Percy & Reed Totally TLC Hydrating Mask Review

With my most recent issue of Glamour Magazine (April 2012) I received a free sample of a Percy & Reed Totally TLC Hydrating Mask. I don't usually use free samples I get with magazines as I always seem to forget about them.. I always have the intention of using them and trying them out, so I put them somewhere safe and then find them 4 months later in the huge stash I left them in!

But alas! This time I have put the free sample to the test and this is my review.

As a quick background history, my hair is terrible for being dry and strawlike. It's difficult to manage and knots and matts like nothing else. Around 4 months ago I had my hair dip-dyed and so a lot of bleach was used in the process to get my gorgeous embre hair! But it's come at a price. The ends are even worse than ever before, and even after getting it cut about 2 inches shorter, it didn't really help all that much.

I use Herbel Essences on my hair because it's cheap and it smells quite nice and fruity! But I know it's not great. Even when I use ridiculous amounts of conditioner my hair still doesn't feel amazing.

So, I've tried and tested the Percy & Reed Totally TLC Hydrating Mask and this is my verdict: it's great.

I used my normal Herbel Essences shampoo (because I have no other shampoo...) and then masked my hair in the Percy & Reed conditioner. I ran my fingers all through my hair and rubbed the product around a little, then tied it up on a bun on the top of my head and continued to have my shower. I didn't leave it in for the full 10 minutes like it advises you too, but then again I didn't get out the shower and wrap my hair in a towel either!

I left in in for around 5 minutes and as soon as I began rinsing it out I could feel the difference. Even when my hair was soaking wet it was a lot easier to run my fingers through my hair and there seemed to be less tangles. I've literally just dried my hair now, and it feels amazing. I've not even brushed my hair (I seem to have misplaced my hair brush..) but my fingers go through with ease. It feels extremely soft from root to tip - something I've not felt in a long while! And.. it smells lovely!

The bottle states that the 'deep, indulgent treatment' helps to restore your hair's vitality, makes it soft and more manageable. This much is true! It also tells you that it's 'enlisted marshmellow to lend a hand nourishing and strengthening stressed tresses, and coconut oil for deep conditioning and moisturising'. Marshmellow?? Very interesting.

Perhaps the wonderful instant feel of the conditioner is a short lived thing, but if you have the money to put this lovely stuff on your hair every week, you'd never have horrible knotty hair!

RRP is £20 for 175ml

http://www.percyandreed.com/

Mary's Bottom Line

This is a great documentary! Mary Portas has lost a few marbles, but I love her. She means business, doesn't take rubbish from anybody and she tells it how it is.

She's on a mission to reinvigorate the British trades and clothing industry, after years of it being lost and forgotten. In todays Britain, everything we purchase as consumers comes from everywhere but Britain! Factories have been forced to close down and made to buy from abroad to ensure their products are still just as cheap as they used to be.

So, Mary wants to bring back the British trades, and make a pair of pants that are fully British; British material, British Lace and even British workers, putting them back behind the sewing machines!

The documentary follows Mary as she sets up her new British business and her endeavor to find herself some hard-working employees. She finds herself standing face to face with Britains incredible unemployment statisics for young people. It's a really great insight to the reality we have to face in Britain.

So watch it! Despite there being some mildly depressing parts in it, Mary is fantastic and the whole documentary is extremely interesting.

Gok Wan: Made in China - Gok Wan: Made in China

I really loved this documentary on 4OD! Gok Wan travels all around China to find out what 'Made In China' truly means after getting it tattooed on the back of his neck two years before.

He visits a jeans manufacturer and finds that each and every pair of jeans is fully handmade! And these weren't even designer jeans! He then visits a bra manufacturer and discovers that no matter where the company gets their order from, be it Victorias Secret or Asda, the quality is all exactly the same. So no need to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a bra if you get a good fit at Asda!

He also finds himself in a town named 'Thames Town', where everything has been re-created from Britain. There are copies of old tudor houses with the black beams and so many other typically westernised buildings. There's even an exact copy of church from England which Gok describes as a 'flat pack church from Ikea'.

The information gathered from the documentary is great and I found it so interesting. You also get a look at an old Chinese tradition of burning paper models of items (luxury or not) that late family members would like to have with them in the afterlife. Gok visits his familys home town and offers his paper gifts for his late grandparents and uncle in their tomb-like area. All this of course is after a mildly amusing phone call from his father telling him what paper items to buy!

