Choosing Foundation

A great way to test if you're wearing a good foundation is to ask any male if you're wearing too much makeup when wearing only foundation (a little mascara if you must) and standing in daylight. If he looks back painfully confused, trying to assess whether this is a trick question and whether something bigger is at stake here, because to him it looks like you're not wearing anything then result! Test passed.

Three main rules for choosing the tone of your foundation:
1. Never stray too far from your natural colour. No more than one shade as a general rule, two shades at a push
2. Never buy a foundation before you've asked for a tester and tried it on your face in daylight. The lights in department stores are totally misleading
3. ALWAYS use a yellow base. Always. No discussion. Anything else goes orange/pink in daylight and you get floating head syndrome, no matter what colour your skin tone, no matter how light or dark.

Now I have actually reverted to using a BB cream in the day. I'll cover BB creams in a separate article but for now let's consider them as the same and the same rules apply.

Brands for day time/lighter foundation:
Lancôme - very nice and light, particularly the Teinte Miracle range has a good selection of tones
Bobbi Brown - good coverage but not too heavy. All Bobbi Brown foundations are yellow based
Clarins and Laura Mercier

Brands for evening/thicker foundation:
Estee Lauder - Double-Wear Stay in Place. Good coverage and no need to reapply throughout the night. Although I must mention that the bottle is quite annoying, you just pour it out...
Lancôme - Do thicker ranges, but with fewer colours
MAC - Don't use this one myself personally, have heard mixed reviews but it definitely is thick. Great concealers.
Dior - Expensive but good coverage and lots of colours to choose from

As a final word, I would recommend always forking out a little bit more for foundations. So stick to the fancy part of Boots with the concession counters.

Ully x

London Grammar - Sights (Tourist Version)
https://soundcloud.com/londongrammar/sights-tourist-version

Lengthening mascara ~ L'Oreal Telescopic

I find mascaras are such a tricky product to get right, with so many being too clumpy, flaky, or with bizarre shaped brushes. Mascaras are one of the few products where I find price does not correlate with quality, where some designer labels seem to think that adding something smelly to the mix will justify charging twice the amount as a normal brand (ahem, YSL..). I have been using L'Oreal Telescopic for years and have found very few are quite for creating noticeable lashes.

My two main criteria for good lashes are length and separation. This is first and foremost achieved with the right mascara but I also have a few application techniques which help.

Start at the root of the lashes and comb slowly upwards and through all the lashes. Repeat lots of times and be very particular about combing out and lashes that you think have clumped together.



For extra length, comb from the top-side of the lashes down and up, then comb from down upwards again. Do this a couple of times. 

When people say I have good eyelashes I have to admit that they are really nothing special, I've just got a good mascara!

For added volume, I sometimes go over with more layers or another mascara (MaxFactor have lots of good volume mascaras).

I have to be honest that I have recently noticed that the Telescopic does not apply as easily which I suspect is due to a formula change. I find the older it gets the better (weird). I tried the Benefit 'They're Real' mascara. It's amazing. But it does cost £20 and doesn't last very long... So I think I'll stick to this for now.

Ully x 

Waze & Odyssey vs. R Kelly - Bump n Grind

https://soundcloud.com/wazeandodyssey/bumpandgrind2014

Whitening toothpaste ~ Oral-B Pro-Expert

What I’m about to tell you is something I learnt whilst living with three dentists last year. This toothpaste is the best. It’s the only toothpaste that actually whitens and strengthens your teeth at the same time. And trust me, it whitens. Oral-B basically have a patent on a type of fluoride which is the only one of its kind to have enamel building properties. Most people think that Colgate is the best but don’t be fooled, they just have the best marketing campaign. Remember: Oral-B Pro Expert Whitening. Sold.

Ully x

Disclosure - Voices (Wookie Remix)
https://soundcloud.com/wooxstar/disclosure-voices-wookie-rmx

Autumn nail rescue

As the sun makes an appearance more reluctantly for each day my summer glow begins to shed and skin, hair, and nails become duller and paler. My nails in particular can become quite weak and often flake at the tips so I have to pay more attention to these little babies. I have found two rescue items which are super cheap and should be a staple in anyone's manicure collection. First, its the 4 in 1 nail file found in Boots. Cuboid in shape, this nail file has one side for filing, one for ridge-removal, one for smoothing, and one for shining. Its called the '4 way buffer block' and costs £2. So handy. The second is this Superdrug own brand 2 in 1 hand and nail cream I happened to come across. It's got keratin and and pro-vitamin B5 and really helps to strengthen nails. Costs £1.05 for a small tube to pop in your handbag. Bargain!

