How to be social media savvy

Tags

amazing homes, annoying requests, block, blushes, bombarding, Boss, brownie points, Christmas party, communication, complete stranger, diet plans, erfect feeds, face, Facebook, feelings, gossip, happiness, hilarious, hotbed, hype, Instagram, intimate details, job interview, Keep it real, keyboard warrior, love, making connections, medic, medical advice, news, nitty gritty, online, personal details, popular, potential problems, prevent, rashes, real life, requests, safe, scratches, sick, social media networks, spammed, stranger, stunning holidays, substitute, tag, trolled, twitter, unfriend, well-meaning words

Whether you love Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or one of the other popular social media networks, making connections and keeping in touch with family and friends has never been easier, or cheaper. However, this instant means of communication can also lead to a hotbed of potential problems, so we’ve had a look at how you can prevent mishaps and keep safe and happy online.

Watch the door
There is no way you would let a complete stranger into your home, and the social media world should be no different. Accepting requests to connect with someone you don’t know can be dangerous and you really want to avoid it. It can allow people to spy on you, fraudsters can find your personal details, you can be spammed and trolled, and those people can send annoying requests to your friends too. If you don’t know someone in real life, don’t let them be a part of your social media existence either.

Tag with care
Yes, the Christmas party was fun, but Bob from IT might not want ‘that picture’ plastered across Facebook for HR to see on Monday, so just stop and think before you post photos of other people and tag them. You might think something is hilarious, but if you don’t want to lose a friend or your job stop and consider the consequences before pressing send.

Keep it real
You know the people we are talking about – the ones with the perfect feeds, amazing homes, stunning holidays and a new outfit everyday – this isn’t real, so don’t believe the hype or let it get you down. Generally, people only post what they want you to know, so take things with a pinch of salt and just go your own way.

Don’t overshare
The intimate details of your personal life are yours, so don’t share them with Twitter, because it could lead to a lot of blushes. Yes, you might hate your boss and your new boyfriend might be amazing, but the whole world doesn’t need to know every single detail. Keep social media light and fun and when things don’t go to plan, don’t blast your feed with the gossip about that either.

Is it yours to share?
Posting about your flatmate’s job interview, revealing an upcoming project at work, or talking about your sister’s engagement before she does, won’t get you any brownie points. Think before you post and if it’s someone else’s news, they have the right to tell others on their feed, before you share it on yours.

Social media isn’t a medic
Social media is a great thing, but it’s not a substitute for real medical advice. If you have a health problem, speak to your GP before sharing the nitty gritty of a tummy bug online, and never think that the well-meaning words of a friend are a given when it comes to being sick. Speak to someone in the know and keep photos of scratches and rashes to yourself.

Don’t be pushy
We all need to make a living but bombarding family and friends with requests to buy your skin care products or diet plans isn’t going to make you very popular. Yes, set up a page and let them know what you are doing, but if you push it at them all the time, you might find they start to unfriend, or even block you and that’s not what you want.

Don’t be a keyboard warrior
At the end of the day, we all have feelings, so if you say something to someone online, make sure you would also say it to their face. Don’t make social media a breeding ground for hate, instead spread happiness and love and make the world a better place.

Team Pure Beauty

Keep Your Routine Cruelty-Free

Tags

ageing, ageing skin, base coat, boost, Booster, brighter, complexion, Cruelty, cruelty-free, defence, Dermalogica Age Bright Clearing Serum, Dermalogica Phyto-Nature Firming Serum, Dermalogica UltraCalming Barrier Defence Booster, Dermalogica UltraCalming Calm Water-Gel, dryness, fine lines, gel, gluten, gluten free, hyaluronic acid, lock, luminoity, microbiome, moisture, moisturise, moisturised, moisturiser, moisturising, nail, oil, Orly Breathable Almond Milk, oxygen, sensitive, sensitivity, serum, skin, soothe, soothing, squalene, top coat, Vegan, water, wrinkles

