In Flight Pamper Session

Being in a long distance relationship means you are usually subjected to long haul flights more often than most and anyone that flies knows how much of a toll the recirculated cabin air can take on your skin and hair if you're stuck in your seat for hours on end. Since there's not much else you can do on a plane aside from back to back movie marathons you might as well make that time work for you and get some good quality pampering in!

I always like to have a good quality face wipe on hand to refresh myself when I'm feeling tired and grimy from 8+ hours of traveling. I've tried several brands and the First Aid Beauty Gentle Cleansing Wipes get my vote! They're gentle enough you can use them to remove eye make up but they're still strong enough to get off that mascara and liner; I also keep a pack in my gym bag for a quick refresh after a good work out!

I am all about serums and facial oils especially when things are getting dry but liquids can be a tricky thing to take in cabin so LUSH's Full of Grace is the perfect product for the job; a solid moisturizing bar that melts when warmed between your palms and can then be massaged into you skin to add a quick punch of easily absorbed moisture to your parched face. I also take a little chunk of Fresh Farmacy Cleanser that way near the end of the flight I can just nip to the toilet and give my face a proper wash; just lather the warm, massage your face and then use a muslin cloth to remove so that you don't have to worry about trying to wash your face in a teeny airplane loo.

If it's a long haul flight I like to do as much pampering as possible to make the time fly by I usually have some of my My Beauty Diary Dark Circles Eye Masks in my bag that I can pop on for a couple minutes because let's face it, no one looks well rested after 8+ hours of flying. I usually have my sleep mask handy that I can slide down over the masks so I don't look like a major weirdo and I'll usually listen to music and just relax for 15 minutes or so while these bad boys do their job.

After I remove the eye masks I massage any extra serum left on my skin into my ocular bone and add a little bit of the Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado to keep the delicate eye skin hydrated for the long haul; when using this I found the best way to apply is to pick up a TINY bit with your ring finger and massage it between your two rings fingers for a couple seconds first to warm it up and then tap it into the ocular bone as opposed to rubbing it, works like a dream!

I mix up my own leave-in hair treatment for the flight using 1 vial of Difiaba Luminessence Hydrating Serum mixed with equal parts of water in a travel sized spray bottle and just mist it through my ends to keep my hair from drying out. I love the Difiaba serum as it smells wonderful and leaves my hair shiny and hydrated.

The last step before I struggle for the rest of the flight trying to sleep (before eventually giving up and reading for the next several hours) is to add an overnight hydrating mask; I love Glam Glow's Thirsty Mud for this purpose because it smells amazing and when I rinse my face in the morning my skin looks like I never stepped foot on an airplane! I usually decant a little bit of this into a sample cup so that I don't have to faff about with the big pot of it in my carry on.

Clearly I use my flights as an excuse to get in some much needed pampering, I find it makes the flights go by faster and I feel relaxed and refreshed when I step off the plane, even if I didn't get a wink of sleep!

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A Week in the Life of My Hair

So I've had a lot of people asking how I keep my chemically abused hair so soft and shiny. It's not secret; I am a dye junkie (I haven't seen my natural hair colour for over a decade...),  heat styling villain and a teaser extraordinaire and this is what I do to keep my used and abused locks looking so luscious and healthy! 

Day One...

I like to start fresh with a deep clean. I usually make my own deep cleansing shampoo concoction using two parts shampoo one part baking soda, I give my hair a good scrub making sure to really pay attention to my scalp to remove the product and oil build up from the week before. I then follow this with a hair mask- right now I'm using and loving the Klorane Desert Date Mask, which I usually let sit for 20 minutes and then rinse out.

Before blow drying I work two pumps of Charles Worthington Pro Heat Repair Milk into my hair, it protects my hair from heat styling as well as added a nice glossy shine!

Bonus Step...

Every second week I like to ramp up my mask routine a bit; since adding the purple to my hair last month my hair has become a wee bit more maintenance. The deep cleansing shampoo has a tendency to strip some of the colour out of my purpley bits so to stop them from looking disheveled I like to whip up a hair mask using the Klorane Desert Date Mask mixed in with some of my hair colour, currently I'm using Lariche Directions Hair Colour in Violet.

Day Four...

By day three or four my hair is starting to get a little bit greasy and unmanageable so instead of filling it full of dry shampoo I go for a light rinse with Macadamia Natural Oil Flawless. I find that it gently cleanses the hair without stripping it of it's natural oils so you can go a couple days longer in between shampoos. I would however mention that I only recommend using this once a week because I did try to use it twice between shampoos and it left my hair feeling a bit oily and weighed down.

Days Five through Seven...

