Batiste dry shampoo

Hi Guys

This little post is about Batiste dry shampoo.

　

　

I have the tropical version. It does seem to rejunviate my hair. At first, the scent is overpowering but once it has settled in to your hair. It strikes the right balance between delicious and subtle. So far, so good. However, there is often a but with products and there is with this one!

This tropical version of Batiste was no good to use as directed on my dark hair due to the white product residue it left. It does not seem to matter how sparingly the product was applied or how throughly I brush it out. For me, when I use it as directed on the bottle, there is always very noticeable product residue. I am very interested to try the coloured version but have heard mixed reviews. What do you think? Have you tried any of the Batiste dry shampoos? If you have, how do you use them? Any other dry shampoos out there that you want to recommend (or diss)?

For anybody like me, who has the tropical version to use up but who doesn’t want visible residue then here is a couple of other ways that I use the product. I often apply the dry shampoo before bed and brush but then I also brush again in the morning. So that in the morning by the time I leave the house, the residue has been brushed out or naturally fallen. However with all the fuss and time that this takes, I wonder if I should just wash my hair the night before.

I also find Batiste useful as a styling product. I apply the shampoo to the undersections of hair where I want volume and then backcomb hair over the top and viola, I have the body I’d like!

So what are we thinking, is Batiste dry shampoo in or out?

To see full reviews from me and others for Batiste then go to http://www.beautyjudge.com  

 X

Ps Two words- Competition post!!

A Body Shop bargain!

Hey Girls

I wasn’t going to post today but at the weekend, I got a bargain in The Body Shop.

This . . .

 

. . . for the grand sum of £3! The assistant said that the full price was £10!!!

I can not remember owning any Body Shop make up before but I have to say that could change, this gloss impressed me. A lot!

Isn’t it beautiful and it looks lovely on the lips too. I used it the other day to try and create a Brigitte Bardot look (see Pixi2Woo on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/pixi2woo) and I pressed it on to my bare lips with my fingers and was very impressed with the finish on camera.

Anyway, I popped in to The Body Shop today. The sale banners were still in the window and inside, yes, there was still some lip glosses selling for £3. If you happen to be in Body Shop this weekend, you might want to have a poke around to see if you can find a gorgeous gloss for a bargain price destined just for you!

Ooh and while you are in Body Shop, you may want to pick up a little leaflet which tells you which of their lip colours goes with what skin tones. I thought it was quite useful although in the long run, it is going to cost me. I have about three lippies from it on that ever-growing wishlist already.

What do you think of Body Shop make up? Have you picked any bargains up lately? Don’t forget, you have just under two weeks to qualify for my competition so get following and commenting. I love hearing what you have to say!

X

Two Toned Lips

If you want to see what the two colour lip could look like (a trend I’ve mentioned in earlier posts), click on any of these links: 

 http://www.eyeslipsface.co.uk/blog~blog_id~66.htm 

http://www.glamour.com/…/the-new-twotone-lip-look-and-h.html

http://www.whatkatiewore.com/about-2/ 

Apparently it is called a two-toned lip and has been seen at a couple of fashion shows this year.  There is some interesting information and comments on the look. ELF also suggest you could create the look with two of their products Party Pink and Fiery Fushia. I think this is a look for barbeques on the beach and hot holidays. What do you think?

Going back to the Barry M blue lip, I mentioned it on the FashionFace website and PixiWoo doesn’t think blue lips will catch on and if there is anybody that knows, it would be them! http://pixiwoo.blogspot.com/2010/01/courtney-love-request.html 

Maybe it is a season thing again, blue lips suggest winter to me. Could it be the wrong time of year for a blue lipstick? Do you wear certain colours during certain seasons? Have you encountered blue lips before?

Don’t forget, I’d love you to comment, subscribe and enter my competition. See the competition post for more . . !

X

In the red corner and in the blue . . .

 ‘Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself’ George Bernard Shaw

I’ve already said that I’m not going to follow fashion to the very latest rule. However, fashion is usually what is popular and what people are buying. People buy for a reason so many fashions and trends may actually make sense. It is not my duty to follow fashion this year but my mission is about learning and opening my mind therefore I do have a duty to know what is going on out there and consider if the current trends could benefit my mission.

