A beauty of a post – My favourite natural remedies

Ben Sutherland

As someone who has suffered from eczema, bizarre allergic reactions and dry patches on my skin all my life, I thought it was about time that I shared the fantastic remedies I have come across over the years that not only have saved me hundreds of pounds but have actually healed these problems far quicker than prescribed treatments. My mum and I have made a bit of a mission out of finding natural alternatives that will help to solve such problems in a way that won’t upset the natural balance of my body and that won’t cause further problems as a result of the harshness of the treatment.

I have never been one of these girls to spend a fortune on a product unless I know that it will work or it is something I really want to try as a treat – often I will turn to my own kitchen cupboards to find unprocessed products that are less likely to irritate the skin in turn. I particularly enjoy simple products and treatments because it can become complicated to work out which ingredient you are allergic to or simply does not agree with your skin type.

Now, these are a mixture of health-related remedies and beauty remedies that will hopefully help to boost your skin and give you the confidence boost you need, because we all know how devastating it can be to get a spot or a red patch on your face before a big night out!

1. Olive Oil is my top recommendation for anyone who suffers from dry skin – people always look at me like I’m mad over this one but it is really good for your skin, fairly cheap and accessible and pure – which is the most important thing! I always put it on dry patches before bed (although avoid any oily patches because this may block pores causing spots) and after a few days of doing this there is a huge improvement. It is also great for encouraging growth of eyelashes and eyebrows and for strengthening nails – rub into them before bed and you’ll notice the difference even overnight.
2. Coconut Oil is another great one but this time for any part of the body. It’s something that is used liberally in Mauritius (where my father is from) and it smells amazing. Great for giving your skin a healthy glow and a great shine for hair but countless other uses.
3. Tea Tree Oil is fantastic for clearing up spots by drying them out, be wary if you have dry skin because this will dry it out further, but works quicker than any spot treatment I’ve ever used. Also good for fungal toenails (more common than you think!).
4. Water is no secret to us all, our bodies are mostly made up of water and dry out easily so drinking plenty will help to rehydrate your skin and get rid of those dry patches – alcohol and coffee (and fizzy drinks) all dehydrate your skin. Also, sleep is equally vital – the less sleep you get, the worse your skin looks – Fact.
5. Red peppers and tomatoes – it took me years to finally realise it, despite saying plenty of times to my mum as a child that “momoes make me itch”, but these are nightshade plants which irritate the skin and many people are actually allergic to them. If you keep getting red patches and eczema flaring up – especially if it is sore, inflamed and red, try cutting these out and see the difference over a few weeks.
6. Dairy products – excessive amounts of dairy, particularly if you are a big milk drinker, can cause your skin to become unhealthy, looking pale and oily. These changes can cause you to develop more spots. I personally am not big on milk, I even use water in my porridge and don’t drink tea of coffee, but I do love cheese. So I find it easy to cut these out – but if you are suffering from bad breakouts and have a dairy-heavy diet, try cutting back and see if it helps.
7. Bio-Oil, or Vitamin E Oil is amazing, as many of us already know, for evening skin tone and reducing the appearance of acne scars, stretchmarks or anything at all. Plus it smells amazing and hydrates your skin really well. Freshly squeezed lemon juice or boiled tea bags can also help to lighten marks and scars, or even under eye bags, according to a friend of mine.
8. Sugar, honey and oats, plus fruit – sounds delicious right? Forget eating it, put it on your face and use as a scrub/face mask – it’s great for freshening up your skin, revitalising it and getting rid of dead skin cells. There are countless combinations of these ingredients but all work well – just use whatever you have in the cupboard!
9. Aloe Vera (there is a gel available from Holland and Barrett) is great for soothing red or inflamed skin, particularly with eczema when you are afraid to use other products which might make it worse. It is soothing and cooling at the same time.
10. Nuts such as almonds and egg are both great for glowing skin, I’ve never used egg because it grosses me out but I’m happy to eat both of these! Almonds and almond oil are great for the skin whether you eat them or spread them on your skin. Eggs can be used in a face pack and apparently are great for wrinkles.
11. Exercise – if you really want glowing skin, work up a sweat and get that healthy, rosy glow from running around outside, fresh air and hard work will do wonders for your complexion.

Chandrika Nair

So there you are, just some of the great natural remedies for dealing with acne, eczema, dry patches, red patches and anything else along the way in your quest for glowing skin. It’s important to remember that everything you put in your body you wear on your skin so if you live on a diet of shit, you’re going to look like shit! Main advice is eat healthy, exercise and be happy – if you feel rubbish then often it shows on your face and affects both your skin and hair. If you are run-down, no amount of make-up can hide that, so why not start from the basics and eat more fruit and veg, drink more water and move more? You’ll be amazed at the results.

