Look after your eyes the Pure Beauty way

Tags

active, algae, amino acid complex, anti-ageing formula, anti-inflammatory properties, Baikal Skullcap Root Extract, Blue Flower Linseed, brightens, brighter, busy, chamomile and arnica, Christmas parties, combo, cooling applicator, cooling cream-gel, cornflower water, dark circles, decleor, Decleor Jasmine Eye Cream, delicate skin, dermalogica, Dermalogica Stress Positive Eye Lift, dry, Elemis, Elemis Pro-Collagen Advanced Eye Treatment, Elemis Pro-Collagen Hydra-Gel Eye Masks, Elemis Pro-Radiance Illuminating Eye Balm, energise, eye contour area, Eyes, face, fans, fatigue, fine lines, fragile, gel, gentle formula, healthier, hyaluronic acid, hydrate, hydration, ideas, illuminating, improving skin tone a, jasmin, life, lightweight, look, lush, magic mix, make-up, moisture, moisturising eye balm, Mother Nature, nourishes, Omega-rich apricot oil, Padina Pavonica, party, plankton extract, protective barrier, puffiness, refreshes, sea water extracts, skin, smoothed, sparkle, Stimulating caffeine, stressed, supports, targets, tired, tired eyes, TLC, under-eye luminosity, Vitamins B3 and CG, wild indigo, winter, wrinkles, youthful

We are often so busy making sure our faces are cared for, that our eyes are left out of the picture. During the winter the delicate skin around your eyes needs a little more TLC than usual, and we have some ideas that could earn you life your look.

If the Christmas parties have started, the Elemis Pro-Radiance Illuminating Eye Balm could be what you need. This lush, illuminating, moisturising eye balm brightens and refreshes tired eyes and can make you sparkle. Soothing chamomile and arnica help reduce the appearance of dark circles which can get worse when we party too hard. Omega-rich apricot oil nourishes the eye contour area and thanks to the cooling applicator, you can use underneath or on top of make-up.

We are big fans of the Decleor Hydra Floral Ever Fresh Hydrating Wide-Open Eye Gel and for good reason. This lightweight, anti-ageing formula creates a youthful look and thanks to cornflower water and baikal skullcap root extract, fatigue is minimised, puffiness is eased, and those fine lines are smoothed away. The gentle formula also acts as a protective barrier so you have a brighter, healthier and younger looking appearance, however tired you might be.

There is no doubt that this time of year is busy, and that’s where the Dermalogica Stress Positive Eye Lift comes into play. This active, cooling cream-gel works with your skin to brighten and energise the eye area, and with sea water extracts and algae added into the magic mix, puffiness and dark circles are gone. One key ingredient is wild indigo that brings anti-inflammatory properties to the table and helps brighten skin by increasing under-eye luminosity, improving skin tone and reducing those pesky dark circles. Mother Nature at her very best, and you at your best too.

For something a little extra, you could consider the Elemis Pro-Collagen Advanced Eye Treatment that targets the fine lines and wrinkles which seem to look worse when you are tired and stressed. Super active padina pavonica and blue flower linseed help tone and firm, whilst a clever amino acid complex locks in moisture. This cool combo supports fragile skin without overloading it and is worth a try.

A real tiredness winner is the Decleor Jasmine Eye Cream that leaves your skin luminous and radiant. Jasmin fights wrinkles and lack of radiance all day long so you are left looking so much brighter. Stimulating caffeine, vitamins B3 and CG plus orange pigments help with drainage and your entire eye area is given a much-needed boost.

If time is on your side, we would suggest using the Elemis Pro-Collagen Hydra-Gel Eye Masks once or twice a week. Packed with plankton extract, padina pavonica and chlorella, these magic masks have an instant skin-tightening effect. To ensure your skin is left looking fantastic, hyaluronic acid has been added to gently, but effectively hydrate the fragile eye area. Put on for 20 minutes, lie back and relax and when you take the mask off, you will be left with visibly smoother, intensely moisturised, happy eyes.

If would like some expert eye guidance, get in touch and we would love to help.

Team Pure Beauty

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

Easy ways to stress less every day

Tags

anxiety, appreciate the little things, bed, best friend, bike, body, breathing, busy, caffeine, coffee, deep, demands, desk, edge, emails, endorphins, energised, exhaling, family, feel-good hormones, focus, food, full breaths, gratitude journal, gym, health, healthy sleep routine, herbal tea, here and now, Insta perfect, Inta perfect, life, look after, Meditative breathing techniques, mental health, morning, mouth, move, natural way, negative phrases, nose, physical wellbeing., Relax, relaxed, savour the moment, scroll, shallower, shifts, shorter, sleep, social media, stress, stress levels, stressful, sun shining, tension, to do list, trigger, vicious cycle, wake up, walking the dog

Life is busy, demands grow every day, the need to be Insta perfect plays on our minds and sometimes things can just get too much. It is just as important to look after your mental health, as it is to keep tabs on your physical wellbeing or things can start to get on top of you.

