Thursday 28 April 2011

My Base Face Routine

Hello there,

I recently posted a video to youtube about what I do everyday for my "base" routine. I was just going to call it my foundation routine but I got carried away and continued to go onto blush, eyebrows etc. 






List of products used:
Stila - Illuminating Tinted Moisturiser in shade 01
Olay - Touch of foundation SPF 15 - shade fair
Benefit - High beam
Bare Minerals - Mineral foundation - medium beige 
OR
Benefit - Hello Flawless - Shade Champagne
Benefit - Boi-ing  Shades 01 & 02.
Benefit - Erase Paste - Shade medium
Coastal Scents 88 Palette - dark brown
Coastal Scents 88 Palette - pale ash brown
Elf Blusher - Peachy keen


Hope this was helpful
Peace, love and lip gloss
Frank x

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Quick Tip!

Hello there,

I thought I'd start something new with this blog and once a fortnight I'll post one of my personal beauty/hair tips. Today's is hair tip! Around this time of year we are bombarded with images of girls with perfect beachy waves, that just look effortless. Well, I have a cheats way to do this if you have straight to wavy hair and it requires no heat.. just sleep. I have been doing this a lot lately and I think it really looks good, all you need is two hair bands, clean hair (wet hair is better) and you need to know how to french braid. The term french braid used to fill me with dread as I had no idea how to do it and it looked really difficult. If you can plait your hair you can french braid. Step 1: take a small section of hair close to your parting in the middle of your head. Step 2: separate this section into three and begin to plait as normal. Step 3: with the left strand take a small section from your remaining hair and incorporate into the plait. Step 4: repeat with the remaining three strands of the original plait until all your hair is incorporated.
Ok, so that description probably is the most confusing and worst written ever but hopefully you'll get the idea. To get beachy hair, just split you hair into two big sections down the back (like you would if you were doing pigtails). French braid both sides of your hair and secure with hair bands, leave your fringe/bangs free. Now all you have to do is go to sleep, I probably should have mentioned before that you do this at night time... 
When you wake up, take out the bands and unravel the plaits and you will have beautifully beached up hair. Spraying the final product with a salt spray gives good definition and hold and authentic beachy texture. There's also a way to accomplish this with straighteners but that's for another quick tip.
For those of you with curly hair, you don't really have to do anything to achieve this look, reading this.. I hate you! Only joking.. sort of...

Peace, love and lip gloss
Frank x

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Plus White 5 Minute Teeth Whitening One step tooth gel

Hello there,

I, like most people, strive to have white teeth! Teeth have always been a talking point (get it.. talking point) with my family as well we have a lot of rather big teeth. In fact you could call it our most prominent family trait, horse teeth, so seeing as they're big they might as well be white. I am really quite self-conscious when it comes to my teeth, I had a brace for about 2 years when I was in year 8/9 (so aged 13/14, I also had a huge nose and horrible hair at that time... good look) and I still don't smile with my teeth in photos. There are the odd one of two photos where I've been caught laughing and it looks as if my teeth are trying to accomplish world domination, or at least eat the camera/photographer. It's particularly frightening when laughing in pictures where I'm holding babies as it looks like I'm about to swallow their head... whole! Because of my teeth situation I've always been on the look out for a easy home whitening treatment. I'll be honest I'd tried hundreds, whitening toothpastes, whitening pens, UV lights that you put in your mouth.. basically everything you could try. Each different treatment has been very time consuming and really yields little results, also they taste VILE. 
I was watching a video on youtube be Kandee J and she was talking about how she gets her teeth so white (and they are really white). She used something called Plus White 5 Minute teeth Whitening Gel, I searched for it in google and annoyingly it only came up with American sites where I could buy it. So, I trundled over to Amazon.co.uk and typed it in there and it was being sold for about £5! I bought it straight away and also bought so really cheap mouth guards (for about £1.99).
When the big package finally arrived I was beyond excited. It comes in a small blue box with all the instructions you need on the side, but to be honest the name itself is pretty self explanatory. Now, as I mentioned before I bought mouth trays to use mine, but you can also just brush your teeth with the gel like you would with a normal toothpaste.
The product is called "5 minute" but you can leave the gel on for up to 20 minutes without running the risk of have luminous teeth. I could really tell the difference after just a couple of applications and it doesn't feel like it's damaging my teeth at all. It doesn't taste that bad either, I mean it's not so yummy that I'd want to put it in my sandwiches but it's not as offensive as other whitening products.
It does however have one downside, this downside might just be because of the way I apply the gel, it make me dribble... Now I'm not talking about just a tiny bit of spit, I mean full on drooling. The last time I used this gel I had to plug up any gaps in my mouth that weren't filled with the mouth trays with toilet paper to try and stem the flow. That's really disgusting isn't it.
Really what I've been trying to say is this is a wonder product, and I will definitely be buying it again and possibly a bib.



lots of love
Frank x

Sunday 24 April 2011

Here comes the sun..

