Natural Beauty Tips| The Beauty Bible

Recently I've been seeing loads of beauty tips everywhere I've been going... In magazines, on twitter and facebook so I thought I'd try and put the tips I think are really good into a Beauty tip series or

THE BEAUTY BIBLE

Which is a much snazzier title.... 

Soo onto the tips...

Hair: 

Coconut Oil as a deep co
nditioning treatment! I could rave about coconut oil all day, The smell of it for one is sooo yummy!!! But it helps rebuild and strengthen hair and also gives it such a beautiful shine!
For the best results I'd recommend lathering your hair in the oil and leaving it sit for 30 minutes and then washing it out. Get that coconutty feel in your life for smoother, softer and stronger hair! 

For smoother and less Frizzier hair your pillow cases can sometimes be the issue with frizzy hair! So change to silk pillow cases not only have these been proven to prevent wrinkles as the fabric is soft and doesn't crinkle as you can slide around on the smooth surface, it also eliminates those awkward morning sleeping lines that no amount of make up or tapping can get away and you end up walking around looking like scarface for a few hours!

Face:
My top tip for skin is to always was morning and night using a facial wash, however if you wash your face then use bacteria ridden make-up brushes it defeats the object so make sure you wash your brushes After every use... This minimises bacteria growth and also ensures that your brushes are always ready to be used again! I like washing my brushes in tea tree facial wash as I feel the tea tree has a soothing affect on the skin and also leaves my brushes really clean and smelling lovely!!

Potatoes to reduce puffiness on eyes... Now I know you're all thinking the new girl on the block is a complete crazy woman don't listen to her but Honestly this works just as good as a cold spoon so which ever you prefer really! Thinly slice two pieces of potatoes and place them in the fridge over night, then in the morning simply place over your eyes for 5 minutes and notice brighter eyes and reduced bags and buffiness... or alternatively use a cold spoon as the potato idea probably seems a bit crazy haha!

I don't know about you but I find I always feel that my teeth aren't white enough but I find that adding a bit of baking soda to my toothpaste whenever they need a boost of whiteness and afterwards I feel like I have a hollywood smile! This shouldn't be done long term though as it has been known to weaken tooth enamal and cause sensitive teeth!

Skin:
If any of you use Fake Tan you will know the horrible moment whenever you find out you have a streak however if you get a cotton wool bud and some lemon juice and gently wipe away at the line, it will fade and match your natural tan in no time just don't over do it with the rubbing as you will end up completely removing the fake tan!

And when you want to get your fake tan off maybe if it goes green or anything like that then get sugar in a bowl and add some lemon juice and mix together then use this as a body scrub and soon enough the fake tan will be all off and you'll look natural again!

Shaving:
When shaving instead of using shaving foam use conditioner, not only does it leave your skin really smooth and shiny but it also moisturises the hair folicles and stops the hairs growing back as dark and thick...

And those are my Natural Beauty tips tried and tested by me! I will put lots more beauty myths and natural tips to the test for you and the ones that don't work won't be featured on my blog!
I hope you've liked my first post in a long long while but hopefully it'll be one of many more to come! Thank you soo soo much for your support and not giving up on the blog as I am soo awful at writing posts and remembering to submit them once they're completed!!

Lots of Love

Tori X

DIY| Facial

Hey everyone,

Continuing my new DIY series! I thought I'd tell you how I do my DIY facial for when the budget is refusing to allow any treats!!

Step 1) Clean the face!! Removing any dirt or make-up from your skin is essential I like to use my simple Skincare facial wash which leaves my face soft and smooth! I then use my Simple skin care moisturizing cleanser to ensure all of my make-up and any dirt on my face is completely removed.

Step 2) Exfoliate, I have a really cheap exfoliater as I don't usually exfoliate my face that often but mine is from asda's skin care range it was about £1.50 and it is soo good for such a cheap product it smells really nice and it makes my skin feel really soft and the product itself doesn't feel abrasive or scratchy.

