To have your best hair ever...!

Hello ladies! 

I've always been asked what do I do to have my extra-long hair (more than halfway down my back) in such a good shape and no split ends whatsoever. I have wavy, dark brown hair, and it is very thick. 

(This was the only picture in which I thought you could 

really see how my hair is naturally)

The latest hair tip I've heard around is that washing your hair with horse shampoo will make it longer and beautiful.

I mean. For real? IT'S HORSE SHAMPOO, GUYS. I'm quite an skeptic when it comes to these miraculous things, unless I have tried them, but... for real??? Shampoo doesn't make your scalp skin make you produce more protein, and hair grows from the skin (some people tend to forget), so whatever you put on your hair, it will not make it grow FASTER. (Unless you take pills I guess, but I don't know absolutely anything about these other methods.)

Well I HAVE been asked if I washed my hair with horse shampoo, and I don't. I have also been asked if I have any sort of pill to make it shiny and long, and I don't do that either. 

I feel like people always want a miraculous method to repair the damage they have put their hair through for many years. My only useful tip is, and you might've heard this so many times: 

"LESS IS MORE"

And I imagine you were expecting some big awesome tip that would save your life, and that would be your greatest secret? I guess, it might be, although not in the way you were hoping for it to be. 

I used to be a girl who didn't accept her really wavy and frizzy hair, and I used to wear it shoulder-length and ALWAYS ALWAYS ironed it flat. Which didn't work, because... I was not meant to have that kind of hair. And I had the most frizzy, burnt and damaged hair, believe me. 

So, after reading some article some years ago, I decided to EMBRACE my curls, and I decided to chop my hair ends, and let my hair grow, WITHOUT using a flat iron, or any damaging heat on it. And it did take a lot of self-control, but in the end, my hair grew so long and beautiful, I decided cutting my hair and washing it with normal shampoo would do the trick. 

I cut my hair (over the) boob-length every four or five months, and it just... grows. I eat a lot of healthy foods, drink a lot of water, never miss my meat and fish, etc. I believe having a good diet is also the biggest secret to naturally beautiful hair. I wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner (only, yes!) every three days or so? 

My only issue is that I have to wash my hair THE DAY BEFORE any big event, because my hair is very frizzy. It usually needs a couple of hours to completely dry and I put it in a twisted bun after it isn't too damp anymore, so that it dries the way I like it to!  

The twisted bun is a nice way of creating big waves in your hair without using ANY heat whatsoever! All you have to do is, once your hair isn't too damp (like I said) you divide your hair in half, and twist both pieces (direction: away from your face, so that the waves FRAME it), until you have two big twisty strands. You then put them together into a bun, and tie that with a hair band.  

(My twisted bun looks a lot like this one! Cute, right?) 

It's really simple, but I can do a tutorial of it if you request it! :) 

You can do this before a party (if you've got plenty of time), or maybe even after flat ironing your hair (I flat iron my hair two or three times a year, when I'm up for it, so I do admit I flat iron my hair SOMETIMES.) 

Anyway,

I hope my hair ramblings helped you a little bit!   

Love, 

Maria

Rare polish: on the nails

(1 coat)

(2 coats) 

 (2 coats; natural light)

(2 coats; flash)

This is the swatch I promised I'd post! 

I think 2 coats makes this nail polish opaque enough, and really really bright!

The finish is matte-ish, so if you want a shiny finish, put a topcoat after painting on your nails. I am definitely going to do this, but I always do with all of my nail polishes, so it doesn't bother me and it gives a beautiful finish!

Hope you liked it :)


P.S. Under black light they just shine bright greenish, IT'S AMAZZZZZING.

RARE finally arrived!

Hello everyone!
You all sure know about my excitement when I ordered Illamasqua's polish "Rare", which is a bright neon yellow nail polish. But it was never in the mail, and I started thinking the mail people had lost it. I imagined my wonderful polish lost in the middle of nowhere. It was just too hard to imagine, without thinking about the 20€ I had spent on it. Such a terrible loss.

But, I'm glad to say,

IT FINALLY ARRIVED!

Actually, it had been all the time in the postal office near my house, but the notification had never arrived (I think my mom threw it out thinking it was about another item). I found out last night, when full of hope, I tracked it and it was supposed to be in the postal office. Since I have classes in the mornings, my mom offered to pick it up for me today.

And here you have it:

I just can't love it enough. 

It's such a daring color, it looks even greenish without flash, but it's a bright neon yellow, and you can see how bright it is when the flash hits it, and it makes the light bounce back! 

I just removed my glitter polish from my nails, and they look so dry and fragile, they look like they'd break anytime. So I am willing to use some nail products to restore my nails back to being healthy and beautiful. I'll let you know what products I'll be using, and what kind of routine I'll follow. 

