Brand Alley

A few years ago I signed up for a website called Secret Sales, the way they work is that if you sign up to their website, you become part of their 'exclusive club' which means you have access to their designer sales which only last for a certain number of days. They are completely genuine and registration is free so I would definitely recommend everyone signing up, you have nothing to lose!

The purpose of this blog is actually to tell you about the website Brand Alley, it's the exact same concept, designer sales that last a few days but the great thing about Brand Alley is that they keep holding OPI Sales! They actually have one on now lasting until Sunday so anyone who fancies getting some OPI polishes for a discount go have a look! They've got a few mini collections and some full size collections aswell for up to 50% off so they're a really good deal. Do you really need anymore excuses to go buy nail polish? :)

Thanks for reading! xxx

Jamie Oliver anyone?

Can I be cheeky and ask a favour?

My mum sells Jamie at Home products, basically stuff for the kitchen, home, garden and a few bath and body bits too. July is her qualifying month to become a manager, to do this she needs sales, and lots of them, £1500 worth to be precise, she's on £755...
She's been working for Jamie at Home for around 2 years now and has been let down time and time again by her team and her party hosts, she's had 5 out of her 8 parties this month cancelled and is getting pretty pessimistic about reaching her goal.
I really just need to spread the word because every small order will help, if everyone she knew ordered something she'd easily reach her target, it's just getting them to place an order that's the problem!
I know most of my followers are overseas but I do have a few in England, and she's happy to post the products to you herself she just needs sales!!

She's offering 20% off any order as she's not interested in commission (she get's 20% commission) she just needs the sales to add up. Please guys, spread the word, I would be really really grateful even if you just had a browse!!

Her website is www.jamieathome.me/jannorth and it's excluding DVDs, books and food as she doesn't actually sell them. So please have a look through and if you see any thing that takes your fancy, let me know. Please DON'T order off the website as that doesn't go through her.

Contact me by either leaving a comment, emailing me (rachaelashard@hotmail.co.uk) or ringing me (07817771112)

Or go straight to her:
Jan North
jan.north@yahoo.co.uk
07887795253
01367250126

Do it for Jamie!!

Thanks so much for reading! xxx

The decorator

An interesting little story I was given in my Body Shop make up training...

If you were having the decorator in to emulsion your lounge walls and he came in and took the lid off his paint, dipped his hand in and put the paint on the walls with his fingers, you'd think he was slightly mad and would want him out of the house quickly.

If the decorator came along and used a huge sponge to paint the walls, he'd get a nice finish but he would use five tins of paint.

If the decorator came along and used a brush to paint the walls, he'd get a nice finish and only use the one tin of paint that the job required.

Therefore, if we use our fingers to put our foundation on, they are warm and so is our face so the product will start to dry and not spread very easily and we are not going to get a good result. Then we wash our hands and most of the foundation goes straight down the plug hole.

If we use a make-up sponge to put foundation on, we are going to get a better finish even though we wipe off nearly as much as we put on. However we then come to wash the sponge and again a lot goes down the plug hole but also a lot stays in the sponge which is wasteful and a bringing ground for germs.

(The point is, we should use a brush to put our foundation on)

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I found this really interesting as I used to use a brush and have since got into the habit of just using my hand, the decorator story makes you realise how obvious it is that you should use a brush. I personally don't use brushes from the Body Shop, only because my Grandma bought me a set from Arbonne and I don't really need more than one of each. But I have them in my kit and have used them and they're great, definitely recommend them!

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Another little bit of advice they gave me:

When doing a facial, pat the eye cream on with your ring or little finger. Firstly, these two digits are our weakest fingers and so are gentle around the eye area. The reason we pat is because we don't want to drag the delicate skin by rubbing the cream in and the other advantage is that we have natural drainage all around our socket bone, so if we pat it encourages any fluid build up to drain away naturally which is a great tip for the morning after. We also have natural drainage around our jaw line.

Thanks for reading!! xxx

L'oreal Infallible

I really like this foundation, although I think I was a bit optimistic with it, I bought it just before I went to Tenerife so I got a shade darker than I needed and even with my tan it's slightly too dark :( looks okay with some powder over the top though. Here's some pictures:

To use this foundation, you twist the red part and, as you can see in the third picture, the foundation comes out the top of the brush and you can just brush it straight onto your face. I think the thing I like the most about this is the way it's got a piece of plastic inside that gets pushed down when you twist the top, so you literally get every last bit of the foundation and none is wasted, as you can see in the first picture it's completely clean at the top.

It says on the bottle that this foundation is supposed to last 24 hours, I can't say I've had it on for 24 hours so I don't know whether or not this is true, but it certainly lasts all day, and I don't think I've ever had a foundation that actually lasts all day without paying a lot of money for it.