Have you got any home remedies that you use to keep looking healthy and glowing? Any that have been passed down through the family?

Why I’ve forgone the chop for long locks

I’m Lucy Ruthnum, and it’s been 11 months since my last haircut. (Now this is the bit where you are all supposed to chime in and tell me I don’t look like a homeless person.)

I’ve always loved the experience of having my hair cut, of going to the salon and having your hair washed and treated with lovely products before being combed out by the hairdresser and cut to the style you love, but with the expertise of the stylist who knows how to make the style suit your face. I love the conversation that comes with it, catching up with the hairdresser on all the gossip, what they have been up to and what has been happening in your life.

It is so relaxing and I always feel a million dollars when I walk out, until a great gust of wind undoes all her hard work! But this time last year, with a freshly cut bob bouncing around my jawline (as others described it, reminiscent of Jessica from Mistresses), I clocked that I only had a matter of eight months until my best friend’s wedding. That sent alarm bells ringing in my mind – because what comes with bridesmaid duties? The up-do, tightly pinned, ringlet curls and the rest. Not really suited to short hair, the style suits those with flowing locks but from my experience not those of us with shorter crops.

I remember being called on last minute to be maid of honour at another girl’s wedding, not really one of my close friends, and being forced into a horrible up-do that made my face look like a moon and stupid ringlets that looked ridiculous. I looked like Miss Piggy. And I was not happy. I didn’t complain once, but I’ll be damned if I was going to let that happen again.

Plus, with all my big plans for a summer of festivals, I knew my unruly short curls would not be very helpful at a festival, getting greasy quickly and with no way or tying my locks back I was in for a lot of hassle! I decided to grow it out from that point on. I was terribly impatient to start with and couldn’t believe how long it seemed to take to grow, I was massaging my scalp every day to provoke growth and was using all kinds of products to encourage my hair to grow, eating and drinking all the right things. But you know how it is, as soon as you want your hair or nails to grow it just doesn’t seem to budge! Finally I started to notice some real growth, my fringe grew out and the layers started to move, but it took ages until I could get it up in a ponytail once again.

The problem is that I really love my short hair, but it is just such high maintenance, it is not the sort of style that you can just leave. Even with my tousled look, I have to style it and sort out the fringe so it looks tidy at least which is more than you want to be doing at a festival. However, long hair can get a bit annoying because it takes so much longer to wash and it doesn’t frame your face as nicely, plus it doesn’t look as edgy. You can’t win, all I know is  that usually when I have one, I am craving the other.

My hair grew to the perfect length by the wedding, but it was okay in the end, my friend decided she wanted us with natural hair and make up so I just curled it a bit. You can’t really see here how long it was at this point but it was just about shoulder-length when dead straight, possibly slightly longer. It was great for my summer of festivals because I could just tie it back which, considering the heat at each one, was great and left me free to not even think about greasy locks. Unfortunately all the pics I have of my hair seem to have curls rather than straight hair so you can’t really see how much it has grown, but I judge using the ponytail test. Whereas before I could not even tire up my hair, now I can tire all of it back, even my shortest layer which used to be my fringe. This is great and despite being very tempted to cut it short again, I think I like having longer hair at the moment. My plan is to keep growing it for another month or two, until after Christmas, and then perhaps I will return to the salon for a trim.

I do have to mention that in the time since my last chop, I have not actually felt that my hair needs a cut. It is healthy, glossy and full of life. I haven’t even used a hair mask for a long time, but I have no straggly ends or dry bits, and certainly no split ends, which I am pleased about. I think your hair, like any part of your body begins to look after itself if you leave it to nature. But, for the products I do use on my hair:

• Brilliant Brunette’s by John Freida shampoo and conditioner (or the illuminating ones if I fancy a change)
• Aussie 3-Minute Miracle for a hair treat
• Mark Hill Beach Babe Salt Spray to bring out my curls
• John Freida Luxurious Volume thickening blow dry lotion for when I want it straight with volume
• And classic Silvikrin hair spray in firm hold

I haven’t had my hair straight for a few days so haven’t been able to take a picture to show you where we are at now but will try to do so soon. What about you – what’s your favourite hairstyle? Do you prefer long or short?

