Getting fit without the price-tag!

As it's less than five months until I get married, I've started an exercise regime to firm up before the big day, as with any bride to be I want to look and feel amazing! I've opted not to join a gym, what with saving for a house and paying for a wedding, I decided not to spend any money on things I didn't essentially need. Instead I have been doing exercises from home to get into shape, Not only have I pinned some workouts on Pinterest. I recently came across NHS 10-minute exercises, which are great and so easy to do....well that is until the next day when you can definitely feel it! If you're looking to get in shape check out the link, they describe each exercise in details and have photos. My favourite routine at present is the legs, bums and tums with the firm butt a close second. At first I found it difficult to motivate myself to get out of my nice snug warm bed, especially when it's still dark out. A month in and I can honestly say I'm enjoying it and more determined than ever! I've even upped my morning workout to do 3 of the 10-minute workouts. "I WILL GET TONED" is my permanent mantra for the next 5 months. Prior to starting my exercises I took photographs and just before the wedding I'll take some more so maybe nearer the time you'll see the before and after photos.

It doesn't take long to get motivated so why not give it a go!?

Cleanser Vs Makeup Wipes

Now this is something I have discussed in depth with many clients and fellow beauty therapists.

The question I often get asked is why use a cleanser when makeup wipes are much easier to use? The answer is simple, cleanser actually removes the dirt from your face and allows the skin to breath. Makeup wipes, on the other hand also remove dirt but also push the excess makeup into your pores, which in turn can turn to blackheads. It really is that simple! There various types of cleansers available on the market that you can try but ultimately it is up to you type you use. I personally use the Ark age prepare foaming cleanser as you can really feel it working plus I like to use it in the shower and kill two birds with one stone! You can also get oil, balm, cream & milk cleanser along with many more. Now is the time to start looking after your skin and giving it the TLC it deserves, so why wait!

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an email I'm more than happy to help :) x

Christmas cocktails with friends

They say the best nights are the ones that aren't planned, I went out last night with my sister and good friend Dylan for one drink......which then turned into several, as I'm writing this I am feeling a little on the ropey side but it was worth it!
As my sister works in Shoreditch we went to Barrio East and took full advantage of the happy hour cocktails, My favourite being the Pina Colada, it was delicious. If you haven't been before it's a really quirky bar with plenty of drinks to choose from, it even has a camper van inside. After trying out the majority of the cocktail menu, we decided to walk to Liverpool Street Station and made a quick pit stop into the Weatherspoons. I left my sister and Dylan at the bar for 5 minutes and returned to a bottle of prosecco, at the bargain price of £14. If you haven't been out in the city before you rarely find prosecco this cheap that's actually nice to drink. Once we had finished we got the underground to Bond Street and made our way to Selfridges, where we went to the rooftop bar. we got a little lost trying to find the lift to take us up there. When you get out of the lift the walkway is decorated beautifully with fairy lights. As we were feeling the Christmas cheer we decided to order gluhwein and then went outside to the terrace where we were given blankets to keep us warm. The view is truly breathtaking, it helped that it was a clear night.
If you're planning on going for a few drinks soon, I  highly recommend the roof top bar. I'm already working out when I can go back!

How to keep a 7 year old occupied!

I recently had my nephew down to stay with me and as I don't see him often, I wanted to make the time we had together fun. As my nephew likes baking we decided to make Honeycomb using the recipe from the BBC website. If you're looking for something simple to make that tastes amazing, this is the answer! There are only three ingredients needed, Sugar, Golden Syrup and bicarbonate of soda. As my nephew likes chocolate we also opted to buy this to coat the honeycomb after. I highly recommend watching the video first, as this gives you some good pointers.The hardest part was waiting half an hour for it to set as we both wanted to eat it straight away!

As well as making honeycomb I bought some Jus-Rol Cinnamon Swirls (we decided to cheat just a little!) Not only do they taste great, I love how easy they are to use! If you haven't tried them before you have to, all you have to do is get the mixture out of the packet cut it into 6 pieces and put them in the oven. My nephew found it exciting watching them rise which occupied him for 10 minutes! Icing them was simple too, it was just a case of getting it the right consistency and showing how to drizzle as opposed to slathering them! They taste delicious when still warm, the ideal start to the morning.

If you've got children, both of the above are so simple and easy to do. The only downside is you end up with a day of eating deserts (not such a bad thing!) But most importantly my nephew really enjoyed himself as you can see in the photo's below!

Chip free for the party season ....Yes please!

It's that time of year when everyone is having their nails done. The question is, do you attempt to paint your nails or do you treat yourself and get them professionally done? If you do decide to pay to have them done you then have to work out what is the best brand/salon to go to, the dilemma's! That's why I've decided to write this post to help you achieve the best result whichever you decide to do.

Let's start with how to make your nail polish last longer...
Having performed many a manicure in my time being a therapist, I've used A LOT of different brands, my favourite's being OPI & Essie, which I find last well and recommend highly for chip free nails. My secret, which many of you may already know, is to make sure you use a good base coat to prevent staining and an even better topcoat to seal the colour. In my opinion the best on the market by far is Seche Vite, which I find stays well for approx 5days (dependant on what you do) some of my clients have gone as long as 2-3 weeks! It's also important to know that prior to painting your nails it's good to give them a little buff and wipe prior to applying and give each coat enough time to dry before putting the next on. I've done a little step by step on how to manicure nails if you would like a copy let me know!



