OOTD - Tartan & Fuzzy Jumpers

Hey m'lovies! So recently the lovely Becca started a new series on her blog and was looking for people to take part in it and seeing as the first week was styling a tartan piece I thought I'd give it a go! I'm so happy that tartan is making a comeback it's probably one of my favorite patterns to style because it gives any outfit this slightly punk rock edge and with me being really into more edgy rocker styles it always a plus in my books!

 

Bowler Hat - Camden Market

Fluffy Oversized Jumper - New Look

Tartan Skirt - New Look

Tights - Dorothy Perkins

Boots - Ebay

Sorry this post was a day late, I'm actually typing this on the tenth but I'm waiting for the day the blog feature goes up over on Becca's blog to upload the pictures over on this site. Don't worry though I've got some really awesome stuff planned for October, it's going to be a busy month and I can't wait to share it all with you!

Love & TubTubs

Ombré Hair Care

Hello m'lovelies! So as most of you are aware about two months ago I gave in and got on the ombré hair bandwagon. That in itself was an experience and a half as sticking bleach on the ends of jet black hair is never too advisable, but surprisingly it kinda worked and my hair didn't snap off (always a good sign in the land of hairdressing I assume)! So other then a couple of slightly ginger low lights my hair is actually still holding up well due to a few extra haircare steps I've put in place that I thought I'd share with you lovely lot.

So the main bulk of this blog post will be the products I've been using on my hair, as much as I'd love to tell

you all that having healthy bleached hair can be achieved through no heat styling and silk pillowcases alone we all know that's just not happening (science can do wonderful things now though so maybe it'll get cracking on that soon!). However, I'm also a student so alas I don't have £200 to spend on the finest of hair masks so here's my little combination that I've got going that isn't going to completely obliterate the bank

• Tresemmé thermal creations shampoo and conditioner
• John Freda frizz ease serum
• SP Luxe oil
• Tangle teaser
• Batiste dry shampoo

 Now I'm going to answer the obvious two questions. Firstly, why use shampoos designed for heat damaged hair when you're not actually using heat on your hair? The simple answer to this is that products formulated for heat damaged hair are almost identical as ones for dry hair, in short, they put much needed moisture back into your hair. Secondly, Luxe oil is expensive you said this wouldn't break the bank? Okay now I know to some people SP products aren't expensive but to me they cost a little more then I'd like to be spending on my hair. My oil was actually gifted to me by my mum but it works so well I will go out and repurchase it once I've used up the bottle. If this product is out of your price range however don't panic as this step of the routine can be replaced with a hot oil treatment every now and then (I highly recommend the VO5 ones).

Right, I'm not going to go on describing how to use these products or this will become a never ending post, besides it's shampoo and oil...pretty self explanatory. Saying that though would you guys be interested in a full review of the Luxe Oil  as I have plenty to say about it, let me know in the comments! As for other general things I do to reduce breakage is by brushing my hair with hairbrushes designed for thin and tangled hair and also minimizing the amount I wash my hair. I will warn you guys though, we're not in the festival season anymore & batiste will only get you so far so there will come a point where you need to actually wash your hair!

The bottom line is that ombré will damage your hair and contrary to popular belief you can't repair your hair once it's split. However, you can minimize the damage by taking good care of your hair with products suited to it and generally being more careful when it comes to your hair. So please stop yanking your hairbrushes through wet hair...please?

Love & TubTubs

Ombré Adventures; Part One

Hey there m'lovelies! So today has been a bleh day in England and after weeks of glorious sunshine the good old English weather has returned and it is chucking it down outside! With no plans for the day and not wanting to go outside in the torrential downpour I decided to do the obvious thing and ombré my hair! Now I've had a few bizarre hair colours in the past from pink to an accidental mouldy green situation but since entering the world of employment the crazy hair had to go out the window and I returned to my regular black hair that I’ve sported on and off for the past seven years.

As you can imagine seven years of black hair dye build up isn't going to be the easiest thing to get out so I knew I was going to be in for some hair torture, however I don't have the best attitude with my hair that being "It'll grow back if something goes wrong" so with that mindset off I went!

The final slightly ginger product!

