Author: brightandbeautyfull

End of Week One: Dr Lewinn’s Renunail

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

It is with great relief and disproportionate joy that I removed my first week’s worth of the Dr Lewinn Renunail Nail Strengthener treatment. Not that it has been bad, not by any means! It’s merely that in the last two days, my nails, which need no help in the looking-manky department, have really started looking crusty.

Now, they are clean and clear, and ready to rest. I’ve cut them all down to the bare minimum length, and will continue to bathe them in Renunail Nourishing Oil.

Actually, I have been lazy about the oil — and so if this programme doesn’t work, I can’t exactly blame the product, can I?!?

My cuticles are still peeling like bananas in a monkey cartoon. Actually, I think they are hangnails? Is that really a term, or did my mum make that up?

So: One week off, back to the nail strengthener for another week, one other week off, and the third and final week. I will have perfect fingernails by the end of June!

Noooooooooo! Come Baaaaaaack!

/ brightandbeautyfull / 3 Comments

I have all these SPFs I tried out, Sun, and what, now you’re fecking off?!?!

Do you expect everyone to go off on a fantasy holiday to Krk??

Well, anyway: yesterday, I said I was going to cover myself in protection, and so I did.

At €5.99, you get a lotta bang for your buck with Lacura Suncare Moisturising Spray. The Aldi brand always comes through with the excellent price point. The spray action is not so great, unless you are in fact, say, on the deck of ship cruising the Adriatic. It got allll over the place in my house, and all over the clothes, too.

Garnier’s Ambre Solaire Light & Silky Protection Mist SPF 30 {whew!} was another spray that made a mess. Not that I learned from my previous mistake, no: got a fine white film over everything around my right leg. The further away you hold it the better, obviously, but again, I think I’ll be sticking to cream-based SPFs for doing the daily business. This goes for €26.83 which seems pricey.

I had fun with the Stick Sensible from Eau Thermale Avène, so I was happy enough to give their Very High Protection Emulsion 50+ a go. I totally forgot I had put this on, and this is excellent on many levels: it absorbed quickly, it smelled clean, and my skin felt soft afterwards. Only complaint: why so small, my French friends? 50mls seems on the shy side for €22!

La Roche-Posay Laboratoire Dermatologique have the most frustrating packaging on the planet. I didn’t even know what this was for until I unearthed the little brochure thingie that came in the box, that slid out of a sleeve. Their Anthelios AC 30SPF Matte Extreme Fluid is another one that comes in at 50mls, is only slightly less costly at €19 and is only for the face. Sheesh. But you know what? It is extremely fluid, and it worked extremely well: my face felt nicely toasted after spending a few hours basking, with nary a nasty patch of red to be to seen.

Well {heaves an enormous sigh}, at least I’ll be prepared when the Sun does decide to come back…

On Your Marks, Get Set, SPF!

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Hallelujah! I am going to cover myself in sunscreen and come back and tell you all about it.

The thing is, all the sun creams and sprays and mists have to pass a load of tests, right? I mean, no one is going to be able to put something on the market that’s going to result in a lawsuit. Given that, I think the thing about sun care is gonna be all about texture, rate of absorption, and how badly it gets all over your clothes.

Now, ideally, you are sunning yourself on the Dalmatian Coast, and are in your togs, so it doesn’t matter if you get sunscreen all over the place. But if you’re going out at your lunch hour, or planning on sitting out-of-doors to work, and you don’t think ahead and put on some protection before you put on your clothes, then it’s a concern.

I can tell you right this instant that Lidl’s Cien Sun Cream SPF 20 made it into my horseriding kit bag, and it’s gotten passed around the last few days. It’s coverage isn’t great, and you have to use maybe more than you’d like, but at €2.49, you can go through this for a short cut and it won’t matter. Neither does it absorb very quickly, so one the one hand, it has the potential to get all over your clothes, but on the other, you do a good job of spreading it round, because it takes forever to sink in.

The tube is highly portable, which is why it ended up in the equine rucksack, and it’s a big plus. I’ve got ones sitting on the desk that are massive, which means they will probs get socked into the luggage when I go to Croatia for my hols*, but aren’t going to be useful to me on the local road, if you know what I mean.

Okay! Off to apply myriad products to my limbs and then once more into the breach, my friends!

*I am not going to Croatia, except in my dreams. Hmmm, let’s call this ‘visualisation’ and not ‘fantasising’. ‘kay?

Scenes from a Library

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

I don’t know why I keep taking pictures of myself in Deansgrange Public Library.

I think I am still a little squicked by my revolting cuticles, so here’s a picture of The Hair, which received a dollop of Morocanoil’s Curl Defining Cream and an air dry.