Now if you're going to give yourself a treat and pay.....
With so many gel and acrylic products on the market it's hard to know what the best brands are, it's a minefield to be precise! For those of you that follow me on Instagram or Twitter you will most likely have seen many a photo of nails. The brand I personally use and recommend highly for a beautiful chip-free manicure is a South African brand called Calgel. I truly love the results I get with it, unlike other products it allows your natural nails to respire, which means they won't get damaged providing you don't pick them off! It lasts for up to 4 weeks (depending on how well you look after them) with the added advantage it helps to protect your nails helping them to grow! Plus there is well over 100 colours to choose from, There are so many positives! Although be warned it's addictive, I can guarantee you will never want to be without again!
I've chosen a couple of my favourite autumn nails If you want to know the colours, feel free to drop me a line :) x

Back living at the parents

I wanted to post something slightly different to what I typically write about and decided on writing about moving out of the parents home and back in..... Hope you enjoy!

It's true what they say when you meet the one - you know (I know that's terribly cliche!) After about 3 months Nick moved into my parents and shared my rather box-like room with a small double bed! Although we both get on with my parents well, you can imagine it wasn't the most ideal situation. There's only so many times you have to have a cold shower or hold it in when you're busting for a pee! So a year in and we decided to look for our own place, unfortunately for us it was right in the midst of the credit crunch so banks weren't giving mortgages out as freely as they used to.

As Nick and I didn't have a hefty deposit and at the time we were both in low-paying jobs, we decided to go for a shared ownership scheme with Hightown Homes, on a new build flat situated next to the Kodak building in Hemel Hempstead. At the time shared ownership was a new scheme that had been introduced by the government to help first time buyers, only problem with this was that the only bank that we could get a mortgage with, with a 10% deposit of 25% of the flat was Leeds Building Society, which meant the interest was a little on the expensive side. Once we had got through all the stress of the paperwork, If you haven't already been through this, it's a little on the stressful side (understatement!). The sale went through really quickly and we had moved in within 6 weeks. Now - to furnish the flat, I learnt very quickly not to leave a man in charge of getting furniture....I returned home from work to find a 46inch LED TV and 3 bean bags, oh but wait he had pre-ordered a hoover! We spent most of the next few weeks in IKEA (the place of divorce!) and Wilkinsons, kitting the house out in the most affordable way. I'm glad to see the back of flatpack. I have to say I loved the flat, it was the perfect start and great to have our own space, plus it was only a 2 minute walk into town. A year in and we had a few problems to say the least,  the main one being that the boiler was installed incorrectly and took 10 months to fix, which wasn't ideal as we had a no heating, but they did provide 2 small electric heaters to compensate and a reduction on the rent £30 a month to be precise! 

Word of advice: Although shared ownership seemed like a good idea at the time, had we looked into it a little better, I'm not sure we would have gone for it, as Hightown Homes really are not the most helpful people to deal (understatement) with and they put the service charge up by 100% in 1 year!

Back again!

4 years down the line and planning a wedding! We decided to sell the flat, Luckily for us we sold the flat relatively quick thanks to Navigation Estates, however it took over 3 months to move.

Hightown homes paid nothing towards the legal costs or the estate agents fee, which are based on the total cost of the property not just the 25% that we owned and they charged us £500 to move out! I thought the paperwork was bad when we moved in, well it's probably on par if not worse when you sell a property! Solicitors really are a pain in the backside!  Packing up the flat was a joy as I'm sure you can imagine, a lot of broken nails and bruises. You really do accumulate a lot of rubbish over 4 years, A fair few trips to my parents to offload our boxed up flat and many a visit to the charity shops the flat was nearly empty except the furniture. As we didn't have anywhere to store furniture, we decided to donate it to the YMCA, who were fab they came and collected everything which was great! Once the flat was empty, we spent the next few hours cleaning and of  course it was only right to order our last ever takeaway in the flat! I found moving out of the flat really emotional and dropping the keys off to the estate agents was awful! I'm not quite sure whether it was a combination of knowing that we were back living at my parents where we started or all the lovely memories we had from the flat.

The idea of moving back to the parents was to save some money towards a deposit for a house, 3 months in and we are only just starting to save, who ever knew organising a wedding could be so expensive. The enjoyable parts of living back with the parents is my mum and dad's cooking and the fact they do the washing (I don't miss doing this at all!) The disadvantages are the fact my sisters is back living at home now as well, so there is 5 of us and 1 bathroom, which often leads to arguments in the morning before work! 

Hopefully the next blog post I write about my life will be that we've saved and found a house!

x

Wedding invites........the decisions!

So planning a wedding isn't all glitz and glam, it can actually be a little more on the stressful side to say the least! I'm sure for those of you planning a wedding you'll agree. It helps massively when you find companies that are easy to deal with. I've been looking at invites for some time, but was having difficulty finding ones that I liked and were within the price range. I ordered some samples from Norma & Dorothy, which I loved.