 

Halloween – becoming the Black Widow

My love of Halloween and all that comes with it was not disappointed this weekend when my friend decided to hold a last minute fancy dress party, giving me the opportunity to try out some crazy make-up and to become the Black Widow. At such short notice, I was forced to make do with items I already had and to get a little creative – luckily I already boast a rather ample store of fancy dress items thanks to my university days. I just can’t bring myself to throw any of them away despite rarely needing them – but you never know when you’ll need to dress up!

The finished look – The Black Widow

The skirt I had bought only the other day and was looking for an opportunity to wear it out. I love the fitted jersey midi underneath and the grey mesh layer on top had the effect of looking a bit web-like which was the effect I was after. The fitted layer underneath was really helpful, it was a pretty windy night! The skirt was from Boohoo and cost only £12 – find it here. The top is a favourite of mine, from Missguided (as is the necklace), it is a velvet bralet with cut outs on the sides – these are great for showing off my rib tattoo! It cost £17.99 and is available here. The heels are my old reliable wedges from New Look and my rings are also from there. I actually loved my outfit, it was so comfy but really glamorous at the same time and I will definitely be cracking it out again, minus the cape, for a night out.

My Black Widow make-up

I decided that since I was mainly using accessories to create my outfit, that I would go all out for my make-up and wanted to try to create a strong look by really vamping it up. I looked online for ideas and tutorials and spotted one that I posted on here before the party that I thought I might try, but when it came to it I actually found another tutorial that looked a little simpler and quicker to do. See the picture below for what I was using as a guide and click on the picture to go to the YouTube tutorial.

Black Widow make-up by GoldieStarling

Now, although I am fairly good at doing basic make-up such as applying foundation, contouring, smoky eyes etc, I am not much of an artist and don’t really have the vision necessary to create such incredible looks. I based the entire idea around a pair of Paperself Lashes I was given at the EA Blogger Party and wanted to create the webbed effect around these. I know that my make-up is nothing in comparison to the beautiful job that Goldie Starling has done in her tutorial, but here’s how I created my look and changed it to suit my look.

First of all I applied my foundation  (Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse in Sun Bronze) and concealer (Dream Lumi Touch by Maybelline in Sand) base, contoured using bronzer (Match Perfection by Rimmel in Medium), but left the blush out to make my lipstick stand out more. Then I created the strong smoky eye by using a frosty white and a silver eyeshadow from the Smoky Eyes Palette by Bourjois with a combination of Gunmetal and Creep from my Naked Palette by Urban Decay. This was set off with Extreme 24-house Felt Tip Eyeliner (Collection 2000), Exaggerate Waterproof Eye Definer from Rimmel and plenty of Benefit’s They’re Real mascara after I had curled my eyelashes. I then painstakingly applied the first false eyelashes I have used in years. The gorgeous Paperself lashes were cobwebs with spiders and looked amazing but were a bit to big and wide for my eyes so to make them easier to apply I cut them into sections and then just applied the biggest and longest ones to my outer lash line.

My smoky eye and false lashes

I then began to draw on the web shapes by starting with my white Barry M Khol Pencil and making the inner circle of web by drawing a scalloped circle around my right eye. From each point, I then drew a straight line outwards and tapered these off at the outer edges of the circle. I joined these by drawing more of the scalloped circles to join the lines together and create the web. Once I had done this, I shaded finely along the scalloped edges to create the web and smudged this using a bit of white eyeshadow to set the liner. The tutorial I watched suggested doing the white section first to create the negative shape before adding the black and I found it a lot easier having tried to apply the black shapes first in another attempt.

The web effect on the right side of my face

The next stage was to use the black felt tip eyeliner to draw on the black lines of the web which was fairly straightforward, but be sure to steady your hand and use long sweeping motions rather than short, sharp movements. I used a bit of the Gunmetal and Creep shadows to smudge the liners and create the web effect. I then added some gems that I found in my drawer, I bought them for a few pence at Primark ages ago and forgot I had them. I attached them using false eyelash glue and placed them around the outside corner of my eye with another on the outside corner of my left eye.

The left side of my face and some extra webbing

The tutorial was to create a symmetrical look with the web around each eye, but I didn’t have enough faith in my make-up abilities to get these close enough so I decided to add some webbing on my jawline on the left side of my face which I think worked rather well. I followed the same process to do this except in more triangular shape which was actually far simpler. I finished the look with my amazing new Collection 2000 Gothic Glam lipstick in Scorned (a dark purple shade that I had been looking everywhere for).

I was really pleased with how my make-up turned out and wanted to wear my hair in a massive quiff to add drama to the look and keep my hair off the make-up, but had to go for a wild back to the hair. I set the whole thing with plenty of hairspray to keep my hair and make-up in place all night. I was so pleased with how it turned out – for someone who is not incredible at make-up, I think I did a great job, especially using what I already had! What do you guys think?

