Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Skincare Tips for Humid Weather
So you all know that I'm going on honeymoon right after my wedding to Kuala Lumpur, Borneo and Hong Kong, all of which have very hot, humid climates. Because of this, I have been reading up on what kind of skincare and makeup I should be looking at to ensure my skin stays in good condition. It may be a bit of a shock to my system since I used to the colder climate of Aberdeen and although we do get a certain amount of humidity in the UK, it's nowhere near the extent I will experience in Malaysia.
I just wanted to share some tips with you guys that I have picked up over the last couple of months in case anyone else is jetting off somewhere nice.
- Try to store your beauty products such as moisturisers, eye gels and cleansers in the fridge (hotel rooms often have these for the mini bar/snacks). That way, they will be feel cool and refreshing to use on hot days. There's nothing worse than products getting hot and then having to put them on your face when you have been in the sun all day. If you don’t have a mini fridge in your hotel room then you can always fill the sink with cold water (can add some ice) and chill your products before you use them if you have time.
- It's important to remember to keep your skin hydrated because even in hot, humid climates, we still have to rehydrate our skin to allow it to take care of itself. When you are walking in and out of air conditioned rooms into the heat outside, your skin will struggle to cope with the sudden change in temperature. A light moisturiser will help it to regulate itself naturally. I like to use Elemis Pro Collagen Marine Cream because it has a very light formula that sinks into the skin immediately so it's perfect for daytime.
- If you need to wear a moisturiser, try and use a lightweight serum or gel consistency product rather than a thick, creamy one. This will avoid your face feeling greasy and heavy during the day. Also, make sure your chosen moisturiser contains lots of antioxidants. This is because sweat and heat increase bacteria, which aggravates any kind of skin condition so you want to prepare your skin for that. No one wants to end up spotty on holiday! Keep in mind that oil-free and noncomedogenic (meaning they won't clog pores) formulas are best for really clear skin. I also like Matis Shine Control Purifying Care Cream because it keeps the skin matte all day and doesn't block pores.
- Avoid any kind of creamy, wipe-off cleanser as this will be too heavy. Choose a rinse-off option like Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash or Loreal Perfect Clean Face Wash. The Elemis one will gently exfoliate your skin and remove any dry skin cells without aggravating sun-exposed skin whilst the Loreal one contains Salicycic acid to deep clean your pores and keep your skin spot-free.
- Choose a sunscreen that is designed for use on the face, these tend to be lighter, less greasy and therefore less likely to block your pores and cause irritation. If your chosen sunscreen is slightly moisturising in texture, you can always use it in place of a moisturiser in humid climates. Some sunscreens are designed to have a nice matte finish that can double up as a primer. I use Clinique's Super City Block SPF40 because it always saves my skin from being burnt, it sinks into the skin without leaving a greasy layer and it's perfect to prime my face. For my body, I always favour sunscreen that is easy to apply, non greasy/sticky and water resistant. The best one for me is Garnier Ambre Solaire Light and Silky Protection Milk SPF30.
- Drink plenty of water as this will flush out toxins from your body and staying well-hydrated will improve the overall look and feel of your skin. You will be sweating ALOT and you will need to replace the lost moisture.
- Use an exfoliating scrub at least once per week to remove dry skin cells and any dirt from your pores. I always rate the old favourite St Ives Invigorating Apricot Scrub for really smooth skin. They do a few different formulas like Gentle or Blemish Control so you can choose which one is best for your skin. A great body scrub I have recently discovered is the Korres Watermelon Body Scrub. It smells delish and it exfoliates your body without being too harsh or scratchy. My skin feels so soft after using this!
- You can use a toner with glycolic acid to help remove toxins and pollutants even further. Although my one doesn't contain that ingredient, I find it always leaves my skin feeling so refreshed, revitalised and supple. I am currently using Aubrey Organics Green Tea & Ginkgo Facial Toner. It contains loads of great natural ingredients like Witch Hazel, Chamomile, Lavender, Cucumber & Aloe Vera. I love it!
- Use a chilled eye gel before bedtime. This will help to reduce puffiness and any tenderness or irritation in the eye area. You will wake up with brighter eyes that feel refreshed rather than heavy. Cream formulas can aggravate the eye area in warmer climates and cause swelling or redness. I will be taking my Oskia Eye Wonder Nutri Active Eye Serum with me because it has a super light gel formula that prevents puffiness and dark circles.
- Any products containing things like chamomile, lavender, cucumber or aloe vera will be soothing and cooling. These ingredients help to restore the skin in the most natural way
- We all know it's important to apply after sun EVERY time we spend long periods of time in the sunshine. I like Garnier Ambre Solaire After Sun Skin Soother Hydrating Milk with Cactus Extract because it's super light, moisturises for 12 hours and it smells great! I also love Korres Cooling After Sun Face & Body with Real Yoghurt because it has a lovely cream-gel light formula that keeps the skin hydrated and soothed.
- ALWAYS wash off makeup before bed. This is important all the time but especially on holiday when you are sweating so much more, as I said before, bacteria breeds alot more in the heat. If you leave your makeup on with sunscreen underneath as well, you will end up with spots galore. You have to let your skin breathe overnight because that's when it repairs and replenishes itself. Think of bedtime as an 8 hour detox for your skin.
