June 2013 - Fashionicide // Fashion, Makeup and Beauty

Sunday, June 30, 2013

OUTFIT: Wrapped in LOVE

Hello hello my lahs!

As I've been such a good girl lately, not really purchasing all that many clothes for a good while (mainly because so much of the high street stuff is mleh), I had one of my little wanders into Topshop. Whilst there I came across this pretty little midi tube skirt.

It has LOVE printed vertically on to it four times, twice at the front and twice at the back. I had a quick look at the pricetag expecting a fair old hit to find it was priced at just £22. Not only that, it stated that the item was part of the 'Fashion Targets Breast Cancer' campaign, so £6 of every sale goes towards Breakthrough Breast Cancer!

I have to say that without this label highlighting such a worthy cause I'd have probably just walked off, gone home, had dreams all week about it and ended up back in Topshop only to find that they only have size 12 or 16 left. This seems to be my mentality lately, I think it's because my wardrobes are crammed full and fit to burst I actually feel a bit guilty buying more clothes! I think now that Ramadan is just around the corner I'll be donating some clothes to charity. I really struggle to let go though, so perhaps the holy month will give me the kick I need to just do it!

The midi tube skirt itself is quite long, reaching just below my calves. This is a definite no-no for a petite lass like me so I've actually been sporting it as a boob tube / bodycon type thing until I get myself a sewing machine to alter it.

I paired it with this absolutely stunning Velvet mesh Kimono with lots of beaded detailing and tassels. I have a strong distaste for tassels but I've had to break my own rules for this. Why? I picked it up in a Bedouin stall in the Old City of Jerusalem. After a bit of solid haggling (the best part of traveling!) I managed to drag the price down from 550 Shekels (£100) to 200 (£36)!

Fashion Targets Love Tube Skirt (worn as a boob tube dress) - TOPSHOP

Beaded Velvet Mesh Tassled Kimono - Old City of Jerusalem

I'm seriously loving this Kimono lately, the weather in Manchester has taken a bit of a turn for the worse (as if that's possible!) and I find myself wrapping this around me to keep me toasty, and if necessary the trench coat even makes the odd appearance. No doubt the weather will pick up again now that Ramadan is just around the corner, typical!

OUTAKE

I'm not always photogenic!

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Extremely Damaged, Weak, Stringy, Mushy, Gummy, Elasticy hair? Aphogee may be the Answer!

In my previous post I talked about how I managed to colour my hair this brilliant turquoise, I also talked about a mystery product that was essential to salvage my hair from the destruction that is bleaching. Without further ado, I present to you Aphogee's 'Two Step Protein Treatment'.

Just so you can understand how highly I rate this stuff, let me tell you a little about the condition of my hair prior to using this. After bleaching my hair I found it to be quite stringy looking and elasticy whilst wet. It looked quite mushy and gummy. It got to the point where if I tugged on my wet hair, it would just dissolve into my finger. Describing the condition it was in is tough, I hope that made at least some sort of sense! When my hair did eventually dry out though, it was extremely brittle.

But this is exactly what bleach does, particularly if you've bleached your hair several times in quick succession. Your poor hair can only take so much punishment, and mine had really had enough. Then a friend who gets her Afro Caribbean hair relaxed told me about Aphogee. The symptoms she talked about pretty matched what was happening to my hair, so she suggested I give it a try. I'm glad I did!

It's exactly what the name suggests, a two-step protein treatment for the hair. It isn't for those with dry hair, but it's catered perfectly for those with overprocessed, severely damaged hair. You simply apply it to towel-dried hair, use heat until it's dried and hardened on the hair, give it a good rinse then get on with your conditioning business. The bottle says to use it every 6 weeks where required but I got a little greedy and used it twice in a week (don't try this at home folks!)

I got mine for a snip at £18 for 16oz, I say a snip - fully realising the hair-based pun! - because this stuff has been a life saver! You might be thinking: 'You only described one step!' and you'd be quite right. It's called 'Two-step' because Aphogee have a matching conditioner to go with it, however my friend tells me it isn't all it's cracked up to be, so I just used my own.

