What terrible skin has taught me

~ Caroline ~ 3 Comments

Acne turns perfectly nice skin into a daily preoccupation.

You can go from waking up in the morning and maybe putting some make up on of you feel like it, to waking up to angry looking painful feeling skin that (if you’re anything like me) must be tortured with spot products then slathered in the make up equivalent of paint. Ah acne.
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Over the last year I’ve gone from looking like an unfinished game of join the dots to having skin that’s clear most of the time and, AND… I’m comfortable going outside without make up on (gasp).

Here’s what I’ve learned (and what I’ve used)

1. I’m quite vain. Not painfully so but dear lord did I not feel like myself. I’ve never really been wildly into make up but ask me about foundation and concealer now and I’ll have the information that you seek.

2. Hormones are a bitch. My acne was stress induced. Stress did a complete number on me, seriously. It knocked my hormones off to hell. I’m not going to recommend yoga or meditation here because screw that, I was STRESSED (note: it probably would have helped) act on your stress before it gets out of hand. Just do what you’ve got to do, but I will say, if acne has sprung out of nowhere get yourself to the doctor. But…

3. Prescribed acne cream is the devil. It’s horrendous. I got some on the carpet and I kid you not, it bleached it white. I was given ‘acnecide’ and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

4. I will squeeze spots. I will regret it every time.

5. Learning to enjoy taking make up off properly makes this whole thing a lot easier.

6. Moisturiser is a blessing. Just make it unscented.

7. Time will pass whether you’re helping your skin or not. So you may as well help it. Drink water, ditch some of the food that you know is bad for you. Check if dairy inflames your skin. Don’t torture it with drying products. Change your pillow covers often. If you have long hair wear it up at night.

8. Don’t use cliniques spot fighting line, it’s expensive and will make your face as dry as the desert. If the desert had spots and a fear of mirrors.

9. Find some products that work for you, and stick to them. For me it’s:

Ocean salt scrub – Lush
Midnight recovery concentrate – Keihls
Facial radiance pads – first aid beauty

Then fragrance free washes, moisturisers etc (the joys of having awful sensitive skin too)

Not all at once, not all everyday but they’re pretty solid products in my book that I’d not be without now.

10. When the spots are gone you still have crap to deal with. Red marks… Tiny dimples… Discolouration! This is annoying because you’ve already done your time! Just stay the course, exfoliate and moisturise. Exfoliate and moisturise. That’s the mantra.

Overall the whole process sucks. It’s frustrating and time consuming. It’s a preoccupation and a worry. It will, however, go away. It will!

I’ve no pictures to show you a before and after because if you’d come near me with a camera when my skin was bad I would have bitten you.

Forcibly sharing moments 

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

The other day I was out on the usual morning walk with the Mad Dog and the BF and we came across this beauty of a sunrise.

I dragged the pair of them down to the harbour to soak it all in before I had to head to work.

Mad Dog found some suitably disgusting seaweed to play with and the BF… Probably thought about the bed I’d also dragged him out of.
Ahh… The beauty of being the most annoying and persistent one in the house!

Happiness in The Versions of Us

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

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He stands for a moment before opening the studio door, looking down at the beach, flooded with a disorienting happiness; and he savours it, drinks it in, because he is old enough now to know happiness for what it is: brief and fleeting, not a state to strive for, to seek to live in, but to catch when it comes and to hold on to for as long as you can.

– The Versions of Us, Laura Barrett

Feck ‘new year, new you’

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

You don’t need a new you! You are just fine right now. As am I. So is everyone else who embarks on a life changing beginning to January.

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This year I’m going incredibly broad with my New Year’s resolution and am simply going to make more of an effort. That’s it, across the board. The aim? To do more with my time.

There is no end goal here, it’s horrendously non specific and I’ll probably have no idea next year whether I’ve succeeded or not.

Basically, I like lots of things and I’m beginning to get the fear that I’m not getting stuck into enough of them for the lazy reason that I just don’t bother.

What a waste!

So there we are, come on 2016 I’ve got lots to do with you!

Is anyone else thinking along the same line this year?

Keeping a journal is a great idea

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

Dear diary,

Prepare for all of the bat-shit thoughts that are too weird to say out loud, with possibly, a brief look at what I’ve been up to in the last day/week/fortnight… however long it’s been since I last picked you up.

Keeping a diary or a journal, whichever you prefer, is a good habit to have. I’ve still got one from across one summer holiday when I was half way through primary school which cracks me up every time I delve into it. Eight year old’s are ridiculous, and this is a joyous thing to have concrete proof of.

Now I am technically an adult and for the last five months I’ve been keeping a diary again. It was an idea born out of sheer boredom and continued because I’m absolutely certain it’s good for me. Plus, I like stationery.

Why? You may ask…

  1. It means you don’t forget the small hilarious moments, dramas, excitements and dilemma that are essential in life but don’t tend to stand the test of time, memory-wise.
  2. It’s the perfect arena to debate with yourself if you’re not too keen on wondering the streets mumbling away and frightening small children. This in my case has ranged between how short to go for my next haircut to the big life stuff that you just can’t quite get your head around!
  3. If you like to write and don’t write for a living it’s perfect! If you do write for a living, a diary doesn’t require redrafting, spell checking or being run past anyone for ‘feedback’.
  4. You can tell it shit and it’s not going anywhere with that information.
  5. It keeps your handwriting semi-legible (unless you truly write like a maniac)
  6. If you’re the crafty type you can make it look beautiful – something I don’t do but each to their own!
  7. You get to buy a notebook AND get the satisfaction of finally filling one up.