Hello there,

If you've been in England this week then I'm sure you can appreciate this post. The weather over the last few days has been glorious, I spent yesterday have a BBQ in the park with a group of friends which was gert lush! I didn't burn which was an added bonus and I got to spend the day with one of the most beautiful babies in the world. But unfortunately I do have one small niggle, the BBQ itself, now this was nothing to do with the people cooking it or the food its just whole concept of a British BBQ. For those of you who don't know a British BBQ involves a disposable BBQ which leave the grass on which it's sat on permanently burnt leaving the park a dot to dot of the summer. Next it's the food, the stereotypical meal will consist of burnt sausages that are raw in the middle and probably have about 2% pork, a mystery meat burger, raw chicken legs in some form of sauce and if the chef is particularly radical a small side salad.
Rant over! In this lovely weather I'm really enjoying experimenting with different make up looks, one of my favourites is the nude eye bright lip trend. Another is just a golden/brown eye with shimmery cheeks and a nudeish lip. 
This month I am really loving peachy colours and luckily for me every cosmetics company seems to have the same idea. Sleek cosmetics have in fact brought a new range where near enough all of the products are a peach colour! Unfortunately I haven't been able to try any products from Sleek cosmetics but I have only heard good things. I have had a quick look around their website and from what I can see the cater for almost everyone with products that are really inexpensive. When I get the chance I will be buying the "Pout Polish" in either "sugar may" or "electro peach", one item I am really excited about is their "True Colour" lipstick in "Peaches and Cream" (yes I know peach again). I stumbled across this lipstick through a day trawling youtube, "BlushBlendBeauty" did a haul video in which she bought a selection of the new lipsticks from Sleek and she was wearing "Peaches and Cream" and it really is a gorgeous colour.
In terms of blush, I have found one that I love from E.L.F (who I've mentioned in a previous post). It's in E.L.F's studio collection and the colour is "peachy keen" but "candid coral" is also gorgeous. At £3.50 each you can't really go wrong, however I would say that they probably wouldn't suit darker skin tones as they are quite light.
I'm really excited about trying some things from Sleek as I have only heard good things and the eye shadow palettes are really good value and I'm always looking to expand my kit.
Spending a little extra on a palette is, I feel, always worth it as with most companies they have put together a selection of colours that they feel go well together so it almost takes out any guess work needed in creating a beautiful eye.

lots of love
Frank x

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Time to welcome a new member to the family

Hello there,

So this post is a bit different from my others admittedly but I hope you will find it equally as entertaining. We have a brand new baby in the family, now before you get over excited or my parents read this and have a heart attack, I should probably say the new baby is a... fish. 
Yes we now have a little boy fish to add to our brood. I would like to introduce you all to Esteban! Esteban is now living in perfect harmony with his sister Gloria, yes that's right Gloria and Esteban. I wasn't allowed to call him Estefan :( We acquired Gloria a few months ago, we won her by throwing a dart at a card! I say we, my dad won her for me, and I have to admit we have had some what of a turbulent relationship. Now I know you might be thinking Frank you've gone insane its a goldfish and granted this is slightly on the odd side but I've always hated Gloria for no apparent reason. She's smells bad, she doesn't move, she looks at me with such a blank expression... ok there are some reason and yes I have remembered that she is fish. However, with the arrival of Esteban my hatred is appeasing slightly and I'm beginning to love the tiny orange thing. One point that I think is pretty cool is that Esteban is red and white and not your average gold fish, firstly he's diddy (seriously tiny for those who don't know what diddy means) and secondly he moves like no fish I've ever seen. Lolly (our puppy dog) seems completely oblivious to the arrival of her new brother and continues to be the most adorable thing since sliced bread.. so just bread. Along with my admission of hatred for Gloria I have another awful thing to admit, I didn't think she would live that long (horrendous parenting I know, I feel sorry for any children I might have) and because of this I bought the worst items for her tank. Her tank looks like the inside of a unicorns brain.. there is a ceramic rainbow, complete with fluffy pale blue clouds, kitsch white stones, a smiling orange clam, a terracotta pot and a fake plant.
I fear this may be turning into an incredibly middle aged post, first talking about the arrival of babies, then references to early 90's Latino singers and I am now about to talk about garden centres (to any regular readers I promise the next post will be more beauty and less mundane life). Along with getting Esteban today was another turning point in my adult life, I went to a garden centre and bought plants! I spent far too much money on the sodding things and decided I was green fingered enough to grow vegetables! (anyone who knows me well will understand this is utterly ridiculous) I have now spent the entire evening planting and replanting flowers and sowing seeds, I must say my little garden is looking beautiful but my nails are ruined.
(Speaking of nails my next post is going to be about Nails Inc. who I'm pretty much obsessed with)
Anyway I will now leave you with a picture from today and a little song to remember my beautiful fish babies by.
lots of love
Frank x



