My Top Blemish/Congestion/Inflammation Fighting Nighttime Routine

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When I posted this routine on Instagram a few weeks ago it got a lot of questions, so I thought I would break down the entire lineup on the blog and explain how and why I used each product. One of the reasons I wanted to do it is because it worked so well for me. Even though skincare can only do so much, I am still very grateful for what it can do because in this case, it saved my skin from a full on meltdown. The other reason is that a lot of the questions were about some of the newer products in my stash like CAIS 5%, the Mahalo and Siam Seas balms and then others simply wanted to know about the “FM 5-day cycle”. I know I have mentioned my own personal 4-day routine cycle (that post is coming soon) but this is completely different to what I did here because it was based around using NIOD’s brilliant Flavanone Mud for five nights in a row. Continue reading

Best of British: Top 10 Niche Retailers

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This post has been long, long, long overdue on the blog. As you will have read from my 2017 #SkinGoals, a family emergency lead to an unexpectedly long hiatus from blogging and this write-up (which I had been working on for months) never got finished. It was originally scheduled to go up over the summer, then on Small Business Saturday (both US and UK dates), then before Christmas (then after) and now here we are. I have been so excited to talk about this for such a long time now and I can’t wait to finally share all my favourite places to shop with you. Continue reading

The All Day 5 Mask Ultimate #SundaySpaDay Routine

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#SundaySpaDay has been a long tradition on Instagram and it’s one I used to look forward to a lot before I got to too busy to really enjoy them properly. I didn’t really do them at all over the summer, but these past few weeks I have made an effort to bring back the facial fun and this is my current favourite routine. I have done this three times now and the results have been so great that I thought it was time I shared it with you. Enjoy! Continue reading

Long Overdue Huge Empties Post

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It has been far, far too long since my last empties post (here), so brace yourself for an epic rundown of everything I finished up over the past few months. I love these type of posts because it’s so helpful to reevaluate my thoughts on a product once I’ve used it all the way to the end. It’s important to me to see if my first impressions still stand or if my feelings have totally changed, as it has done with some of these. Most of the products included in this post have been fully reviewed on the blog already, so this is just a brief final overview of my thoughts and experiences, a “last impressions” if you will, before the empty bottles hit the trash. Not everything here was used up by me and not everything was a success, so keep reading to find out which ones I loved to the very last drop and which ones didn’t get that all important “repurchase” seal of approval. Continue reading

Summer Favourites: Part 2 – My Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation Skin Heroes

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As anyone who has had a breakout before will know, healing the blemish is only half the battle. The discoloured (red/purple/brown) “post inflammatory hyperpigmentation” mark that gets left behind can look worse than the actual spot ever was and take even longer to heal. Of course, this doesn’t happen to everyone or in all cases and depends on many factors like skin tone, size and depth of the blemish or whether you picked it etc etc, but when it does happen, it’s pretty frustrating. As I have brown (Indian) skin I am prone to PIH as a rule, no matter what I do or don’t do but this time I was pretty lucky. I’m guessing that because my skin was in great shape before the reaction and because I was able to heal my skin so quickly, the PIH wasn’t all that bad. I was easily able to cover them with concealer and wasn’t worried about it at all. Continue reading

Summer Favourites: Part One – How I Healed My Skin From A Bad Breakout

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July and August were extremely busy months for me and because of that I barely had the time (or energy) to consistently post my skincare routines on Instagram. What you missed during those months was me being reckless and excitedly trying a bunch of new products all at once (I know, I know) and ending up with a pretty intense bad reaction. For the first time in years I had multiple big, red, painful blemishes and it was not pleasant. Luckily, I was able to very quickly heal my skin, so in this post I wanted to share with you the star products that helped me do that. As it was summer, my morning routine was all about sun protection, but in the evenings I was able to fully concentrate on tackling the breakouts, and as that’s when the majority of the healing took place, this post is going to focus on the routine that got my skin back on track. Continue reading

Current Favourite Mask Routine

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One of the things I missed most about not sharing my skincare routines on Instagram is the discussions I had with all of you. I missed talking about the products and how and why I used them and getting really helpful feedback and tips. Now that I am getting back into sharing my routines I just had to do a blog post on this one because I’ve done it twice already and each time I can’t get over how much better my skin looks. The star product in the lineup is the Sacred Ground Mineral Mask from MOSS and it’s really what inspired this post because I have so much to say about my experience with it so far. It’s an incredible product and one I think you all need to know about. Since it’s such an involved routine I thought it would be good to fully explain how and why I use each product and what each step entails, so you know exactly what I did and could recreate it yourself. Enjoy! Continue reading

Birthday Wish List 2016

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One of the things I love most about my birthday is the freedom to treat myself all month long (yes all month, hello Leo season!) without feeling guilty and what I unabashedly want most is more skincare. Yep, I love skincare so much that I have multiple categorized (cleansers, toners etc) and ranked (most wanted to casual wants) wish lists dedicated to all the beautiful products I can’t wait to get on my face, and this post is a look at the things I want right now. Continue reading

Content Beauty & Wellbeing

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Content Beauty & Wellbeing changed my life and the trailblazing founder Imelda Burke is my hero. Now, I know these are pretty bold statements, so let me explain. As some of you may know from reading my first ever post “My Green Beauty Journey”, I found my way to this ‘lifestyle’ after being very sick for quite some time and deciding I needed to make a change. One of those changes was with my skincare products and one night when I was (again) in London for work, I found myself wide awake at two in the morning googling every ingredient in the products I had brought with me and being completely shocked and angry at what I discovered (mineral oil in everything for starters). I vowed there and then to replace it all but I had no idea how or what to use instead and that’s where Content came to the rescue. I simply googled “organic skincare london” and thankfully, their website popped up. After having quite an extensive browse around, I settled on the Tata Harper Deluxe Beauty Set (similar here), ordered it and the rest is history. If they hadn’t been there to make things so easy for me to delve in to the green beauty world during a time when I was sick, tired, frustrated and away from home, I don’t know if I would have continued on this path and if I hadn’t, so much in my life would be different now, including having this blog so, yes, Content changed my life. Continue reading

2015 Favourites

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Happy New Year, everyone!!! This is my third yearly Favourites but my first one on the blog and I am so excited to be able to talk about each product in more detail. Every product here has been my most loved/most used in their respective categories throughout 2015 and this time around it was so easy to pick my favourites – I just knew already. Even though some of these products are more recent discoveries than others, all of them have become firm staples in my collection that I reached for time and time again last year, so keep reading to find out why! Continue reading