 

Communicating with the big, wide world

I’m thrilled to announce that within just a few weeks of blogging on WordPress, I already have 40 followers and have had countless visitors to my site and likes on my posts. It’s really encouraging to see that my writing and opinions are being heard and appreciated by so many people from all over the world. And I really love that WordPress offers the stats pages to show you exactly where your readers are accessing your blog from, I appear to have a lot of UK and US readers, but have even had some from Bangladesh checking out my pieces.

This morning I also reached my 5,000th Tweet which went out to nearly 400 followers on my Twitter account who are spread across the country and the globe. It is great to know my opinions and comments are going out to people in my industry and to friends at the same time, and that I can instantly share my work with the world.

On my original blog, which I now use more are a photo-diary and a log of my work at the paper, I am sharing my writing with around 300 followers on Tumblr. Although Tumblr is good for the immediate sharing of pictures and thoughts, I find that WordPress offers more of a considered approach to blogging when one puts rather more time and effort into constructing a post and decorating it for readers.

Adding my Instagram to the mix, I am sharing my regular uploads with nearly 160 followers, documenting my movements whether journalism, music or blogging-related. I also find Instagram a perfect way to edit my photos and share them on my blogs. Finally, on Facebook I have 941 friends who get all my updates relating to blogging, writing for the newspaper, editing for This Festival Feeling and living life. This is a fantastic amount of people that I am reaching on a daily basis and who are accessing my posts and work. I considered making a page for myself as a writer, but didn’t want to limit my posts to people who have liked my page because I know how easy it is to lose followers that way. Plus it makes it more personal to be a ‘friend’.

Overall, I am reaching more than 1,800 people daily through my blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts – when writing for The Lynn News and This Festival Feeling, and displaying on the websites, I am reaching thousands more.

This is an amazing feeling and it astonishes me to have collated these figures and get a real picture of how many people I am in touch with. You should try it, technology really has brought the world closer together! Click on the links to follow each of my accounts and get a slightly different picture from each!

In response to Write Meg’s ‘selfie’ post – what if your face just isn’t quite right?

In response to Write Meg’s ‘selfie’ post – what if your face just isn’t quite right?

I was really interested in reading Write Meg’s post this morning about “the humble selfie has practically risen to its own art form” because it is something that I have watched shoot to fame with the introduction of Instagram and as Facebook developed. Only 23, I still remember a time when my house had no computer and certainly no mobile phones. Photos were not digital for the Ruthnum household and they were only taken on special occasions by my parents or extended family – usually with half a finger over the lens or someone pulling a funny face, but with no way of knowing until they had been printed.

Now, everyone has an iPhone or something similar, having had mine stolen recently and lived without it for some time (I actually felt refreshed and relieved to have a short break) but it does leave you at a bit of a loss for things like photo-taking and sharing. I am a big lover of having a camera on every night out and snapping endless pictures of my life, I love Instagram because I see it as a wordless blog and a way of sharing my life with my friends. I am that friend that is partially hated by others for capturing the moments people least want on camera – many will send me that dreaded text the morning after a night out begging me not to put that picture, or that video, on Facebook.

I love pictures that show people in the moment – not posing – just having fun and sharing memories. If a pictures doesn’t not instantly transport me back to a wonderful time and place in the endless library of my memory – what is the point?

However, I am not adverse to the odd selfie, mainly if my face happens to have fallen into place quite well after a night of tossing and turning in my bed. I just don’t understand the point of uploading a different one each day, basically of you pulling the same face, with the only difference being a different outfit!

But that is my next issue – how do these girls get their faces to make such different faces? My face is stuck on two settings – big grinning smile, or neutral. Sometimes it will venture into mildly annoyed from the neutral, but rarely. I’m always one of those people who prefer to have a smile on their face.

But this new generation of girls have pouts, gasp faces, cheeky grins, big eyes, and all the rest that they seem to accentuate in their photos! Genuinely, if you look through my photos on Facebook, you will see clearly that my face does something very similar in each. Mainly because when I take photos, it is usually because I am having the time of my life. I’ll admit, it’s slightly embarrassing but sometimes I do long to be able to pull off a pout, or a sticky out tongue picture – but then I figure, what’s the point?

Let’s be honest, pouts just look ridiculous, especially when you see the pictures of groups on girls tarted up on a night out all sticking their lips out until they protrude further than their noses. Screw it, I’m sticking it the old-fashioned, but classy smile. It’s always worked for me so far!