, the idea here is that oil dissolves oil. Cleansers, soaps, exfoliants, peels, they all claim to help your skin and clear it up and smoothen/soften/heeeal; what they're really doing is stripping your skin's natural oils and protectants, making your body produce more to compensate. To top it off, if you have sensitive skin like I do, the chemicals and fragrances cause your now vulnerable skin to be irritated and create buildup to try and "protect" the pores. IE, blackheads, whiteheads and little bumps. I have been using just coconut oil for that past two weeks and I am LOVING the results. My skin feels like butter, is not oily nor is it dry, and my skin literally is glowing. You can't expect anything to work overnight, so my skin is still getting back to normal, but is healing so much faster, and nicer than it has in years. I have started trying a new blend of Castor Oil & Grapeseed Oil; the castor oil has a thicker property to it, but is made up of antibacterial, anti-fungal, and clarifying properties. If you do not balance the castor out, your skin will actually become more dry. This is where the grapeseed comes in. I am choosing that because it is known to fade acne scars, and even out skin tone (it is chock full of Vitamin C). You can also use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Jojaba Oil, Almond Oil or Coconut Oil. I get all of my oils from the health food store, to ensure it is 100% pure.  I use the ratio of 1 1/2 parts Caster Oil to 2 1/2 parts Grapeseed Oil.

How-To: Take the same amount of the oil blend as you would a cleanser, and massage into your face. Take a washcloth and get it good and hot, but not so hot it will scald you (duh.) Leave the cloth on your face until it cools down, to really open your pores and let the oil get deep and down to business. Use the washcloth to gently massage the oil and dry patches off. That's it! I only do this at night, and you will find you don't even need a moisturizer after! If I do feel the need for a little bit more moisture, I just take a little bit on my fingertips and pat my face lightly. IMG_0785IMG_0788IMG_0791Have a great weekend! I have now sufficiently wasted enough time, and finally need to clean my poor neglected home. Sigh, I can only ignore it for so long! Xo, B

Friday 22 February 2013

Life lately, through my photo lense.

Wake me up when it's March.

I can't say this has been a very fun month, and I'm pretty happy to see March come! I've been the worst blogger in the world because of it, and do you know why? My brain has been so fried. Case in point, I love making lists. Love it. So the other night, well, the day before my exam, Andy needed some help to make a list on some topics. I could barely hold that thought in my mind, and not 30 seconds after we finished talking, I looked over at him and said, "What were we just talking about?" Seriously, space cadet x a million. And as a result to this, I literally have had nothing to talk about. Nothing. Unless you wanted blog posts on the differences between segregated funds, mutual funds, and all of the other wonderful ins and outs of investment/life planning. But, thankfully I have now written my LLQP Provincial, and -fingers crossed!- in a week's time, I will know whether or not I passed it. So, unfortunately, until then, I still have mush for brains, because I don't have that "I PASSSSED" relief yet. So until then, a little bit of randomness, to send you to your weekend in a happy mood :)

Friday 1 February 2013

Lately I am Loving..

Harem Pants! Aka "MC Hammer Pants". I love them. They are so comfortable, and take a chic spin on the traditional work pants. Plus, bonus! I love anything high-waisted, so these are just so up my little alley, I'm in heaven. I own 3 pairs now, and have to talk myself out of wearing them every day. You know those god-awful jean/pyjamas that are now a thing? (For real!? Who green-lit that product? I personally would like to give them a stink eye from fashionistas everywhere) Well, this is my chic, not embarrassing version of those.