Dirty Hair, Don't Care.

Hello everyone! Now, it can't just be me that goes days on end without washing their hair, right..? I go about two to three days between washing my hair, as I refuse to wash my hair every day. Why you wonder? Well, washing your hair every day just washes/strips the natural oils out of your hair, so your hair will get more greasy faster! It's a pretty weird scenario - the more you wash your hair, the worse it gets and the more greasy it gets! To be honest I can't actually wash my hair daily anyway due to my sensitive scalp, but even if I had a 'normal' scalp I still wouldn't wash my hair daily. If you do though and it's working fine for you, go for it, I just know many people who get greasy hair so quickly and who have no natural oil in their hair due to washing their hair daily, and I've also read many articles that say washing your hair daily isn't necessary and sometimes does more harm than good.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to tell you what I sometimes do when I have super dirty hair (aka third day hair drowning in dry shampoo hair) and how I keep the grease away and also how I style it to minimise the look of dirty hair - I hope you enjoy reading! 

First off, dry shampoo is my baby when I have second or third day hair - it's my literal saviour. If you don't know what dry shampoo is, it's basically.. A dry version of shampoo, in very literal terms. It's usually a white powder that comes in a can and you shake the can up and spray it directly onto wherever you want to keep the grease away/wherever is greasy already. I usually spray mine in my roots and also just above the back of my neck underneath all my hair. Once you spray it on, you will look like you have grey hair - but don't panic! You can just rub/brush it in and voila, it is gone! The powder absorbs all the oils in your hair as you rub it in and you are left with hair that looks shiny and freshly washed, and ultimately, not greasy. I personally use the Batiste dry shampoo along with practically everyone else, it is the best in my opinion and it's super cheap - I'm pretty sure you can get it anywhere and everywhere too, which is always a plus.

Now, onto the hairstyle! I personally think this look would look great on everyone, it involves no heat and is super easy to do! It's basically all surrounding putting your hair in plaits. 

If you don't know how to do a plait, I'm going to try and explain it as best as I can.. So here goes nothing: take whatever bit of hair you want to put into a plait, whether it is all of your hair or just your fringe (like me in the pictures). With that bit of hair, divide it into 3 sections. Then, take the right section of your hair and take it over the middle section of hair so it's now in the middle (so now your original middle section is on the right) and then take the left section of hair and take that over into the middle, and then take the right section of hair and take it over into the middle and continue on until you get to the bottom of your hair, and secure it with a bobble! If you still don't get it, don't worry, YouTube taught me and I'll link you a video here!

Anyway, for me, the night before I put all my hair into one big plait down my back and slept with it in so when I woke up and took the plait out, I ended up with these nice thick curls! I then just took my 'fringe' (aka the bits of hair that kinda hang and shape my face) and plaited them both and secured them with a couple of curby grips in a X at the back of my head. For me, I feel this just gets the front bits of my hair out of my face as they are usually the bits that go greasy first, so with dry shampoo plus them being in a plait out my face, they are pretty much covered from going greasy!

So that's that - dirty hair, don't care. What do you do to keep the grease away, and what do you do to your hair when it's needing a wash? Let me know!

Have a lovely day, and don't stop smiling. :)

Hannah, xx

Fishtail Plait/New Haircut/FOTD 29/08/12!

So.. That title is a long one, and quite a tongue twister too! It's a 3 in 1 blog post today, and I am currently uploading the OOTD that you can see in the pictures below so I will be making a blog post linking it, if you would like to see. :)

I only learnt how to do a fishtail braid yesterday, from Tanya Burr's video (or pix2woo on YouTube) which I will link here, and I have to admit, it is pretty difficult at first! I couldn't do it, I didn't understand where the strands of hair were meant to go but eventually, if you keep practising (I was practising most of the night!) you eventually get into a rhythm and your hands begin to know where to go. I think it is just such a nice change from the classic braid, where you section 3 pieces etc etc, it just has a completely different look to it, you can make it messy or keep it tight and I think it is a very elegant where to style your hair.

