Naked Skincare

I am a sucker for good packaging, so what first attracted me to the Naked Skincare range was the lid, it has 2 little buttons on the top that open and close the bottle. Much easier to manage in a steamy shower than your usual shower gels and facewashes with a flip-lid! 

Their brand is 97% natural so is really kind to your skin. It's also vegetarian and vegan friendly, they rightly describe their products as 'complete goodness in a bottle.' 

I tried out the Bare Faced Cheek Softening Face wash. It lathers up really nicely, it feels creamy rather than foamy and feels like it's really getting in there to give your face a good clean. You don't need to use a lot of it and it's a fairly large bottle so it's definite value for money. It smells really nice too. 

I've also been using the Perfect Getaway Cream Cleanser Every night. It removed my make-up perfectly, and to make this fair I used it on my boyfriend (who obviously doesn't wear make-up but does get the tube everyday) and it removed traces of dirt we didn't even notice was there. It really does get off every trace of anything mucky! With aloe vera and cocoa butter it's definitely soothing after a long day. 

I've used the cleanser every night and the face wash in the morning for the last week and have definitely noticed results. My skin feels much fresher. 

I'm looking forward to trying out Naked for Kids and Mini Naked products when the baby gets here. They've got some fruity looking bubble baths which look like they will smell delicious! 

Both products are £4.49 and you can get the Naked range in Boots and Superdrug.

Loving to hate

I was sitting on my sofa the other night, munching on Malteasers, casually watching tv, finding myself getting all worked up about how many idiots there were in the world. I was thinking ‘where do they find these people’ ‘I hate them all!’ but most importantly… ‘Why am I watching this?’ This occurs night after night, it’s like an addiction, the addiction that is Big Brother. Throughout the programme I’m tweeting my disgust for Lydia, my hatred for anyone who says they want to go home, and how crap Scotts hair is looking. Basically if I didn’t love Malteasers so much they’d be thrown at the tv! And I’m not the only one, it seems to be something that is catching on. Everyone who is tweeting about it is commenting on something they hate about it. I honestly dislike 90% of the people on the show and more often than not, after the hour of attention seeking has finished, I find myself just annoyed and irritated at the world.

Why do I do it to myself?

Like 200,000-odd others I follow heatworld on twitter, and I spend a lot of my time thinking ‘NOBODY CARES!’ to the stuff they tweet. Josie Gibson, winner of Big Brother a few years ago has a new beach body! Really, Heat Magazine? Does anyone really want to know?… well yes, it seems.  I find a lot of what they say incredibly annoying, the way they get overly excited when they are stood in the cold at a premier (you’re journalists and work for one of the biggest gossip mags in the country, surely you’re used to this by now?!) But yet, only yesterday I found myself sitting in the park after handing over my £1.65 for 130 pages of  Z-list CRAP.

I could easily click unfollow and it will all go away, no more boring tweets about Michelle Heaton’s baby weight, or Joey Essex’s love life. I could easily spend that £1.65 on something I actually need…like Malteasers. But I just can’t do it.

Facebook is another one. I hate it, I really do. I hate being constantly reminded of people I used to know and don’t speak to anymore. There’s a reason we lost touch so why do I need to see what their baby did today?

But have I deleted my account? Course not. I have tried limiting my friend list to just people I talk to in real life but even then it still drives me mad. What is this generation’s fascination with sharing? (that’s a whole other blog entry entirely…) I describe Facebook like going to the fridge when you’re skint and hungry, you open it over and over again, but there’s still nothing there worth your time. But the fact that I still log into Zuckerberg’s masterpiece everyday must mean something.

Maybe I like having something to moan about? On some level maybe it makes me feel better about my life.  Maybe it’s a case of schadenfreude, I just like seeing things go wrong for others. So I continue with this addiction on the off-chance something great happens, I just don’t want to miss out!

I’d like to think we all do it, I hear people moaning about the tabloids every day. Yet these papers are still very big names, even after all the scandals. I see people expressing their hatred for the Daily mail, yet tweeting their articles constantly. It’s just the stuff we love to hate. These companies know what they’re doing, they don’t care if we like them or not, as long as we’re still making them money.