Step 3) Now steam your face! If you have a face steamer like me then that's great just set your heat to medium wait for your steamer to begin steaming and then steam your face for five minutes!! You can pick up one from ebay for around £40 or one from argos for around £50-£60. If you don't have one and want to make your own grab yourself a large bowl and fill with boiling water, place your face over the water and place a towel over your head to keep the steam inside and wolahh you have a DIY steamer...

Step 4) Next you can mask it up!! I like to use the chocolate mud packs to reduce pore size and clear the skin... but you can find numerous other masks for all sorts of trouble spot... Try to match the mask for something your skin needs e.g a purifying mask for oily skin or a moisturizing mask for dry skin. Follow the directions on the packet for optimum results.

Step 5) Now take your favorite moisturizer and relax. You should now have beautiful, clean and brightened skin just as if you'd had a salon facial!!

I hope you guys are enjoying the DIY series!! See you all in the next post and comment below if you have any other DIY posts you'd like to see!





Lots of love,

Tori X

DIY: Salon Style Manicure

Hey Everyone!!

It has been sooo sooo long since I've posted anything on my blog and I'm so so sorry but I haven't known what to write about and I didn't want to bore you all with some half heartedly written post that wasn't worth your time in reading!! But hopefully my writers block has cleared and now you'll be able to read more of my posts!!

Anyways moving on!! I don't know about you all but recently I've been a bit tight on money and really struggling to be able to treat myself to the luxuries such as a manicure that doesn't look like I allowed a two year old to colour in my my nails!! But recently I found a really cheap and easy way of getting salon beautiful nails for next to nothing!!!

Step 1) Allow your hands some relaxation time by getting a bowl of warm water and placing a few drops of your favorite scented oil in the bowl! I love the smell of lavender oil as its really relaxing! This will also hlp to soften your cuticles!

Step 2) Pat your hands dry and massage some vaseline into your cuticles this will also help to soften them up, Once soft push your cuticles back using a cuticle stick, this will make your nails appear longer and give them that salon look!

Step 3) Grab a nail file and file your nails in one direction, gently rounding at the corners. Filing in one direction prevents breakages and any rough edges being left behind. The rounded edges will also give your nails the salon 'squaroval' shape and also make them appear elongated.

Step 4) Apply your favorite hand cream, my personal favorite is Nivea's hand creams as they dry quickly and make my hands feel soft and moisturized. Now chose your favorite nail polish or nail design! I personally love the designs below as they're really easy but look soo good!









(These are not my nail designs or my nails these are designs I have found whilst researching ideas so full credit goes to the owners and designers of the images not to me)

I really love the simplicity yet the effect these nails have! They are all quick and easy to do and look fantastic and perfect for autumn as they're bang on trend for the autumn colors!

Step 5) If there is any polish around the edge of your skin use a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish to remove it... and now apply a clear top coat and now you have a perfect 'Ive just been to the salon' nails and I bet it looks amazing!!!

See you in the post!!!

Lots of Love


Tori X

Sunday pamper day AKA The Hangover cure!!!

Soooo.... we all know that feeling we go out for an evening and tell ourselves we'll have a sophisticated evening and will definitely not get slightly tipsy then scream 'Lets get mortal' then get dragged into drinking games and end up legless and vomming in a gutter.... 

Yet you arrive at the party, in my case an 18th and the atmospheres great you're been handed drinks left, right and centre... chatting and knocking them back like there's no tomorrow and suddenly we're in some very very big drunken trouble... You manage to somehow get home and crawl to the bed and if you're organised get some water and basically pass out, and then the real nightmare begins the next morning when you wake up and feel like someones whacked you over the head with a frying pan, whilst knocking you about so you have some cuts and bruises, and also feeling like you've acquired a stomach bug at the same time!

So my first thing to do is to basically figure out what is worse the head or sickness... 

My first thing to do is to re-hydrate myself by drinking a pint of water and  taking a paracetamol, then trying to soak up some alcohol by eating a piece of toast! Then drinking even more water!!! 

Then it's on to trying to make myself feel better beauty wise! 

I always feel like my hair is disgusting so in order to get rid of all the horrible hair spray, alcohol and product I like to use a clarifying shampoo like Pantene Pro V Clarifying which I first heard about whilst trying to get rid of a semi-permanent hair dye... We've all been there. 

