From Drab to Fab ... Aussie style!

Last Wednesday, I was invited to a big pampering event organised by Aussie Hair Care where I had the chance to a team of 3 professionals: A fashion stylist, a hair stylist and a makeup artist (see my post on the whole event here) Amber was the Aussie Haircare stylist and I had the chance to have a personalised session with her. I was so lucky: Not only I had the chance to get my hair done, but I was able to discover some new products, see how she used them to style my hair, learn on how to do it myself, and had a go at doing it.


BEFORE THE TRANSFORMATION…


I should point out that straight away my hair styling skills are very basic. Other than the very rare straightening for special occasions, I almost invariably let my hair dry naturally as I’ve always been scared to damage it with the heat.In fact, I should just point out that I worry about every little thing: heat damage when styling hair, worried Amber was going to show me a some fancy hairstyle which would be too difficult to replicate at home and also I was scared my hair would become all sticky, stiff, heavy from the hairstyle. Amber worked her magic and you could not shut me up: ‘check me out’ as I was cringingly (is that even a word) and annoyingly giggling across the room and proudly parading my locks in front of my 6 fellow bloggers also invited to the special. To give you an idea of the transformation, a before and after photo.





Before (on the left) is picture of my hair left to dry naturally. The hair  still looks a bit shiny but in reality it was a dry mess, the layers was all over the place, grey hair was fiercely peeking through. The last time I had a haircut was at least 6 months ago, and a colour was overdue. I was so self conscious of my hair that it gave me a kick to have a good 1.5 inch trimmed to freshen the layers and the ends before the event.

For the colour, I used a ‘semi permanent’ home colouring product bought at half price or less.com. (Country Colors, in shade 58, Canyon Red) My hair is super super dark, so this colour would only be noticeable under strong artificial and natural lighting. I really liked the result, but soon I am going to need to use a proper permanent colour done at the hairdresser’s as I really need more lasting coverage for my greys.

 

And this is the result with the hair styled by Amber:


 

To achieve this flicked out voluminous look, Amber used mainly 3 tools:
- Aussie Luscious Long leave in conditioner on the ends
- Then a generous spray of Aussie ‘Volume & Gloss’ also focused on the ends
- and a pair of Babyliss Tone curling irons. No messing around with rollers having to stay there for ages in your hair.


I was even able to try it on myself and hold the curling object and give it a go:
- Spray ‘‘Volume & Gloss’ on  locks of hair,
- roll it (from the end onwards towards myself) onto the babyliss, count to 4 or something like that,
- then gently remove the curl and voilà





Result: Bouncy curls just on the ends giving me the mane of a sexy goddess and just volume all way around. I hope this will not sound too smug, and cringy but I felt like a million dollars. I am not sure the stylist was ready for such a extreme reaction of happiness: What amazed me the most was how easy it is to do as well. Well, I need to get one of those curling irons next!

No hint of sickly elnett perfume in sight, The Volume & Gloss just smells like freshly aussie shampooed hair, and not stiff either. Could it be because of the ‘kelp’ ingredient they were talking about? 


The cherry on the cake? What, there’s more? Yep.
As if this event was not special enough, I was given a generous goodie bag with my very own Volume and Gloss and 2 other new products I’ve never tried before and I can’t wait to try them out.

How has my hair ever looked and felt that good? No.
Can I resist the temptation to post a massive close up of my hair? Sorry I can’t :P 

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Rescued by the A-Team…

How would feel if you were invited to an exclusive pampering evening, where you could consult, on a one to one basis: a fashion stylist, a hair stylist and a makeup artist all under one roof? Pretty excited right? This is how I felt too, when I was invited to Aussie Haircare ‘Rescue’ pampering event, last Wednesday in Leeds. Yet, despite being uber excited at such amazing opportunity, I couldn’t help but feeling more petrified than anything else. As the day was coming closer, I started to get more and more anxious. I had never been to a beauty blogger’s event before and so nervous to meet other beauty bloggers in real life. Fine and dandy blogging ‘hidden at home’, posting  flattering makeup photos of yourself, carefully chosen between hundreds of cast offs. Meeting members of blogosphere in real life was a pretty scary prospect.

Could the anxiety get worse?
Yes it could …

The last time I had a haircut was around Christmas, grey hair peeking through my homemade semi permanent colour. As for my layers, there were part of a big mass of dry hay. Most of all, I was feeling super self conscious about my age, feeling so much older than my fellow bloggers. In a bid to look and feel better about myself, I embarked on a heavy duty exfoliation (crystal clear micro-dermabrasion done at the salon) an long overdue hair trim and a home colour in the space of 2 days. An over zealous beautician, a fatal non recommended hot bath later, and probably contact with the chemical of my hair dye made my skin even worse, and as sensitive as if I had waxed my whole face. My skin was red all over and started to peel badly around the mouth and the last thing I wanted to meet a makeup artist examining every pore and contour of my face. As if it could not get any worse, worrying about it at night prevented me to sleep at night properly for 2 days before, and I was sporting the biggest eye bags ever. I felt like a old and pale grandma who could not even indulge a bit of fake tan and risk to make the skin even worse.

So there I was, last Wednesday, arriving to Leeds, feeling and looking worse for wear. Taxi refusing to give me a lift because my hotel was apparently too close sent me over the edge and there I was with my woolly hat trying to protect my hair from a shower outside and crying my eyes out for the whole twitterland to see because I could not find ‘the headrow’ and was lost in the middle of Leeds. A few celebratory tears as I finally found my hotel, and it was time to regain composure and pretend I was cool, calm and collected.
A massive hug from Emma from Aussie Haircare on arrival and a welcome champagne cocktail from Bartender Ian and my anxiety levels went down to 10% and I could not have hoped for a more fabulous evening.





