Bright Red Lipstick

This morning it was a really dark morning - I woke up thinking surely it can't be time for me to get up - but looking at the clock revealed not only was it time for me to get my azz up, but I should have been in the shower.

I did my usual grooming process, but instead of just doing the barely there make up this morning I decided to use one of the many bright red lipsticks I bought in New York earlier this year, probably in some bid to brighten up the dreary morning.

No big deal, right? But what I am discovering is that the opposite sex seem to love bright red lipstick. I'm getting a lot of appreciative glances this morning...it's a little bit startling, lol.

The Body Beautiful Show

ok. So I went to this show last Saturday, the body beautiful show and to be honest, before hand, I had scanned their website to see the companies in attendence; a lot of cosmetic surgeons, a lot of dentists and a lot of beauty products groups.

I'll just jump to my impression it was okay in set up - people made an effort, but the problem with the beauty industry is that people will not do anything to their body that requires a change unless a) they are convinced of the professionalism of the person and b) they see the persons work and therefore are recommended.

The fact that only three or four of the exibitors actually addressed this issue, by having samples or their products to take away and use meant that some of the providers were not in tune with what the industry requires to go that extra leg to attract customers...that may sound harsh, but it's true. £99 for tooth whitening may be a bargain, but if I don't know someone who can explain to me how much pain is involved and who won't be getting monetary gain out of convincing me then I ain't buying!

That's the main reason why certain spots at this exhibition were just packed! you could see where the freebies were, you just had to look out for th very long queues. These queues is the reason why I queued for just under 3 hours to get a free facial (apparently it costs £200) - we got the condensed version and we were able to buy tickets for this version for a knock down price of £75, but honey, why pay for something when I could try it then and there!

I had the facial - the facialist was lovely, I've forgotten her name, but she was pretty, with gorgeously long dreadlocks, dark mahogany skin and had a beautiful/sunny character too - she gave me an excellent head and shoulder massage and I almost forgot all about how long it took to get there. I didn't really like the facial though - my skin felt really tight afterwards and I'm not used to that - tight skin to me equals more chances of getting wrinkles.

I also went to the biological Age counter - this was well publicised before hand and I was so curious - I had read something about this a magazine and all the information was laid out and an eventual age was spat out by some statistical machine.

Well, out of curiousity I decided to do mine. When I got to the top of the cue I couldn't believe what a set up these folks had! Can we say 'Quack Doctors'? They had 4 people who so looked like they had been pulled from an agency two dressed in lab coats that they had never worn before. In each section they each did a different job, one took your grip, the other checked skin elasticity, the other tested eyes with this large meter stick that looked like it had been borrowed from a museum and the final one checked blood pressure.

When I got my results I got an age for each test, 25 for two of them and 40 for one and 80 for the other.

An American Lady (AL) then came and spoke to me about my results. AL : your blood pressure results are bad, me: I'm suprised they are normally quite good. AL: *snort* well this is bad!. Me: Well I have about 3 blood pressure tests before and a well woman assessment which all told me I have low blood pressure and have I am at low risk of heart disease. AL: well, the thing with the machine we use is that because we only have a short time we can only use the pulse for a quick test, we couldn't get the machine that you squeeze and ........

yeh, yeh, and the rest!

the second thing that I found out about the cockamami test was that the lowest age you would get on the results was 25! and no lower! I am so sure that the test was set up to make women who want to stop everything going south get hooked on to them and buy their products. It's companies like these that really make me believe that the beauty industry needs a makeover.

My hair has got to grow!

yesterday I was wandering around London and I saw a black girl zipping by, I knew she was in a hurry but I had to stop her and ask whether what she had was on her hair, realising what I said I immediately apologised, and she, obviously used to being asked the question told me it was ok. All the will I stood their looking for signs that the hair which was well past her shoulders and on its way to reaching her elbows was not hers - but I could see that is was. She quickly told me that she has regular deep conditioning steams I thanked and we said "bye" and she passed on.

Her hair is no different in texture at all, but I knew I had to make an effort to care for my hair, put some strength back into it and stop it from breaking in general. I went back over my well kept list of websites for hair care that I had come across in the past including www.longhaircareforum.com. But for me the best (looks professional, includes visual clips which show technique) has to be http://www.growafrohairlong.com/crownandglory.html. The Crown and Glory technique was created by stylist Robin Woods and goes into details about hair care for the basic types : Natural, dreadlocks, relaxed and permed. It looks at Food, vitamins, how hair is washed, how it combed, everything. I hope this can do something for me in my hour of need!