FIRST THOUGHTS?

This stuff is SO weird! I had the obligatory sniff in the store (it's the done thing right?) and it smells like nothing I've come across before. It's a strong herbally scent but think more 'Overgrown, unkempt garden' than 'Herbal Essences'! On top of that, the formula is a sort of runny egg-yolk colour. I knew this could get messy!

USAGE

Aphogee recommend shampooing first, detangling the hair and then applying however I didn't bother detangling. It's just impossible for me to detangle without conditioner and Johnson's 'No More Tears Detangling Spray'. So I just applied straight after shampooing and towel drying.

It really did get messy! I saturated my hair with the runny, yellow goo then used my hooded dryer to completely dry it all out. As the drying process tales place you can feel the hair getting stickier, you need to go through that phase and wait until the hair is bone dry and that stickiness is gone. If you get impatient you'll find you've just wasted a lot of product for nothing!

And patience is key with this stuff, as I used as hooded dryer it took just over an hour for my hair to completely dry out - you can use a standard hair dryer too but it will take significantly longer. You can tell it's dry as your hair becomes really hard and stiff, if you were to bend the hair slightly it'd just snap off (please don't test this out!) For this reason I would recommend you DO NOT put your hair into a bun or a pony whilst you've got this on. Also make sure you limit how much you touch your hair, it is so vulnerable at this point that you could easily lose chunks of hair if not careful.

After it's completely dried and past the sticky stage, I jumped into the shower and gave it a good rinse without touching the hair. Once I felt it was all washed out, I applied my Organix Macadamia Oil Conditioner and did my conditioning thang.

RESULTS

The results are amazing, I whole heartedly believe that the only reason my hair hasn't upped sticks and left already is down to this stuff. It's been bleached so many times of late that each strand must be suffering a severe identity crisis!

Now my hair feels stronger and easier to comb than it was before I bleached it. I couldn't have imagined my hair would be in a better condition after bleaching! It definitely isn't in perfect condition just yet, it looks healthy all over but with a few brittle areas dotted around. I think with the next application the brittleness will be sorted, but I'll report back!

I think it's also important to mention that Aphogee doesn't soften the hair, rather it makes it stronger by putting back all the protein that's been lost through bleaching. I was lost for words (rarer than a solar eclipse!) after rinsing it out, my hair had lost the mushyness and the horrible stringy, elasticy feeling I had before and whilst combing the breakage was severely reduced. All this from just one usage means I couldn't care less about the smell, the formula or the general messyness in application - it's a small price to pay!

My recommendation? If your hair is really damaged to the point where you're thinking of just giving up on it, get out there and buy this! It may well be your last throw of the dice, but as far as I'm concerned £18 is dirt cheap for the hair equivalent of a defibrillator! It'll bring your hair back to life, and shock you in the process!

I purchased mine from Paul's Hair World in Manchester. However, you can get your hands on it from Amazon HERE for just £12.84 including free Prime delivery. Please note that this is an affiliate link, and I will receive a small commission on any sales through it. This was the cheapest I could find online, but I encourage you to do your own price research too.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

DIY: How to Dye Dark Hair to a Blue Based Turquoise!

So yeah, if you've been keeping up with the blog and my instagram you should already know by now that my hair has gone from purple to all-out turquoise! I for one am overjoyed that I've ditched the turquoise ombre and the full-headed purple and have instead gone for the complete mythical look!

I'd wanted to do this for quite some time but thought I'd ease my way into it by going for the initial ombre. The plan was to then go the whole nine yards, but I actually got a bit bored of Turquoise and went purple first. Upon first glance of my purple barnet in the mirror I realised my folly! I dreamt of mermaid-turquoise tones once more.