I also got my haircut today, it doesn't actually look that different, all I got was my dead ends off my hair, I didn't get any of my layers cut back in because my hair honestly grows back at the speed of light, there is no point! However, I did get a lot off my fringe to make it flow better again, as before it would go curly at the ends which would make it harder to style, as if I straightened it it would stick up all over the place! I also asked to get my fringe thinned a lot, because as I said, my hair grows back very fast therefore my hair is very thick, and I don't want my hair to be heavy on my face as it will just annoy me.

On a side note, I will be changing shampoo and will be doing a blog post on why I am doing this, as the shampoo I am using is, well, basically awful and is kind of pointless in what it aims to achieve. Keep an eye out for that tomorrow!

Head tilt.. LOOK AT HOW FLOWY MY FRINGE IS! Bravo to my hairdresser!

I also thought I would do a FOTD as I really liked my make-up today, I bought some things recently that I tried out today and I LOVE them; those things were MUA's eyeshadow in Matt, Revlon's ColorBust Lip Butter in Strawberry Shortcake and Rimmel's Stay Matte Pressed Powder, and oh my goodness, I am in love with both these products! I will be doing separate reviews on them very soon, probably tomorrow or Friday, so keep an eye out for that also! 

Just a wee cheeky close up of my make-up, my face looks extremely weird here so I apologise but can we just focus on the make-up please!

Make-up I am wearing:

Benefit's Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation in Believe in Me, Ivory

Rimmel's Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 001 Translucent

Mac's Powder Blush in Buff

MUA's Eyeshadow in Matte (Shade 16)

Benefit's Big Beautiful Eyes Kit in the lightest shade

Topshop's Smokey Eye Palette in Tawny in the lightest two colours

Topshop's Kohl Eyeliner Pencil in Saddle

Benefit's Bad Gal Mascara

Revlon's ColorBurst Lip Butter in Strawberry Shortcake

So that is about it for my 3 in 1 blogpost today! I am currently watching the Paralympics and it has inspired me to do a video talking about it, was nearly in tears earlier and the opening ceremony hasn't even finished. All I can say is that the Paralympics are exceptionally inspirational to me. Anyway, I hope you all are having a wonderful day and I will talk to you very soon :)

Hannah, xx

Messy Natural Hair + Coral Lips - 28/08/12

Hello there everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely Tuesday, I am currently just home from work and I took these photos earlier on as I was really happy with the way my hair sat and my make-up today.

Hair:

 This is actually my natural hair, it never used to curl like this but now it's progressively getting more and more curly by the day (well, by the day I mean everytime I wash it.) I've hardly straightened my hair this summer because I've fallen in love with this kind of hairstyle, it's just messy curls that look nice with anything. I basically wash my hair, get out of the shower and wrap a towel round my hair for around an hour, I then take the towel out of my hair and let it airdry and viola - messy curls! I also like to scrunch the curls up and if there are any sticky out bits etc I will curl them using my GHD's back into place. 

Make-up today:

Benefit's Big Beautiful Eyes (an eye contour kit) in the pink champagne eyeshadow
Topshop's Smokey Eye Palette in Tawny in the pink shimmery eyeshadow
Maybelline Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner in Black
Topshop's Kohl Eyeliner in Saddle
Benefit's Bad Gal Lash Mascara
Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in 422 Coral Tonic

How I applied it:

I took the Topshop Tawny palette, and with the lightest pink shimmery shade I sweeped it all over my lids. I then took the pink champagne colour from the Benefit eye contour kit and pushed that on top of the Topshop eyeshadow, to give it a real pink shimmery look. Then, using the Maybelline liquid eyeliner, I simply drew a line close to the top of my upper lash line, gradually making it thicker to the outer corner and then flicked it out. I used Topshop's Kohl Eyeliner in Saddle on my waterline, to make the eyelid really stand out, and applied Benefit's Bad Gal Lash to both my upper and lower lashes. I finally applied the Maybelline lipstick, and viola, that is my make-up for the day!