This is when I start to bust out the dry shampoo I love my Batist Dry Shampoo, I've tried others but I always end up coming back to this one. My hair during this phase usually goes from down on day five, to a ponytail on day six and to a top knot by day seven (the girls at work have even joked that they know how many days it's been since my last shampoo just based on the way I style my hair, looks like my secret is out!)

Before bed on day seven I like to thoroughly coat my hair with Charles Worthington Overnight Ultimate Hair Healer to give it that little bit of extra love at the end of a long week.

If you don't live in the UK and would like to try out the Charles Worthington stuff this website ships worldwide!

March Monthly Favourites!

Monthly favourites are some of my most enjoyable posts to write because I get all excited talking about the things that I've been loving this month, who doesn't like talking about things they really love?! But every time it comes to write another monthly favourites I have this thought pop into my brain, "holy hell! It's almost (insert next month here) already?!" and it instantly makes me feel like my grandma who's constantly wondering where the last 20 years have gone. This month I got a promotion at work (just an itty bitty one but hey, I'm movin' on up!) and also received my acceptance letter for school, both of which make me really excited for the future.

Kookoo for Kiehl's...

I have been loving Kiehl's so much this month it's a little bit ridiculous; at the end of February I gave into curiosity and went in to Kiehl's to see if I could get a sample of the Midnight Recovery Concentrate and Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado after seeing how much Estee from essiebutton loved them, that girl has yet to let me down with a recommendation! First of all, if you're ever interested in trying something from Kiehl's go in and ask for a sample, they're super generous with their samples and always recommend amazing things. Clearly I fell in love with those two products and ended up buying the full size versions and when I purchased the Midnight Recovery Concentrate the lovely gal helping me gave me a sample of the Powerful Strength Line-Reducing Concentrate which clearly I also fell in love with because I'm pretty sure Kiehl's can do no wrong.

I talked a little bit about why I love the Midnight Recovery Concentrate here but when I wrote that I was just starting to try out the eye cream and let me just say that stuff is the bomb! Good bye scaly alligator eyes (thank you!) and hello happy soft eyelids, never thought I would be talking about my eyelids like this...

In The Shower...

I first stumbled upon the Soap and Glory brand five years ago when I was living in Ireland, I was hooked. Sexy Mother Pucker turned out to just be a gateway lipgloss into a downward spiraling addiction of fantastically scented and adorably package cosmetics and skin care.

When I lived in Ireland my roommate and I were hooked on the Sugar Crush Body Scrub, we would buy them in bulk when Boots had them on offer and stockpile them in our bathroom; needless to say I was ecstatic when the Soap and Glory line available in Canada expanded and this became readily available once again. It's such an amazing fresh sweet lime scent, and the almond oil makes it quite nourishing as well. I think this for me is more of a nostalgia item because every time I use it I instantly feel like I'm back at our little flat on College Road.

The Smoothie Star Breakfast Scrub is a newer discovery for me, I picked it up from Boots back in January and have been using it sparingly as it hasn't made it's way over to Canada yet; UK friends I have a Boots shopping list if anyone loves me enough to go on a wee little shopping trip and send over some stuff! I mentioned here that as soon as I saw it was Maple scented I was a goner, it's a Canadian thing.

LUSH's Snow Fairy shower gel is another thing I buy in bulk every year; I usually buy one right when it comes out and then I wait until they have their online sale on Boxing Day when it's Buy One Get One Free and I order like six to get me through the year. It's got a really sweet almost cotton candy like smell and like I mentioned before when you use it with American Cream Conditioner your hair smells like strawberry shortcake!!

The last wee little thing in my shower right now is a trial size of Tokyo Milk's Tainted Love Shower Gel that I got in a travel pack at Sephora that contained the shower gel, a roller ball and a hand creme. I loved this scent because it was the perfect mix of floral and warm musky fragrances with a combination of vanilla bean, orchid, white tea and sandalwood, to say this fragrance is sexy would be the most family friendly way to describe it...

Hair Care

There's not too much in the way of hair care this month as I've really been liking the products I've been using the last couple of months, you can check out my February Favourites to see what I've been using. But one thing I've had to change up since getting my hair done a couple of weeks ago is my hair mask. When I deep cleanse my hair once a week it lifts the purple out of my hair which then needs to be touched up. Instead of paying to get my hair touched up every two weeks or faffing about trying to re-colour the one section myself I've brought back an old favourite from when I had pink hair, which is a colour and conditioning hair mask combo! I do this every two weeks to prevent my purple from looking a bit dodgy. I mix half a tub (for my short to medium length hair) of La Riche Directions Hair Colour in Violet with a dollop of the Klorane Desert Date Hair Mask and apply it to DRY hair, twist it up into a bun and leave it on all day (this is clearly done on a day off) and rinse before bed.