I think the only downside to this foundation is that you can't wash the brush, it's really soft and fluffy when you first get it, but then after a few uses it gets all clogged up with foundation and is a bit streaky on your face. Apart from that I really love this foundation and definitely recommend it, I will probably re-purchase this when I've used it up, and I've never found a foundation that I've wanted to re-purchase, so this is definitely a success!

Hope this is helpful, thanks for reading! xxx

Neutrogena Multi Defence

I'm back!!! It's been a very long time since I blogged, I've had exams and have started to do The Body Shop at Home to earn a bit of extra money, on top of my other two jobs, so I've been pretty busy! But I think I'm back on track now, hopefully :)

So, I know the multi defence range isn't new anymore, it was when I planned to do this review but never mind, some of you might not have tried it.

I'll start with the gentle purifying scrub, as you can see I've nearly finished it, I think I've had it for about 6 weeks. I don't love it, it's a good scrub it does the job, I haven't had any blemishes and it doesn't make my skin dry or oily, the only problem I have with it is that, no matter how much I wash my face and my hands, when I go to put my moisturiser on I can still feel some of the tiny exfoliating beads, they're impossible to get off!! Maybe that's just me though :)

The daily moisturiser is good, it doesn't make my skin too oily and I can put my make up on straight after if i'm in a hurry. Again though I don't love it, I don't know if it's just me being picky but I think it smells awful! That's again probably just me though because my boyfriend doesn't think it smells bad and doesn't understand why I think it does :/. So in my opinion, I wouldn't bother with these again and I wouldn't recommend them, I much prefer Neutrogena's grapefruit scrub or their 'orange' range, I can't remember what it's called but they're all in orange bottles, so go for that instead :)

I hope that was helpful! If any of you have tried it let me know what you think, especially if you had the same problems as me or not. Come back tomorrow for a review on my foundation!

Thanks for reading! xxx

Own Brand: Boots

I decided to combine part of my haul with a new idea I had. When sat in the bath the other day I realised that I use quite a lot of 'own brand' products that, in my opinion, are just as good as ones made by specific cosmetic oriented companies. So, from now on, every time I find myself trying to choose between products, I will (try to) get an own brand product so I can test it out against my usual purchases.

To start with, I have Boots Expert Cuticle Conditioner and Boots Expert Nail Strengthener. 

This cuticle cream is great, to start with it smells soo good, it has a sort of sun tan smell and reminds me of summer, always a good thing! As far as I can tell so far it works well, my cuticles aren't particularly bad at the moment anyway but this seems to be keeping them healthy and doing all the things my previous cuticle cream did.

Next up is the Boots expert Nail Hardener. I'm not really too sure what to make of this, my previous nail hardener was one that you applied like a nail polish but then you rubbed it into your nails which would eventually absorb it. With this Boots version, you put it on and it sits on your nails like a clear nail polish, I'm not too sure I like this, I think it made me feel like it was doing my nails some good when they soaked it all up but I can't really imagine this is doing anything to them. I have to say though, after wearing it a few times my nails do feel much less brittle, whether they've repaired themself or it's the nail hardener I don't know though! :/ 

What I do like about this though is the bottle it comes in, it's really cute :D it's just a little short round thing and I don't seem to worry about putting it in my bag, I think the bottle is thicker.

Thanks for reading! xxx

Weekly Gratitude

Wow I can't believe how long it's been since I did a proper blog post. I expected to be quite up to date without school getting in the way but it's been the complete opposite and I haven't had any time at all! I was on holiday last week in Tenerife which is why I didn't even manage to do a weekly gratitude post but will be back on track hopefully tomorrow with some holiday pictures and tips. Hope you're all well!

25th April - 1st May 2011
- Thank you to my holiday for giving me time to relax, clear my head and especially for giving me a whole week with Chris, absolute heaven!
- Thank you to Tenerife shops for having such cheap nail polish! €1.50, it's amazing!! :D
- Thank you to the airports for not losing our suitcases, a thing I always worry about when I go away!
- Thank you to 4od for allowing me to catch up on 90210 when I got back, I literally cannot function without that programme!!
- Thank you to all the people I've swapped with on BigWardrobe since I joined, I love getting rid of stuff I don't want almost as much as I love getting new stuff!
- Thank you to the royal wedding on Friday of William and Kate. These occasions make the whole country come together and I just love street parties! The day was magical.
- And last but not least, a soppy one, thank you to Chris, (who I recently discovered keeps an internet page open on his iPhone of my blog because he secretly loves reading it ;) just for being all round amazing :)

Thanks for reading! xxx