I seriously recommened you watch this, just to have a little look at where pretty much everything you own in the room you are sat in right now and the very clothes on your back came from!

How to make a cute origami crane.

I really enjoy making origami animals and flowers. Origami gets me concentrating really hard; I feel like it gives my brain a little workout and a sense of accomplishment when I've completed one.

I decided to make my own 'How To..' guide for making a Crane.

Step 1: Take a square piece of paper! Origami paper is the best to work with.

Step 2: Fold the paper in half with the coloured side up.

Step 3: Open to a square again and fold the paper in half the other way with the coloured side up.

Step 4: Open to a square again and fold the paper in half into a triangle with the white side up.

Step 5: Open to a square again and fold the paper in half the other way with the white side up.

Step 6: Open to a square with the coloured side up and turn it on it's corner so it becomes a diamond. Now it's time to really start folding up a crane!

Step 7: Hold the diamond if you hands and the push in the left corner. (You may have to do a little bit of jiggling around with the folds here if it doesn't collapse in naturally).

Step 8: Push in the right corner the same as you did with the left.

Step 9: Ta da! You now have a little diamond! (Make sure the bottom corner of your diamond is the corner where all the other corners meet).

Step 10: Fold in both sides of the front of the diamond to meet in the middle.

Step 11: Fold down the triangle on top and crease quite hard.

Step 12: Open up the creases you have just made for the next part of the process.

Step 13: Slip your finger underneath the bottom corner of the diamond and lift.

Step 14. Lift the front of the diamond up and carry on pulling back.

Step 15: Here's a side view of pulling the paper back.

Step 16: Notice you are creating a long diamond shape.

Step 17: Pull the paper right back and crease down.

Step 18: Turn over and repeat steps 10 to 18. Now you have a long diamond shape. Make sure the bottom corner is still where all the other corners meet.

Step 19: Fold in the left side of the diamond to meet in the middle. This can be quite fiddly.

Step 20: This is what it should look like!

Step 21: Fold in the right side.

Step 22: Turn the diamond over and repeat steps 19 to 21. You should now have this.

Step 23: Fold up the right 'leg' diagonally.

Step 24: Fold up the left 'leg' diagonally .

Step 25: Bring the right 'leg' down. This is where it starts to get tricky!

Step 26: Using the creases made from folding up the 'leg', fold the 'leg' inside itself and push it into the top diamond shape. The top part of the 'leg' should be re-folded the opposite way.

Step 27: A closer look at the complicated fold.

Step 28: Crease the leg .

Step 29: Repeat steps 25 to 28 with the left 'leg'.

Step 30: Fold the top of the right 'leg' down diagonally and crease hard. This is another tricky fold.

Step 31: In the same way the 'legs' were folded in on themselves, fold in the head of the bird.

Step 32: This is what it should look like.

Step 33: Fold down the top wing.

Step 34: Turn over and fold down the second wing.

Step 35: Stand the origami up and pull out the wings.

Step 36: Pull the wings out further and you'll notice the body of the origami stretches out.

You now have you origami crane :) I hung mine up in my bedroom for a little of a decoration!

NB: My origami skills are not very good at all! And I don't know the terminations for origami so my descriptions aren't great. I hope you got what I meant though!

Summer Trend Alert: My voice on Glamour Magazines article.

Magazine: Glamour

Issue: March 2012

Page: 156-164

Title: Summer Trend Alert... and how we'll be wearing each one

PRINT:

"From intricate paisley to bold Hawaiian florals, pretty patterns dominated the catwalk"

PAISLEY:

I'm not sure why, but I've always had an aversion to Paisley. I just hate it! So it makes me extremely sad that it's making a huge comeback in the fashion world. The main image on this page is a Paisley dress by Jil Sander and I have to admit I don't hate the print as much as I usually do. I think it has something to do with the fact that the teardrop paisley shapes aren't as frilly as they usually are and the pattern around them is a little less like normal paisley too. The colours are lovely too! Shame I'd never wear anything even close to a paisley print.