It’s something I would recommend to everyone, think of it like getting the mental goodness of yoga without having to do any of the actual yoga.

Also, must remember to actually do some yoga.

Get out of the reading slump

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

Picture this, you know you love to read but you also know that you cannot be bothered to turn a single page and can’t seem to find anything that catches your attention.

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As far as problems go, it’s not even on the scale. During my slump I mainly just watched The Vampire Diaries and Parks and Recreation – the horror.

All in all, I had a fab time in my reading hiatus – which has also included being back to working full time and planning all sorts of exciting adventures for the upcoming months!

I am now back, and it’s down to giving up on trying to read ‘clever books’. I’m talking about classics or sciency things. I’ve also done away with attempting to read anything that I cannot lift comfortably for at least a few minutes. Also, if I can’t look into the middle distance of my life and picture myself turning the final page, then I’m not going to start it, Simple as!

It was the Silver Linings Playbook author Matthew Quick who won me back round. He’s got the same honesty and fantastic characterisation that I adore in David Nicholls’ writing but with a decided bent towards mental health. I will have my eyes opened to issues other people face, through fiction, dammit. I flew through Silver Linings Playbook and The Good Luck of Right Now and am on the market for more of his novels.

Still Alice is another one I’ve read recently that ended up being a wonderful, heart wrenching, thinker of a book. It takes dementia and makes it make sense to those who aren’t clued up on the technical ins and outs of mental health ie me and pretty much everyone else.

So to keep it simple, the best thing you can do is just do what you want. Read the books that speak to you when you come across them and feck what seems like the ‘right’ thing.

Fish are facial features – descriptions done right

~ Caroline ~ Leave a comment

To my mind he was not so very plain. True his features were all extremely bad; he had a great face half as long again as other faces, with a great nose (quite sharp at the end) stuck into it, two dark eyes like clever bits of coal and two little stubby eyebrows like very small fish swimming bravely in a great sea of face. Yet taken together, all these ugly parts made a rather pleasing whole.

What a glorious description! It’s detailed and on the right side of nonsense to be possible to imagine while still being fun to read!

It comes from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke recently turned into a BBC drama that I believe is about to wrap up.

If the book keeps churning out gems like that, I’ll be sorely tempted to jump on the series’ bandwagon.

When is a twist not a twist?

~ Caroline ~ 1 Comment

You know when someone recommends a book or a film to you and they love it? It sounds great, they’re excited by it and now so are you.

matt smith doctor who

But then, but THEN… They tell you there is an amazing twist that you will never see coming. They want to tell you it, but don’t because it will ruin the whole thing, it’s that much of an amazing, unexpected twist.

They have sounded the twist klaxon and all of a sudden you are waiting for the unexpected to pop up and take you unawares.

I was lent a book by someone I worked with. Every time I saw them (a couple of times a week) I would be asked if I had made it to the twist yet.

I never said yes, even as I finished the book I never found the twist despite looking out for it the whole way through.

(Two characters had been in love with each other the entire time, despite outwardly disliking and bickering with each other)

Why was it so elusive?

1. It wasn’t a brilliant twist, more of a character development really

2. I was a bit annoyed with the constant questions so there’s a good chance I would have denied the twist’s existence anyway (bad)

3. It had been built up so much that I didn’t see it when it appeared!

As president of the grumpy club. I’d like to propose that if there is a great twist… we don’t tell people there is a twist. Let them come to you afterwards with shock and awe in their eyes! Yes, it’s nice to feel super knowledgeable about something but it’s flipping annoying.

I’d also like to propose that if it’s a small, rubbish or not a twist, let’s not call it a twist. And let’s not tell me.

Join me grumpy folk!

Club membership is free and the only requirement is being easily irked. Join, and be free of having films and books ruined for you!

Yes to Cucumbers Daily Moisturiser

~ Caroline ~ 2 Comments

I picked up Yes to Cucumbers Daily Calming Moisturiser for sensitive skin from Boots after I ran out of my previous moisturiser that was a little too harsh for my temperamental skin.

Sensitive and natural caught my eye. 95% natural? Brilliant, lets have some more of that.

Yes to cucumbers daily moisturiserThis is soothing, cooling and lasted me more than two months which isn’t bad for a 50ml bottle. It has a lovely cucumbery smell. Be warned, it’s not subtle. If you’re not a fan of cucumbers you will definitely not like this. As, unusually for a sensitive moisturiser, it is pretty heavily scented.

I do wonder whether it would have been an excellent moisturiser rather than a nice one if it didn’t have the scent. It wasn’t quite moisturising enough to tackle particularly dry patches but it did leave the majority of the face feeling soft and happy.

I don’t know about you but I don’t mind the perfume free smell, though that’s very much down to personal preference.

However, a nice little bonus is that it is cruelty free.

At £11.99 I haven’t repurchased it, even though I was happy enough to finish the bottle, I’ve moved on to a Simple moisturiser. It is a third of the price and is doing exactly the same thing, just as well.

Does anyone know of a moisturiser that’s great for dry sensitive skin that seems to hate life? I’m always up for some great moisturisation.