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.  

Review: bareMinerals Shine On Palette

At the moment feel unique (click on link and type "OUTLET" into search bar - awesome offers on there at the moment) are doing a sale on loads of beauty & fragrance. I've recently bought Dior Pure Poison 30ml EDP for £23.50, a Lancôme Gloss In Love lipgloss for £10 and now bareMinerals Shine On palette for a mere £12.49!

It comes with a glittery gold purse and the palette itself is rather large, very shiny/reflective gold colour and prone to fingerprints so it looks grubby quickly. Inside there are two eyeshadows, a blush, a lipgloss, a waterproof eyeliner pencil, an eyeshadow primer, a little blusher brush and a double ended sponge applicator. 

Top: Glitterati eyeshadow swatch, a shimmery pale pink/gold.

Bottom: Center Stage eyeshadow swatch, a blackened plum with microfine red glitter (that can't be seen in this picture, apologies).

The Big Break blusher swatch, a muted shimmery pale pink/gold, very similar to Glitterati. It's buildable and pretty for a naturally flushed look. 

Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in 'A-Lister' swatch, a sheer pink gloss with a golden sheen.

Round the Clock Waterproof Eyeliner in '4pm', a deep, dark purple. Looks brighter on the waterline than it does on the upper lash line. 

Prime Time Brightening Eyelid Primer on my eyelid. It's a shimmery gold primer to prevent creasing and keep your shadow looking more vibrant. Looks great on its own. 

This is my makeup on. Shimmery blush alert! 

Ok, down to the review: 

I really like this palette and everything in it. Centre Stage eyeshadow is very pigmented, but tends to blend out and loses it's beautiful plummy colour. Despite that, it's versatile and can be layered to create a sultry smokey look. The lipgloss is mint flavoured (I've never liked mint lip glosses but gotten used to them) and quite long lasting but loses it's sheer-pink colour quickly so it might best be used over a lipstick for maximum shimmer-effect.

The blusher needs to be built up on light/medium skin for it to show but once it has it looks natural (but very shimmery).

The eyeliner is fantastic. It lasts for around 5hrs on my waterline; once it sets it takes a lot to get it off. 

The primer is also pretty good, it looks great on it's own and the eyeshadow over the top didn't crease for 8-9hrs which is pretty darn good. 

Summary: I really like this palette, it's portable, lightweight (although a little chunky and too big to fit in little handbags/purses - just thought y'all should know), the colours are neutral, shimmery and absolutely perfect for spring and summer. Total bargain at just £12.50, worth the money and the colours are great. 

Finding sweat proof/resistant makeup

So as you may or may not know, I'm going on holiday at the end of June, and this is the first time I'll have been on holiday abroad since I was eighteen. A looooong time ago... So I've been on a search for lightweight, high SPF makeup that will withstand a temperature that could break me out into a sweat, which to be honest isn't hard considering I'm very overweight. Also I like to stay matte as I have a very oily t-zone.

So! I found some little beauties (some old, some new finds) that might possibly withstand my upcoming challenge...

Left to right: 17 CC Cream SPF 25 (matte radiance, shade medium), 17 Miracle Matte Skin Primer, 17 Stay Time Concealer (shade light), 17 Miracle Matte Pressed Powder (shade Silky Beige), 17 SuperLash Mascara (colour Black).

Underneath: Bourjois Color Boost Lip Crayon SPF 15 (waterproof, shade Red Island) 

So I applied all these products (yes there are a lot of 17 products here, I know), spritzed my face with two pumps of Mac Fix+ and took a photo.

Photo taken at 11:20pm. I'm about to put this makeup to my new workout test. I've recently bought an exercise bike & have been doing 40 minutes cycling every day (low impact sport that doesn't hurt my back) at low resistance (because I'm fat and unfit). It makes me sweat. A lot. Let the challenge begin!!

Photo taken at 00:02am. As you can see that from a distance of around 18/20 inches, my face still appears to look ok. The red of my face at the high points of my cheeks is starting to show but not too much. 

Close up of my cheek. Here you can see visible sweat marks running down my cheeks from my temple. I rubbed across my cheek gently after taking the pic and they smoothed right out.

