Monthly Archives: November 2011

Nov28

Wearing nothing new – a follow up

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Near the beggining of this blog’s life I wrote about Jessi Arrington at who spoke at a TED event in LA about wearing nothing new:

And since then I’ve been trying to buy from charity, second hand and vintage shops and markets (other than a quick stint in Topshop for some jumpers when it started getting cold!) it has so far it has been quite successful, so I thought I would share some of my finds with you all.

So the finds for the last few months in chronological order- the first port of call – my mother’s wardrobe:

This photo was taken outside Phat Phuc (which apparently means Happy Buddha) Noodle Bar, just of the Kings Road in Chelsea, and one of my favourite lunch places in London. The Cardigan is by italian designer Enrico Coveri and was brought by my mother when she first moved to London when she was about my age. The scarf was brought by my dad for her not long after I was born!

  This outfit is a charity shop special and cost around £7 in total (shoes not included), and was part of a charity shop challenge set by my house mate, where we had £15 to find an outfit from charity shops that was smart enough for cocktails and dinner. As you can see in the image below the skirt is actually floor length on me – a rare find, normally they are all ankle swingers!

 This coat, by French fashion designer and artist, Louis Feraud was a find from an Oxfam charity shop at £13. Sure it’s many, many sizes to big for me but that means I can fit a big wooly jumper underneath it to be extra warm this winter.

An outfit put together for my future sister in law’s birthday celebrations!

For the last year I have been searching for an evening wear jump suit, and have failed until my housemate found a pop up vintage shop, by Lily Vintage, on our way to lectures this week. The jump suit used to belong to the owner so she was glad to see it go to a good home! Here is their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lilyvintageboutique

The shoes are from the 40s and I found them in a vintage shoe shop just around the corner from the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

The necklace is actually a mini (working!) four hole harmonica on a bronze colour chain, from Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair (see their blog here: http://theaffordablevintagefair.blogspot.com/).

And the silk scarf which you can just see tied to my hand bag was from a vintage shop in St Paul, Paris.

So these are the top find from that last few months, there is one more BRILLIANT one in the pipe line but I need to take it to be taken in before I can show you all!

Hopefully (shop stock dependent) I’ll be able to show you some more second hand, vintage inspired outfits in the New Year.

Nov18

Owl and Polkadot Nail Art.

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My long-term best friend when on the Internet is Stumble Upon (yes I know it is the epitome of procrastination – but I love it!) and from my most recent search through cyber space I have come across a really cute nail art tutorial with owls. I think it’s great for autumn, and as a total beginner at nail art, and had to use tooth picks, I was really impressed with how well it went!

This is the link for the tutorial by cutepolish x:


http://www.beautylish.com/v/nxiur/cute-owl-nail-art

In my living room with the finished product.

A close up of one of the owls: the tutorial recommends to use your middle finger for the owls, but I have quite small hands and it wouldn’t fit, so it had to be the thumb nail.

Nov11

Twisted Fish Tail Plait – How To.

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I love this look and having been using it all week! You will need a hair band of your colour choice, several bobby pins (preferably that match your hair colour) and any accessories you may wish to add.

First start with putting in a centre parting and pulling your hair round to the side that you would like the plait on.

Starting at the edge of parting, just above your forehead, twist the hair backwards and in on its self, working your way around the top of your face adding more hair as you go to create a twisted rope effect.

When you get to just behind your ear pin it into place using a bobby pin.

Then take the rest of your hair, making sure it is round at the side and slit it into to halves. This is the start of the fish tail.

Take a small section of hair from round the back of one of the halves of hair and bring it around to the front, then pass it over to the other section, and hold.

Repeat this but on the other section of hair, so that the two small sections criss cross across the two halves.

Keep repeating this, each time changing side and bring little sections round to the front and over to the other side.

Tip: Try not to pull the plait to tight, and make sure the sections that your using aren’t to big or else it will look more like a traditional french plait.

When you’ve plaited as much as you wish secure your hair with a band,

and pin up any layers that have come loose, using the bobby pins and add any of your own accessories.

