Do you have any suggestions of any kind of foundation that doesn't feel like my face is drowning in piles of makeup. Or maybe a moisturizer that helps my face fix the flaws. I have redness on my face,some tiny annoying bumps and I get oily and flaky around my nose area. I also have the worst dark circles ever,if there's anything that can help them go away,I would greatly appreciate it!
Asked by
demonsatbay
Hi there!
Have you tried using mineral foundation? I’ve tried the Bare Escentuals range and my face felt completely naked & makeup free - it was a strange feeling, like I’d forgotten my handbag! I’ve also heard excellent things about the Laura Mercier mineral foundation powder, but haven’t tried it yet.
It sounds like your skin is seriously overreactive and clogged up. I’d try switching to a simple, gentle skin routine - try cleansing with non-stripping cleanser like MV Organics (or try coconut oil - so so gentle but does a great job of cleaning, and super cheap!). You can also add a tiny bit of bicarb soda to your cleanser every so often for gentle exfoliation to help with the bumps, or use a muslin cloth with your cleanser. I find rosehip oil brilliant to calm skin which helps with redness, and it just generally builds up the skin’s ‘strength’.
As for the under eye circles - whenever mine are looking a little purple I dab on RMS Beauty Un-Cover Up which does a nice job of evening out skin tone and making eyes look ‘fresh’. Lisa Eldridge has done a brilliant video about covering up dark circles that you should check out!
Hope that helps, let me know how you go! x
I’m excited and humbled to introduce you to the wonderful, inspirational, cancer-kicker Jess Ainscough for today’s Clean Regime. Jess Ainscough is a writer, holistic health coach, and the creator of the health and wellness website, The Wellness Warrior. Via her e-books, daily blog posts, and videos, Jess’ goal is to empower people to take control of their health and show that the quality of our lives is directly linked to how we treat our body and mind. Her transformation from champagne-guzzling, Lean Cuisine-loving magazine writer to all-out nutrition nerd was made after she was diagnosed with a rare, ‘incurable’ cancer back in 2008. Deciding she wasn’t having a bar of that ‘incurable’ nonsense, Jess took responsibility for her condition and healed herself with two years of Gerson Therapy. Along the way, Jess developed a obsession with passing on all of her newly learnt wellness wisdom to anyone who was parked in front of her for long enough to listen.
After reading Jess’s clean regime, might I suggest making yourself a cup of herbal tea or a green juice, checking out her blog, and reading her brilliant eBook, Make Peace With Your Plate. If there was ever a poster girl for the old adage ‘beauty comes from the inside’, Jess is that gal.
AM
‘My first order of beauty business is dry body brushing for five minutes before stepping in the shower. I dry brush to get my lymphatic system moving, but as an added benefit it sloughs off dry skin, and helps to get rid of cellulite.
In the shower I cleanse my face with a tiny amount of Mukti’s gentle foaming cleanser, and wipe off with a bamboo face washer. Every second morning I will wash my hair with Mukti shampoo and conditioner.
Out of the shower, I use a tiny amount of Mukti (can you see a pattern?) balancing facial moisturiser and I’m good to go.
I love Mukti stuff because it’s one of the only beauty brands I’ve found that is totally clean, certified organic, and actually works on my skin. It’s also local to the Sunshine Coast, where I am from.
PM
At night I cleanse my face again with Mukti’s gentle foaming cleanser. Out of the shower, I wipe my face over with 3% hydrogen peroxide to help remove blackheads, and then I moisturise my face with organic coconut oil (mostly around the eyes and forehead).
COLOUR
I don’t wear make-up very often, but if I need to go somewhere that calls for a bit of prettying up I use INIKA mineral powder foundation, bronzer, eyeliner, mascara and eye shadow. I don’t wear anything on my lips besides a bit of Aubrey Organics raspberry lip balm. It’s so yummy, and it’s so clean you could probably eat it.
EXTRAS
About once a week I have a bath with two cups of organic apple cider vinegar
added to my bath water. This not only detoxifies the body through the skin, but it also leaves you feeling so silky smooth. And the vinegar smell doesn’t stick around long.
Also about once a week I will apply a natural clay facemask, followed by a Mukti facial scrub.
To lighten my hair, every now and then I will spray it with 3% hydrogen peroxide. Because this can dry it out, I will then put coconut oil through my hair as a deep nourishing mask.
I used to feel naked without perfume, but these days I very rarely wear it. If I do, it’s only a bit of essential oil or some Pegasus perfume made from essential oils.
Now that we are coming into the cooler months, I may need to moisturise my skin a bit more, so I will just add coconut oil to my body as well as my face.