Fine Lines and wrinkles

I'm no where near the age where I need to start worrying about wrinkles, but I've been aware of them since forever (as far back as my teens) and only because I am a real beauty aficionado.

Plus living in a country that seems to be a breeding ground for premature wrinkles means that I am always on the look out for the next big product.

Simply out of preference botox doesn't appeal to me, neither do restalane or isolagon - all of which sound wonderful, ( I believe restalane (sp.) lasts for 6 months, so is a great investment if you do go down this route).

This weekend I came across a different, non-invasive method of handling wrinkles. Scouring through the latest edition of vibe vixen magazine (the sister magazine to Vibe, see www.vibevixen.com) they had a page where they stopped various women and asked them a beauty question - one person in particular revealed that her mother uses premarin on her face which really helps to reduce fine lines her actual words were "It really works!".

Now for those of you, who like me, had never heard of premarin before it is a cream that deals with vaginal atrophy (!!!!!!!!!!!!). So if you can get past this then you're already one step ahead. According to a website I accessed the cream works by 'temporarily inflamming the skin'. The good thing about this website is that it is also reveals the down side. (click here to view : http://www.a2zwrinklereduction.com/wrinklespremarincream/)

What I would love to correct at the moment is the skin around my eyes - I've seen a picture of my grandfather and he didn't so much have bags as great big suitcases around his eyes. My plan is to stay well away from that look and so I am trying to prepare now for the future, so to speak. The site above made reference to a cream called Preparation H which is supposed to help. Now I've actually heard of this before and used it in the past. Preparation H is a cream that is administered for haemaroids (sp. - I need to sort out my spelling!) but it has been revealed in articles and beauty books as being great for the skin around the eyes. I did try it, btu the only problem was that it had no moisture at all - it was almost clay like in texture, which put me off. Looking at this website I received much more information about Preparation H; I did not know that it contains steriods and steroids can thin the skin - the skin around the eyes is already a delicate area etc. But again, the verdict is that preparation H really works also.

At the moment I am thinking of getting both the creams and 'watering' them down with other lotions or creams that I currently have thereby, hopefully, minimising any bad effects. As usual I will have a loooong think about it before I actually decide whether to go for it or not

This Months Beauty Wish List

I have my peepers on the following :-

1. Under Eye Caci treatment - which promises to lift the eye
2. Electrolysis or Laser treatment on the upper lip - their not that noticeable, but I really want them gone already!
3. Chair massage - I booked for a free one at work (lucky me!) but I could really do with one now
4. Pedicure - loooong overdue
5. Against the wishes of my stylist I plan to get my hair braided in winter
6. I'm going to the beauty show due to take place at the Olympia in London this month http://www.bodybeautifulshow.co.uk so will be looking for movie star level beauty secrets out there which I will, of course, edit and add to this list

Autumn Winter Beauty Part II

Now that autum/winter is truly here operation 'protect-myself-from-the-dangers-of-central-heating-and-cold-weather' (phew! long title) is in full swing. part 1) I've started doing my olive oil face washes. I do a clarifying was with normal face wash then put olive oil on my face have a shower and then clean the oil off with a hot water and natural sponge and then moisturise my face as normal. My moisturisers are now Dr. Hauschka Rose creme, which is quite a thick moistureriser, mixed with nivea sun creme for SPF protection and dermalogica firm skin booster serum.

The second most important thing is my hair - I never could figure out why it was that around february my then natural hair would break and fall out to the point that people thought I had cut my hair. This year moisturising is the name of the game and I have many to suit all my moods and treatments.

The day before I wash my hair I oil it with Amla hair oil which has a woody smell to it.

For any other day I use Rasta group's wonderfully revitalising mango and lime oil. Because oils and lotions work in different ways I tend to mix the two together so something lotiony like or a cream gets used in conjunction. Usually pure shea butter, which I add essential oils to - my latest block has drops of lemon grass and camphor added, Elasta QP's mango butter which smells edible or Pantene Relaxed and Natural moisturising creme. I always feel that my temples and nape need extra moisturising so at night I tend to add the shea butter slightly thickly to these areas. I have the Rasta Groups cactus serum, but it doesn't have that much moisture in it so not sure if it would be great under cooler conditions. If it doesn't have any moisture it will simply dry out the hair and could lead to breakage so I have to be careful if I do use it!

Finally food and exercise - I have been stepping up the campaign with Diet Buddies and now have, count'em, TWO diet buddies. They both appear to be normal so really looking forward to it - especially as these are the months when we really feel like snuggling up and eating lots of stodge. I spend a lot of my time at work and tend to eat both my breakfast and lunch there so for my lunches I plan to add scotch-hat peppers to my lunches so that I am warmed up and feel full when I eat.

