Parabens in makeup and skin care

I'm sorry but I'm really frustrated and want to rant.
I love buying makeup and skin care products. I spend literally hundreds of pounds on it yearly, but trying to find paraben free makeup, skin care, body lotion and anti-ageing products is no walk in the park - it's more like an uphill ice skating competition. You may ask why I want to avoid parabens... So now I'm going to tell you...

Parabens are used as anti fungals in lotions, eyeshadows, pressed powders, toothpaste, mouthwash, foundations, moisturisers, anti-ageing creams, lipsticks, concealers, shampoo, spf sun creams/lotions, hand creams, perfumes - the list goes on. Their basic job is to help prevent *insert paraben-containing product here* from 'going off' and keeping the product fresher for longer. Sounds good, right?

Wrong.

There have been recent scientific studies, especially on methylparaben. This particular little nasty has been creeping into our bodies and doing all sorts of nefarious things without us even knowing. It has oestrogen like properties - it mimics oestrogen - which has been found in breast cancer cells/tissue, and it is under investigation whether methylparaben and breast cancer may be possibly linked.
When it is absorbed by the skin, it bypasses the metabolism, which can be a real problem; because of it mimicking oestrogen, men that use lotions on their bodies that contains methylparaben are at risk of infertility. A study also showed that men that used a paraben lotion on their skin had parabens present in their blood and urine for a long time after.

Ok, so that's men covered. Let's get to the beauty side of this...

Scientific studies show that 19% of skin cells that contain methylparaben, when exposed to UVB light, de-oxiginate and die, destroying the DNA of the cells in the process. It causes premature ageing. Parabens in eye drops damages the lining of your eyes and even causes cornea damage too. 

Worried yet?

I'm terrified.

This stuff is absorbed easily into our skin. It is put in anti-ageing products, sun creams, skin care lotions, and a massive variety of makeup.

And before people even bother to say "Oh, but the amounts in the products are hardly enough to cause those kind of problems! Don't be so dramatic!", I have to point out this:
Say you use a paraben containing shampoo, body lotion, facial moisturiser, hand cream, foundation, blusher, pressed powder, primer, eyeshadow and lipstick every single day... Imagine how many parabens are being absorbed on a daily basis. Now times that by how many days over how many years you've kept that routine, and then add how much time you've spent in the sun, possibly adding the amount of paraben-containing SPF sun cream you've used... And voila. 

Ooookay. Rant over. Many apologies but it's been slowly driving me crazy.

Review: Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet 03 Hot Pepper

You know I'm a huge fan of red lips. It's a lip colour that never seems to go out of fashion, and I hope it never does, so when I stumbled across this little beauty, I knew I had to have it. 

It's kind of a small tube, around the length of my thumb, but I really like how sturdy it feels. 

A quick swatch on the back of my hand... I love this colour, it's an orange-based red, and because I wear fake tan, this colour is best suited to me (without fake tan I need blue-based reds).

The application is easy enough, and it doesn't set so fast that you don't have time to play around with it. But once it is dry, it goes beautifully matte without drying out my lips. This is a big thing for a matte lip colour. Every matte lipstick/lip colour I've ever tried has made me go running for my lip balm, with ill-made promises never to do it again.

This lipstick states it has "light texture, extreme comfort and 24hr hold". 

I love putting these things to the test - let's do this!

 Above: my lips after 6hrs. I'd had two cups of tea and a huge Sunday roast. It actually looked better from a distance (my camera was around 4-5 inches from my lips) and still felt comfortable. 

Above: my lips after almost 8hrs. It definitely wore away on the insides of my lips and at that point I decided to take it off with an oil-based makeup remover. 

Light texture: Most definitely. 

Extreme comfort: It wore comfortably for a long period of time without drying out my lips (now that is comfort to me).

24hr hold: That's always a very bold claim, but for it to hold up through eating and drinking and still look pretty darn good, well, let's just say I'm pretty impressed. 

Love Alpha Mascara Fibre Mascara Review

Oh my goodness, I haven't blogged in forever! I've kind of lost my YouTube mojo at the moment; I've lost my inspiration to film videos.

BUT! I have a mascara that'll lengthen your lashes more than you could imagine and for less than £5! Still reading? I hope so... 

This is the case. I don't much care for leopard print but I'm sure there are plenty out there that would appreciate it more than myself. It is pretty sturdy and hard wearing though, that much I can say. 

Inside we have two wands. The longer one at the back is a 'transplanting gel', basically a black mascara, and the shorter wand contains the fibre wand. 

Above: a close up of the transplanting gel/mascara wand.

Above: a close up of the fibre wand.

Ok, so the skinny of this is to use the mascara wand first, then brush on the fibres, then go back over with the mascara to lengthen your lashes. You can, if you want, add another coat of fibres and then add another coat of mascara for extra long lashes. 

Ok! Now that's out of the way!  

Above: bare, uncurled lashes.

Above: one coat of transplant gel.

Above: coat of fibres over the lashes.

Above: second coat of transplanting gel to lengthen the lashes. 

Above: on the left, eyelashes with two coats of mascara. On the right, Love Alpha mascara/fibre duo. 

My thoughts? Well, for around £4 this is a steal. You can buy them from eBay or aliexpress.com (the latter is cheaper but it'll take longer to arrive). There are other mascaras out there that do the exact same thing but cost £35, so this is worth the money. However, the transplanting gel goes thick and gloopy quite fast with repeated use, which makes it less effective for the fibres to hold on to. That being said, you can buy 4 or 5 for around £20, so I reckon you still get your money's worth. 

I personally have been through around 8 of these Love Alpha duo mascara's so far, and I will continue to buy them because they work wonders for me.