Photo by William Daigneault on Unsplash

Whether you eat a vegan diet, are veggie, or still have meat in your diet, it’s important to most of us that our beauty products aren’t tested on animals. Cruelty-free beauty means that you can use products with the peace of mind that nothing you’re using has been tested on animals, and here at Pure Beauty, we try to offer as many of these products as we can find. Here are five of our favourites:

Dermalogica Age Bright Clearing Serum

This serum from Dermalogica is deisgned for people with ageing skin who still deal with adult acne or breakouts, giving you spot-busting power which will also tackle the signs of ageing. The AGE Bright™ Complex works with the skin’s natural microbiome for clearer, brighter skin and as well as being cruelty free, the formula is also gluten free, vegan friendly and contains no artificial fragrances, colours or parabens.

Orly Breathable Almond Milk

This beautiful soft taupe colour is the perfect neutral colour for autumn and is cruelty free, as are all of the polishes from Orly. The strong formulation means that you have no need for top coat or base coat and the advanced technology means that oxygen can still penetrate through to the nail, reducing any risk of damage from having your nails painted.

Dermalogica UltraCalming Calm Water-Gel

Many products for deeply dry skin are often oil-based, but this water-gel from Dermalogica is different. It’s designed for use on skin which suffers from sensitivity and redness and treats the underlying dryness using hyaluronic acid technology which works in different skin layers to increase and lock in moisture. It’s vegan friendly and cruelty free, as well as being free from gluten and parabens.

Dermalogica UltraCalming Barrier Defence Booster

This defence booster from Dermalogica is formulated using a combination of oils which not only moisturise the skin but also protect it from environmental stressors. Squalane locks in moisture, while soothing oat oil helps combat sensitivity and support healthy looking skin. It’s made using cruelty-free ingredients and can be applied directly to the skin, or mixed with your usual moisturiser for an added boost.

Dermalogica Phyto-Nature Firming Serum

This vegan, cruelty-free serum from Dermalogica is aimed at ageing skin and provides flash-firming properties with just one application. It’s clinically proven to double skins luminosity and minimise the appearance of fine lines after just one application, while reducing visible wrinkles in 4 weeks.

Stress isn’t just for National Stress Awareness Day

Tags

24/7, a sense of dread, angry customer, Be mindful, busy, buzz word, chocolate, coffee, control, coping, cross, cry, cutting down takeaways, diary, drinking and binge-eating, drinking lots of water, eating a nutritious diet, emails, energy, exercise, family, feelings and sensations, friends, fruit, Giving up cigarettes, GP, gym, healthy mental wellbeing, heart rate, help, here and now, Ill, impacting your life, impatient, irritable, jump up, Kick the bad stuff, kids, knots in your stomach, laptop, Let it go, lid, lifestyle, loss of libido, manage stress, mindfulness, National Stress Awareness Day, nervous. depressed, out of control, Panic attacks, pattern emerges, phone, physical, Pick your battles, pretty stressful place, pub, react, reflect, resolve, run, settle down, shout out loud, skin, sleepless nights, smoking, social media, Stamp your feet, stress, stressful, swap, swim, Switch off, tackle it, thoughts, thrive, toddler tantrums, toxic habits, triggers, unfair boss, veg, work, work late, world, yell

While the first Wednesday in November each year is National Stress Awareness Day, the world is a pretty stressful place a lot of the time and it is different for us all.

You might feel irritable and impatient, nervous or depressed. There can be knots in your stomach, a sense of dread and the inability to see the good in life. Panic attacks, sleepless nights, loss of libido and feeling sick, dizzy or fainting are all ways stress can be experienced.

If we are to thrive, we need to find our own ways of coping with whatever our busy lives throw at us, so we have some ideas we hope might help.

Know your triggers
A buzz word, maybe, but it’s really good to try to access your triggers, where possible. Stress can come from many things, be that work, kids, family, friends or other people on social media! If you can identify what causes your stress, this will help you to tackle it and get things under control. Start to keep a diary of when you feel stressed, look at who or what sets it off and if a pattern emerges look at the changes you can make so things settle down.