Monday 18 April 2011

Joico Color Endure + K-Pak Deep Penetrating Reconstructor

Hello there,

Right, first off I'm just going to say how much it has pained me to write "color" instead of "colour" in the title of this post. IT IS COLOUR NOT COLOR! However, the products themselves are called color endure and so I thought I better stay true to the name.
My hair is pretty much a war zone! I've coloured my hair for years now, mainly bleaching it with the occasional moment of madness when I decide to unleash my inner vamp and become a deep brunette, because of this I am always on the hunt for products to make it luscious and not like straw...
My hairdresser recommended K-Pak shampoo and conditioner for my hair and I promptly ignored her, I actually then moved house so had to change hairdressers (I hope she doesn't think I'm rude). Since her recommendation I have tried a number of salon hair care products, much to the detriment of my bank balance and I must say they've all been good but nothing to write home about (or write a blog about). 
After trialing a number of different salon brands I eventually bought some Joico. I bought the shampoo and conditioner designed for coloured hair as it promises to prolong colour. I don't know if other bleachers find this, but after a while my hair colour will either fade to a horrible brassy colour or so ash that it looks dull (let me know if you have any miracle product to stop this). 
I've got to be honest it didn't give the best first impression, the conditioner pump didn't work which SUCKED! I also think the packaging is kinda ugly, it's like a mauve, brownish colour. All that rubbish aside I think it's a pretty decent purchase, it's still not my HG hair product I'm still on the search for that. I have found that the conditioner is a little bit runny so it's a bit difficult to spread it evenly through my hair. The shampoo however is lovely, it lathers up beautifully and smells so clean and gorgeous.
To be honest I can't really justify spending as much money on these products at all, a higher end drug store shampoo and conditioner would probably have the same effect.


But fear not Joico it isn't all bad, I also bought the K-Pak Deep Penetrating Reconstructor which I have been using as a weekly hair mask and I LOVE it. It's a really nice rich consistency and feels really indulgent when I use it. I have started to notice a real difference in the quality of my hair, it's a lot less tangled and really shiny. I would recommend this product to everyone, even if your hair is in perfect condition and you just want an extra treat. I will most definitely be buying this product again, and will probably buy the whole K-Pak range.
Basically the moral of this story is that I should've listened to my hairdresser :( 

Also, don't forget to check out my youtube channel www.youtube.com/ToBeFrankie

lots of love
Frank x

Friday 15 April 2011

E.L.F Cosmetics

Hello there,

Over the past few months there has been a lot of buzz about a new cosmetics brand "E.L.F" or "eyes, lips, face", now as a bit of sheep I thought I best check this out. If you search for E.L.F on youtube you get hundreds of results for "hauls" and "reviews" (one excellent one in particular.. mine), now there are people on youtube that seem to have a surplus amount of money and have huge MAC hauls, so when I saw the amount people were getting from E.L.F my first reaction was to think that it was yet another expensive brand that the youtube community had some how managed to fiance. I am please to say that it is the complete opposite! Most products retail at about £1.50 with the studio range being something more like £3. When I first saw the prices I've got to admit I was pretty dubious as to the quality of the items and no they aren't the same sort of quality as MAC or Makeup Forever but for the price they are pretty amazing.
The blushes are incredibly pigmented and the brushes good quality. One criticism would be the lipsticks are a bit pathetic, you have to layer it up hugely to get any sort of good colour, however they feel lovely and aren't at all greasy or sticky. 
The range of products is quite large, there is something for everyone including a mineral range. If you was to request one product for them to create it would be a version of "Sleek Makeup" contour kit, I think that is the only thing that is missing. 
Overall I think it's excellent value for money and the "luscious liquid lipstick" in "cherry tart" is a personal favourite along with the studio range blush in "peachy keen".