We have had a look at some simple ways you can take back control when it comes to feeling good about life and stressing less each day.

Think about how you start your day
For many people, anxiety is an issue and it can feel worse in the morning. To help with this, try to avoid activities that trigger your stress levels the moment you get up. Don’t look at your emails as soon as you wake, scroll through social media when you are at your desk and not in bed, and if coffee adds an edge, try a herbal tea and some meditation before hitting the caffeine.

List it
We aren’t talking about a to-do list, but a gratitude journal. Each day write down ten things that you’re grateful for and start to appreciate the little things we often take for granted, like family, health, food on the table and even the sun shinning. When you start to see what you do have and focus less on what you wish you had, shifts can be made and stress levels can go down.

And breath
Tuning into your breathing can make a real difference to how you feel as this really does affect your body. Think about it, when you are stressed out, your breathing becomes shorter and shallower, this can make you feel worse and a vicious cycle is set in place. Meditative breathing techniques can make a big difference to how you feel and allow you to become more relaxed and able to think straight. Start by simply taking deep, full breaths in through your nose, and exhaling slowly out of your mouth. Set aside ten minutes a day, more if you can, and just sit with your breath and feel the tension lift.

Get some exercise
Yes, we are all busy but there are real benefits for our mental health if we exercise. When you move your body releases endorphins, feel-good hormones, and when this happens it helps you to feel more energised and focused. This doesn’t mean hitting the gym twice a day or training for a marathon, but simply walking the dog, getting on your bike or taking a step class are all ways to bring good vibes into your life the natural way.

Be your own best friend
Have you ever stopped and thought about how you talk to yourself? Words like stupid, slow, lazy and failure are negative phrases we often use with ourselves, but now is the time to stop and be your own best friend and look after you.

Sleep it away
When we are tired, our worries seem to get worse and we find it harder to turn off and relax. Try to get yourself into a healthy sleep routine so you are able to give your body and mind time to recuperate and catch up. A set bedtime, having a warm bath with added essential oils, doing some yoga are all ideas that can have a positive impact on your mental health.

Live in the moment
It is all too easy to think about what went wrong in the past, or worry about the future, but why not start to enjoy and appreciate the here and now? You cannot change what has happened and we do not know what will happen tomorrow, next week or next year, so savour the moment and leave those worries at the door.

Team Pure Beauty

How to avoid weight gain this winter

Tags

a bootcamp, active, alcohol, amino acids, avocado, beans, bed, benefit, bloomer, body, body weight, boiled eggs and soldiers, bread, breakfast, busy, caffeine, carb heavy white toast, chickpeas, cortisol, counting calories, cycling, dancing, dark rye bread, exercise, experts, fat, fish, food cupboard, fruit, ggs, good fitness levels, gut flora, health risks, healthy weight, high protein meal, hobby, hot yoga, ibre rich wholegrain rice, lentils, life, lifestyle, mall changes, martial arts, mental health, mind, mood, no, nourish, nutritious, nuts, organic meat, pasta, phone, Poached Eggs, quinoa, salad, scrambled eggs, screens, seafood, seeds, sleep, smoked salmon, snacks, sofa, stress, sugar, sugary cereals, summer, swimming, temperature drops, the stress hormone, tummy, unprocessed foods, vegetables, warm, water, weight, weight management, wellbeing, whole, winter months, worries, worry

When the temperature drops and the nights are dark, it is easy to spend your time curled up on the sofa eating sugary snacks and keeping warm, rather than eating salads, heading outside and getting active like we do in the summer.

Bearing this in mind, it’s therefore not uncommon to put on a little weight during the winter months, but this doesn’t have to be the case. By making small changes to your lifestyle now, you will not only help your waistline, but your mental health and overall wellbeing could benefit too.

Always have breakfast
As tempting as it is to have an extra ten minutes in bed, having breakfast in the morning is not only a great way to start the day but can also stop you from eating more later in the day. Pass on the sugary cereals and carb heavy white toast, and instead look at having a high protein meal that will keep hunger locked up for longer. Scrambled eggs and avocado are a great idea, poached eggs with smoked salmon will throw in some amino acids. Of course there is nothing quite like boiled eggs and soldiers, but swap the bloomer for dark rye bread and you will be laughing.

Take care of your gut
You might not know this but many experts believe that our gut bacteria plays a role in our body weight. Think about taking a live bacteria supplement and this could not only improve your delicate gut flora but also help you to keep a handle on your weight too.

Don’t take on too much
Yes, we know that life is busy and you are pulled in every which way but stress isn’t going to do you any good. As well as making you worry, cortisol, the stress hormone, can affect energy expenditure and increase our consumption of foods that are high in fat and sugar. This can cause weight gain around the tummy and, with this, comes an increase in health risks, so we would suggest trying to reduce your stress levels for the sake of both weight management and long-term health. To ease stress, find a new hobby, say no now and again if you have too much on, and if you can, turn your phone off and step away from screens, even for just an hour and this might make a big difference to your mood.