Look at your lifestyle
Exercise is often on the bottom of our to do list, but it is a great way to manage stress. Increasing your heart rate, eating a nutritious diet, drinking lots of water and getting plenty of sleep are really important if you want to keep stress levels down. Just as you track your stress, look at how good you feel after a run or a swim, and how your skin improves when you swap chocolate and coffee for fruit and veg.

Pick your battles
There can be many things in life that are stressful – from a big bill, unfair boss to an angry customer, but if you react to them all you are going to be ill. Choose which things you are going to actually direct energy at and try to resolve, but the rest can be put behind you because they aren’t worth it.

Let it go
Stamp your feet, shout out loud, cry or jump up and down or do some boxing! No, we aren’t talking about toddler tantrums, but letting out your stress and steam in a more physical way. If you are feeling cross and out of control, it might just help to yell about it and get that stress out of your system.

Switch off
Turning off your phone, not checking your emails and powering down your laptop can all help put a lid on stress. You don’t need to be ‘on it’ 24/7, and no one expects you to work late every night, and if they do, maybe you need to look at how much work is impacting your life and stress levels.

Be mindful
This is talked about a lot, but mindfulness is where you have an awareness of the present moment and you pay attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations in the here and now. Mindfulness is really good for healthy mental wellbeing, so if you feel stressed, take a moment and reflect. If your mind gets busy, mindfulness can help to slow it down.

Kick the bad stuff
Smoking, drinking and binge-eating are ways many people cope with stress, but none of those toxic habits will do you any favours. Giving up cigarettes, cutting down takeaways and going to the gym rather than the pub will help you to feel better in the long run.

If things are getting out of hand, chat to your GP – you won’t be the only one.

Team Pure Beauty

When soap won’t cut it turn to Pure Beauty

Tags

acne prone skin, ‘Wash your face with soap water’, balms, cleans, coconut, creamy, Decleor Bi-phase Caring Cleanser and Make-Up Remover, deep cleansing action, Dermalogica Intensive Moisture Cleanser, Dermalogica Precleanse, dirt of the day, dissolves, dry faces, easily rinses away, elderberry and starflower extracts, Elemis BIOTEC Skin Energising Cleanser, Elemis Pro-Collagen Cleansing Balm, excellent products, excess sebum, floral water, fresh, glycolic acid, grandmothers, Jan Marini Bioglycolic Facial Cleanser, jasmine, layer up, light, lips, make-up, mantra, murumuru seed butter, non-irritating, nourishing, oomph, optimum performance, palmarosa, pampers, past generations, plant-based cleansing oil, plump, radiant, rebalance, removes make-up, results, revived, revolutionary formula, Rice Bran, rose, scientific blend of virgin botanical oils, soap free, soft, soothed, stubborn, sunscreen, surface oils and impurities, tired, trio of acids, ultra-clean, vitamin E oils, waterproof lip liners, waterproof make-up

‘Wash your face with soap water’ was often the mantra for our grandmothers, but today there are better, gentler ways to take the dirt of the day off your skin, so we’re going to look at some of the excellent products on the site that we think past generations would’ve approved of.

The Dermalogica Intensive Moisture Cleanser is a light creamy product that cleans the skin as well as nourishing it. Perfect for dry faces it takes away dirt and make-up and thanks to lush coconut and murumuru seed butter skin gets stronger and is soothed as well as being refreshed thanks to palmarosa and jasmine.

If you are looking for something with a little oomph, look no further than the Elemis BIOTEC Skin Energising Cleanser. This offers optimum performance, because it is packed with a trio of acids mixed with an energising electrolyte solution and the results are explosive. The unique deep cleansing action reduces surface oils and impurities to rebalance your complexion leaving it fresh and revived.

The Decleor Bi-phase Caring Cleanser and Make-Up Remover is powered by a scientific blend of virgin botanical oils and floral water, and we love it. This revolutionary formula pampers the skin as it removes make-up (even stubborn, waterproof lip liners) and leaves it feeling soft, plump, soothed, and radiant.