So, according to my routine, I shouldn't be able to do any swatches in a couple of days, but I'll probably do it on one of my healthiest nails, and I'll post it so that you can appreciate how this polish looks on the nails and how many coats were necessary to achieve an opaque look!

Love,
Maria.

My skincare routine

Hello everyone :) !

I've been wanting to do a post about my skincare routine for some time now, because I think many people want to know how you achieve a nice skin glow and minimal blemishes. I haven't got the most perfect skin in the world, believe me! But I think my minimal take on a skincare routine is the responsible for bettering my skin quite a lot these past months.

I have always used a lot of creams on my face, thinking these would help all of my problems: acne, dark circles, blackheads, etc. Now, on dark circles I have still no solution except for concealer, and YSL Touche Éclat has been my go-to for some years now, since I don't have MASSIVE dark circles, they're just a purplish tinge that doesn't look nice at all. As I already said in a previous post, I never had huge acne problems, but some years ago I did have a lot of breakouts. But I thought, if my skin problems were due to my pores clogging, shouldn't I use LESS products?

Right now, I'm a firm believer that less is more, and I just use three products in total, and just two of them I use on a daily basis. My skin routine goes like this:

At night, after a day in which my skin suffers multiple aggressions, I wash my face with Clinique's 7 day scrub cream (rinse off formula), which not also cleans and hydrates my skin, but it also leaves it glowing and BEAUTIFUL. I swear by this cream, if I had to only use ONE product for my skincare, it would be this one! 

After rinsing off my face, I use my Interapothek Aloe Vera Gel, but there are many different brands of aloe vera gel and they all do almost the same job! This gel hydrates my skin (it doesn't make it greasy or anything), and it also makes any redness go away, including acne swelling and redness, and feels so refreshing and nice on the skin! I also swear by this product, because it has many benefits and is quite cheap and available ANYWHERE.

In the morning, I normally just use my Aloe Vera Gel alone, but if I feel my skin has some more issues than other days (like a couple of blemishes here and there) I will also scrub my face with my Clinique cream. 

The third product I use, although not EVERYDAY is a cream for my really dry skin patches, whenever I have them, which would be normally in the winter because of the cold. This cream is Babor Cream. I really like it because it makes dry patches go away almost instantly, but I do not use it normally because it does leave an oily residue and my skin doesn't always need that extra oil. 

So here you have it, and I hope it was useful to you guys, although cream-lovers will be disappointed by the limited amount of products I use on my skin!

Love, 

Maria.

Removing glitter polish: the tinfoil method!

Hello everyone! 

As you might have read on an earlier post, I recently received in the mail my OPI Rainbow Connection polish, which is a colourful glitter polish, which I ADORE. I must say, any glitter polish is quite a bitch to take off (sorry for the bad word), but it truly will be. Yesterday, I finally decided to take the polish off my nails, and no cotton ball soaked with polish remover was enough. It stuck and didn't budge at all, even my base color wore off before the glitter did. 

So I researched some alternate methods of removing polish. And I found the tinfoil method!

Now, I'm sure you guys have already heard about it, if not, I'm glad I'm the one who first shows you how this works. It's pretty simple, really. You'll need four things:

1. Nail polish remover
   
   
2. Cotton disks
3. Tinfoil/aluminium paper/etc.
    
4. Scissors

You can find these things pretty much anywhere, in any store, I'm sure of that, so it doesn't require any special device or anything of the like.

Once you've got these four things, you can start. You will start my cutting ONE cotton disk into five triangles, but I did these triangles in different sizes to fit both my smallest and biggest fingers. To do this, I advise you to firstly, cut it in half, and then one half cut it into two pieces. The other half, you will cut into three pieces, two of them quite biggish, and then a third which will be smaller.

Maybe you don't want to go into such a trouble, but I assure you with a couple cuts you will be done, and in this way, you will be able to do you fingers and thumb, at the same time, and then use a second disk for the other hand! :) 

I did this little diagram for you guys! 

Once you've cut the five different pieces, you will cut your tinfoil, either with scissors or with your hand (which I did), into five medium sized pieces, so that your finger will fit a couple times in it. And now, into the action!

Put a soaked triangle on each nail at a time, and after that wrap the finger with its tinfoil piece, quite tight so that the cotton piece won't move around. You will end up having five fingers covered in tinfoil.

Wait for 5-10 MINUTES, and you will have noticed a lot of heat coming from your fingers, because the body heat cannot escape the tinfoil wrap, so it will heat up the nail polish remover and make it much more effective. Once the 5-10 minutes have passed, pull every tinfoil wrap gently and pressing into the finger so that it takes away all of the polish residue. Even if you do this, you will most surely have some polish left on your nails, but with a cotton ball and some remover you can take off the rest of it without no effort! 

The skin might've dried up, it can happen (it didn't happen to me, but I have seen some tutorials in which the person (girl, woman, etc.) ends up with REALLY dry skin) it's advisable for you to keep some hand cream around.  

