This week has been Organic Beauty Week and beauty products made by brands who have been certified by organisations like the Soil Association have been promoted.


I've found natural products are undoubtably better for my skin and it's great that they get mainstream press one week a year but it's important to remember that these certifications are still limited and have their own pitfalls you wouldn't expect.



To be certified, brands have to meet a certain criteria for how much of the product is organically grown and then that ingredient also has its own certification to go through to certify it as organic. This is great and gives a reliable standard for consumers that we know can be trusted which is more than the spurious "natural" and "made with organic ingredients" gives us.

It's important to be aware of what this means for certain ingredients though. The main example is water. Water isn't organic and can never be certified organic. I'd still say its pretty natural and not full of anything we'd want to avoid.

The Soil Association's Health and Beauty Standards guidelines on product composition are:-

50.6.2
You may label your product as ‘organic’ if more than 95% of the ingredients are organically produced. You must calculate the organic percentage as follows:
For a formulator, this can be a nightmare if you want the product to be certified. If your product is water plus other ingredients, if you don't hit the 95%, your product isn't "organic" enough anymore which to me seems quite frankly ridiculous. To get round it, formulations use things like apple juice as a stand in for water as its relatively cheap and it can be certified organic so the product gets its certification.

To me, this seems absolutely pointless that someone had to grow apples, transport them, juice them etc just so it can be used in place of water. To me, this is a complete waste of food that could be eaten and the earth's resources.

Mineral make up also suffers the same fate. Minerals also can't be organic so unless you add more things that can be to make up the percentages, your mineral make up can't be classified as "organic". Again, theres nothing wrong with a high proportion of minerals and I cannot see a real justification for needing to add in more organic ingredients just to get a certificate if the product itself doesn't need it. Again, I see this as a complete waste of resources.


This is why it's so important to know and understand what it is you are buying, learn what these ingredients are and what these certifications mean and really think about what it means in the whole, rather than just my face cream is organic so its fine.

Its so important that you do your research on these issues and come up with your own informed opinion as to what you do and don't want to achieve, even if it goes against the grain like my ignoring organic certifications in favour of actually reading a label.

Thankfully, from 31st December 2016 this is changing and the relevant standards will be the COSMOS standards. These state that:-

By exception, for rinse-off products, non-emulsified aqueous products, and products with at least 80% minerals or ingredients of mineral origin, at least 10% of the total product must be organic. 

This is definitely a step in the right direction and a more common sense approach with these ingredients!

As I've been trying to get more Hygge in my life since January, I've noticed the movement appears to have completely exploded this summer and there's loads of books coming out on how to Hygge. 

Liz Earle's new book Skin was released a couple of weeks ago and it's a great read if you are looking for sensible, no nonsense tips on how to look after your skin. I've always loved Liz's books and I can't recommend them highly enough if you want to really understand how your skin works and how to properly look after your skin, without the nonsense the media churn out in an effort to get you to buy more products. I can honestly say that after following the advice of Liz and Caroline Hirons (read her blog here) my skin has never looked better and I've been doing less to it than I was before.

I used to really have issues with acne (especially those horrible red lingering mountains that never come to a proper head and just live on your face for weeks before disappearing) and from Liz I've learnt that actually using less in the way of products, looking at what I was eating and being careful of stress will do more than any product ever could.

The first part of the book is a 6 week plan to get you making small changes to your skincare routine gradually so you are more likely to keep on doing them.

The second half of the book then builds on the first and has some amazing recipes in it to get you feeding your skin from the inside. I can't wait to try the Cinnamon-toasted Oats with Yogurt and Summer Fruit recipe below, it looks absolutely delicious!

I've been a subscriber to the Love Lula beauty box for over a year now. I love it as its always great value for money and now I'm cruelty free, its great knowing I can use everything in it without having to go off and research it first.

I finally got hold of my Love Lula September box today and its another brilliant box!



It contains:-

• Ooh! Baobab rejuvenating oil 
• Balm Balm Rose Floral Water Hydrosol 
• FOM Hydra Plump Serum
• Madara AHA Brightening Peel mask 
• Madara Micellar water and Kimberley Sayer moisturiser sample

Today I thought I'd share how I made my brush holder. Believe it or not, this started life as an old Nutella jar and some nail polish!


(Apologies for the horrific state of the brushes. I use these every day and today is wash day!)

First, you take any old glass jar. I used a Nutella one as this was just what we had hanging around and it was a nice shape and size.


Then you select your nail polish colour. I had a few glitter polishes that I would just never use so I chose these.

Then you need to layer them one by one on the inside of the jar. You need thin layers and each layer does need to dry before you put the next one on. It took me quite a few layers (three bottles of polish went into this!) but I think it looks amazing! I saved a old jar and used nail polish I never would have :)

I've just finished reading Chris Hadfield's An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth and its one of the first books in a long time thats genuinely made me think.

Its full of brilliant advice on how to succeed and really shows the importance of teamwork and how far a supportive environment with colleagues really can take you. Sure, in our daily lives, a colleague's actions couldn't cause or save us from death, but it really was a great insight into how fostering an environment of support amongst peers can take you all further than if you had all pitted yourself against the other from the off.

Its also full of gems like "aim to be a zero".  I love this idea and Chris explains it brilliantly. The idea is everyone is ranked as +1 (contributes positively to the team), a 0 (doesn't add but equally doesn't take away from the team) or -1 (a nightmare and makes everyones life harder). He says that people come in pitching straight for +1 but end up being -1 as they usually don't have the knowledge and experience and bumble in thinking they know more than everyone and in doing so usually make it all harder for everyone else, especially if silly mistakes are made. In a new situation, aim to be a 0, accept you don't know it all and are there to learn and in doing so, you won't make it harder for everyone else and will actually take it all on. Eventually, when you do have that knowledge and experience you will be a +1. I think this is great advice and I'll definitely try this!

Mondays are often dreaded as the worst day of the week. Everyone is back at work and it often feels like the day has literally nothing good about it to look forward to. Why?

Monday is just another day.

Yes the weekend has gone, but its the start of another week thats full of possibilities. This week, make a conscious effort to make Monday something to look forward to. Promise yourself you will do something to make it worthwhile getting out of bed for. Whether thats treating yourself to a proper coffee rather than having instant, getting out for a walk at lunch or the fact you will sit down and read that book or magazine you've been saving.

Whatever it is, just do it and Enjoy Monday!

I managed to try the new Bare Minerals BarePro foundation this week and I'm very impressed. Its a good colour match for my ghostly pale skin and offers build able coverage. I also bought the new brush to go along with it, it's so soft! You apply this by putting a tiny amount on the brush, tapping off the excess and then buffing in as you do with the loose foundations.

I'm also so impressed with the concealer. It really does cover my dark circles and brightens my eyes and its a pretty good dupe for my previous non-cruelty free Bobbi Brown corrector that I thought I would never replace!

As I bought it at an event Selfridges were running, I also got a goodie bag with the serum and a mini lip balm in which I'm excited to use.