For ultra clean, healthy skin we suggest the Dermalogica PreCleanse which is a fav of the pro’s. This plant-based cleansing oil breaks through the excess sebum, sunscreen, waterproof make-up, and residual products that build up during the day and make our skin look dull. Rice bran and vitamin E oils have been added to create a gentle blend that can be used around the eye area so that panda eyes in the morning will be a thing of the past.

Jan Marini Bioglycolic Facial Cleanser is totally soap free and leaves skin soft, smooth and more refined. It is non irritating, easily rinses away and because it comes with natural sorbitol from berries it leaves your skin soft and hydrated. This cleanser has added glycolic acid and the deep cleansing action makes it perfect for acne-prone skin, but don’t use this if you are pregnant or trying to conceive.

Balms aren’t just for your lips! The Elemis Pro-Collagen Cleansing Balm dissolves the make-up, grime and pollution that can layer up and make us look tired. All skin types can benefit from the rose, elderberry and starflower extracts that have been mixed with delicate oils because together, they supercharge your complexion and leave it glowing.

If you have any questions about the best soap free products for you, let us know and we would love to help.

Team Pure Beauty

How to start writing a book in November

Tags

000 words, 15 minutes, a couple, accountable, add up, alarm clock, an old woman, £50, blog, book, book buddy, chapter headings, characters, chic lit, computer, day by day, dream come true, fantasy novel, hard drive, ideas, inspire, join a writing group, launch, literary dream, lose momentum, magazine, massive, memes, mini-story, mission, momentum, name, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Notebooks and pads, novel, November, pages, pens, people, photos, progress, relationship, small chunks, story, vision board, write, write a book, write a novel, Write everyday, writing journal, YA story, you’ve got this

November is the start of National Novel Writing Month which is followed by avid writers around the world. Often referred to as, NaNoWriMo, this event started out in 1999 as a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel during the thirty days of November and it’s grown ever since.

If you’ve always wanted to write a book, but aren’t sure where to start, we have some top tips on making your literary dreams come true.

Create a writing toolkit
If you want to write, you need the tools to help you. Notebooks and pads, a variety of pens and pencils, a writing journal as well as sticky notes and notecards, all help. An alarm clock can block out time, and ensure you have a decent computer too because the last thing you need is a dodgy hard drive swallowing 50,000 words of a book!

Build a vision board
A vision board is a great way to bring your ideas together. Photos of people to inspire characters, snaps of magazines where you’d like to be interviewed, snaps of sandy beaches that could be a beautiful proposal setting, and even film tickets can all lead to something special for your book.

Create an outline
When it comes to outlining your book, starting with the chapter headings is a great way to go. Under each heading, create a list of the content that chapter will contain and build from there. Spacing out small chunks of work will help you start to see your story and ideas come to life.

This is where those notecards come into play, as you can start to create chapter parts on cards and put them in order, reorganising as you go and the story evolves. This can work really well with a fantasy novel, chick lit or a YA story, and you can create the scenes and build the characters day by day.

Use images
A bit like the vision board, but you get stuck for ideas, photos and memes can really help inspire a story. Choose an image, maybe a couple, an old woman, and ask questions about what’s happening. What they’re doing? What’s their name? Are they in a relationship? Use this method as a basis for 15 minutes to write a mini-story, read it aloud and take it from there.

Write everyday
Whether it’s during November, or in the middle of summer, the only way to get your novel done is to write every day. Even 15 minutes each evening will see you make progress and if you can commit to the routine, you will see the words and pages add up. If you really, really want to write a novel, you can do it but you have to write.

Be accountable
It’s very easy to lose momentum when you are trying to complete something as massive as a book, so be accountable. Whether you join a writing group, use an online community, find a book buddy or update your progress on your blog, make sure people know you are on a mission to make a dream come true and they will be there to support you from start to launch!

Good luck and remember – you’ve got this!

Team Pure Beauty