So those are my skincare tips for humid heat. I will be doing another post soon on makeup tips for humid heat so stay tuned for that! Any tips you have or advice would be appreciated...I need as much info as I can get my hands on!
Wider Reading | Poetry | Wiki Wild West
“The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.”
“A Mission Statement is a dense slab of words that a large organization produces when it needs to establish that its workers are not just sitting around downloading internet porn.”
I’m saying this right off the bat – I love Wikipedia.
Are you still here, poets? Good. This is a call to arms.
Most people I know have been in this ubiquitous conversation-path in the post iPhone world:
A: That is not true!
B: It is true!
A: I will stake any money on this… it is not true
B: OK then, well lets see if you’re right (pulling out iPhone) see… right here, it says it’s true.
A: (sarcastically) Oh! Oooooh! Well if it’s on Wikipedia then it must be true. That site is just a load of people putting down their opinions and pretending it’s a fact.
I hate ‘A’. With my whole heart I hate them (although I’ll admit that ‘B’ is a twit as well). Not because I believe in everything I see on the internet, but because I hate the mentality that criticizes something that you have the ability to directly change. I’m not talking about a philosophical Gandhi-ish ‘be the change’ moment… you can literally change Wikipedia if you don’t like it. It’s ours. It’s free. (Sorry countries where it isn’t).
Why do I bring this up in relation to poetry? Because poets are missing a trick. The scientists have the right idea. I cannot count the fascinated hours I’ve wasted learning about Leidenfrost Effect, or Tautochrone Curves or Nikola Tesla. Why is it then that I can barely find an A4 page’s worth on Ted Hughes or Free Verse or Anne Carson? If the scientists are so desperate for the world to understand their obscure ideas, then why can’t we follow suit? Wallace Stevens has saved my life just as many times as the Leidenfrost Effect (althought Stevens does have one of the better Wiki entries)! I know there are scientists out there who are fascinated by poets – can we please repay their favour by sharing what we know.
I have begun my campaign to feather poetry’s Wiki-nest brick by brick. I am starting with a few high-profile poets, one paragraph per day. This may not seem like much, but as my confidence grows I will become bolder and more ambitious with my contributions. And what’s more, you are going to help.
I know that there are poets reading these words. I know that you own text books and literary criticism and biographies and ‘collected letters’ and quarterlies. I know that these are absolutely brimming with information that will die if we let it – poetry is a niche market and its literature goes out of print.
So as soon as you are done reading this, sign up for a Wikipedia account and start editing. You can do this immediately. Find a poignant quotation from a reputable source about a famous poet. Then go put it on that poet’s Wikipedia page – and reference it properly with the ISBN etc.
It will feel strange at first – Wikipedia editing requires you to become familiar with a formatting code of sorts that takes a little getting used to. But this does not matter to you because you are doing something good for the world. Once you hit your stride it will take you 10 minutes to add a paragraph to a page. Then you will start getting adventurous. You will begin adding images and info-boxes and going out of your way to research.
You will find yourself sat in the library and notice that you are surrounded by people doing the same thing as you – not ferreting away for their own obnoxious essays, but they are all making notes and citations that they can go home and share with the world. You will all glance in recognition at each other and go for a beer in the pub opposite the library and toast a new age where the doors are blown open by a wind that forces every speck of dust out of the windows.
Go forth and start sharing all that specialist knowledge you take so much pride in.
Phil Brown
Poetry Editor
Monday, July 12, 2010
Wider Reading | Introduction | Something, Something, Heidegger
Week 8 | Wider Reading | Contents
Tuesday | Poetry | Wiki Wild West
Wednesday | Fiction | The Unbearable Meaningfulness of Being Overweight in Fiction
Friday | Chapbook | Seven Electro Emotions, by Eliza Stefanidi
Saturday | Mixtape | Critical Listening
Plato, Aristotle, Bharata Muni, Al-Jahiz, Lodovico Castelvetro.
Wordsworth, Eichenbaum, Coleridge, Shklovsky, Hazlitt, Yury Tynyanov, Jakobson and Mr. Propp.
Northrop Frye, Said, Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant, Foucault. Locke, Machiavelli, Sartre, Proust, Beauvoir, Fayol, Shakespeare, Milton, Woolf, Maupassant, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.
Perloff, Hassan, Peters, Picard, Barthes, Brecht, Lacoue-Labarthe.
Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Paul Celan, and Gérard Granel. Nietzsche, Hölderlin and Walter Benjamin.
Martin Heidegger.
I, evidently, am incredibly well read. Evidence aside, it proves nothing.
The widest readings come from places only you know.
James Harringman
Editor-in-chief
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Update, Review & Honeymoon Clothes Haul
Hi guys, sorry I haven't been very active on my blog in the last few days. The wedding is now only 3 weeks away and there are loads of things that I have to keep on top of. I'm glad to say it's all going really well though and I have a few wedding related posts coming up regarding makeup and the honeymoon.