Anyway, as much as Turquoise is my absolute favourite colour in the whole wide world, it's extremely tricky to get it right on your hair. Getting the right balance is tough, particularly if you're in favour of bluey turquoise as opposed to greener shades.

It took me a grand total of 3 days, yes THREE DAYS, to get the colour just right. That's mainly due to the need to take a break from the hair killer that is bleach. My super-dark hair needed bleaching twice, so a break was essential!

I've put this post together as a bit of a guide to the process and products I used to achieve my look, including photos of my hair at various stages afterwards.

HERE WE GO:

DAY 1

BLEACHING

I used Jerome Russell Bblonde High Life Powder Bleach mixed with Jerome Russell Bblonde Cream Peroxide 12% 40 Vol. To know how to bleach, I'd suggest reading my previous post on it HERE. No photos of it in this post as I binned the packet immediately after use!

In that post I mentioned how I bleached my hair to make the ombre, in this case though, you apply it all over. I have to warn you, you need to be extra careful around the root area. And make sure you don't rub the bleach into your scalp, the last thing you want is chemical burns! A great tip for this is to apply Vaseline around your ears and hairline to protect those areas.

If you're seeking a much bluer turquoise, you need the bleach to take your hair down to a Platinum Blonde colour (i.e. no yellow at all!). Just think back to primary school: Yellow + Blue = GREEN! If 90 minutes of bleaching still leaves you hair yellowy, rinse it out, sleep on it and bleach again the next day.

In my case, my hair was a pale yellowey blonde colour. As well as rinsing the bleach out after the 90 minutes had lapsed I applied a Protein Treatment to my hair to strengthen it before bleaching again the next day. I'll do a post on this in future, because without it my hair would definitely have snapped off left, right and centre!

DAY 2

BLEACHING ROUND 2!

L'oreal Paris Feria by Preference in Extreme Platinum Power

So, as my hair wasn't quite taken down to the shade I needed for my blue-dominated turquoise, I used L'Oreal's Paris Feria by Preference in Extreme Platinum Power. It comes with a sachet of bleaching powder, a handy Platinum Blonde dye, a bit of oil and peroxide. I'm not sure what % peroxide they supply, but as it claims to lift 8 levels of colour I'd presume it's 12%.

Same as with the first bleaching, I applied some Vaseline to my ears to protect them. I then mixed all of the above 'ingredients' in the bottle provided and applied it all over my hair, again taking care around the scalp. This time I left the bleach on for 50 minutes, as that's how long it took my hair to reach the desired Platinum Blonde Colour.

I followed that up by giving my hair a good rinse, making sure I get rid of all the bleach mix. Another clever little tip here is to carefully towel dry your hair and apply the Violet coloured conditioner (this also comes in the box). The violet conditioner will attack any remaining flashes of yellowy colour and neutralise them.

By this stage my hair was looking pretty much as I wanted it to, there were still a few tiny patches of pale yellow but I wasn't that bothered. The choice here is to accept it or bleach again, don't think my hair could have taken another beating though to be honest! And besides, tiny little patches will add a little depth to the end result.

The next step is to apply the protein treatment again, typically you should only really use one of these treatments every 4 to 6 weeks as too much protein can make your hair break off. But my personal opinion is that my hair needed every little bit of help it could get after two rounds of intensive bleaching!

DAY 3

TINTING

L - R: Fudge Paintbox in White Shade of Pale & Manic Panic Amplified Formula in Atomic Turquoise

I first used Fudge's 'Whiter Shade of Pale' back in the day when I was still hairdressing. It worked a treat on clients that were suffering from an acute case of canary yellow hair or brassiness. It's essentially a conditioning violet toner.

My hair did look very platinum blonde, but I'm nothing if not a perfectionist and there were a few areas I thought could do with a little toning down. So I smothered this straight onto dry hair and left it on for just an hour. Then I applied Manic Panic's 'Atomic Turquoise' right over it, tied my hair into a bun and left it on for a whole day!

At the end of the day, I gave my hair a good rinse out and voila: Blue Turquoise Hair!