Then onto my body as I don't like to condition my hair as it goes greasy so I like to use a hair mask every know and then, but I didn't feel like my hair needed it today! I started off with my gok body scrub and used my new toffee-cream body wash which smells soo nice and homely! Just to get rid off any sweat and fake tan after last night's events. 

Now onto my face! I always start off with my simple face wash and then use their cleanser to make sure all of my make-up is off... I finish with an exfoliater and then use my simple moisturizer to try and re-hydrate my skin. My eyebrows had been done the night before so it was just to make myself comfy for the day! I got changed into my onesie and drank another pint of water and then had a cup of tea for some reason it stops me feeling sick! 

Now my second best tip, Number one is WATER WATER WATER it is a miracle drink and has no calories! But the second tip is to not reach for the junk food and crisps.... your body needs nutrients so try to drink Orange juice for Vitamin C, eat apples and vegetables and potatos for carbohydrates as they fill you up and can help absorb alcohol and stop you feeling sick! But today I was the silly one and I reached for the chocolate, crisps, pizza, waffles, sweets just any comfort food to try and make me feel better and honestly it doesn't..... I ended up feeling even worse, throwing up and literally crying because my body just hated what I was eating and it wasn't nutritional enough for my body's needs! 

Anyway! Onto what I wore for the evening! 

It was quite a smart affair as all the boys turned up in suits so I thought I'd go with my black midi dress and teamed this with my black wedges and a lovely leaf necklace that I got from Primark.

  

Dress- Ebay £5

Necklace- Primark £4

Shoes- Primark £12

Eyelashes- Eyelure naturlites- £3.89 for two sets!  

All in all it was a very good evening, however my hangover is definitely the worse one I've ever had soo please if any of you have any good hangover cures please feel free to post them to me via twitter, a comment below or an email! 

Thank you for reading my post! 

Lots of Love

 Tori X

Review: Graze Box

Hey guys...

It's been ages since I've posted which has been such a bad thing of me to do! I'm so so sorry but life has just gotten in the way which is soo annoying!!!

Anyways... Onto two important things! First Thing, I have a youtube channel soo please go and subscribe to it, it's called ToriIxia It would mean soo much if you could! There's no videos up as of yet! But I have three recorded, being edited and they'll be up in 3 day intervals!

Second thing, I got a GRAZEBOX yes a GRAZEBOX.... I got the first one free including P&P but usually they retail at £3.89... which is really good for 4 little tubs of food!

So I waited about 3 days for my box which is not long at all considering how some companies make you wait a lifetime for a product! I instantly fell in love with the packaging when I saw it, it has palm trees and hibiscus flowers on which made me fall completely in love with the product and on the very inside was a picture of a beach just made the packaging! For such a cheap product they clearly think about great graphic design for their cover and inside!

 The cute pictures are really summer and the cardboard packaging means its eco-friendly and recyclable!

And the wonderful image of a beach really brightened up my day!

Inside the Graze Box you get four little tubs of food, you can chose your options by selecting the products based on a Hate this, Try This, Love This protocol... Those that you chose Hate this will not be sent to your, Those that you chose Try this will be sent but not all the time and Those you chose Love this are highly likely to be sent but not all the time.

I got sent Chedder Gorge which is basically Herby Biscuits, Chip salsa flavoured sticks and spicy cashew nuts... I liked the sticks and the Herby/ cheesy biscuits but the nuts I just didn't like!

I then had a Summer Berry Flapjack which I absolutely loved but only got 1/4 of it as the other half liked it soo much he gobled it all down much to my disappointment and the flapjack was soo goey and moist and the cranberries and raspberries combined were soo nice and not too overpowering!


The next tub was Hot Cross Yum which has orange flavoured rasins which are soo yummy, sponge pieces and cinnamon honey almonds and this was just lovely! It does taste like a hot cross bun which makes it even better!

Now onto my absolute Favourite tub! Billionaires shortbread which has belgium chocolate pieces, almonds cranberries and fudge pieces! I love each and every part of this tub and I am definitely buying this again!!!

