Summer Reading List

Hello,

So it seems my purchasing problem has now spread beyond the reach of clothing and nail polish to books as well.

I really enjoy reading when I have time, which isn't often so when I go on holiday I tend to make up for the rest of the year. The holiday before last I read 10 books in 14 days! Pretty good going I think ;)

So I thought for this post I'd share with you the books I'm planning to read over the summer, providing I can fit them all in my suitcase of course!

Curly Hair Care Routine - Part 2: Styling

This is the second part of my hair care routine, which is about how I style my hair. Read the first part here.

N.B. please excuse the lack of make up but it was too hot today to bother and I had just gotten out of the shower!

So after rinsing out the Argan Oil treatment, I use a microfibre hair wrap/towel to dry my hair.

Next I apply Africa's Best Leave-in conditioner, a product I have using for a few years now and find works really well at moisturising.

I follow this up with the Elasta QP liquid styling gel as this helps to keep my curl between washes, and really helps with the next part. I run this through my hair and section into two pieces.

To get a nice defined curl, I wrap small sections of my hair around my fingers. These twists help to create ringlets which set with the help of the styling gel. I work around my whole head, from the back to the front on each side. At this point my hair is still quite damp from all of the styling products so I leave the ringlets in for a few hours (or overnight) to dry and set.

Once the ringlets have dried, I use clean, dry hands to separate each individual one so that they are more defined. This is a really quick and easy process, thankfully as it would look bizarre to leave it!

Here's the finished result! It will probably last me 3-4 days, before it needs washing again. Hope this was helpful to some of you! 

Send me links to your curly hair care routines! I'd love to see what other curlies do!

J xx

Curly Hair Care Routine - Part 1: Cleanse and Condition

Hi all,

As you aren't likely to know unless you've met me in person, I have very curly mixed raced hair. It's taken me a while to learn how to deal with it myself but I'm finally starting to get to grips with it and have recently found some products which work really well for my hair.

Me (and my hair) on the far right in January in NYC.

A problem that a lot of curly girls suffer from is dryness and frizziness and I'm no exception. Over time I have found that the products with sulphates in them (the chemicals that cause lathering in shampoo and body wash), are the source for a lot of the dryness. The Curlygirl method (which can be found here) is what first put me onto this fact and my hair is definitely healthier for not using them.

Summer Sales Shopping Haul!!! - TOPSHOP, ZARA, PRIMARK.

Hi all,
This weekend has been unbelievably hot and sunny and I've spent a lot of today tanning and enjoying the sunshine. But even with the beautiful weather, my sister and I still managed to make the trek into town yesterday to brave the summer sales.
I tried not to go too crazy but having not been physically shopping for a while (online shopping doesn't count, but it is an addiction), it was always going to be difficult.
Even so I thought I'd show you the few bits that I bought and how I may end up putting them together!
 - A side note: I still haven't managed to replace my camera from the burglary so these were taken on my iPhone. So sorry if the quality isn't great!


The Accessories...
I must have been on a bit of an accessories hype yesterday as I bought quite a few bits.

Digital Illustration - A First Attempt.

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently made the BIG purchase of a MacBook Pro Retina and even though I've had it less than a week, I already love it and don't really know how I ever dealt without one before.

I'm currently doing full time work experience at a local digital marketing agency and despite the fact that it's exhausting, I'm learning so much and really feeling inspired creatively at the moment.

So much so that I came home from work today, whacked out the highly underused drawing tablet that I got for Christmas and drew this... 

Last night I just happened to find some images that I found really inspiring and just went with it really. Now it's not very good by any stretch of the imagination, but I can only get better, right? And for a first attempt I'm pretty proud of it!

I've also found myself sewing again recently, mainly out of necessity as I needed a case to protect my new laptop, so I may have some sewing tutorials up on here soon.

Have any of you had your creative juices flowing recently? Have you made or created anything you're proud of? Share share! I'd love to see anything you've got!

J xx

The Last Line: "Lover you may cause me tears, drag me through the best of years. But I love you so."

(Mexico - The Staves)