I think it's important to mention here that since dyeing my hair this colour, I've limited shampooing to just 3-4 times a week to slow down the fading process. There's nothing worse than putting in all this effort to get your hair the perfect shade, only for shampoo to wipe it out in days. On that note, don't use Head & Shoulders. It's like Nail Polish Remover for the hair!

On my non-shampoo days I put my hair up into a top-knot or spritz it with Fudge's Sea Salt Spray to give it that little extra bit of texture and allow it to soak up some of the natural oils. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again: Use SLS-free shampoo, it'll keep the colour for longer!

WEEK 1

Hair looks incredibly vibrant.

WEEK 2

The turquoise is beginning to fade into a pastel blue colour.

WEEK 3

As you can see, the hair fades from a vibrant bluey-turquoise down through light pastelly blue colours into a kind of minty blue shade. I actually quite like the way the hair progresses through the shades as the dye begins to fade but eventually it will need another top-up. The next stage begins to look like dishwater otherwise!

But you know what, I freaking LOVE my hair!

I'm liking it at this pastel stage, you can see a few yellowy-green patches throughout which is wholly down to the unevenness when bleaching. I think I'll be keeping it this way for a while though, probably until I have another dream of being a mermaid in Dubai and wake up feeling like going all vibrant again!

I hope this post was helpful to some of you. If you have any questions, let me know :)

Sunday, June 23, 2013

OUTFIT: All Laced Out

Hello my lovelies!

It's only just occurred to me today that I haven't actually bought many new clothes of late. I tend to find the Spring/Summer ranges to be a bit generic and 'Same old, same old'. I'd like it if the high street showed a bit of imagination! All of the usual suspects on the high streets seem to think that everybody loves tacky florals year in, year out. I don't. Don't get me wrong, I do love my florals but I find I have to sift through a lot of tacky prints to find the wearable ones.

I mentioned in a previous post about venturing in to the wardrobes and that is exactly what I've been doing these past few weeks. It's a brilliant feeling to re-discover pieces of clothing that you'd completely forgotten about and fall in love with them all over again.

One such piece is this gorgeous tunic, it's a full-on lacy number with gold studded detailing and cuts around the chest area. The colour is just beautiful, like a gold champagne, it oozes class. I paired it with a Zara-style studded, cropped lace jacket and some high waisted lace trim shorts. Maybe I went a bit overboard on the lace but the combination looks like a natural fit.

Studded Champagne Lace Tunic - TOPSHOP
Zara Style Studded Cropped Lace Jacket - Manchester Arndale Market
High Waisted Lace Trim Shorts - H&M

So now you've looked at the photos you're probably thinking 'What's going on with the hair? Pick a colour already!' Well I have now finally settled on this amazing light turquoise! It was 100% DIY and I'm so pleased with the way it's turned out, the colour is perfect and it's exactly as I imagined it.

At the time my hair was showing the strain of being bleached a couple of times, however it does appear to have recovered now. I found a very special product that has strengthened my hair, perfect for those of us who are indecisive and/or like to experiment with hair colour so keep an eye out for a future post! ;)

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Friday, June 21, 2013

OUTFIT: Tropical Prints

You know that feeling when you have a wardrobe (or three) full to the brim with glorious clothes whilst at the same time thinking you have nothing to wear? Well it happens quite frequently for me! A couple of weeks back I was attending a Caribbean themed house warming party but I just couldn't think what to wear! Then it hit me. My wardrobes are packed full of colours, ranging from mint through to neon! I thought of those YouTube videos that are doing the rounds: Shopping my Stash!

I delved deep into the wild, overgrown jungles that are my wardrobes and managed to find a rare flower hidden within. This one shouldered, draped, tropical print dress. I've no idea how or why I purchased it, but hey it was perfect for the occasion.

I adore draped dresses, they just scream 'Grecian'! They are so wearable for just about anyone, the gathering and the folds of the fabric seemingly skim over the wearer's lumps and bumps giving the illusion of a perfect silhouette.