We also always have aloe vera in the garden, so if I’m out there I will break off a bit and rub it into any dry spots and my cancer scars’.
Connect with Jess on …
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JessAinscough
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewellnesswarrior
Website: http://www.thewellnesswarrior.com.au
I have a love/hate relationship with winged liner: love the look, hate the application. I used to end up looking more flustered than feline, but then I discovered angled eyeliner brushes used with a cake eyeliner. These will change your life (well, maybe not. But your liner at least). Another brilliant tip - use concealer to create shape and clean the line. With hints like these you’ll be fluttering your kitten flicks in no time…
Do you have any winged liner application tips?
Check out more winged liner inspiration and how-to videos here.
What: The perfect cleanser.
For: Removing makeup and impurities. For all skin types.
Review: There are a few products that I use so regularly that I take them for granted and forget to focus on them with a review. MV Organics Gentle Cream Cleanser is one of them. This is the perfect cleanser. Thoroughly cleanses makeup? Tick. Removes impurities and keeps breakouts at bay? Tick. Leaves skin super soft & nourished? TICK.
In addition to its skin loving properties, it was the scent knocked my socks off - as most people who read the CBB regularly have probably realised, I need only a drop of citrus fragrance to fall in love with a product, and this cleanser is a delicious blend of rose, chamomile and mandarin. Heaven. This cleanser makes your morning shower feel like a mini spa session.
The cleanser is best used with a muslin cloth. Only a few pumps of product are needed to cleanse the really face well - the texture is thick, luxurious and creamy. After massaging the product into skin, hold a damp warm muslin cloth over skin for about 5 seconds (the steam from the cloth will further soften skin). You then use the cloth to gently buff the cleanser off skin, which doubles as gentle exfoliation.
Clean creds: 75% organic - and just look at this ingredients list! Water, Sweet Almond (Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis) Oil, Cetearyl Glucoside, Vegetable Glycerin, Glyceryl Monostearate, Vitamin E (Tocopherol), Honeysuckle (Lonicera Caprifolium & Lonicera Japonica) Extract, with essential oils of Rose, Chamomile and Mandarin. Nothing scary there.
Verdict: I can recommend this cleanser for almost all skin types, unless you are very sensitive to essential oils. It worked beautifully on my skin and, although not a conventional ‘anti-acne’ cleanser, it kept breakouts at bay without drying skin. Although it’s on the pricier side - $45 - a bottle lasted me for about 3 months of consistent use. It’s also a great one to take travelling as it comes in a super lightweight bottle and a no-mess pump dispenser.
Buy it here
*This product was sent to me as a PR sample for my honest review.
Saturday night + swipe of Ilia Pure Lip Care in Dizzy = perfect party lips!
If Elle Macpherson is The Body, Natalia Vodianova is The Face… she is just breathtakingly beautiful!
Today’s clean beauty post isn’t about the parabens - instead, it’s all about the presentation. That’s right, we’re organising our beauty stashes. Banish bedraggled makeup bags and be inspired by these chic ideas for beautiful organisation - you’ll be lining up your lipsticks in no time.
Trays
Even the most chaotic collection looks manicured when arranged on an elegant tray:
Jars
Liners, glosses, brushes - all perfect for storing in pretty jars:
Caddies
Ready made or repurposed - letter holders make great storage for eyeshadow and bronzer palettes:
Drawers
Tuck it all away inside a neatly divided drawer:
Best of the rest
Teacups to store bits and bobs, buckets of nail polish, and beaded bags of beauties? Yes please.
Buy
Check out Anthropologie’s ‘House & Home’ collection for interesting & affordable trays, trinket boxes and tumblers, or get to the flea markets to buy mismatched patterned tea cups & recycled jam jars. If you live in Australia, Howard’s Storage World has a good selection of makeup caddies. Also keep an eye on eBay and Etsy as interesting things usually pop up there!
Image credits and more inspiration here
It’s been a while since I last posted about my I Quit Sugar journey. In summary, the update is that I have kicked my mid-afternoon Caramello cravings and developed an addiction to Pukka tea, and whilst I am not as super sugar vigilant as I was initially (I eat fruit a few times a week, and when I eat out I usually have dessert), sugar is no longer an accepted part of my diet but rather what it should always have been - a treat, to be enjoyed consciously and very occasionally. I’m much more aware of hidden sugar that creeps into sauces and low-fat ‘health food’ products, and it’s prompted me to generally eat ‘cleaner’ with a diet based on unrefined whole foods.