Diet Buddy Angst

As some of you will know I've been trying to find a decent diet buddy for a little while. Whenever one is in the position that they have weight to loose it's best to find a diet buddy because you can achieve so much when you get the right buddy.

Without knowing it I had one a few years ago - a friend and I were loosing weight, at the time I lived in North London and She lived in South London so we couldn't meet up to exercise or for a general chat, but we usually spoke to each other every day and as we were both on diets we talked about what went wrong, what went right, and when I felt low about overeating she'd cajole me into believing I could go on and vice versa - it was fantastic!

There are inevitably times when someone is dieting and they do not feel like exercising or going out for a jog or breaking into a sweat....when my friend and I were on this diet the motivation was there because talking about it kept us going - when one of us was down the enthusiasm of the other was infectious and kept us going. I lost about 35 lbs which is no mean feat I can tell you!

So you see what I mean about having a diet buddy being a brilliant thing...but it's finding one that's the nightmare. I contacted one before who left an advert, but if her emails are a reflection of her attitude she will find it very difficult to get one. The second time around I posted an ad on a website and received an email almost instanteously. Fantastic! I thought....Immediately I started giving details about how much I wanted to loose and why I wanted a diet buddy now, etc.. all the usual chit-chat you give to someone you have never spoken to... I got replies, but talk about unenthusiastic! As life is far too short I know I don't have time for attitude so I will be widening my search...in the meantime if any of you are looking for a diet buddy then email me at evols1dog@yahoo.co.uk, lol.

Eternal Youth

I'm always going on about how I believe the 'canvas' has to be right if all the make up and clothing etc is going to look good. This is not necessarily true, people who know how to hide this and that can really make themselves look amazing. But I always like the idea that if you go right down to the 'root' of a person they have that healthy glowing look.

Beauty and Youth are definitely not just about the products we use, and our grooming process or the amount of exercise we get and what we eat - although these definitely factor.

It's about the inside too, which in my opinion doesn't get explored enough.

Let's take Youth : a lot of this is marketed in bottles of high promising creams with all sorts of vitamins and ingredients which 'peel back the hands of time' or provide that inner glow. But the truth of the matter is I have many an aunt and uncle from Africa and the Carribean who've never across these products and whose faces completely belie their age....some of them have wrinkle free skin, but some of them have the wrinkle free skin and look extremely youthful and for this I am usually in awe. How do they manage to do it?

I've tried to observe because many of them are not even aware of what they do that makes them look so young but even that is difficult. It appears it is easier to pinpoint what it is that makes people look older....

I've observed so far that:
1. Bad body posture definitely ages. Hunched backs always remind me of Mr. Burns (a la The Simpsons) type characters who are completely set in their ways and whose inflexibility is evident in their bad posture.
2.Then there is bad facial posture...reading a book on beauty the author narrated a story about a friend who had plastic surgery because the perma-angry look on her face meant that she was constantly being told "smile...it might never happen".

These are the two things that I definitely need to work on - I haven't changed that much physically over the past few years, but getting an assessment on my age has changed drastically and I am so aware of the changes in my face and my perma-frown and my shoulders seems to be constantly slouched forward, smh.

But, and I don't know how much this applies to people out there - I know that my bad posture is linked to negative self talk and also lack of esteem (I worry that if I put my shoulders back and my chest shoots forward I'll be sending an altogether different message, lol)

I know that my bad facial posture can be linked to the fact that I seem to automatically tense up - it's such a subconscious thing I don't even notice...but I do notice when my throat tightens and my breathing gets shallow. Bad facial posture can stem from anything as innocent as a frown of concentration to a frown of annoyance and walking to work each morning the legendary 'cold' faces will be littered with expressions that are fixed in expressions of cynical thoughts, unvented anger, frustration and defensiveness and generally not taking time out when it all gets too much. I hate sounding so negative but that's what I see.

I believe that at the end of the day we have to reset the mind - that is get rid of all the information we get inundated, get philosophical about whatever incident may have annoyed or irritated and also learn from them where possible.

I know all of this, but it's getting my azz to sit down and do the stupid thing - I believe I need to see it as an important part of my beauty regime. I'll let you know it goes.....

Trying to tame my eating habits

I really want to loose about 14lbs, but it is sooo tough right now!

I keep overeating and it is a sure fire way to put on weight, obviously, if I'm eating more calories that I need I am going to be putting on weight, and as Arylon let me know in the 'How to eat..' article, one day can make a huge difference on the scale.