I honestly thought at this point that these were the ones I wanted, but when the quote came in at nearly £400. I had to have a slight rethink as much as I loved them, I couldn't justify spending that

amount of money! After looking at several websites my mum came across Tree Of Hearts. They offer a wide range of invites with some cute and quirky designs with envelope stickers to match and they offer two free samples. They arrived really quickly, which was fab. The invites were lovely, the hardest part was deciding between the two! 

I decided to go for the birds and bunting as I thought the design was slightly more Nick and I. My mum took charge on the wording, after all the invites are from her and my dad.  Once the wording was sorted, a few emails were sent back and forth, all of which were dealt with efficiently by Tree of Hearts. My mum is such a stickler for perfection, needless to say that we had received a fair few proofs! I can't fault the service we received, they were so efficient in getting back to us with updated proofs. We decided to go ahead once everything was perfect.  As we were ordering so many invites, we received free delivery and a 5% discount. The order consisted of day invites, which opened out and then for the evening  guests we went for a double sided postcard design along with some matching stickers to seal the envelopes. We received the order within 3 working days and they looked beautiful. I would highly recommend purchasing invites through Tree of Hearts - www.treeofhearts.co.uk

The hair treatment to die for!

If you're like me as soon as the colder weather hits, my scalp gets sore and dry, which is rather uncomfortable and unattractive. I'm always trying to remedy it at home using oil and masks, which is never quite the same as going to the hairdressers. I recently visited Bath and decided as the mother (Sarah) and sister (Alice) in-laws to be, were having their hair done, it would be rude not to treat myself, plus it's never fun sitting and watching others! We booked our treatment at Natalie Smith hairdressers, which is located right by the weir, one of the most beautiful sites in Bath (if you've not been you must it's stunning). Not only has it got a great view, it's also a really cute salon with a nice atmosphere and friendly staff, you instantly relax.
As it was recently Alice's 21st and it was for her party that we booked the treatments, we were offered Prosecco on arrival which was lovely. If you're looking to book your hair for a special occasion this is definitely the perfect start!
Ok so let's get onto the reason why I'm posting! The treatment I booked was the Label.M warm oil to help remedy my irritated scalp and condition my hair. I also booked a cheeky blow dry and style as after all, it had to look good for the party! Before the treatment started my hairdresser Jordan came and sat with me for a consultation to discuss my needs and also how I wanted my hair styled at the end. As standard, Jordan shampooed my hair and then applied the oil by dripping it through my hair, which felt cold initially, but to my surprise, when it was massaged into my scalp, it felt amazing. I do love a good scalp massage with the motions the oil started to warm. Once the oil had been massaged into my scalp, a heated towel was popped over my head and was left on for 15 minutes to soak in. To finish the product was rinsed off and my hair was then blow-dried, As someone else had the joy of blow drying my knotty mane, I decided to go for a style with volume and slight curls at the end. An hour later and several thickening products later, my hair was soft to touch and full of bounce! Better yet my scalp was feeling soothed and flake free, I even took a few of the capsules of oil away with me to use at home.

Verdict: If you visit the beautiful city of Bath and fancy a treat, I would highly recommend this treatment with a blowdry. The team will make you feel at ease and the view is beautiful.

Glowing summer skin, yes please!

Sienna XSienna X Express Tanning Mist - £15.95 – www.sienna-x.co.uk

I recently used the tanning mist, Even though I am a massive fan of Sienna x’s gradual glowing self tan, I fancied a change, I like to mix things up every now and then!

Having exfoliated the day before to make sure I had smooth skin to apply, I showered to remove any oils and applied my tan, being sure to shake it thoroughly before (as recommended on the directions). I decided to start with my arms first, keeping the can about 15cm away from my skin. I used gliding motions to apply remembering to lift my arm upright to make sure I wasn’t left with any white patches. I decided to use three strokes for my face, one down the centre and then turned each way to ensure I had an even coverage on the sides - this is how I was trained as a beauty therapist to do spray tan treatments! For the neck I criss-crossed over and then applied to my chest and legs. I have to admit I struggled with the backs of the legs slightly as I’m not the most flexible person, but I managed by using the toilet seat as a stand! To allow the tan to develop over the desired 6-8 hours, I slept in it making sure I wore nice baggy PJ’s to prevent any white marks.

What I loved about using the product, is that despite the fact that I applied three coats, I wasn’t left feeling sticky as I’ve found with so many other tanning products I’ve used in the past. The real test was to wake up and have the perfect tan. After sleeping in the product, I woke up in the morning and washed the remaining tan off and was left with a beautiful summer glow and no orange hands, hooray! Only problem now is I’m torn between the gradual glowing self tan and the express tanning mist, maybe I’ll have to alternate!

Verdict: I love the express tanning mist, If you’re looking for a home-use tan that doesn’t leave you feeling sticky and leaves you with glowing skin, then look no further this is the product for you! I can safely say that as the tan starts to come off you are not left with scaly skin!

Hope you found my review helpful J x