One Shouldered Draped Tropical Print Dress - TFNC (OLD)
Black Cropped Lace Bolero - Non Branded - eBay

Apologies for the lack of photos, was running a little late so had to make a quick dash!

HAIR TALK

So this will be the last time you'll see the purpley, blue-y, indigo hair on the blog. It was fun while it lasted but it really didn't feel like me anymore, it just felt like the 15 year old me with my Vimto-coloured mop.

Purple hair is a lot easier to achieve than turquoise, for a nice purple colour you can get away with bleaching your hair to an orangey state and wacking on the dye at that point. With turquoise on the other hand, you need to go all the way down to a pale blonde verging on white in order to get a nice colour. This is extremely damaging to the hair and is therefore higher maintenance than the purple. Nevertheless, now that I'm back with the Turquoise I feel like myself again!

FOTD

I really wanted to do a FOTD with this outfit but as time was of the essence, Alisa kindly volunteered to have a mugshot of her plastered onto the blog.

#NOMAKEUP #NOFILTER

Lucky cow, with her big gorgeous green eyes, chiselled cheek bones, I'm jealous. What makes it even worse? This is her 'Just-woke' face.

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Thursday, June 13, 2013

REVIEWS: Lime Crime Velvetines in Red Velvet

My regular readers will no doubt be well aware of my love of lipsticks: if it's bright and matte I'm on it!

I've been a closet fan of Lime Crime for quite a while now, their colour palette is quite bold and I've found them to be opaque too. Exactly what I look for in my lipsticks!

My sister told me that so many of the lipsticks out on the market contain Carmine, which is derived from the Cochineal insect. Yuck! I guess my little sis basically wants a 'Halal' lipstick free of animal bits, not a totally unreasonable demand! So anyway I was trawling the internet looking for lipsticks that don't have dead insects in them when I stumbled across the Velvetines range by Lime Crime which is Vegan and cruelty-free!

The Velvetines are essentially liquid lipsticks, with just two shades to choose from: Suedeberry and Red Velvet. I plumped for the latter. It comes in a gorgeous frosted glass bottle that makes it look outrageously expensive. The applicator within looks very much like a lip gloss applicator.

This is supposed to be a long-lasting, waterproof lippy. As soon as I hear the words 'Long-lasting' and 'lipstick' in the same sentence I automatically think of crusty, flaky lips. An example of this would be Maybelline's SuperStay Liquid Lipstick. It was vile.

With this lipstick though I was pleasantly surprised with the formula. It applies as a smooth gloss and dries to a matte finish within seconds! The best thing is, the colour is opaque with just one swipe.

I absolutely love how this feels on the lips. It's soft, velvety and incredibly lightweight which really surprised me from a 'long-lasting' lipstick. It doesn't feel like the moisture is being sucked right out of my lips, those of you who've tried liquid lipsticks in the past will definitely relate!

As far as longevity goes, Velvetines does live up to its claim. This really is a long lasting lipstick, with zero feathering or cracking going on. I drink quite a lot of water, tea and coffee during the day yet the lipstick doesn't seem to transfer on to my mugs and cups.

Throughout the day I notice that the colour does appear to have faded, however when I dab on some of my trusty Blistex Relief Cream onto the lips it's as if they travel back in time to the morning, looking just as vibrant as when I first applied it.

My only qualm with Velvetines is that I need to apply a lip liner beforehand. If I don't do that, I find that it bleeds down onto my chin. Lovely! To be fair, most bold lip colours do this anyway but I do find it particularly annoying as it tends to bleed around my lip piercings.

Red Velvet appears to be a classic red lipstick, I feel it has blue undertones as it makes my teeth look whiter and brighter!

I'd definitely repurchase this, I la-la-love the colour and formula and would certainly recommend it to those looking to keep their make up 'Halal', ha!

