Let's Talk About: Sleep

Ah sleeping, one of my favourite weekend activities. I recently found out that March is International Sleep Awareness Month from a sleep loving company called Casper Mattress that is trying to generally raise awareness. Of course it's now nearly the end of the month (oops) which seems to have flown by! 

I'd love to spend every day sleeping in till mid afternoon, but I've been so busy with University work that that hasn't been an option lately! I love this little infographic Caspar sent, and I've definitely related to them all at some point but probably the one that suits me most is The Bed Hogger (hello starfish sleeping style).

Which one are you? And just before I go I'll leave you with these sleep inspired nails - Snorlax Nail Art - the laziest of all the Pokémon.

Let's Talk About: Skin Tone

I've decided to start a little series called 'Let's Talk About' where basically I ramble on about a particular beauty topic and hopefully impart a little bit of info. Slightly more informal than a proper review.

Skin tone can be a bit of a confusing subject in the beauty world. Makeup artists will talk about 'warm' or 'cool' undertones when colour-matching you to a foundation. Some use the comparison of the colouring in your veins as a guideline; green veins for warmer skin, blue veins for cool skin, but as someone who has a mixture of these this isn't always very helpful. 

Pink undertones in your skin tend to mean cooler skin tone, and yellow undertones lead towards warmer skin tone. It's also possible to have a mixture (probably not advised to wear multiple foundations on different areas), or be completely neutral.

Foundations are made to complement this, MAC (for example) colour match you to either NW or NC depending on your skin tone. I actually prefer to go the opposite way, since I have quite a cool skin tone, I like to use yellow-ish or neutral foundations to counteract the pink tones in my skin.

I've also discovered that certain brands tend to lean toward cool tones or warm tones within their range; for example Clinique have much pinker foundations, and Smashbox have more yellow undertones.

It can be difficult to find an exact match to your skin tone, but when you do, and it has your ideal consistency too: congratulations you've found your holy grail foundation! For me that happens to be Nars Sheer Glow in Mont Blanc. Good luck finding yours!

Long Time No See...

So it's been quite some time since I last posted - 4 months to be exact. In a nutshell I just got busy, ran out of draft posts, and then didn't really know how to start again. There are some stereotypical 'beauty blogger' posts that just don't interest me, haul posts for example (although I still love reading them because I'm nosey), and it can get a little daunting when so many others post almost every day, have hundreds of followers, and Youtube channels (I don't want one of those either). 

I love the beauty blogging community, and I think these things can be great for others, but in my own little corner of the internet I want to stick to writing about the things I care about - getting back to my roots (also literally, I've ditched the blonde in my hair!) even if that means less frequent posts. I want them to be the type of posts that people find useful, such as the Halloween Makeup posts, I can remember the pride I felt when I my friend told me they used my advice to create their own latex wounds and it's moments like that that inspired me to start blogging in the first place.

So, what have I been up to in the last 4 months? Well, I have been focusing on my final year dissertation, and my other passion: cocktails. Since late November, I've been working as a cocktail bartender and also entered a few cocktail competitions. I'm setting up a separate blog for cocktail related things 'Boozy Robot' so feel free to give that a follow if you're interested!

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures taken at a recent FlairSoc Mixology, combining my cocktail making with a nice shot of my eye makeup (man I love Urban Decay Half Baked eyeshadow)!