Save Your Nails from Damage

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bend, Camphor, chip-resistant, crack, cuticles, DBP, flexible, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, growing, growth, healthy, moisturised, nail, nails, Nailtiques Nail Moisturiser, non-greasy, oil, polish, split, toluene, trim, trimmer

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

There are many many things which can damage your nails from cleaning with chemicals to too many acrylic manicures and many things in between. Thankfully, there are also lots of things that you can do to revive your nails once they’ve been damaged, and although some of these solutions may be time-consuming, it will be well worth it to see your nails back to their best condition. Today we’re looking at five tips for saving your nails from damage and getting your hands back to their best.

Nourish Them

Nails which are suffering from damage are often dry and depleted from weeks and months of mistreatment. This means that you need to opt for a properly nourishing regime to help to replenish what your nails have lost. Nailtiques After Artificial Treatment Kit is a two-part treatment which nourishes and replenishes nails to quickly strengthen and rebuild them back to a healthy condition. Each formula should be applied every day for 5 days, and by the end of the ten day course, your nails will be revived.

Use a Nail Cream

Many people will use a moisturising hand cream, but forget that their nails also need to be moisturised. Nailtiques Nail Moisturiser is a non-greasy conditioning nail cream which is enriched with jojoba and aloe to nourish and condition the nails. This moisturiser will help your nails to build strength but remain flexible, which is the holy grail of the healthy nail.

Trim Them

If you’re trying to grow your nails, suggesting that you trim them may seem entirely counter-intuitive, but actually, trimming your nails will help them to grow evenly, which will make them stronger and healthier in the long run. Make sure you use a proper nail trimmer so that your nails aren’t bent and fractured in the process.

Opt for Nourishing Polishes

If you must use nail polish, you need to ensure that you opt for something which will both help to strengthen your nails, but do so without the use of damaging ingredients. We now stock CND nail polishes which are formulated without formaldehyde, DBP, toluene, formaldehyde resin or camphor and offer a week-long wah of colour and chip-resistant wear.

Don’t Forget Your Cuticles

Keeping your cuticles (the skin around your nails) healthy and nourished is also an important part of maintaining nail health. Nailtiques Cuticle Care Oil comes with a convenient rollerball applicator and instantly softens cuticles and sealing in moisture. It’s easy to apply and will help to keep your nails nourished and growing evenly.

Get Help to Grow from Pure Beauty

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ageing, brows, chaperone technology, collagen, collagen synthesis, decleor, Decleor Aroma Nutrition Satin Softening Dry Oil, dermalogica, Dermalogica Antioxidant HydraMist, Elemis, Elemis Pro-Definition Eye and Lip Contour Cream, Elemis White Flowers Eye and Lip Make-Up Remover, eye brows, eyebrows, eyelashes, grow, growth, hair, lashes, lips, make-up, mouth, nails, Nailtiques, Nailtiques Protein Formula 2, oil, over-plucked, peptide, plant, plucking, skin, stem cells, synthesis, TGF, tissue growth factor

Photo by Valerie Elash on Unsplash

One question that we see a lot is “what can I do to help my XXX grow” – be it eyelashes, fingernails or hair, many of us want to give our body a helping hand when it comes to growing. There are some products out there which claim to help, but which really don’t do much at all, but we’ve got the inside scoop on several products which really do help growth in some way. Here are five of them:

Elemis White Flowers Eye and Lip Make-Up Remover

A lot of people hate their eyelashes, claiming that they’re too stubby, and many people find their own lashes damaged after having extensions removed. This make-up remover from Elemis is not just good for getting rid of the most stubborn waterproof make-up, but it also conditions the lashes from the root and encourages healthy growth.

Nailtiques Protein Formula 2

Nail growth often feels sluggish, especially if you’re someone whose nails are prone to splitting. This formula from Nailtiques is designed for soft, peeling and weak nails. It helps stimulate rapid growth and strengthens nails. It has won countless awards and is regarded as a cult classic by the beauty media.