Apart from being healthier, I have found that I taste food more - my taste buds are sharper and sweeter than they were previously. Sauces that I once thought of as ‘savoury’ now taste like liquid sugar. Which they are. My skin has cleared up enormously and I did lose some weight (about 2 kilos), mainly around the belly (hurrah!).
All this is really just to introduce one of my go-to weekday evening meals that can be thrown together and is guaranteed to taste phenomenal. This isn’t so much a recipe as ‘things to throw together that taste really good’. It’s like a giant, delicious multivitamin.
The ingredients & quantities I’ve posted below are by no means prescriptive, just what I like and which fills me & my partner up. The beauty of this ‘recipe’ is that it can be easily mixed up to suit your taste - for example, I’ve used infused olive oils (lemon, garlic), thrown in whole cloves of garlic & some rosemary for a more ‘classic’ roast, thrown in some felafel balls or chickpeas for some added protein, and swapped ricotta for haloumi and added baby spinach & cous cous (this makes an excellent lunch to take to work the next day).
If you have any healthy go-to weekday meals, please post them in the comments section below!
Ingredients
- 1 x sweet potato
- 1 x brocolli
- 2 x carrot
- 2 x zucchini
- 1 x spanish onion
- 180 grams x full fat ricotta
- Olive oil
- Spices to taste - I love a sprinkle of cumin, turmeric, salt, pepper & a little chilli
‘Method’
- Chop up vegetables into rough chunks and spread over a baking tray lined with baking paper.
- Slosh a good glug of olive oil over the vegies (be generous!), then sprinkle over herbs & spices.
- Pop into the oven (I heat mine to about 190 degrees celsius) and cook to taste - I usually cook mine for about 20 minutes so that they become soft & golden but still retain their shape.
- Pull the tray out of the oven, sprinkle ricotta over the top and pop back into the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
Nestled amongst terraces in the leafy backstreets of Paddington, last week I trekked my way up a damp, grey Oxford Street to Atlantis Hair. After a horrendous week at work I arrived wet, tired, and cranky, and although I was feeling far from my perkiest I was determined to keep my long anticipated appointment at Atlantis to try out the latest cult haircare range, O&M (Original & Mineral).
Well - after a delicious glass of organic white wine, about 500 magazines, the world’s greatest head massage, and some banter about Mardi Gras, I left with the glossiest, softest, healthiest head of hair I have ever had, and I was feeling good. Really good. From root to tip my experience with Atlantis was superb - I loved the attentive, warm service and buzzing atmosphere, and the chic & cozy salon which was filled with the delicious scents of O&M’s dreamy products.
I’m one of those annoying hairdresser clients that usually arrives without really knowing what I want, but with a very firm idea about what I don’t want and a general expectation that I will leave looking fabulous. My colourist, Wayne, managed to pin down what I (subconsciously) wanted with a few questions (Do you want people to see you tomorrow and know that you’ve coloured your hair, or do you just want them to think you’ve done something different but nothing obvious? (The latter). What are you like with maintaining your hair? (Bad. Very bad)). We decided on some piecy caramel highlights just underneath the top layer of hair to add some soft colour and texture without looking ‘done’ - and zero worry about regrowth. The most pleasant part of the whole experience was that there was none of that eye prickling, scalp burning, nose ticking stench that usually comes with permanent hair colour, as O&M colour is formulated without the harsh chemicals of their conventional counterparts, such as paraphenylenediamine, resorcinol and ammonia. After the highlights I also had a gloss applied, and my hair can now compete with Rose Byrne’s for the world’s shiniest hair.
Atlantis owner Alan Buki tended to my trim and gave my fine hair volume, shape and movement. What I am most pleased about is how my hair has been post-hairdresser: it’s very easy to love your hair after it’s been professionally blow-dried and styled, another thing altogether to feel the same way after at-home (very amateur) styling. After two washes my hair is just as soft, silky and glossy as when I stepped out of the salon, and the shape has held beautifully.
I left with an arsenal of beautiful products to try at home - shampoo & conditioner for fine hair, ‘Rootalicious’ volumising root spray, a thickening spray & a shine serum. All O&M products smell absolutely incredible, and are high quality, hard working products that do what they say. I’ll post separate, in depth reviews of each of the products after I’ve used them for a while.
I can’t recommend Atlantis and O&M highly enough - they deliver the hat trick of hair that looks good, feels good and smells good!
If you can’t get to Paddington, search for a salon that uses O&M products here (it’s available in Australia, US and New Zealand), and the range is also available to buy through Adore Beauty, which ships internationally.
*My appointment with Atlantis was arranged free of charge by O&M for my honest review.