TROPICAL:

The Tropical print that is finding a home in fashion at the moment reminds me of the cute and slightly slap-dash comedy type print that was made up of fruit and vegetable prints last summer. When I think of typical tropical hawaiian shirts I think of middle-aged men wearing socks and sandals on their week-long summer holidays in Costa del Sol.. but weirdly enough I feel like the tropical trend will really catch on and we'll soon be seeing it on young women everywhere in Britain! (Especially when weather heats up to over 20 degrees and Britain suddenly thinks it's ok to ditch their entire winter wardrobe and strip off..)

LACE:

"Sweet and romantic, yes, but this season it's also minimal, hi-tech and very cool"

SOFT: I've always thought that soft lace always looks a lot prettier than any other kind of lace, and I always thought it looks a lot nicer in plainer or pastel colours. Blacks and creams are my personal favourites, however I have never owned any item of clothing that has been lace. I do enjoy the sheer, see-through look that is very fashionable, but I prefer to execute that look with a chiffon blouse! This soft lace fashion is lovely, and can work so well on certain people. I'm just not one of those people.

MODERN: I enjoy seeing new patterns in the lace, but it's hard to create something innovative and exciting with something as simply beautiful as lace. Lace florals are so great and traditional, I just feel the lace can sometimes be ruined when the 'modern' take on it is created. Again, it's the colours for me too. I feel they are too bright and childlike.

NB: I really love the Preen top used in the main photo on this page! The colours are beautiful and I've totally fallen for the pixelated squares.

PASTELS:

"Sugary macaroon hues and cool ice-cream shades make for a mouth watering palette"

SWEET: I've always loved pastels, but this certain type of top is too girly for me. If you're a really cute, girly girl or a 1950's enthusiast then these kind of tops would really suit you, unforunately for me that's not the case! They remind me a lot of Zooey Dechanel in 'New Girl'.

SIMPLE: The simple pastels are much more my thing. I've fallen in love with the duck egg blue cotton vest top from Comptoir des Cotonniers and the peach cotton trousers from Reiss! The clean cut but beautiful clothes work so well with the gorgeous pastel colours to create a smart and sophisticated but happy and fresh look.

LIGHTNESS:

"From sequins and see-through layers to iridescence, there's a shimmer in the air this spring"

IRIDESCENT: I can't quite make my mind up about the iridescent trend. On one hand, some of the garments designed are absolutely beautiful, but others just make me feel a little bit ill. Take the pleated skirt from Miss Selfridge; the colours are beautiful and has just the right about of sheen and sparkle, however the silk-mix shirt from Sportmax looks more like a glorified bin bag. I imagine that material would feel awful against your skin and would get so sweaty! And no one likes being sweaty..

TRANSPARENT: In general, I do like the transparent trend, but the examples on this page don't do it justice! The blue chiffon prom dress from Love Label looks like something a little girl would wear to a wedding. And both the shirts look stiff and unflattering. The transparent garments I really love are made from beautiful flowing chiffon dresses, like the gorgeous pleated chiffon dress by Chloe in her Summer 2012 Runway Collection.

3D:

"Flat and boring is out - shape comes alive with frills, peplums and pleats galore!"

FRILLS: I've never been a fan of frills, unless they are on swimwear! Frills remind me of when I was about 13 and the horrible frilled, tiered skirts were really fashionable. I think this trend is another one I can't pull off because it is so girly!

PLEATS: I love pleats! Pleats can make an amazing print look even more beautiful, and I love the way pleated garments fall and look. Either used as decoration of a top or used fully on a whole garment, I think they look awesome. The new Prada dresses, shown on the large image on this page, have won my affection. The designs themselves are actually incredibly simple, but the pleats make the whole design look fantastic.

FLASHBACK:

"Think Jazz Age flappers, a la Gucci, or '50's-stlye Sophia Loren at Dolce & Gabbana"

'20s: Love, love, love! I love the cuts, I love the beads and I love the colours. Beautiful, decadent golds, browns and coppers and rustic pinks to die for. The beaded shift dress from River Island is just amazing, and the Gucci flapper dress with the tassles is also so beautiful. I love the geometric gold design on it. It's just like Chicago with a modern twist.

'50s: Certain 50s looks are too girly for me, for example the cute cardigans, but the dresses with gorgeous sweetheart necklines, thick straps and hip-flattering skirts are right up my street. One day I will own one!!

CONCLUSION:

FAVOURITE TREND: '20s and Pleats

HATED TREND: Paisley

HAS POTENTIAL: Transparent