I’ve just approved a comment from a reader about how much she loves this stuff too, and since I actually had some in The Hair, and here I am working away with full access to photographic capabilities, it just seemed like kismet.

 

Flippin’ My Lid: Colour Effect Flipsticks by Max Factor

/ brightandbeautyfull / 3 Comments

I’ve gotten lazy as regards lipstick: you have to look what you’re doing, unlike lipgloss, and ugh, the maintenance: it is high.

Also, my only lip-lining brush has gotten extremely unsanitary, which makes it difficult to use most of the lippys I’ve got in trying & testing rotation.

And then I got a bunch of these in the post:

These are FUN with a capital F-U-N.

So what we’ve got here are 6 lippys that are actually twelve, so when you buy one, you are getting two, with one side giving you a matte colour, and the other side a bit of iridescent shine to go over top of the matte.

This is exactly the kind of mix-and-matching we used to do in high school {high school? What am I even talking about? I did this yesterday} only now, you’ve cut your lipstick-bulk in half. Less crap in the handbag! I think we can all get behind that.

The six shades, that are actually twelve are, from top:
>Gipsy Red
>Bloomy Pink
>Folky Pink
>Salsa Red
>Swingy Brown
>Boreal Mauve

So far, I am all about the Boreal Mauve. Those pinks look pretty red to me, so I am leaning towards the Folky Pink to try next. I found the Swingy Brown to be a bit dark when applied to the full gob, but if you put the darker shade on top, and the shiny shade on the bottom, and then smoosh your lips together, the effect is really cool.

As far as application goes: the matte colour is rich, yet light as feather, and it has a lip-balmy feel to it as well.

A layer of clear gloss over top of any one of these and you’ve got red carpet lips. Which sounds weird, and a little gross, but you know what I mean.

Wear is what you expect from a lipstick not designed specifically for heavy duty: it’s a normal, get-a-reflective-surface kinda jawn. Me, I think these shades are dramatic enough to reserve for evening wear, so I don’t need the pigment to last forever. If you don’t plan on eating or drinking, then you won’t be touching this up very much, which, frankly, does not sound like much F-U-N to me.

€11.99/£8.49

A Sensible Stick by Eau Thermale Avène!

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

First, let me just say: look how nice and shiny my famous supermodel thumbnail* looks! And just so you know, I have duly applied another coat of the Dr Lewinn’s stuff, and boy, do I feel virtuous!

Also feeling virtuous re: suncare. It is understandably difficult to be bothered about SPF in this country, but as I do spend time out-of-doors on the horses, I have decided to cop on. And with the sky this very strange and unfamiliar shade of … blue, I think that is blue? it only stands to reason that there will be a glowing orb radiating both healing rays and not-so-healing rays.

On the way to the yard last night, even though it was slightly overcast when I left the house, I took up my Stick Zones Sensibles by Eau Thermale Avène, and rubbed it all over my face. This seems like a good one to bring to the yard, because it’s small, and it’s waterproof. And even though I am riding with a helmet, and it’s got a wee brim, I can still get colour.

I want colour, but I don’t want to burn, so yeah, SPF. Here’s hoping I actually have need of this thing over the coming months.

I guess it worked — I mean, it did get sunnier as we went up the hill, and we were outside, but it was after 7pm, so…? I don’t know. To be honest, I’m going to go a’googlin’ because I don’t see how you really judge SPFs. Okay, like, total fail if you fry, but otherwise? I think it may be about absorbency and fragrance and relative stickiness.

Eh. So, I’m going to be good, and do this. According to a study done by Avène, 77% of women and men don’t bother with sunscreen on their lunch hour. As if it’s not hard enough to decide what you’re going to eat in the first place! Seriously, though, it is a good decision to slap on some protection, and there are easier, if more chemically-based, ways to get your glow on. But you still need to use sunscreen anyway. I think I read somewhere that you have to put it on even on the bits that are covered by clothes, because clothes don’t really protect you? Wha’?!?! Off to go see is that true or not…

*On a day when I have nothing else to do, I am going to find all instances of said thumbnail and make a whole category, just for it. Gotta have goals, ladiez.

Manky Nails, Your Days are Numbered!

/ brightandbeautyfull / 3 Comments

So, last Friday I had a friend’s wedding {OMG she looked gorgeous — like, magazine-bride stunning} and I thought about getting a manicure, and then I thought, Why bother, your nails are so manky. And I know that my nails are manky because I don’t take care of them, but I swear, they are so crap — they have started splitting down the middle! WTF?!? — that it seems like I should just keep them short, since they are so nasty and brutish.