Ully x

Bodhi - Entropy
https://soundcloud.com/mixmag-1/download-bodhi-entropy

Haircut!

Got my hair cut yesterday and thought I should put up a pic. I am slightly obsessed at the moment with the idea of growing long healthy hair. I think that having good hair makes the difference between averagely pretty and gorgeous (think Kate Middleton... Controversial?). The dream is to upstage Kim Sears at the next Wimbledon final with my own luscious mane. Probably a little ambitious considering she has about the same amount of hair in the wispy front bits as I have on my whole head. Regardless, I have stopped highlighting (for the moment anyway, just to get the natural shine back), getting it regularly cut, and treating it well. Beautiful people look healthy so eating food to nourish your hair is important too (more on beauty foods later!). I am also a huge advocator of enhancing your natural appearance rather than changing it. This goes for make up too as I will also expand more on later!

Hope you like it.

Ully x

Chris Malinchak - If U Got It
https://soundcloud.com/chrismalinchak/if-u-got-it

The 5/2 diet

After watching the BBC Horizon documentary on fasting and the media attention that followed, I decided to try out the 5/2 diet. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is basically when you choose 2 days in each week where you eat 500 calories (if you're a woman, 600 if you're a man) and for the other 5 days you eat normally. Not only are you supposed to lose weight, but fasting is supposedly very beneficial to your long term health and reduces the risk of a catalogue of age-related diseases. 

The science behind it goes: when you eat normally, you give your cells fuel so that they have energy to fill out normal processes and replication driven by a chemical known as 'Insulin Growth Factor 1' or IGF-1. The more your cells replicate, the more chance of mutations occurring, a probability which increases as we age due to harmful molecules known as free radicals. This is basically what aging is and happens to us all. Mutations during replication are also the cause behind many common diseases which normally appear in later life, including cancer (excessive and uncontrollable replication) and Alzheimers (over-replication of harmful proteins which form plaques in the brain). Recent evidence, however, has shown that we can reduce our levels of IGF-1 simply by eating significantly less for 2 days. This in turn deprives cells of fuel so that they stop replicating as well as switching on genes which allow them to repair DNA damage caused by, for example, free radicals. 

My dad started this diet after Christmas and has lost over ten pounds since then. I have been doing it for a couple of weeks and have had slightly less drastic results. Although I never really started the diet as a weight loss regime I though I would have lost more than I have (about 3 pounds I think). Having been on this diet now for a few weeks there are a few things I thought I would share. 

First of all, in many newspapers and magazines it says you can eat 'whatever you want' on the 5 days when you're not fasting and still lose weight. Definitely not true, you still have to eat well on the in-between days (3 meals a day, avoid snacking, portion control and healthy options are my 4 simple rules which I stick to most of the time) if you want to lose weight. Otherwise you will just put on what you lost on your fast days. 

Secondly, I would recommend fasting on days when you are busy but don't really have to concentrate, or at least not in the afternoons. I don't find the hunger such an issue, it's more a weird feeling of being slightly bored of not eating. It's hard to explain, if you try it out you will see what I mean. That's why it's good to keep yourself distracted. I have never experienced any dizziness and you shouldn't since it's only one day of fasting at a time (and you keep yourself hydrated) although I do feel a sort of mild discomfort in my head. I have also had some days when I have found it hard to sleep. 

So what does 500 calories look like?

Here is a photo of everything I ate in my last fast day:

Apple + Coffee with soy milk = ~100 cals

Pea & Ham soup = ~200 cals

Half slice of rye bread with slice of ham and tomatoes = ~100 cals

Yogurt = 100 cals

0 calorie foods include herbal teas, black coffee, diet drinks, and water.

I am going to try to keep doing it purely for the long term health benefits, Mondays and Thursdays being my fast days. Hope you have found this interesting, I would love to hear if anyone else has tried this and what their thoughts were. 

Ully x

PS. If anyone is interested and wants to read more, here is a link to the BBC website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549

Karma Kid & Friend Within ft. Yasmin - Feeling So Special

  

Autumn nail polish

Since a friend introduced me to light brown, I have grown to love autumnal shades of nail varnish. I'm currently wearing Maybelline Forever Strong Pro in a shade which I can only describe as the underside of a mushroom. It's actually called 'Taupe couture' or numbered 786. Another slightly lighter shade I like is Golden Brown 19. Bought last week from SuperDrug for £4.09 and worn for the first time this weekend.

Ully x

Lion Babe - Treat me like fire
https://soundcloud.com/lionbabe/treat-me-like-fire