I mentioned a week or so ago about painting your lips in two different colours. Well here are two more lip trends that I have heard about this week.

Red Lips

This one is courtesy of Lorraine Kelly (see http://www.gm.tv for more information). Apparently since the recession has kicked in, lipstick purchases have risen by 20%. The biggest increase in purchases is with red lipstick. Apparently this trend has also been seen in Armani and Dolce&Gabbana shows. Going back a lot further then that, this trend was also evident years ago during the Great Depression. GMTV’s enthuasism for the trend was contagious. So many benefits, instant face lift, instant mood lift, instant change, makes an outfit, instant glamour in a tube, quick to apply and cheap to buy so of course, I had to try it out.

Hmmm, suddenly I want to sing Hollywood, Hollywood! It may be quick to apply but  I found this quite hard to apply neatly. Lately I have been practising eye and foundation application and it seems I’ve had it easy using the nude and pink lipsticks but this red lipstick really shows how much I have left to learn. Smears, gaps everywhere. I hope that these are not as obvious in reality as they were on camera. I tried applying with both a brush and the lipstick itself. I think you lose the vibrancy of a colour doing it all with a brush. I think next time I will line my lips with a pencil as I did this time and then apply the lipstick as a lipstick and then use a brush and lipstick to reline and define the edges. See, I’m already talking about next time. . , converted!

My red lipstick is one I already had from Benefit called Frenched but GMTV tested some lipsticks (by giving a male model a kiss on the cheek. Obviously!) and they found that Estee Lauder’ s had good staying power but Max Factor’s Chilli was the ultimate shade of red according to the expert. I always think that red painted lips is the classic lip look, I’ve got it in my head that this is why women used to wear lipstick. So what are we thinking, do we do red lips? If so, when and what shade do you use?

Blue Lips

Not only did I get my second Barry M token in Fabulous Magazine this week but I had an interesting read about a make up trend for blue. Now I wasn’t that surprised about the colour. Blue nail polish seems to be everywhere and you all know that I’m lusting over Barry M’s Lavender Blue Polish but to talk about that here (again!) would be to ramble because this article was not about blue nail polish but blue smoky eyes (ok), a blue lower lash look (okk. . .) and blue lips (huh????). Now I am only just getting to grips with the idea of brown and purple lipsticks and now there is a blue one, Barry M’s Rocket Blue.

It does look gorgeous in the tube, such a pretty colour yet it is still vibrant.

I do love the look too that the model in the editorial (above) is wearing but to be honest, I’m not sure it would work like that on me. I promise you that if I ever do buy this lipstick then you will get a picture. Uh oh, those words could come back and haunt me. . !

So would you do blue? What other less conventional shades have you worn, have you seen?What trends for 2010 have you heard about? I love all your hints, tips and comments. So if you have any, fill in the little box please and why not subscribe as well?

X

Ps My competition is still alive, see the Competition post.

Does time equal beautiful hair?

Have you ever had a question where no matter how many times you ask it, you never get an answer to pause your pondering?

I have. Some of them I am even willing to share with you. Here is the first one and guess what? I may just have found an answer.

Years of hair extensions, straightening, blow drying, travelling and drinking too little of the right things has left me with damaged and dry hair. Now (and I’m quite proud of this), it is not as damaged or dry as it used to be but I think to some extent, my hair is always going to be dry and quite possibly damaged.

Every time that I go to the hairdresser, I’m reminded that conditioner is my best friend and I try, I condition and I condition. And this is where we come to my question, many conditionors such as Aussie’s Three Minute Miracle say that if you leave this conditioner on for X amount of time, you will get a deep conditioning treatment. Great but I’m always looking for more and so we come to my big question! I wonder if maybe I took the recommended leave in time and multiplied by 3 or 5 even 10 before rinsing out. Would that mean I would get multiple results? Does 10 times longer equal 10 times better conditioned hair? I have spent hours sat in the house, a towel on my head. My barnet saturated in conditioner underneath and I want to know has this made any difference to my hair or has it all been just a blatent waste of time?