So that is pretty much it for my face, or FOTD, I hope this was interesting to read and have a lovely day wherever you may be. :)

Hannah, xx

Hair of the Day 27/08/12 - Rope braid and side plait!

Hello everyone, I know earlier on I posted a NOTD but I could not resist to post what I'm going to call Hair of the Day, or HOTD for short (I don't know if people call it that but there we go.) This hairstyle is so easy to do, it literally takes about 3 minutes and it will look lovely with any sort of hairstyle, whether you have short hair, long hair, or any sort of fringe/no fringe at all. I obviously have very long hair, it's also quite thick which helps with the plait, and I do have quite a short fringe with a lot of layers but because I do the rope braid quite tight, it keeps all the layers hidden, and even if some do stick out and show, it doesn't have to be perfect, you can mess it up and it'll look just as nice as if you have it super precise!

So as you can see I pulled all the hair from my left side of my head and brought it all over to the right, which is also the way my fringe goes back, so it makes it look neater, and symmetrical, if that makes sense?

I have no idea why my hair is a different colour in this photo to all the others, it must have been the lighting as I do not edit my pictures! This shows how I securely fasten my rope braid, as I take two curby grips and cross them over each other to make an X;  it makes it harder for them to move/fall out and I also think it looks nicer!

You may also be wondering - "Hannah, how do you do a rope braid?!" Well, the way I do it is I split my fringe apart, and since I have a short fringe that gets longer from the left to the right side of my face, I kind of split it so most of my fringe is with the short side (left) and the longest bits of my fringe is at the other side. Then, I simply take the two pieces of my fringe, pull them over to the right side and start looping them round each other. Since I have a short fringe I usually wrap the right side (the longer pieces) over the left side (shorter pieces) as this secures the shorter pieces as they are now under the longer pieces of hair, so they are less likely to fall out. I then simply keep wrapping/looping them round each other until I am close to the end of my fringe, and then fasten them with two curby grips in the shape of an X and viola, you have a rope braid (I really hope this makes sense, comment if you want me to make a video of it and I will!)

Here is my plait, I know what you are thinking.. "Holy crap her hair is long!" This is just a classic plait that I can easily throw my hair into, it takes next to no time at all and it suits all occasions, you can have your hair like this for fancy or casual days! It's a great hairstyle if you are in a rush, for example late for work or school, or if your hair is a bit dirty (like mine is in these photos, it is second day hair) then it still looks brand new. To do this plait I simple bring all my hair over to one side (the right side for me), split my hair into 3 sections and I usually take the piece that is at the back of my head (which, in my case would be the piece on the left) and wrap it round the middle piece of hair. I then take the right piece of hair and wrap that round the new middle piece of hair, and continue this process until I get to the bottom of my hair, and I then secure it with a hair bobble. As you can see, I do have layers in my hair so some bits may stick out/fall out throughout the day (my plait has been perfect all day, but it is now 11.30pm so only having one piece of hair sticking out is pretty good!) but you can mess the plait up easily and take some layers out to give it the messy effect; again, like the rope braid, it does not need to be perfect. Experiment with it, you never know what you might like! 

So, after all that explaining, this is the rope braid and side plait! I absolutely LOVE this combination, and wear it together frequently. However, sometimes I do only do one or the other, for example I will put my fringe up in a rope braid but leave my hair curly (this is a especially beautiful combination) or straight, or I put my hair into a side braid but leave my fringe down; it all depends on how you style it and what you like.

Anyway, I hope you found this HOTD interesting and usual, and maybe you learnt something from this, I don't know, I can't tell if my explaining is good or not, it would be so much easier to make a video! If you would like to see a video, please leave a comment below as I have officially started making videos, which you can see if you click here and, yeah, I hope you are all having a wonderful day/evening/afternoon/morning (depending where you are from) and I will speak to you all every soon! :)

Hannah, xx