2013 - Fresh Starts

I was very glad to say goodbye to 2012.

For those of you who know about astrology, let's just say my Saturn Return was and still is, in full swing.

The changes it brings about can be painful (particularly if yours in in Scorpio - yay for me :S), but they are necessary to help you become the person you need to be. Clearly I had a lot of transforming to do, so my path has been a little rougher than others. Woe is me! 

Seriously though, whether or not celestial bodies are involved, I think everyone's late 20s involve massive life changes - travel, moving house, moving jobs, starting and ending relationships and losing loved ones. These experiences prepare you for your 30s and help you decide which direction you life is going in.

This blog was definitely a casualty and many times, when I just couldn't find the inclination to wax lyrical about a new lipstick when so much else was going on, I thought about jacking it in. 

I'm glad I didn't. I'm trying not to carry regrets with me anymore, but I do have a niggling regret that there are such large gaps between my posts on here over the last year. Every time I thought I got my mojo back it turned out to be a false alarm, and I didn't just want to churn out any old rubbish. Anyone can use stock photos and cut and paste press releases, but I like to spend a long time over taking the photos, editing them and writing the post content in a way that is personal to me. 

One good thing I did last year was take a Photoshop course. I learned lots of things, which I promptly forgot, but I retained the basics and it's made editing the photos for this site much easier. I will be going back over my notes to develop my skills. My OCD makes me pretty good at retouching old cracked and discoloured photos. 

Thank you so much for hanging around while there are so many other amazing blogs to follow. I lost a few people along the way, but amazingly gained so many new readers who came across my older content from Google searches and links from other lovely bloggers. I kept up with the proliferation of fantastic new beauty and lifestyle blogs which sprung up during my hiatus and they in many ways inspired me to come back to blogging. 

I plan to be just like this little kitten in 2013:

Procrastination. The great time thief.

I always make some sort of New Year resolution, sometimes a whole list, but this year I haven't written anything down until now.  

My main goal for 2013 is to STOP PROCRASTINATING! I have a tonne of ideas and plans for the things I want to do and I can't wait to start putting them into action.  

Some specific  resolutions which will only be achieved if I take care of the main one, are:

• Get thin for thirty. When I say thin, for me this means letting my body settle to its ideal weight.  I want to achieve a good balance of eating well, sleeping well and exercising well.  I want to be the best version of myself.  Last year I lost the weight I piled on during a fraught relationship (30lbs/over 2 stone).  Over the past few months I've put on about half a stone, but I have a goal of losing a further 2 stone. I'll probably write about my past and future chunk-shedding journeys at my other blog.
• Sleep More. Be in bed asleep by 11pm on school night. (I wouldn't bet on this one...)
• Read more. Since I stopped taking the bus to work I just can't seem to find the time to read.  Kindles, iPads, a massive bookcase of books have failed to shift my literacy lurch.  I try to read the Economist nearly every week as it's more time efficient that reading a newspaper everyday, but it's hard to find the time to finish it, and I hate being surrounded by half-read things. Please leave me a comment below with any recommended reads for me.
• Save not Spend. I am quite good at saving generally, but sometimes I do get carried away.  I need to reign this in and rather than shoving whatever's left over at the end of the month into savings, decide at the beginning of the month what my spending budget will be (rent, travel, food, socialising, shopping) and immediately push a chunk into savings.
• Better Beauty Routine. This is related to my fitness resolution as positive changes on the inside translate on the outside.  I need to be more regimental in my skincare routine.  I'm good with eyecreams and always put some sort of concoction on my face before bed, but I really need to make more use of masks and scrubs.  This year I really noticed a lot more fine lines on my forehead and around my eyes (crying is so bloody ageing!) but I've been using a couple of skincare products which have really made a difference.  It's amazing, I can't believe they're actually working.  I'll be blogging about them soon.  The key with beauty routines is consistency.  No point using a bank breaking serum on your face a couple of nights a week, better off to use a more budget friendly alternative that still packs some key ingredients, every night. 
• Travel Staycation. The last few years have been quite jet set, but sometimes I find all the effort that goes into planning, shopping for and recovering from a holiday abroad just add up to you not having a proper 'restful' break. I don't tan so I don't really do beach holidays which are relaxing, so instead I turn into a weird supertourist who gets up at the crack of dawn to see everything of interest and follow this up by going clubbing.  It's exhausting. I love London and there is still so much of it I haven't explored that I'm seriously thinking of staycationing for a week this year.  I also need to sort another cruise holiday for the mummy and me. 

I think that's about it.

Ah no! I forgot a very important one!

• Be a better blogger.  Well, the' betterness' is for you lot to judge, but 'better' to me means 'consistent'! When I first started my blog I spent hours on it every evening and weekends.  To be honest it got a little bit too much and I could have been a lot more efficient with my time if I worked a little smarter.
• Blogging Routine. For a while I've wanted to get into a proper routine, I just need to accept that I'm Type A and get on with it! Executing a blog post in one go - picking the topics, taking and editing the photos and then writing the content all in one go - is definitely not the best use of time.  I always have a million ideas for posts swirling around, so I've taken a lovely new Liberty notebook and committed them to paper. The plan is to devote one full day per month to blogging, and the odd Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  School nights are for catching up with friends, gym, beauty events and reading books and blogs.  
• Photography. I will 'batch photograph' when there is good lighting, edit and save them for a rainy afternoon when I can sit down a write a few posts in one go.  I also want to splash out for a 'proper' DSLR camera. 