I hate Bluewater, but I still go.  I hate the tube, but I’m on the northern line on a regular basis and honestly if someone took it away I’d cry. It’s even the same with food chains,  ‘All you can eat Chinese for £4?! Wow it’s going to be delicious!’ A couple of hours later and I’m rolling around moaning about a stomach ache that I just cant understand. I’ll moan about the place to anyone who will listen but give it a month or 2, and I’ll be back, and I’ll be appalled that they’ve had the cheek to put it up for £4.50!

Recently I went into McDonalds, I wasn’t even hungover so I had no excuse. But even though I know their food isn’t exactly like going to the Savoy, I went in to get a burger. Each time I have high expectations. ‘This is going to be the one , the burger of burgers. I’ll never pay £15 for a burger in a gastro-pub again!’ And I’m greeted by a battered box of grease and some sorry looking lettuce. I sit down and moan about how miserable the person serving me was, the ‘types of people who love this stuff’ and how I’m surrounded by cretins. I’m telling myself I’ll never grace the golden arches again, but not before saying ‘shall we get a Mcflurry for the road…?’

Tanatomicals

Firstly I want to congratulate Tanatomicals on their witty packaging. Their brightly coloured boxes and amusing slogans certainly makes it stand out on the shelves. 

They kindly sent me a couple of their products to try out. 'Me Tarzan, you Jane, we cheaters instant spray tan' and 'The Holy Grail for the deathly pale self tan mousse'. 

I gave the mousse a go first. I always like tanning mousses as they feel more hydrating and I find they go on a lot better than lotions. This one was a bit more watery than others I've tried but I soon got used to that, it needs a good shake to get going, so remember to do that! 

Unlike many tans it has a gorgeous fruity smell and I spent the whole time that I was applying it trying to think what it reminded me of... I think it's some sort of sweet. You can see where it's going on and leaves a lovely tan to you immediately afterwards. The only downside is that it seemed to take a bit longer to dry than others I've used in the past, but the colour was amazing and totally worth the sexy penguin waddle I was doing around the house. 

At the weekend I have a wedding to go to and the dress I am wearing is backless. I've noticed my back is looking a bit paler than the rest of me. The back is a hard place to apply tan yourself so I plan to enlist the help of my boyfriend... I decided to give him the easiest product to use, the instant spray tan. I'll keep you posted...



You can get the Tanatomicals range from Superdrug and asos for £6.99 which is an absolute bargain if you ask me!

Style File

Loveable Tom from The Apprentice, remember him? He was the dark horse in last years show and went on to win it. He's done extremely well and invented the 'Stylfile'. It's an 'S' shaped nail file which creates the perfect curve for your nails in a few easy sweeps. Unlike other nail files, which are straight, this one curves round your nail as you file. I'm sure many other people will be thinking 'why didn't I think of that?' it's the simplest ideas that are always the best.

Tom says "Since the Apprentice final I've been working night and day to create the Stylfile collection. The unique Stylfile curve makes it easy to have great-looking nails without the need for an expensive manicure"

He has 3 products in his range. The first I tried out was the S-file, which is like your everyday file (but of course with the distinctive 's' shape) with 2 different abrasive sides, carefully selected by Tom so they last up to 12 months so it's a bargain as well as a genius idea! It's pink In the middle with the file itself being black so it's still girly without being too OTT. It's safe to use on acrylic nails as well as natural and it left my nails smooth and snag-free. 

The next was the 'S-buffer' which is a 4-way buffer designed to follow the nail curve. There are really clear instructions on the pack. Rub the black surface on first, then the blue to remove the ridges, smooth with the pink side and use the white strip to shine the nail. It's very simple and saves having lots of different buffers and files. 

My favourite of the 3 was the Emergency File. I'm sure many of you have been out and chipped a nail and haven't got nail file with you. Well this is a combination of the S-file and the S-buffer, but on a keyring! Amazing. It can attach to your phone, keys, bag, whatever you like. Now you might think 'Well, that will just scratch up everything in my bag!' but he's even thought of the technicalities, it's in its own spiral case to protect not only the file itself, but your belongings too. 

I'm really impressed with what Tom's come up with and I'm really excited to see what other products he has on the horizon. Who says reality tv is just for idiots huh? 

You'll find the Stylfile in Sainsburys, Lloyd Pharmacy, Sally Beauty, Amazon and Boots for £4.49 -£4.99