Beauty by a Sparrow

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Desperately, the week of my twenty-second birthday, I attempted to re-dye my blonde roots by myself. Me, with no hair experience – me, who is not a hair dresser, and does not have any kind of colour or toning skills, me who is impatient as all heck…. You can imagine what happened.

So I literally rang in 2016 at my hairdressers on New Year’s Eve getting my blonde fixed, and New Year’s Day showing everyone a ‘new me’. So cliché, I know, but hey, gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do when HER HAIR IS PURPLE.

I don’t know entirely how I managed to dye my hair orange and purple, but there we go. See the pictographic evidence below and feel my pain friends, feel, my, pain.

My lovely colourist ran a toner through my hair, and essentially colour corrected the orange and purple. Little bit of a trim because I managed to fry my ends. (See when I say disaster it ain't hyperbole.)

 

The New Year inspires people to do a lot of stupid, stupid things – from drinking too much champagne, to making resolutions we all know we won’t keep, to drastic changes as a means of coping with life changing. Again, very cliché, but the lesson I learnt the hard way was that you don’t get to skip change or recovery and get right to the shiny brand new you after a tough break. You need to give it time, and space, and if all else fails, a colourist who really knows her stuff.

Hello my little birds! In my last post I mentioned some Swisse cleansers and creams, so I thought I should elaborate!

Around August last year I was lucky enough to win a Priceline competition, by Swisse, with  over $150 worth of products. I’ve been slowly working my way through all of them, because I actually got that much it’s been hard to handle!

I’ve been using the Swisse Purify Cream Face Cleanser each morning and night, alternating with the Swisse Polish Face Exfoliant. Whilst I’ve enjoyed the Swisse cleanser, I think I much prefer St. Ives’ Apricot scrub as a facial exfoliant. Whilst the Swisse Polish works, and doesn’t upset my skin, I just don’t feel it cleans as thoroughly as the St. Ives’ brand scrubs.

The Swisse Body Scrub arrived just in time, as I’d run out of my Soap & Glory Breakfast Oats scrub. If you can’t tell from the photo, I’ve nearly used the entire tube, and unfortunately that’s not because I love, love, love it. Whilst it’s gentle and doesn’t upset sensitive skin, I found that to get off fake tan, or to really see a difference in the texture of my skin, or to really see a difference, I had to use more of the product than I would of my other scrub. I would probably re-purchase it for use during summer, when my skin can be a little more sensitive due to sun exposure.

The Swisse Recovery Anti-Ageing Night Cream is wonderful, though I do have a slight issue with the scent. Whilst I know there are no fake fragrances or perfumes in Swisse products, the natural scent of hibiscus took quite a while to get used to. In terms of the general feel of the cream, it’s soothing and thick, and my skin feels plumped up and fresher when I wake up.

I haven’t opened the Swisse Hand Cream with Vitamin F and Pomegranate, simply because I’ve still got my Vaseline cream and my Palmers lotion on the go, and opening a third hand cream seems like a bit of overkill. From what I can smell, though, the hand cream isn’t kidding about the pomegranate scent. I’m hoping it’s not a repeat of the hibiscus in the night cream, however, as that took me a good three weeks to get used to, and obviously a product on your hands during the day could be a tad more overpowering than I’d like.

Speaking of products on your hands, I’ve been using the rose hip oil on and off to combat my psoriasis and dry skin during the day, and night. I try to avoid using the oil when I’m working, as the oil could obviously stain fabrics such as silk, but when I’m at home or before I go to sleep, I’ll rub about two drops of the oil on my fingers and rub it into my palms.

I haven’t yet used the Swisse Bioactive Nature Oil, as it claims to do a lot of the things my Palmers Cocoa Butter Firming cream does. When I go through my bottle of that, I may start to use the Bioactive Oil, to compare.

 And that’s it! Thank you again to Priceline and Swisse for my incredible prize, all of the products are of such a high quality and I really do enjoy using all of them each day to feel natural and beautiful.

Until next time my little birds,
Tweet twee xx

P.S. I DID A COLLABORATION! With The Little Red Blogger! Go check out her amazing work and the interview we did together, it was so, so much fun, and her blog is INCREDIBLE!

http://thelittleredblogger.com/