It is available in the UK and USA, not sure what the shipping is like to other countries. 
http://www.eyeslipsface.co.uk/

Peace, love and lipgloss
Frank x

Saturday 9 April 2011

Bare Minerals

Hello there,

This is going to be a super short post about something new that I've just bought. Today I had an interview with Bare Escentuals, and tried a few of their products. For those of you who don't know Bare Escentuals are a make up brand that created the first mineral make up, I've heard loads of good things about this make up and as its the best selling foundation brand in the US I thought I better try it. So, after my interview I nipped back to the counter and the love Claire gave me a make under with Bare Minerals. I've always been a bit sceptical of mineral foundations or just using loose powders in general because I think they can age younger skin and can sit in pores and other areas of your face that you really don't want people to see (like a mustache... joke I don't have a mustache...or do I).
However, I was pleasantly surprised with Bare Minerals, it actually does what is says and the mineral powder does go on like a cream, and it smooths out any imperfections, it almost makes your skin look like it's in soft focus!
Ok, so I'll probably have more to say about it the more I use it, I can tell you will be waiting on the edge of your seat.
For those who are interested my shade is "medium beige", which might sound quite dark but I bathed in fake tan the night before my interview.

Oooh, one final thing, I have posted my first ever youtube video, go and check it out and apologies in advance as to how grumpy I was it was filmed in between me having to run and throw up :(. 
http://www.youtube.com/user/ToBeFrankie

lots of love

Frank x

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Feather Hair Extensions

Hello there,

This is just going to be a super quick blog post about my new obsession. Now I realise that this is not going to be for everybody, mainly because you do run the risk of looking like a fortune teller wannabe, but I am IN LOVE with feather hair extensions. Don't be alarmed I haven't gone completely mad and I'm not now chasing birds around and gluing their feathers to my head, I recently bought from ebay a kit and two feathers to attach to my hair. The feathers themselves are thin and brightly coloured and can be washed, blow dried, straightened, curled, whatever you want to do with your hair they can take it.
The kit comes with everything you need to attach these feathers safely and with minimal or no damage to your own hair. The feathers are attached with  micro beads that are squashed with pliers to keep them in place, to remove them you simply squash the beads in the opposite direction and slide out the feather. 
I won't include in this post how to attach them, but if you would like to know this comment below and I will either do a step by step instructions or upload a video.
Below is a picture of me with my first set of black and white feathers in, I now have a pink set next to the black and white ones and am still as much in love with them as I was when I put them in.
They can last for quite a decent amount of time, a couple of weeks maybe more.

Like I said I got my first set and application kit from ebay, but you can also get them from www.aheadofhair.biz. (I'm pretty sure this is only for UK residents).

Hope you love them as much as I do.

lots of love
Frank x

Friday 1 April 2011

NORMADERM Tri-Activ Anti-Imperfection Hydrating Care

Hello there,

Ok, so a trend is beginning to start, I seem to only be reviewing products that I only have lots of good things to say about. I'm sorry to say that this is keeping to the trend, I honestly only have excellent things to say about Normaderm Tri-Activ Anti-Imperfection Hydrating Care (long name for just one diddy product). This moisturiser, which is really what it is, claims to "Inspired by dermatological peeling, Tri-Activ Hydrating Care features a unique blend of hydra-peeling active ingredients to target blemishes, enlarged pores and oily skin." Now I haven't as yet noticed any of this "peeling effect" but I can honestly say my skin is about a billion times better, Normaderm also claims to make your skin better in only 7 days, I support this statement 100%. I have, however, read some bad reviews of it. As with all the products I have reviewed so far you either love it or you hate it, for someone who has struggled with bad skin for such a long time I love it. It's ludicrously easy to use, just wash your face, keep it slightly damp and rub in this moisturiser. One thing I have really struggled with is blackheads, I've tried squeezing, different scrubs, specialised toners etc. NOTHING has worked as well Normaderm.
I feel bad I don't have more to say but I'm sure you don't want me to sit here and repeat myself. If I was to list one bad thing it would be the price, it is fairly pricey for the amount you get, but if I'm totally honest I would pay anything for something that would make my skin so pretty =D.


lots of love
Frank x