Then, after the wedding, I attended a fabulous ladies lunch in aid of The Seachange Foundation, and the lovely lunching lady on my left had the most amazing natural nails I have ever seen in my life. She was talking about how her nails had been manky, too, but she uses this treatment stuff and it is amazing, and how she had to have her sister buy it up for her because it wasn’t available in Ireland, but now it was, and I gasped and asked, ‘Is it that Dr Lewinn’s stuff?’

And it was.

I’d heard of this stuff, and in fact, had put in a request to try and test some last week. It arrived yesterday, and you can’t help but feel that the stars just fall into glorious alignment every now and then.

I am determined! I am going to do this! I’ve seen how good the Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener is, in real life  — the evidence of its efficacy was right there at the tips of that lady’s fingers.

How it works is:
> You apply two coats on the first day, then a coat a day for the next five, and then remove it on the seventh day.
> Then you rest for 1-2 weeks.
> Then you do it twice more.

In the 1-2 week rest period, you use the Nourishing Oil, which I checked out really quickly yesterday, and it is oily, and hopefully nourishing.

Okay: I just applied my first coat. It’s very thick, and it is milky in appearance. It feels really cold on application, which is weird; it dries clear. I was curious as to why it works, and didn’t really find much info, except that the Strengthener has diamonds and pearls in it? I will say, though, that the internet contains predominantly glowing reviews, and I hope to have proof of that myself in six weeks.

Here’s a picture of my Manky Nails, in all of their shock and horror. I must say, they are looking nice and shiny with my duly applied two coats, and I am preparing to bathe them in the nourishing oil. The middle finger one is so short because that is the one that has started splitting. Only the one! That is weird, right? Although, I absolutely do not want anymore of my nails to start doing the same.

I know I have said, in the past, that I was going to mind my manicure, and didn’t, but this time is for real! I am going to have healthy, strong nails!

Nail Strengthener, 30mls: €31/£21; Nourishing Oil, 14mls: €15/£11
Irish prices are approximate; Debenhams are having a discount deal, which may just be online, I’m not sure. Go check it out on debenhams.ie.

Actual Bronzing from Actual Sun!

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

I can’t get a good picture of my arms, which, after only like 45 minutes sitting in the sunshine at lunch, are warmly light brown.

I mean, not like a celebrity tan — which is a good thing, depending! — but more like I am a living, breathing human being, and not a pale pod person who still has to wear her fat coat to the stable. Wearing a down jacket in May! I ask you!

Since we are set to get the stones split by sunshine over the next few days, I am sure that most among us are going to be gasping to take advantage of it. This is as good a time as any to shake my finger at yees all re: SPF. Frankly, I am shamelessly using you as a surrogate, because as I have said before on this site, I am a lazy arse when it comes to sunscreen.

Not anymore! I am going to go on an SPF binge for as long as we have the rays beating down upon us. Eau Thermale Avéne have a new suncare line that is going to get a look in tomorrow, when I prepare to go horseriding, and I’ve also got some goodies from Cien, the house brand from Lidl,  and we’ll see how we get on with that. I’m sure I’ve got more, but I am posting from the library in Dun Laoghaire, and can’t remember what else I’ve got in the press.

Seriously, I swear, my arms are nice and toasty. It may just be from the flourescent light in here, though. Eh, I don’t care, because you know what the colour of my arms is? The colour of HOPE.

Catching Up as Regards Avon ANEW Clinical Resurfacing Expert Smoothing Fluid

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

Okay! Posting like the wind, as I have a wedding {just the ceremony} and then a fancy ladies lunch {for a worthy cause: go here to read all about the Seachange Foundation’s microcredit scheme}, but I have not only been using the Avon ANEW Clinical Etc Etc {tired of typing that out!} but I have also been paying attention to what it is doing.

So, I used twice this week. Each time, I noticed two things:

A} I went into the loo to start the macquillage, and thought, Hmmm, my face is really red. Now, it could have been from the way I blow dry The Hair, which is, of course, upside down like a normal person. It could also be from the Avon Etc Etc. I’m going to use this once more time during the day, and if this ruddiness continues, I may switch to the night.

My face didn’t feel sore, or tingly, or like it was having a reaction that I could feel. It was just noticeable. But!

B} My face looks brighter. I found that I needed less foundation primer, because my skin was smoother, so what I was using was suddenly getting better coverage. Ditto the foundation itself. Since this is the way my face acts after its gotten a fancy facial, I am quite impressed.

I am finding the dropper to be awkward. It’s a sexy design, with the flat button on top, but it isn’t the best for drawing up the ever-so-slightly thick product.

Okay, gotta run! Have a great weekend! x