I use the Klorane Hair Mask weekly on it's own as well, it's a wonderful mask - super hydrating and doesn't leave your hair limp.

Fragrances

These two aren't particularly new to me but I found myself reaching towards them the most this month out of my perfume collection. 

The first one is Fleur de Vanille by Fragonard, this fragrance holds a very special place in my heart. I found it back in January when my boyfriend and I were in Paris, we stumbled upon a little market on our way to Notre Dame and I insisted on sniffing every fragrance and soap that this little flower stall had (because I have a severe addiction to perfumes...) I didn't think much of the perfume as I already have so many vanilla-y perfumes but I spritzed it on my wrists out of habit and we began to walk away. I kept sniffing my wrists and thrusting them in Pete's face demanding he sniff them as well, this perfume was simply amazing and like nothing I'd ever smelled before; it vanilla alright but with ylang-ylang, heliotrope, rose, chocolate, cocoa and musk. It's a rich warm scent but refreshing all at the same time. I've been using it sparingly, mainly when I miss Pete insanely as it instantly takes me back to Paris, because when I first got home and looked online I couldn't find it anywhere! Imagine my joy when I stumbled upon a website that ships to Canada just now whilst looking for a link for this post! Pete can attest I just sent him the most overly excited text message haha.

The other is probably a more recognizable perfume it's Princess by Vera Wang, this is a fragrance I remember smelling when I was a teenager and falling in love with it. I never purchased it back then but on a recent trip to the States my mum saw it for a ridiculously good price at the Duty Free and remembered that I was pining after this (good memory mum that was over 7 years ago!) It's a much more floral fragrance than I typically wear but I found with spring approaching (not that you could tell from here, it's snowing as we speak) I was looking for fresh fragrances than my typical musky vanillas. I was still pairing this with an amber body spray to tone down some of the floral and it's actually one of my favourite fragrance pairings nows! I'm all about layering your scents to achieve a more personal scent.

Bit's and Bob's

First of all is this gorgeous statement necklace from Zara; if you follow me on Instagram then you probably saw me post this exact photo the day after I purchased this. I fell in love with this at the store but wasn't sure if I loved it enough to part with $50 for a necklace made of shiny metal so I kept the receipt in case it wound up just collecting dust. Now let me walk you through the conversation I have with myself every morning as I'm getting ready for work "Oooo maybe I'll wear my necklace from Zara today, it would look great with this outfit. But I just wore it yesterday.... Maybe I'll wear a different necklace today and I can wear this one again tomorrow. But I really want to wear it....But I can't wear it four days in a row..." and so on and so forth, needless to say I've already got my $50 worth out of it and threw my receipt into the bin with vigor!

Television: Well I should say Netflix since I don't ever really watch television. I don't know what it is with me and British period dramas but I'm hooked. January was Downton Abbey, February was Call the Midwife and March has been a case of binge watching Foyle's War and The Bletchley Circle.

Tea: Just like switching up the fresher fragrances for spring I went into David's Tea looking for a new more spring like tea than the rich black tea's I've been drinking lately. I left with Green Seduction, which is a green tea flavoured with bits of pomegranate and rosehips, it's EXACTLY what I was looking for and I've already drank my way through 100g....

Blogger/Vlogger of the Month: The adorable little Brit Suzie or better known as Hello October. I found her blog via Bloglovin' one day and after reading her blog for a couple weeks I made my way over to her YouTube channel and I've just fallen in love.

Book: The past couple months I've dedicated to reading the books on my "To Read" shelf and not allowing myself to purchase any new books until I've gotten through the ones I already have (doesn't mean there isn't a list of books to purchase scrawled in my daytimer...) I picked up The History of Love by Nicole Krauss well over a year ago when I had a giftcard for a small local bookshop, I don't know what originally attracted me to this title but I know I've spent the last year and a bit skimming over it on the shelf thinking it sounded a bit too airy-fairy and that I wanted something a bit more mentally engaging. Whilst going through Pete withdrawls a couple weeks ago I was in the mood for some mind numbing romantic blather and without any Nicholas Sparks on hand I figured I'd give this a go. Boy was I wrong for skipping this book for so long! If you're a Nicholas Sparks fan then sorry guys but this isn't the book you're looking for, this is so much more. I haven't felt this emotional invested in characters before, it wasn't a romance book at all but like the title states, it's a history of love, love in every sense of the word. There's no way I can give you any sense of plot because it's not a linear story, you just need to pick it up and give it a read!

What have you guys been loving this month? I'd love to know, leave some suggestions for me in the comments!

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