Eat real food
Rather than being focussed on counting calories and restricting what you eat, instead eat whole, nutritious, unprocessed foods that will nourish your body and mind. Try to eat two pieces of fruit and have five servings of vegetable a day. Stop putting those white carbs in your trolley and instead, switch to fibre rich whole grain rice, bread and pasta, and you will find these not only fill you up but keep you regular too! Eggs, nuts, seeds, fish, seafood, lentils, beans, chickpeas, organic meat, quinoa and tofu are all good quality protein that are delicious and good for you, so get creative in the kitchen and see the difference these foods can make. As well as this, drink lots of water, keep caffeine and alcohol under control and get plenty of sleep.

Exercise
Step away from the screens if you want to maintaining a healthy weight and good fitness levels. We aren’t talking about going to the gym everyday, but doing something you enjoy which takes you mind away from your worries, and the food cupboard, is a really good idea. Whether it is hot yoga, swimming, dancing, martial arts, a bootcamp class, cycling or running, do it three times a week and if you do it with a friend, you will have to go.

Team Pure Beauty

Get a clean home, faster

Tags

animals, bathroom, baths, beds, bins, bleach, book shelves, bugs, build-up, busy, carpets, cleaning, cream, cup of tea, cushions, dirt, disinfecting, door handles, draining board, dust, dustcart, efficient, environmentally sound protects, finger prints, Friday, glass, hands, handy, home, house, illnesses, ironing, kitchen, love, mess, microfibre cloth, mirrors, mobile devices, mop, nasty germs, once a day, Pat on the Back, polish, quick, roast, room, scrub, sinks, smudges, sparkles, Sunday, sunshine, system, throws, tip, toilet, washing, zone cleaning

Let’s face it, there are better things to do with our time than clean our homes, but it is a necessary evil unless you want to live in a mess, or have the cash to pay someone to do it for you.

One of the biggest mistake people make when they are cleaning is to do it room by room (aka ‘zone cleaning’) which is slow and you can do it much faster, and better, if you take a different approach.

Focussing on just one area, may mean doing a great job on your counters which will sparkle and shine, but the cooker will still be dirty and as for the bathroom, well you won’t get time to go there if you are too busy folding the ironing for the next morning.

The reality is, if you put a system in place that is quick and efficient, you will have more time to do the things you really love.

Pick a Day
It can be any day, but pick a day when you can really get on top of your cleaning and this will automatically take some of the pressure off. We know this sounds daft, but doing this will make the rest of your week so much easier and you can get your partner, flatmate or kids doing jobs too! Maybe go for Sunday morning and then you can reward yourself with a roast dinner (wiping up gravy of course), or a Friday afternoon before you go out and then you can really let your hair down knowing it is done.

Start by Dusting
Dust each room, including the tops of all your furniture, the undersides of shelves and the books, as well as picture frames, TV screens and the bits and pieces we all collect that don’t really have a home. The best way to do this is to dust dry, when things are wet is so much harder. If you want to get rid of smudges and finger prints then use a clean microfibre cloth and good quality polish.

Clean Fabrics
Putting on the washing as you clean will make the most of your time and it will feel like everything is clean in your home, for a little while at least. Strip and remake the bed beds, tidy cushions and put throws back onto sofas neatly, vacuum your curtains and clean animal beds out too.

Clean Mirrors and Glass
Wipe down all the mirrors and windows in your home as they pick up a lot of dust and when the sun shines, it will show up and look like you haven’t cleaned for ages. One handy tip is to use one wet and one dry microfiber cloth as this will clean away dust and dirt but won’t leave behind lines and streaks.

Clean your Surfaces
Wipe down all the surfaces and counters in your home in one go. Move from room to room, disinfecting if necessary, and make sure you clean door handles, light switches, TV remotes, mobile devices and phones as these are full of nasty germs. If you have any illness or bugs in the home, make sure you do this at least once a day to stop anything spreading! Also leave cleaning items in bathrooms so you can wash during the week and prevent a massive build up of dirt to tackle on cleaning day. If you can, use environmentally sound protects, wear gloves to protect your hands, and always apply cream when you are done.

Get to Grips with the Bathroom and Kitchen
Walk through your bathroom and kitchen, spraying cleaner on your baths, sinks and toilets as you go – not on the carpets or floors of course. Then return and clean the bathroom and wash shower curtains and towels once the bedding is done. When it comes to the kitchen, wipe down the inside of the microwave, as well as cabinet and appliance doors before getting to work on the sink and table tops. Empty and bleach the bins so they are really clean and make sure everything sparkles, including the draining board.

Next to the Floors
Sweep, then mop or scrub the bathroom and kitchen floors, making sure you really get to those hard to clean areas as this is where nasties can hide and bacteria can hide.

Get the Vacuum Out
Last of all, vacuum the carpers in your bedrooms, down the stairs, through the living room and into the hallway, moving furniture so you get rid of the dust that can make you cough.

Now, put the kettle on and admire your hard work as you enjoy a cup of tea.

Team Pure-Beauty