Sunday 1 November 2015

Winter Essentials

Being a postlady, I spend a good few hours a day in the cold, wind, rain, fog, etc. Therefore my skin and hair definitely take a daily beating. Here a few of my holy grail products that help protect me from the not so great parts of the cooler months.
My skin is very dry and sensitive and I have bouts of eczema since I was little. I have to be very careful with what I use on my skin as a lot of products can just make things worse. For the past year or so I have been using the Garnier Body Intensive 7 Days Nourishing Lotion for dry skin with mango oil. I have been through bottles and bottles of this. I use this twice a day and it just helps to soothe my itchy skin, leaving it silky smooth and moisturised. Its super fast absorbing and doesn't leave you with that horrible sticky/greasy feeling. Plus it smells delicious and is pretty much always on offer in Superdrug or Boots! 

To give my hands some TLC, I use either the Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector or the Burt's Bees Almond & Milk Hand Cream. Both of which have a very thick consistency. Both also have a smell that is quite acquired, with the hemp cream smelling very herbal and plant based and the Burt's Bees smelling very much like marzipan. I can't praise these two enough. Even Adam will pinch some occasionally. They absorb like a dream and leave your hands feeling moisturised but never greasy!

I have used the Blistex MedPlus lip balm for years and years and years now! It is the only lip balm for me that not only soothes and repairs chapped/dry lips, but prevents them too. I struggle with lip balms as a lot of them can make my lips worse or cause me to have a weird reaction, making my lips swell up in little tiny bumps.. Very weird.. I discovered this lip balm after having one of the bad reactions, it was the only product that made the swelling disappear. It tingles when it is applied which to me makes me think its doing something beneficial. Super cheap and absolutely my holiest of grails.

Using a face mask to give my skin an extra burst of moisture is essential in this crappy weather. I love the Sanctuary Brightening Facial Moisture Boost Mask for this. You can buy the sachets super cheap from Boots just as and when you need them. I will either pop this on while I'm in the bath or you can actually leave it on overnight if you're in need of a serious boost. This mask leaves your skin unbelievably soft and just helps brighten and even out your skin. I love it to bits.

Being curly and bleached, my hair is especially dry, damaged and unruly. It is also quite fine aswell so I have to be careful with what sort of products I use on my hair. I am currently testing out some higher end products which I will post about in the future but at the moment I have found a fairly cheap and organic treatment to use on my hair that just helps it out a bit. Everyone knows the benefits of Argan Oil on our hair, but in a lot of hair products the good ingredient is watered down with chemicals no one can pronounce. I bought some 100% Argan Oil from Amazon and I just smooth it through my hair 30 minutes before washing as normal. A couple times a week I will also flip my head upside down and give it a really good massage into my roots for 3-5 minutes. This just helps to ensure that the new hair growth is nice and moisturised and also just helps the hair to grow in general because of the increase in blood flow to the scalp. I also recently bought a pack of Popband hair ties. They have a thicker band and don't cause any breakage to your hair. The little things help too! 

What are your Winter essentials?