On a more serious note, I actually got some awful news this morning and I wasn't even going to blog today but I really needed something to take my mind off it. Remember I did a post mentioning that my dad's best friend, George, who was in a coma after a bad fall? I had been to visit him in Intensive Care at the hospital on Thursday morning and I have to say that I found it really hard to see him like that. He looked so helpless and vulnerable, nowhere near the happy joker that we all know and love. I tried to be as strong as I could and was breathing deeply as I walked down the hospital corridors, trying to prepare myself. But despite all that, I completely broke down when I turned the corner and saw him. It took me a while to get myself together enough to sit and talk to him, I just stroked his arm and told him how much we all wanted him to wake up. He has always been my dad's best friend for over 25 years and they are so funny when they're together, they always seemed like silly teenagers in eachothers company. My mum phoned me this morning to tell me that sadly George died last night. I have tears in my eyes as I write this because he was only 52 years old and he leaves behind a wife and two daughters. His twin sister, Yvonne is also good friends with my mum as they both practice Reiki. He had over 200 people visiting him since he had the accident last week. Everyone loved George, he was such a good, kind-hearted, funny, genuine man and he will be sorely missed by many people. I will always remember that when he met Chris, my fiance, for the first time, he said to him "you need to get a ring on that girl's finger boyo!". He was so looking forward to the wedding and being able to get dressed up in his kilt and I know he will be there in spirit to celebrate with us. We will definitely be toasting him during the speeches because he touched all of our lives in such a special way.
I almost felt guilty about doing something so shallow like blogging after hearing such serious news, but I need to keep myself occupied because whenever I stop and think about it, I get too upset.
I have been meaning to do a review of the Loreal Volume Million Lashes mascara for a while. I picked it up whilst browsing in Boots (I do that alot!). I don't know why I feel the need to buy every new mascara? I think I'm always looking for the greatest mascara for the greatest price! It's very comparable to the Lancome Hypnose Precious Cells mascara in effect and formula, however, the rubber brush is ALOT fatter. I found it a bit awkward to use and get into the smaller lashes, so for that reason, I much prefer the Lancome mascara. The formula of the Loreal Volume Million Lashes has everything you would want from a daytime mascara...it stays put, it defines each lash, it adds length and it doesn't smudge. It also has a design feature whereby any excess product is deposited in the tube as you pull the wand out so you never get that situation where you get loads of mascara goop on the brush. Is it a good everyday, reliable mascara for the price? Yes. Is it an amazing mascara that blows my mind and makes my lashes look fabulous? No. I am still very fond of either lashings of YSL Singulier or a combination of Lancome Hypnose Precious Cells as a base, with Lancome Hypnose Drama over the top. I got asked twice in one night if I was wearing false lashes when I combined these two! That's good enough for me.
I was in town shopping yesterday for honeymoon clothes with my friend and bridesmaid, Pamela. After settling down with a latte and Lemon/poppyseed muffin at Starbucks, we headed to H & M. After that I noticed Accessorize had a 1/2 price sale on so I had to have a look see. Once I got in there, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the jewellery and actually realised that I never tend to wear alot of jewellery on holiday anyway. So I settled on these cute pale blue flower hair kirbys for only £3.50! Bargainous!
Back to H & M though, which has become a favourite of mine for finding really affordable holiday clothes that may not last forever but I don't particularly like taking expensive clothes on holiday with me. My brief for myself was light, colourful pieces that were easy to pack, easy to wash and comfortable. H & M also has a sale on at the moment so I took advantage of that!
I love this coral colour and it really seems to suit my skintone (in other word, it magically makes me look more tanned!). I really like the unique detailing on the front and it's the type of top that's loose enough to be comfortable but still fitted enough to show your shape. It was only £7!
Then I picked up two plain vest tops in sky blue and hot pink for £3.99 each. These types of tops are always handy for layering when it's cooler at night time (I was thinking the hot pink one under the coral top above). I also like them for sleeping in when we get back from holiday.
This pale pink t-shirt with clear bead embellishment on the shoulders lies just off the shoulder and looks so laid back without looking too casual. It was down from £14.99 to £7. It feels so light when you're wearing it and I would say that they are made quite big, I had to get a Small, but I would usually be a Medium. It really deoends how baggy you want it to be but I prefer my clothes to be a bit more fitted to flatter my shape. Sometimes when you have a big bust and you wear baggier clothes, it just makes you look heavier than you actually are. It will go perfectly with a nice long pendant, the light grey shorts below, my brown tinged aviator shades and some gladiator style sandals.
I have been on the look out for some nice cotton or linen shorts with a comfortable waist and not too much detail around the waistline. I don't like to add any bulk to my waist and prefer things to skim my body in that area. I found these shorts in the H & M sale for £4! They are a very light cotton/linen mix and they are the perfect length for me, not too mention SUPER comfortable for lazing around on the beach, or could even be dressed up a bit for wandering around the city. I pretty much have all the clothes I need now but I may pick up another bikini, another pair of shorts and a couple more tops. I have a feeling that I will be changing my clothes alot by the sounds of the intense humidity over there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