To be honest I'm pretty impressed. Forty minutes of sweating like a little pig staring at a butchers shop and my face has pretty much made it without a problem. Whether or not it'll last an entire day of sweating is another thing entirely, but it's a viable option for working out and the face products are definitely coming with me on holiday. 

FYI: This makeup is not tear proof. I watched a film, bawled my eyes out and then had to remove my makeup because my tears had removed my CC Cream & Powder on their way down my face, ha ha Xx

Passport Photo Day FAIL

I need to renew my passport. I am going on holiday in just over three months, and I realised that not only had mine run out, my surname has changed because I got married. Yes, fine, I know it was almost 5yrs ago, shame on me, but still!

So I decided that today was the day. I wanted my face to look natural but couldn't bear the idea of going 'au naturel', so I cheated. Just a little bit... 

I used the above products to make my face a little more even. I also used two coats of mascara and coloured in my brows... 

Picture above taken with iPhone 4S 8mp camera in natural lighting.

See? No blusher, no contouring, nothing at all that would give away the fact that I was wearing any makeup (maybe except the eyebrows)...

Feeling naturally confident, I walked into town, went to my local photo place and paid for 4 passport photos. I was sat down and then the guy picked up a digital camera, took a photo and asked me if I liked it. I looked and decided it looked alright (come on, who looks fabulous in their passport photo? In my last one I looked like I was on drugs), so I nipped into town, waited 30 minutes and then went back to get my photos. I continued around town, then walked home, then opened my envelope to check out my passport photo's.

And then this happened...

Look at my frikkin' eyelashes!!! Since when did another 8 layers of mascara attach itself miraculously to my lashes in the 15 minute walk to town? Y'know, normally I'm all for having super thick lashes - I'd love to have lashes that are that thick - but these look fake, and the photo's were useless and couldn't be used for my passport! Waste of money! By the time I got home, saw these and then got back down there to ask if they could be re-taken, it'd closed for the day... Pissed off I am... 

Tomorrow I will have to get my photo taken again. Hopefully my lashes won't look fake in the next photos :(

Review: Seventeen Miracle MATTE skin primer

I have a super oily T-Zone, so mattifying primers are always welcome in my life. My skin becomes so oily so quickly that around 98% of the time I wear Milk of Magnesia underneath a primer on my face so my foundation will last over a few hours without becoming an oily mess. So when I saw this little tube in my local Boots, claiming a very bold 22hr shine free face, I picked it up and took it home to try. 

So this is what the tube looks like. See the 22hr Shine Control claim? I had to test this! 

It's a small 15ml tube but I love the tiny nozzle so you won't squeeze out too much - so no waste. Thumbs up!

This is what the primer looks like fresh out of the tube. 

Here the primer partially rubbed in. It's gone clear and slightly glossy. 

And here it's dried down to a solidly matte finish. Promising... 

So this promises to keep my skin shine free for 22 hours. This is a bold claim. To keep this test as fair as possible, I took some steps to help the primer along as much as I could. 

1: I used a light moisturiser for oily skin.

2: Then I put this primer on my T-Zone & cheeks closest to my nose.

3: I used L'Oreal Infallible 24hr stay fresh foundation.

4: Lastly I set my makeup with Rimmel Translucent Stay Matte powder. 

This is my face, at 7pm, makeup freshly applied and set. 

Ok this photo was taken at 1am, 6hrs later. As you can see my T-Zone has become slightly shiny, but not so much that I feel the need to blot or add more powder. 

Another picture taken at 4am, 9hrs after initial application. 

A close up of my nose at 4am. Oily alert! 

A close up of my inner cheek. Yikes! Fried eggs, anyone? Haha! 

After 9hrs I need to blot/add powder, for sure. This primer definitely did not hold up on my oily T-Zone, even though I took steps to help it as much as I could. 22hrs? More like 5. Despite this, my foundation actually held up surprisingly well considering how oily my face became.  

My thoughts: Considering it couldn't stand up to my crazy oily face, it actually isn't bad, and it's pretty affordable at just £4.99. I really like the texture and I reckon that when it's put over a thin layer of Milk of Magnesia, my foundation will last for at least 10hrs without any meltdown. If I'm wrong I'll let you know. Definitely looking forward to using this in the near future. 4/5