And that said, I hope you try this method because it's very effective to take away nail polish, although I do think that it isn't a good method for everyday nail polish removing because it will end up drying your nails  and is quite aggressive on the skin too! 

Love,

Maria.

P.S. About the time limit, I think 5 minutes is more advisable than 10, because the polish will have softened by that time, and if it hasn't gone completely off the nails, you can take it off with a cotton ball and some more polish remover! :)

Quick update: other ways of removing glitter polish

Hello everyone!

Just a quick update! I did tell you the tinfoil method was quite a nice way to take off glitter nails, but you can check other methods that also work in the following link:

Three Even Better Ways to Remove Polish by Lovelyish

My favorite way is the second one, painting a new coat over the polish and letting it stick to the glitter and soften it, and then remove as normal with a cotton ball and remover! 

I hope you aren't getting tired of this subject, but I really wanted you to know other different options you have, because as I said, the tinfoil way sometimes isn't worth the fuss if it's going to dry your skin and damage your nails (my nails are flaking a little bit, just so you know!). So I hope you like these.

Love,

Maria.

The tinfoil experience: preview!

Coming soon!

Glitter addiction!

Hello everyone! 
Maybe I didn't tell you (I don't remember actually if I did or not), but some weeks ago I ordered on eBay a nail polish by OPI called Rainbow Connection. And I'm still quite scared in case I've been given a fake, because I've heard all of these eBay stories! (I HOPE NOT.)

But even if it is, OH MY GOD. The glitter is so beautiful, and when you look at it under any kinds of light, it looks as if your nail has been embellished with all kind of little sparkly jewels. Now, I have never been a glitter lover, but maybe I didn't know the RIGHT POLISHES. It's just like what happens with guys, you never trust any until you know the right one!

The close-up picture is not very good, because I took these pictures with my phone, but my camera doesn't work right now, so while I fix it, my phone camera will have to do.

In the second picture you can really appreciate the multi-colored glitter specks, and their are different sizes, which makes this polish look like embellished jewels on the nails. AMAZING!

It was Vivianna, from ViviannaDoesMakeup, who introduced me to this nail polish and she made me want to have it. You know how this makeup world works: someone loves something and then you're sooooo tempted to try it! And since I didn't own many glitter polishes (or any, really) I decided this should be the start of my new addiction. (I actually don't know for sure I'll buy many more glitter polishes, but this is just enough for me!)

What do you think of it? Have you tried Rainbow Connection? 
Do you know or own any other MUST-HAVE glitter polishes?

Love,
Maria.


P.D. Please take into account that I put this directly over my navy-black nails, and I mean to use this nail polish on bare nails only! (It was the excitement of seeing it had finally arrived, I didn't even want to take my other nail polish off!)

P.P.D. I did some more coats and painted all of my left hand nails. Which means that... yes- my right hand nails are all navy, not glittery. I'm THAT creative.

Quick update!

Hello everyone! (not my usual "hello ladies", I know!)

I'm sorry for the whole tutorial thing not being up YET, but it turned out I'm not that good at editing and made some really huge mistakes, which means I have to film the whole of it again because it was just way too long and, even making the speed faster, it was just above 12 minutes or so. (So just imagine how much time I spent filming!)

So I'll get to it as soon as possible. I end up making so many promises, and I have little to no time to do some of these swatches and videos, but I really want to do them for you guys! So I'm really sorry if you've had to wait too long, but I will start posting more frequently and trying to do absolutely everything I said I would!

Oh, and BY THE WAY, my Rare polish hasn't arrived yet! :( 

I hate ordering things online because you don't know if they've been lost or what, you can just keep your faith... in the postal service staff! 

Love,

Maria.

How to rock the no-makeup look!

Hello ladies,

How many of you have wondered if the world would end if you went outside of your house without no makeup on? But we've all got little blemishes, discolorations and imperfections in general, so we end up giving in and layering foundation on our face.

I admit I do this A LOT, and I hate the fact that I have to hide my face to feel beautiful! 

If you feel the same way, you can have a go at wearing no makeup to feel more and more confident with your own skin, but you can also do the no-makeup look I want to propose to you guys today.

What I did was... 

Using a clean and old shading brush (small and precise, but old, so I am never going to use it for eyeshadow anymore) or a (clean) lip brush, I dabbed on my blemishes, redness, and discolorations a little bit of foundation (I use NARS Sheer Glow in Montblanc) but you can also use concealer, of course.

The result? 

Flawless skin, but letting the rest of it breathe and feel natural. 

And the other advantage of this?

You use little to no product everyday, so your foundation/concealer will last you AGES!

Give it a try, at least for an everyday look, rather than for a night out when we all want to be absolutely perfect in pictures, because I haven't tried it yet in that occasion, (but will do tonight!)

Love,

Maria.

P.S. Challenge! Would you be able to go without any sort of foundation for 7 days?