So my tactic for this was pretty unconventional, i.e. there wasn't one and I just made it up as I went along. I'd used powder bleach before so I mixed it up the powder and developer to a good consistency loaded it up onto my brush and slapped it onto the ends of my hair. My main goal was to avoid the dodgy straight line effect so after I painted the bleach onto the front and back of my hair (and across my shirt) I used my fingers to massage the bleach into the hair blurring out the line then just left it on for 20 minutes. After that time had passed I noticed it had little effect on my hair so left it on for a further 25 minutes before washing it out, when I washed it out I couldn't even see the lighter sections of hair but once I'd left it to dry my hope was restored as I had a ginger tinge to the ends of my hair.

On goes the bleach!

I then repeated the process later that evening to lighten the hair further (not advisable if you want lovely healthy hair) for half hour and this lifted it to a distinct brown/ginger which I'm happy to go around with for now and have decided to give my hair a break for a while before I try and lighten it further. My main points for anyone considering this is to definitely blend out the lines when applying the bleach and also ensure you're using and old towel to dry your hair as after finishing mine looked like this...

So I hope this post has been insightful for some of you for a less conventional way of achieving the ombré effect, because you know there clearly aren’t enough blog posts and videos on the subject... I'll keep you guys updated when I lighten it further and put the purple in and we'll see if my hair stays in my head aha!

Until next time, Love & TubTubs

Models Own Review

Hey Guys!
So after getting my results back for my chemistry ISA to find I'd actually gotten a really good grade (after crying hysterically to anyone that would listen about how I'd failed and was going nowhere in life) I decided it was a perfect opportunity (excuse) to go do some shopping, after all it was a well deserved reward. So within a few hours my 86% had somehow converted itself to about £86 I was walking through the streets of Guildford quite a happy bunny. Within my grade induced shopping I decided to pick up a Models Own nail varnish that I'd seen a swatch for online, however after scouring Boots for about half hour I'd concluded that they didn't have the polish I was after (Emerald Black where are you!?) but I had managed to pick up four other ever so pretty polishes...it happens to the best of us right?

Top Left; Indian Ocean. Top Right; Purple Blue. Bottom Left; Mystic Mauve. Bottom Right; Boogie Nights

Now normally I'm the kind of person that doesn't have the time of day for my nails; firstly I'm a recovering nail biter so my nails are never looking to happy regardless of which color I've splashed across them. Secondly; I'm a very impatient bugger and I find sitting about for 20 minutes flapping your hands about quite the chore. However, lately I've found that if I keep my nails painted I don't bite them so I'm trying to make much more of an effort when it comes to my fingers. As you can see above the colors I picked up all have some sort of purple in them but I think they're different enough to justify buying all four so lets not dwell on that fact.

My first impression of these polishes wasn't the best as when I put a single coat of "Purple Blue" on my not so willing boyfriends finger (as I was too impatient to get home and take of my own nail varnish) it just looked a bit brown and bleh, not the amazing effect I wanted after hearing so many great things about these polishes. However, when I got home I applied the same colour with a base coat, top coat and two coats of colour, little excessive? Probably. Worth it? Yes. I will say though that despite having four layers of varnish on my nails they didn't feel thick or plastic-ey (is that a word...it is now) which is a nice bonus.

When I uploaded a picture of the polishes to my Facebook I did receive a comment saying how my friend and fellow blogger had a negative experience with these saying they chipped off really easily so I decided to put this to the test by wearing them to work. Now I'm only a sales assistant, however today we got a delivery in so my whole shift consisted of heavy lifting, tag gunning, typing and general hand abuse so I was expecting loads of little chips over my nails. To my pleasure I only had one chip in total and that was on the nail that I'd messed up when painting so reapplied that morning in a single coat of colour and no top coat so I think we can let them off on that one.

To summarize; these varnishes are awesome. They stay put once dry with minimal chipping so unless you're planning on fighting a t-rex or massaging a cheese grater I'd say you're good to go as far as longevity is concerned. They come in an array of pretty colors therefore sadly most stores don't sell the whole collection so it's worth checking out their website. They're only £5 each so won't break the bank, word of warning though when I went shopping Boots were having a sale on all their cosmetics.In turn this led me to go a little crazy and buy double of everything I intended to, because you know that's economical...!

Sorry I've got no swatches of these actually on my fingers but as I said my hands aren't the prettiest at the moment with exams coming up and combined with the fact my camera is currently having a little hissy fit it just wasn't going to work out. The website however have a whole page dedicated for peoples swatches though so go there for nail art and swatch galore! www.modelsownit.com.

Until next time!