Beauty: Where To Splurge

Having a beauty blog, following blogs, watching YouTube videos or even being a girl for that matter, puts you in a place of great temptation to go out and shop. Oh if you only knew how much time I spend scrolling through the ASOS app ... It is not surprising that for most of us there is surely a careful consideration before spending our earned money on something. So today I decided to share with you where I normally spend a few more of my pennies and why. 

When it comes to beauty, skincare products are something which I normally won't budge on. There are great drugstore skincare ranges but given that my skin can sometimes be quite unpredictable, I often reach out for more high end brands to get the job done. If you have good skin then everything will look good on you (almost) - that's my motto. 

Foundation is another big statement when it comes to spend a few extra pounds. Again, there are great products for all skin types, coverage and purpose at the drugstore! Revlon ColorStay, Bourjois Healthy Mix foundation, L'Oreal Paris Infallible Matte Foundation are a few of my favourites. I  personally feel that a high end foundation will back you up even at your worst (skin) times. 

Eye-shadow palettes are for me a great way of having a variety of options all in one place. They seem indeed rather expensive however, if you think about the fact that a Maybelline Color Tattoo is about 5 pounds, a Urban Decay Naked pallete with 12 shades at 38 pounds works out quite well - just as an example. 

Primers. A good primer can perform so many miracles when your complexion is just not collaborating much. In this category I stay a little divided as I am currently loving some much less expensive primers from the drugstore. Although I can only say wonders about the more high end ones I've tried in the past. My love for the Clarins Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch is still very much alive. 

And finally, brushes. These can be a hit and miss in my opinion. I reckon it is more a matter of brand rather than high end or drugstore. I mean, no one denies how great the Real Techniques brushes are. We all have a great love affair for them. 

What products do you normally splurge on?

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Origins GinZing Refreshing Scrub Cleanser - A Skin Saviour

As I mentioned before in this post, I have a normal to oily skin and for most of my life my complexion has been very clear until I changed to a contraceptive injection - I went through this here. Long story short, my skin had hit rock bottom and this product from Origins was the only thing that saved it. I first reached out for this at a time that only god knows why but my skin was SO dry it felt like scrapping paper. The very helpful assistant at the Origins counter at John Lewis suggested this daily scrub as well as the High Potency Night-A-Mins for night time moisture. The combination worked wonders and my skin went back to normal. 

But now my concern was different. I started to have numerous tiny spots all over my skin. They were very visible but they were there and you could definitely feel them. Just as if my face was covered with sand which wouldn't come off. 

After trying every cleanser, moisturiser and acne treatments, I decided to repurchase the Origins GinZing Refreshing Scrub Cleanser as I could at least remember how clear and bright my complexion was when I was using it. And it lived up to the hype. I know it may seem a little exaggerate but in all truthfulness, after the very first use, I could feel my forehead much less bumpy and the tiny spots had definitely been reduced and my complexion was overall smother and brighter. 

All in all this is a beautiful gentle scrub which can be used every day, twice a day without drying out your skin. The properties of the panax ginseng (promoting skin cell regeneration) and the coffee beans (bright up dull complexion) are in my opinion very visible as your skin looks immediately luminous and energized. 

Have you tried this? What is your favourite range from origins?

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My Thoughts On: The Contraceptive Injection

Every once in a while I am hoping to do a different type of posts which will be a little more personal and that will reflex my opinion and experience in specific situations or subjects. I hereby must declare that I am no expert in any given topics however I truly believe that some times it's good to hear or read from someone who has been there or done it before and what are their thoughts. After all, isn't what we do - everyday - when we read our holy beauty blogs? And I couldn't be more grateful for them. 

The subject is not the most conventional on this one. Contraception surely is not a topic that we just pick over lunch or drinks with friends but is still present in our everyday lives. In my case, as any other gal, I used to take the pill and had always been very responsible about it. So when I heard about a contraceptive injection that would enable you to forget about contraception during a whole period of 12 weeks ... I was thrilled. 

I am not going to go into a very detailed description of this as if interested, you can always have a look through the NHS website. However, I can tell you that my selling point to try this method was the fact that most women would stop having a period altogether. It is ridiculous but we all know well how much hassle that time of the month is for us. So, I went to my GP and after a short chat about what this is, side effects and other options of contraception, I then started taking the injection every 3 months. Everything was going well until I started to notice some of the side effects. They warn you for some breast tenderness but in my case it reach the point of me not being able to sleep on my side with my arm on top of my breast. But the worst was the acne and that's why I decided to write this post. I wish I had been able to have access to more testimonials rather than just the standard list of side effects which come with the injection itself. 

My once clean and clear complexion became more spotty than ever. And unfortunately they weren't just the regular superficial spots ... it was that under skin, enormous and painful acne. Nothing would clear my skin. Nothing that I had used before, nothing new that I decided to try. I had never seen my skin in such a bad state. In the beginning I didn't care much and didn't even connected both things. It wasn't until I had tried every product under the sun that I started to think what had changed and when was it that I started the path to destruction of my complexion. I now decided not to take the injection anymore as I don't think the side effects are worth the rest. Specially when your skin ends up in such a bad state that you don't even feel good about yourself. 

Now my skin is finally clearing up and I just wish I had stop this method sooner. Bare in mind, not everyone reacts the same way and I'm merely expressing my experience so it will perhaps serve as a reference for someone else. 

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Skin Types

When I first started purchasing skincare products I didn't even know about the existence of different skin types. Back then, I was just a teenager wearing some concealer and a black Kohl pencil under my waterline and wanted something to wash my face. These were exactly my thoughts. Scary right? Brands such as Clearasil and Clean and Clear were great at that age. When that stopped working I moved on to Garnier face washes. This was all alright at the time as I've always been lucky with my complexion and my skin has been very clear with the occasional breakout. Maybe it was because I wasn't really wearing that much make-up so when that changed, so did my skin. Fast forwarding to now, my skincare choices changed a whole lot. I surely don't just pick some random face wash and I actually try to maintain a skincare routine.

I find important to talk about skin types as this has major influence on the products we should be buying. Nowadays, the blogs we read, the videos we watch on YouTube and all the reviews which are now available at the distance of a simple click will impact the choices we make. Surely having the opinion of someone who has tried the product is rather helpful but in my case, before I go by someone else's opinion, I always make sure to know their skin type too and if that particular product could suit me too. I find that this goes not only for skincare but some make-up as well.

Therefore, for future reference in this blog, I would consider myself to have a normal to oily skin. In a warm environment I can be sure to expect my make-up to melt away and a lot of shine. Heat is obviously something that completely brings up the oily side of my skin and then breakouts happen. Good thing I live in Scotland and warm weather is something we haven't been blessed with. However, the fact that my part-time job includes many hours of me running about ... doesn't help. So there are a few steps that I always try to do to prevent things from going the wrong way and keep my skin at its best. These include having a steady skincare routine and choosing the right products. I'm sure we all can agree that in order to even being able to do this and to know what it's best for our skin, we must be able to identify our skin type.

What about you guys, how long did it take for you to find out your actually skin type? What's your must-do to keep your skin happy?

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