So who was there?
Myself and 6 other bloggers (Sinead, Carla, Catherine, Briony-Lou, Phoebe and Daisy) had been invited to the most gorgeous venue: a penthouse apartment offering the most breathtaking panoramic views of Leeds, as the sun was setting over the city.  I dread to imagine how much it would have cost to hire this apartment for the pampering evening: wow! And pampered we were! While foxy (but already spoken for) bartender concocted us yummy cocktails throughout the night, we were treated to a fancy finger buffet as we were chatting away and getting to know each other. A few minutes later, I even felt silly to have worried about the event so much: the girls were so friendly and the whole evening felt so relaxed and went so smoothly.

My nerves had nearly all gone then and it was finally time to meet the rest of the aussie team individually and pick their brains and expertise: Lisa the boss, Steven the fashion stylist, Amber the hair stylist and Cassie the makeup artist.





Steven the stylist went through with me some clothes I had brought over for the occasion and I felt so unimaginably lucky to be able to talk with a professional about my body shape, clothes and accessories to make the best of it. The best bit about it was he was not affiliated with any clothing company and not trying to sell me particular clothes or trying to get me into some silly and outrageous outfits.

Time to meet Amber the hair stylist. My hair makeover was a very special experience for me. I realise this post is getting very long so I wanted to devote a post of its own. Click here to see my hair makeover step by step :)

And last but not least, I was super lucky to meet Cassie, the makeup artist. Now if you have been reading about my blog is mainly about experimenting and having fun with makeup so you can imagine how excited I was. Cassie was very nice to me and reassured me straight from the start that she could concentrate mainly on eyes and lips and that made me feel so much better as all around my chin was lizardy dry. ‘What makeup would you like’, she asked. I was craving from tips and techniques on how to achieve a daytime but interesting smoky look. Everytime I had been trying to do a daytime look, it either ended drag (I’m not afraid of colours and I like to pack it on) with heavy cut crease or just bland and boring. And this is what Cassie achieved on me.






So nicely blended, so sophisticated and not a hint of drag in sight, and all this with affordable products from Max Factor which is totally my alley. Just remembering my time makes me feel all fuzzy. I was able to ask questions about the brushes she uses (again, super affordable, they were all from crown) from advice on droopy heavy lids, eyeshadow placement to ‘lift the eye’, how to make smaller eyes bigger etc…


 


Cassie (@cassiemakeup on twitter) wrote down all the products she used on me, on my ‘consultation’ sheet: On the eyes,  Max Factor“420 supernova pearls” powder eyeshadow) mixed ”colour precision” liquid eyeshadow in coffee.  The lips were divine and it was a mix of 2 glosses, one of them being ‘Glowing Sepia 600’ which, if my memory served me right had the most divine cocoa chocolatey smell. I just wished I could go back in time and see the bit when she put the blusher cos I really suck at it. I need to buy the tiny kabuki brush (super handy for travelling) she used to buff in  it as I generally tend to have a heavy hand with makeup.






It was soooooonice to meet in the flesh other blogger girlies, and so cool to have personalised tips and tricks on hair (click here to see my hair makeover step by step) makeup and fashion from the A-team, the Aussie team. Thank you so much guys!

 





 

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My first love

When little girls dreamt of being air hostesses, fashion designer or vets, my wildest dream when I was younger was to become fluent in English. My first love before anything else was the English language and even before being learning it officially in school, I had already asked people around me to teach me words. Exposure to the English language being obviously being very limited being born and living in France, I used to give myself extra homework and make up my own lists of vocabulary to learn because I thought 3 hours of English at school was not enough. All foreign films would be dubbed in French but the very rare times they would be shown in original version, i would embrace the opportunity with both hands and watch the film with a pen and paper to write down words and expressions which caught my attention.



At bath time, I would look out for bottle of shampoos and shower gels, with the list of ingredients translated in English and would read them out. When I came to live to England, my little habits carried on, but this time, I would read out loud stuff in the bath to practise my spoken English. One thing led to another, I ended up knowing by heart the ingredients and mode of use of Aussie Shampoo and Conditioner, the “Luscious Long” 'flavour' and the “Miracle Moist”. Not only I loved washing my hair with those shampoos but I really developed a soft spot for those in particular as the whole English of it was so different from anything I'd 'studied' in the bath before: humorous, light hearted and very friendly, yet not as 'childish' as Innocent Smoothies or as slightly adult orientated as Herbal Essences hair care range
So when Aussie Shampoos contacted me, after they've seen my very young blog to invite me to become an Aussie Angel, I was just over the moon.
'Would you like to be An Aussie Angel?” They asked me.
"Hell yeah”, I replied. “I am sooooo into your shampoos, I could recite the whole description of a bottle, on the spot”, I added.

What does it mean in practice to be an Aussie Angel: Well, I'm not quite sure as this is all new but from what I gather, I am part of a little network of beauty bloggers and I get invited to Aussie Bloggers' events when there are some.

One of my first 'assignments' was to choose which tribe I wanted to be in, as in choosing which shampoo I liked the best. Tough to choose at first between The Miracle Moist and the Luscious Long, but then the answer struck me as being obvious and I thought 'my hair had gone a long way for me, so it's normal to repay it' :) I told you I knew it by heart! So this my badge :)


Makeup being a hobby of mine, I wanted to create a look for the occasion and dedicate it to the lovely team at Aussie. Thank you for inviting me, and for my welcome pack.
I am super stoked!



What did I learn from doing this makeup? Well, always shave your armpits, ‘cos you never know... ;)

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