Dermalogica Antioxidant HydraMist

If wrinkles and fine lines are your issue, then this mist from Dermalogica is the product for you. Palmitoyl tripeptide-5 stimulates collagen synthesis, which helps to firm skin and overrides the effects of MMPs. It also activates Tissue Growth Factor (TGF), a peptide that is required in its active state for collagen production to occur.

Decleor Aroma Nutrition Satin Softening Dry Oil

The current trend for thicker, more defined eyebrows is all well and good, but if like many of us you spent the Nineties and Noughties over-plucking your brows into oblivion, you might not have much to work with. Lots of people are having good results with this oil from Decleor, which conditions the existing hair and daily massage helps to stimulate hair growth.

Elemis Pro-Definition Eye and Lip Contour Cream

Bigger lips are pretty popular right now, and if you don’t want to opt for invasive procedures like lip fillers, then this lip cream is a good alternative. New chaperone technology with scientifically proven plant stem cells help to re-densify, plump and re-build thin, ageing skin around the lips, leaving your mouth looking plumped and more full.

How to Re-Grow Your Over-Plucked Eyebrows

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3-4 months, avocado, brows, cycle, Dermalogica MultiVitamin Power Firm, eggs, Elemis Superfood Facial Oil, eyebrows, facial hair, fashion, fish, grow, growing, growth, hair, hair follicles, meat, natural, nutrients, nuts, oil, over-plucking, plucking, protein, reshape, shape, shaping, spinach, sweet potato, thick, thin, threading, tweezing, Vitamin E, waxing

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Here at Pure Beauty one of the ‘beauty truths’ that we wholeheartedly accept is that many things in the world of beauty and cosmetics are cyclical. This can mean that something which was fashionable for years can suddenly become the exact OPPOSITE of what’s fashionable now – and this has never been truer than it is with eyebrows! We all spent the majority of the Nineties and Noughties plucking our eyebrows into oblivion, only for 2017 to be the year of the heavy brow! Many of us have plucked our brows so much that we need a little help growing them back, so here are a few things you can try to give them a helping hand:

Step Away From the Tweezers!

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but you’re going to have to leave the tweezing alone completely for some time to allow all of your natural brows to grow back in. Once you’ve got a full set of eyebrow hairs, then you can reshape them (or even better, let a brow technician do it for you because, let’s face it, you can’t be trusted!) but until then you need to leave them alone.

Massage with Oil

Massaging the area will help in a few ways. Firstly, it will help to stimulate the hair follicles and encourage hair growth. Secondly, if you use an oil like Elemis Superfood Facial Oil it will trap moisture within the skin which your hair follicles need for healthy growth. Lastly, the nutrients within the oil, such as vitamin A and omegas, will also give your skin the vital nourishment it needs to be able to regrow the hairs.

Eat Protein

Hair and nails are made from a protein called keratin which is produced within the body, so it stands to reason that eating plenty of protein will help your body to have what it needs to some serious brow-growing. Things like meat, eggs, nuts and fish are all great sources of protein and will give you lots of hair-growing superpowers!

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is an essential nutrient for hair growth so as well as eating plenty of things which contain it (avocado, sweet potato and spinach, to name but a few), using a topical product like Dermalogica Multivitamin Power Firm can really help. It’s usually intended for use around the eye and mouth area to combat wrinkles, but adding an extra layer on your brows before bed can speed up the hair growth cycles.

Be Patient!

This step is really important! Hair growth usually follows a 3-4 month cycle, which means that from the moment you stop tweezing you may have to wait 16 weeks to see how your brows have grown in. You’re potentially going to look a little bizarre with wild brows in this time, but it’s well worth it and really is the only way you’re going to see what you’ve got left to work with once you stop the hideous cycle of over-plucking.

Make 2018 the year to go freelance

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accountant, activities, basics, best friend, Blogger, book keeper, boring, Breakfast meetings, buffer, business opportunities, business plan, cake, competition, creative, cylinders, daily commute, design websites, dream, equipment, evening event, excitement, finance, flexibility, fly solo, focus, freelance, full time freelancing, full-time job, growth, hard cash, holidays, HR, insurance, investment, IT, location, logo, love, lunches, magazine, Marketing and PR, marketing plan, mistake, money, name, new venture, offerings, out there, own boss, people, PR, professional, realistic goals, reality, research, school mate, skills, small print, social media, synergy, tax, think, unexpected costs, up and running, VAT, water cooler conversations, website

Fed up of the daily commute?