I'm going through a battle at the moment and now that so called diet buddy has clearly decided that she doesn't want one anymore this is clearly something I am going to have to work out on my own....so what am I going to do? not sure...but if I figure it out I'll get back here with the answer!

They say "the eyes have it"

Having been into h&b for such a long time I am more than familiar with this phrase, but never thought about what it meant other than someone had pretty eyes.... it's only now that I've started thinking about what parts of my face to accentuate when doing my make up and I've noticed that african and indian women tend to kohl line the eyes, it suddenly dawned on me that I should be making the most of mine...what I've started doing is making sure my eyebrows looks smooth - they are always 'clean' (free from stray hairs) but they seem to have that look...I can't explain it, but the eyebrows never look soft enough...

experimenting with pencils made me realise that if I use a soft pencil I can fill them in accentuating my eyes and softening the brows all at the same time.

The other thing that makes my eyes stand out is if I use mascara on both the lower and upper lashes... I did do this in the past and didn't like it, but trying it again recently I've decided it does suit me, finally to really bring out my eyes, in the most natural way, drawing a line along the lower lash helps, if I want to look even more natural I blend the line so it is very soft, but the colour is there contrasting with the whites of my eyes.

I finish with a little blush and lip gloss, sounds a lot, but being someone who cannot stand piles of make up on my face, it's not.

I overdosed on beauty products

Last month was just a crazy month - I went product mad and brought almost everything and anything that caught my fancy, the list goes

1. Two l'oreal shocking mascara's, because I have to have one for home and one to come out with me 'just in case'
2. one l'oreal architect mascara - it's an old favourite and what if they discontinue it?!
3. Mango Elasta QP hair butter - it smells good enough to eat, I loves it!
4. Rasta Locing gel resistant formula
5. Rasta mango and lime hair oil
6. Some indian hair oil to add to my hair the day before washing
7. Lancome juicy tube - I'd been telling myself I didn't need one for so long that it had to happen
8. Nexxus retexxtur curl vitalising shampoo - which I used with my phytospecific mask
9. eyebrow pencil - I've been studying my eyes for a long time now and I concluded that the brows need a little definiton
10. I finally graduated to the larger tubes of Dr. Hauschka Rose creme
11. As mentioned in a previous post - I bought the Dermologica firm boost serum, the vitamin intensive under eye creme, eye patches - of which I am half way through the packet.
12. More under eye patches - I found the same ones for cheaper
13. Tea trea oil - which I started out using for spots, but now I add to hair creme / oil to stimulate my scalp

I know there are many more, I'll just have to add them as I remember....

September's Links

http://www.lamasbeauty.com/blog/ - Health and beauty blog
http://bestofweightloss.com/ts/id9799.html - Dieting blog
http://www.style.com/
http://www.beautynewsletter.gq.nu/
http://www.hautezine.com/ - beauty newsletter
http://www.ubhpublications.com/HairTipsQ1.html - Ultra Black Hair website
http://www.lookfantastic.com/cgi-bin/lf.storefront - A UK site which sells beauty products at a cheaper price
http://www.thejanecartersolution.com/ - hair products as features in Essence Magazine
http://www.blackup.com/index.asp - Beauty products for black skin, French style
http://p069.ezboard.com/bblackbeautyblackhair86911 - black hair boards, especially good if you are looking for tips on how to get your hair to grow

Last edited 22nd September 2005

For the hirsute

okay, I'm not hirsute, but I do have very dark hair which means even the slightest amount causes a little shadow. Not good for certain areas... I'm going to look into electrolysis as a means of permanent hair removal, I need to do the usual check the reviews, find a reputable store - I do not want to end up with scarring ...no sireee!!

for legs, forearms, bikini line and underarms I considered getting some waxing done for a cleaner look than cremes or razors. But browsing through a drugstore one day I thought, why don't I just get an epilator - it's one off cost will cover the cost of lots of waxings and I can do it whenever I want.

Well I bought it, took it home and the very next day returned it to the shop. I found they wouldn't take it back though because *shameful blush* I had tried to test it on myself and the hairs showed up. So I took it back home and put it out of sight while I stopped seething for being lumbered with this thing I didn't want.

My next idea was to send this epilator to the charity shop but I always seemed to forget to bring it with me whenever I was passing, which is definitely a good thing because last Thursday I tried it and now I love it! it left me so smooth! Don't get me wrong it is painful. But if you hold the skin taut - like you would with waxing - it minimises the pain. The only area I won't be epilating any time too soon is my underarm - dang it hoits! That area will be strictly getting the creme treatment, but other than that happy with the results. The make of my epilator is Braun - it's not high tech, but it does the job.