Problematic skin? Vichy normaderm review

If you've been a follower of my blog for a while now, you might know that I've suffered quite badly with my skin. I'm 22, I have oily skin & enlarged pores which leads to them getting clogged which then creates blemishes &/or blackheads. Brilliant combination, right? Well, at least I'll have less wrinkles when I'm older I suppose! My skin has improved massively in the past year, I've had microdermabrasion treatments to help with scarring & have learnt that using gentle cleansers on oil skin is your best bet, anything targeted for acne prone skin just strips the oils which in turn seems to worsen my skin.

So when I was contacted to try out the new Vichy normaderm Tri-Activ Anti-Imperfection Hydrating Care & I'd read a little about it I was very interested to try it out. Microdermabrasion helps smooth out my skin & get rid of blackheads, but unless this is kept up the smoothness disappears. This is why I'm really impressed with this product, when I use it my skin is so supple & soft I can totally tell the difference if I stop using it for a couple of days.

Basically the product is an emollient that helps to perfect yout skin with its unique Hydra Peeling technology. There are three peeling ingredients in the gel: salicyclic acid, glycolic acid & LHA. So while it moistuises your skin it also helps fight impurities with salicylic acid, neutralises bacteria on the skin with glycolic acid & gives an exfoliation with the LHA. It's the LHA that seems to help the smoothness of the skin as it helps "gently micro-exfoliate the surface of the skin for a smoother surface and uniform complexion." Pretty good & perfect for skin types like me.

I can definitely feel the 'peel' of my skin with this product & that is why I only use it at night. It does give a lovely radiant but matte finish to the skin when applied which would be great for a base to apply makeup to, but with the peeling I prefer to use this as night time moisturiser & use my MAC oil control lotion during the day.

If you want to read more about this product click here.

I know a lot of people have reviewed this product & you can get tired of seeing the same things or wondering who's actually telling the truth about them but I pride myself in giving honest opinions on products. If I don't like a product, I either don't review it or voice my opinion, it's as simple as that. I've been using this product for two weeks now & could have given a review within the first couple of days, but I like to give products a good run & test them properly. I would definitely buy this again.

Should have put a ring on it

images 2 & 3

Ever since a young age I've loved big rings, I think it came from watching Friends & admiring Phoebe's ring clad hands, I just loved the chunkiness & exaggeration. So when seeing photographs of what could be knuckle duster rings on every finger I was reminded of my love for cluttered hands. I feel naked if I don't wear my Vivienne Westwood ring, it's chunky enough & stands out but I want more & I want to wear them all together, a la Phoebe Buffay but a little less ditzy & a little more rock-esque. Whilst lusting over the fashion on this blog (which I wouldn't have know about if it wasn't for this post on Katie's blog) I came across cocoo.se, a brilliant jewellery site with the most amazing rings I've seen. The site is currently making an english version so unless you know Swedish it's a little hard to navigate & understand, but I think a purchase from here is well needed....very very soon.

The moral of the story

If you follow me on twitter you will have more than likely seen at least one post about my hair disaster. Basically, I don't know why I did it... I hate box dyes, but because when I dyed it for Leeds fest & it brightened up nicely I thought I'd do it again. Only I bought the wrong colour didn't I. This one completely lifted my roots to a lovely yellowy blonde. Don't chose this colour if you have a lot of warmth in your natural hair, it won't end well. So in panic I used up the last of my po1, didn't work, I slapped purple shampoo on numerous amount of times, other than turning the bleached length & ends a lovely shade of dull grey/purple it did nothing. Roots were still lovely & warm. I ran to asda to get an ashy dye, other than irritating my scalp it did nothing. I went to sleep in tomato sauce, beautiful, I know. It worked to take the purple out though. & off I went to work the next day with hair tied up & head scarf on, no joke.

On the way home I drove like an idiot to get myself to Durham Sallys before it closed, my trade card had ran out so I paid full price, I paid £2 for parking for a 7minute stay but I managed to get my po1 & luo releaser. Thankfully Cat cleared up a few things about luo to me, as the last time I'd applied it (although I was all set to do it the correct way) was told by a hairdresser friend to apply it totally the wrong way. After having this on for 20 minutes & sleeping in a hair mask it helped a lot. I still went to the hairdressers but other than give me advice about the condition of my hair she wouldn't do anything to it other than going dark. Putting lowlights in would mean I'd have a blonde root & nothing will tone on top of tone on the tips. So, I walked away with Kerastase Bain de force shampoo & conditioner & went off to buy some pantene to strip the toner out of my tips. After washing my hair this evening for the 15th time this is what I've ended up with. I no longer resemble Andy Warhol & I don't mind it now, I just HATE having no roots, I think blonde right next to the scalp, unless natural, looks horrid...well on me.

So now I'm going to wait for my roots to come through..ahhhh beautiful, treat my hair to some bain de force & use my Fekkai protein mask a little more!

So the moral of the story. Don't do what I did.

Leeds festival

Time of my life.

I had Leeds blues & a husky for a good week, I still experience the blues now when hearing the Libertines or Blink. I went last year but my god even though I saw so many more bands in 2009 it will never come close to the good times in 2010.

We camped in a valley with trees & fairy lights, Piccadilly circus DJ set was at the end of our track, we made friends, had camp fires, a chubby RPatz camped near us - he tried too hard. Lindsay jokingly got engaged during Lost Prophets whilst on someones shoulders & got married during Biffy Clyro. We tore the Gamers Tent down & owned it on both Friday & Sunday night, there were cheers, fans, haters & a lot of games. We sang chants to Hayley Williams to 'TURN IT UP', laughed, danced & I had the best time of my life. It was epic.

wedding picture! The fashion of the guys make me crease. You've got bold shorts & guys clad in Northumbria uni sportswear.

Ink me

I love the the very fine delicate handwritten style, would be amazing if I could find a piece of writing from someone like my Grandad & have that copied onto my body. That or a small sketch/watercolour of his.

Currently thinking this quote might be a winner:

It's so hard to chose something that's going to be stuck on your body, for me it needs to be pretty, tasteful & mean something. I'm not one to get a random tat, this is going to be on my skin for the rest of my life!!

Have any of you got any tattoos? Link some pictures, I love looking at them!