I reccommend purchasing a graze box even if you just end up buying one as it was the best thing I've gotten recently... So go to Graze.com and get yourself and a yummy, healthy treat!

A beauty post coming tomorrow!!!

I hope you enjoyed this food review!!

Lots of Love

Tori X

Diets and The Race for Life!!! (Life Update)

Hey guys!!

I'm really sorry that there hasn't been many posts recently... I just haven't had the time to write or even get together a post. I must have gone to write this post about 5 times in the last few days and I've been stopped each and every time so I'm currently hiding away in the conservatory praying I won't be disturbed!!

The reasons for being so busy are a) Training for the race for life b) planning my 18th and c) planning my mums suprise 31st and that hasn't been easy!! But I'll write another post about that very very soon!!

I shall begin with an idea I had about two months ago... I'd lost about a stone and a half in the past year and I looked skinny but skinny fat and this had been getting to me for a while... not because I thought I was fat but because I'd worked hard for the body I'd always wanted but when I reached my goal I didn't have that body...

I've wanted to do the race for life since as long as I can remember, I lost my uncle to cancer when I was 7 years old and I'd always wanted to do it in his memory however I've never had anyone to do it with me, but that changed a few weeks ago. I mentioned to my family that I wanted to take part in the race for life and my cousin suggested that she could do it too, so over the next few days I began planning! I decided that as it was about 31 weeks until the Race for life (approx) I needed to get started so I split my training up into 3 six week sets of the easy training program and 2 six week sets of the harder program which would take me 1 week away from the race where I would literally just run every other day and stretch out before the race.

This is the easier 10k plan:
http://raceforlife.cancerresearchuk.org/wcm/idc/groups/cr_common/@rfl/@gen/documents/document/mdaw/mdey/~edisp/018233.pdf

This is the harder 10k plan:
http://raceforlife.cancerresearchuk.org/wcm/idc/groups/cr_common/@rfl/@gen/documents/document/mdaw/mdey/~edisp/018234.pdf

I feel I've had to change my diet too, I've tried to remove junk food such as, crisps, chocolate and sweets completely from my diet and swap them for fruit. I now have breakfast which I never used to do I usually have a potato cake or  fruit and fiber cereal (30g) and a cup of tea. For lunch I try to have wholemeal bread with either spreadable cheese or chicken/ham and then I have some fruit in a box, and for Dinner I have pasta, salad or chicken with noodles or something as healthy as possible.

So far I've not lost any weight or seem to have toned up but I do feel healthier.... which I suppose is something! I'll keep you all up to date about my progress and let me know if any of you are taking part in the Race for life we can go on this journey together....

Lots of Love

Tori X

Review: B&M False Nails....

I recently went shopping in B&M Bargains with my mum and I came across a very random beauty bargain...

I completely love false nails but don't wear them that often as I worry they'll ruin my nails which aren't exactly in perfect condition anyway! So I'm walking along the aisle and browsing and on the very bottom shelf I spot a lot of 3D.... Yes 3D set of false nails and I browsed and found two sets I really liked. So I asked my mum what she thought and for £1.49 each I could buy the two for the price they wanted for one normal set!

The pack contains 8 3D nails and 16 normal nails.... Which I feel is a bit misleading but for the price I paid I don't really mind, the set also comes with nail glue. The Nails themselves are of good quality and aren't too flimsy or brittle like some flase nails, the edges are smooth and can be easily cut and shaped without snapping in half.

I like the design of the nails and the packaging was black and gold and very professional. As far as I know the nails are B&M's own brand and are very professional from what I can tell! I think these are my favorite false nails!

These are my nails that are leopard print with black bows, two diamontes and one pearl!

I chose this particular arrangement as I felt the nails were very statementy and if they were right next to each other I feel it would have looking overly done and wouldn't have a decent affect.

Nails- £1.49 and they come in different designs too!

These were my mums nails they consist of a peach and silver manicure with white 3D flowers and 3 diamontes above this...

I like how they compliment my mums hands and elongate her fingernails and fingers....


So get yourselves down to B&M to check out their false nail bargains!!!




I hope you enjoyed this little review and have a great evening!

Lots of Love

Tori X