My hair feels ok especially compared to how it used to feel. On the other hand, maybe it still would have felt ok if I’d only left the conditioners in for just the recommended time and not hours longer. Maybe the product does its work in the recommended time and then once this time is up, all the goodness has ran out and any extra time, is pointless because there is nothing left in the conditioner for my hair to absorb.

Well as sad as it seems, this has troubled me for a long time. I even e-mailed Aussie once to ask them what they thought but I got no reply.

So I kept on slathering the barnet and sitting in the towel just in case that was making a difference.

Then one day, I asked about this on the wonderful forum at Beauty Judge.com ( http://www.beautyjudge.com ) and got quite a few responses.

Some said that to get extra conditioning, you should leave the conditioner on for about twenty minutes and then rinse out. Another said not to leave the conditioner on for too long in case, it was a protein one. Conditioners are either protein or moisture based and apparently too much protein is bad for your hair and another said, that if your conditioner (I’m guessing, moisture or protein) is left on your hair for too long then the product will just dry your hair out. Somebody else said adding honey and olive oil to your conditioner can be extra moisturising. Such great responses and plenty of ideas for experiments to come.

However, there was one response which I wanted to look at, in more depth here. I was referred to a post on the Beauty Brains website.

thebeautybrains.com/2006/08/03/how-long-…ioners-in-your-hair/

This was actually quite a scientific post (for me!) but possibly explained in simple terms an answer to the question that I had always been wondering about.

Basically Beauty Brains say that not only do you not need to keep conditioners in for hours (ahem!) but that you do not even need to keep them in for the recommended amount of time stated by the brand. Apparently conditioners mainly work on the surface of the hair and little penetration is needed. The conditioner hits the surface of the hair as soon as you apply it. I’m guessing you would only need time if the product needed to work in to the hair to work which it seems conditoner in the large, does not. It seems it is better to spread the conditioner through all the hair so all the individual hair surfaces are covered and to take your time doing this rather then slapping it on your head and then leaving it there untouched for hours.

Apparently companies give recommended leave in times etc to give their product a powerful image.

Beauty Brains do admit that oil based conditioners such as Coconut do need time to penetrate but I believe, in most markets these are not the most purchased conditioning products.

There are a couple of responses to the blog post and they seem to question the Beauty Brains’s theory.

There is also another interesting post which suggests if your hair needs lots of conditioning. You could use a rinse out conditioner as a leave in as long as your hair seems happy and does not feel weighed down. The rinse out conditioners apparently are stronger then the leave ins so it is not worth using a leave in as a rinse out but a rinse out could be extra conditioning to your hair if you apply it to towel-dried hair and leave it in. Due to the concentration and weight of a rinse out conditioner, not all hair types will be suited to this but if your hair looks, feels ok and basically seems happy then Beauty Brains suggest that this is ok as long as your skin does not feel irritated and you confine such conditioning to the ends of your hair only.

http://thebeautybrains.com/2006/08/07/whats-the-difference-between-rinse-out-and-leave-in-conditioners/

Hmmm, so how does this reconcile with the earlier Beauty Brains post which suggests there is little bonus from leaving a conditioner in before rinsing out? Is there a difference here because you will never rinse the product out?

I’m starting to lose track a little now. Maybe the brain ache has set in but none of this seems too dangerous to me so I think I will try some of these ideas out and see what happens. If it is anything exciting then you will be the first to know. Who knows? Maybe I can banish dry hair forever, after all? I hope I have explained what I have learnt ok but I suggest before you put any of this in to practise that you check the posts yourself in case I have confused or missed anything.

What do you think? What do you do when it comes to conditioning your hair? What is your hair like? Any hair tips or myths that you want to expose? Any hair growth tips? What beauty questions have spent a lifetime bugging you? Your comments and subscriptions will always be welcome here;-)

Right, I’m off to explore the Beauty Brains website further. I think it could become another obsession!

X

PS Forgive me but I’m going to mention it again, there is still time to enter my competition. See my Competition post!