One huge plan is to start blogging at Portobello Pearls again.  I want to keep Click & Make-Up purely beauty oriented, so lots of the other things I get up to will be over there.

Isn't this a pretty Filofax? I can't get enough of this gorgeous teal colours.  I dream of a cream kitchen with teal accents, but for now this little piece of teal will have to do.  

It's real leather but I got it in a Ryman's sale for £5. Diary included!

A lot of people are very 'routine averse' thinking that it means stamping out any joy or spontaneity from life, but experience has taught me that without routine, you never get anything done! Next time someone tries to make a plan with me, in the words of Del Boy, I'll have to check my Filofax.

God, I'm such a Yuppy. 

Happy 2013, may this year bring you love, blessings and happiness x 

follow this blog| bloglovin' | twitter | facebook | hellocotton | instagram | lifestyle blog | pinterest

How I got (so) into Beauty

I suppose 54 posts into this blog is an odd stage to write about what inspired me to kick off this here blog, but here it is!

My obsession with beauty has an unusual origin. Until a couple of years ago I had a very practical attitude to make up and well, all beauty products. I was not what you would call 'obsessed' with them. But I was obsessed with finding the perfect product for a particular function. What kicked off my holy grail beauty quest was a frustration with buying in, like a sap, to the latest new shampoo or foundation and being let down. I was annoyed by wasting money on products that gathered dust in my bathroom cabinet after only a few uninspiring uses. I hardly ever finish products and when I do I get a very lame sense of achievement and satisfaction that I have discovered a product worth repurchasing. Back in my low-key beauty days on one particularly arduous District Line journey I whipped out my notebook and began listing the best/most functional shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, sunblock, mascara...you get the picture. Any beauty item you can think of, I listed my favourite version of it at that moment in time. I wanted to create the ultimate 'shopping list' to end all lists to prevent further money and time wastage trying products that on the whole, turned out to be duds. 

The irony is that I started the list as an attempt to simplify the aesthetic faffing which comes with being a woman; I wanted to have ONE great mascara, ONE fabulous foundation, ONE perfect hair serum, etc. in a streamlined kit. I wanted to declutter, start buying only products I KNEW would work, help me look my best, and that I would completely use up. And also save myself the indecision when facing a wall of hairspray in Boots - because I could always refer to my list!

Ah, what naivety! The major aid to the completion of the list - beauty blogs and youtube videos - was the undoing of my plan for discipline! The number one attraction of the internet beauty community was its, on the whole, honesty. My aforementioned 'sap-ness' and the let downs were mainly a result of buying into multi-million pound advertising and marketing campaigns. Now I know there's a lot of 'sponsored' product posts swilling around the beauty blog community, but having read reams and watched tonnes of real, honest product reviews bought with the scribe's/YTer's own cash, it's pretty easy to spot and immunise yourself against the sometimes-fantastical claims of 'incentivised' posts. Without the community there's no doubt I'd still be flailing around, trying crappy shampoo after crappy mascara. Since engaging with it, I've only bought a few disappointing items, despite quadrupling the volume of beauty paraphernalia I waste my salary on. I read beauty columns in magazines now in the same frame of mind as I do those obviously sponsored blog posts; if a company is laying down big bucks for advertising in the mag, how can a review of any of it's products in that same publication tell it like it is? Now it may be a perfectly worthy item, but I'm not gonna take the risk! (Well at least not before seeing what the blogs say).

On that District Line tube I didn't think of the items on my list as 'holy grail' - this term I picked up from the internet beauty community, but it conveys perfectly the type of products I'm searching for. I've discovered so many amazing products that have really made a difference to how I feel about myself (don't worry, I'm not going all Oprah on you!). One gross but nevertheless good example is the PedEgg. Years before it came to the UK I read about a similar product - the Microfile - on a beauty blog. You could only get in in the US, so when I was in California, I went on a hunt, didn't find it, but saw the PedEgg. I NEVER would have bought this without reading about what a revolution this type of product is to feet - and now mine are no longer my bodypart enemy #1 and I can wear high heels with much less pain. I never would have read about it in a magazine as it wasn't available in the UK at the time. I'm also always on the lookout for other fair/ginger skinned ladies as what suits them is normally a safe bet for me. I hope my recommendations can do the same and pass on the love. 

And so, a fully fledged obsession was born and I'm resigned to the fact that I will never achieve a perfect, finished holy-grail-list-to-end-all-lists (those products I first listed...yeah...BORED NOW!). I will always hunger to try new products. This is my cross and I shall bear (and blog about) it! No doubt it will only get heavier as my face et al heads south.

But hey, everyone has a vice, and I don't smoke or drink! (much).

Part of 'The list'! (by 'purple brush' I 
think I meant 'Falsh Lash Effect'!)