 

And voila! One twisted fish tail plait… Enjoy!

Nov3

Natural hair masks- The great experiment.

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I live in a shared house of 7 wonderful young ladies, and recently hair has been a common topic of convocation: colour, cut style, fringe?, no fringe?, health, damage, and wanting it to grow faster. Several of us have gone though hippy stages of not washing our hair, hoping the natural oils would keep it healthy, we’ve tried home made hair masks, deep conditioning treatments, between us products galore! – and we’ve gone most of the colours in the rainbow.

So I thought I would share some of our findings on home made hair masks:

I’ve read a lot of blogs recently raving about making your own hair masks out of everyday ingredients, talking about how they are chemical free and are eco-friendly as you don’t use plastic bottles. However, after reading some of the comments on the articles, I questioned just how great they where, so thought I would try a few of the most popular ones out.

Trial 1: Egg and Olive Oil hair mask.

Ingredients: 2 eggs, 4 table spoons of olive oil.

Directions: Mix the ingredients together, apply to hair and wrap it in plastic (cling film) and leave on your hair for 10-15 minutes.

My first impressions of this was that it was really gooey, it kept running down the side of my face and down the back of my neck, no matter how tightly I wrapped the plastic round my head! It was also really uncomfortable to sit there with plastic wrapped round my head for 15 minutes.

Now before I tell you the rest of this I would like to let you know that I was doing this quite late at night, and was very tired, so my brain wasn’t quite working properly.

So after 15 minutes I got in the (nice and hot) shower to wash my hair, when I started to feel lumps in my hair, then I started to smell a rather weird smell, that I could only liken to the cooking of scrambled eggs. Yes I’m afraid to say the water from my shower had cooked the egg in my hair. So using a lot of shampoo and conditioner and a comb I managed to get it all out, however overall it left my hair feeling greasy, and very tangled. Now I’m probably slightly biased as it cooked in my hair, but I will NEVER put egg in my hair again. Feel free to try it if you wish, but PLEASE wash it out with cool water!

Trial 2: The Banana hair mask.

Ingredients: 1 mashed banana, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons of honey, and 5 tablespoons of olive oil.

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together, and apply evenly to hair, and leave for 15-30minutes.

I thought about the idea of the egg cooking in my hair, along with the banana and didn’t really want to test this one out. However, I have read a lot of comments on blogs that this mask can actually make your hair very tangled, and feel dry.

Trial 3: The Avocado hair mask.

Ingredients: 1 avocado, 1 tablespoon of honey, 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Directions: Mash up the avocado and then mix it together with the honey and olive oil and apply all over your hair, for 20 minutes, then was out with shampoo.

Its a bit gooey and thick which makes it quite hard to put through your hair, and when I shampooed my hair it felt quite tangled. So I put conditioner through my hair and combed it through and it was very soft!

So combined with using conditioner it did leave my hair in good condition but it was tricky to put evenly through my hair and very hard to get it out!

Trial 4: Olive Oil.

Directions: apply olive oil to mid lengths and ends, wrap hair in plastic wrap for 45 minutes to and hour, or put a towel over your pillow and leave overnight.

This is the best one so far, and leaves your hair soft. The best way to wash it out is to shampoo onto dry hair with a little water so it lathers, wash well and rinse, then re-shampoo and conditioner. Although this works well its worth keeping in mind that this is not a very economical hair mask, Olive Oil is more expensive then shop bought intensive conditioning treatments, and quite messy to use, but on the other hand works very well.

The fifth and final trial: Apple cider vinegar.

Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar, 1 cup of water, 2 drops of you favourite essential oil (optional).

Directions: mix the ingredients together and after shampooing and conditioning your hair pour the rinse over your hair and comb through with a wide tooth comb.

For the essential oil I used lavender oil, because I love the smell and it’s supposed to be good for hair growth. To begin with I smelled like a chip shop, but as it dries the smell goes and you can’t smell the vinegar once your hair is dry, and it’s easy to use- I was really surprised at how soft my hair was – really impressed with this one.