I purchased mine from cutECOsmetics for £11.50

And errr yeah, I have purpley blue hair! I got up to a bit of experimenting in the early hours a couple of weekends ago, and ended up with fully indigo hair! One of the neighbors nicknamed me Katy Perry, even so, I reaaaaally missed my turquoise ombre. :'(

At the moment I'm fully turquoise which was my original plan since Christmas and I freaking love it! I'm currently working my way through a backlog of posts, so if my hair appears all sorts of different colours don't worry I'm not changing it daily! Soon I'll get around to the big Turquoise reveal on the blog, but if you just can't wait, check out my Instagram!

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Wednesday, June 05, 2013

OUTFITS: Little Ben and the RARE Kimono

Sunday, June 02, 2013

REVIEWS: The Dolly Eye 14.5mm Circle Lenses in Turquoise

Not so long ago I mentioned in a post that I'd love to give Circle Lenses a try. Luckily for me I was contacted by the guys over at ISZO Circle Lenses who offered me the chance to do just that! They let me choose from their range of 396 (yes, three hundred and ninety six!) different designs.

COLOUR

Obviously I picked Turquoise, my favorite colour, EVAR! But choosing the colour wasn't that straightforward, as they have all sorts of different styles too. I eventually went for the Gothic 3-tones, as you can see from the close-up above they consist of two rings of turquoise, one light and one darker, sandwiched between a light brown inner ring and a dark brown outer ring. The diameter of 14.5mm means that generally they are slightly bigger than the Iris (the coloured part of the eye), hello bright eyes!

They arrived in a dinky little bottle with solution inside. You need to twist the white bit at the top which will allow you to pull out the metal and then the rubber cap.

Also ISZO provided me with a luminous yellow lense case, this comes free with every order and you can pick which colour and design you want. The contacts are available in prescription too for no extra charge, this is a huge plus point for me!

APPLICATION

Actually popping the lenses into your eyes is easy really, no different to any other contacts. If you've never worn contacts before it can be a bit tricky at first but you will pick it up after a few days! I found that these ones were a little dry, so I squirted some solution on to them for lubrication and they went in no problem.

COMFORT

As far as comfort goes, all contacts feel a bit weird in the eyes to begin with but if you've worn them (coloured or otherwise) as long as I have they feel much less alien and almost as if they're not there. My eyes are quite moist and runny like a leaking tap and I tear quite often, so for those folks with dryer eyes I've no idea how they'd feel!

I was quite sceptical about trying out circle lenses for a while after reading of the potential dangers on the BBC a few years back. Because these lenses extend beyond the iris and cover a bit of the sclera (the white of your eyes) therefore enlarging your eyes. If you do feel any sort of discomfort, it's best to take them out immediately. These lenses are approved by the KFDA (Korean Food & Drug Administration) which gives me some form of comfort and trust.

In any case, I always carry a small bottle of solution and the lense case with me just in case. Haven't had any issues just yet, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

APPEARANCE

These lenses look quite subtle on me, possibly the most natural looking coloured contacts I've ever tried. I think this is probably because of the clever design, the variation in the colours makes them look much less plastic and false. Because these lenses are larger than the average coloured lens, my eyes look bigger than normal, definitely living up to it's Dolly Eyed title!

Coloured contacts will never look completely natural due to the pupils, they dilate and constrict constantly throughout the day. The lenses though will always cover that unfortunately and your pupils appear to be the exact same size all day, leading to one of my friends saying my eyes looked 'emotionless'! If only someone could invent some revolutionary coloured contacts that shape shifted along with your pupils?! New invention idea right there!

It doesn't appear as a true turquoise on my eyes, but that's probably just down to my dark brown eyes beneath them, it does look like a mixture of green and blue weighted heavier on the green side.

These particular lenses can be purchased from the ISZO website for $22 dollars (approx £14.50) and they provide free worldwide shipping! The only downside though is that solution does not come with it, however you can purchase this on the cheap at any half-decent opticians!

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"An oasis of colour, in a sea of nudes."