Had enough of mundane water cooler conversations?

Sick and tired of Sarah in IT and Jo in HR making your life a misery?

Then maybe it is time to go freelance.

While you might not have the security of a 9-5 role, a monthly salary or 21 days holiday a year, being your own boss does offer you flexibility and the chance to do what you love but on your terms.

We aren’t saying hand your notice in now, but have a think about what you want to do and if you consider the points below, we think you might start making that dream a reality.

Have a plan
Create a business plan that looks at finance, growth, location, activities and skills. This don’t need to be anything long or fancy but setting things out in black and white can give you a focus and realistic goals.

Network
Breakfast meetings, lunches and evening events are all greats ways to start making connections even if you are still in a full-time job. If you are nervous, why not go with a friend and then swap notes at the end of the session?

Contacts
The old saying, ‘it’s who you know not what you know’ is very true when you start a new venture. Maybe your best friend works on a magazine, your old school mate is a blogger or you know a couple of people who design websites or do PR? Make the most of the people you know and it could well be there is synergy between you and them that could lead to business opportunities.

Look at the Competition
You might be able to make a mean cake or write a really creative marketing plan – but so do loads of other people out there. Do your research, check out the competition and work out what makes you different and where your offerings would site in the market place.

Think About the Money
Let’s not beat about the bush, starting out requires hard cash investment and you are going to need this, so start planning. Look at how much money you need to start your business, what equipment you would need, and before you make a start make sure you have a buffer saved up for those unexpected costs and quiet patches. It might even be that you need to work part-time for a while to get things up and running and keep money coming in, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Marketing and PR
This is something you can do as you get ready to take the next step of full-time freelancing. Decide in a business name, get a logo, set up your social media feeds and ensure you have a website in place. All of this takes time, and money, but if you get the basics set up in the background, when you are ready to go, people will be able to find when you when you are open and firing on all cylinders.

Small Print
The excitement of setting up something new can mean the details get left behind, but this isn’t a mistake you want to make. Finding an accountant or book-keeper, registering for tax, considering VAT status and researching professional insurance might seem boring, but they need to be done and will make you more efficient and professional in the long run.

Location, Location, Location
When you work for someone else, you go to their premise day in and day out but when you fly solo it is a very different matter. You need to make sure you have a base to work from and one that is ideally close to local amenities, has a decent internet connection and phone support as well as good transport links.

Whatever you do, if you have a dream, go for it.

Team Pure-Beauty

Healthy hair growth

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apply, boucne, bounce, celebrity, circulation, damaged, diet, dry, exercise, extensions, food, friend, GP, grow, growth, hair, hair cycle, hair-dryer, healthy diet, heat damage, mask, meditation, no gain, No pain, normal, oil, oil treatments, results, rinse, scalp, session, shine, sleep, split ends, straighteners, stress, trigger, trim

Ever had your hair chopped to get the latest celebrity style only to step out of the salon and wish you’d had a trim instead?

We have been there too and no how disappointing it can be.

The good news is, it’s only hair which is thought that hair grows about a centimetre a month.

Whilst there are no shortcuts to getting your luscious, long locks back, there are ways you can encourage hair growth and we have a few ideas to get you started.

Dry scalp massages can help stimulate the blood flow to your scalp, which helps nutrients get to your hair follicles quicker so your hair is stronger and longer in no time.

When you wash your hair, take time to massage your scalp with your fingertips, starting at the back of the neck and moving around the hairline. Relaxing and well as growth encouraging.

A decent shampoo will remove dirt and grime but it is your conditioner that replenishes the nutrients your hair needs to grow, so don’t skip this step.

A blast of cold-water can help seal the hair cuticles, and prevent moisture loss and heat damage. No pain, no gain.

Once a week it is a good idea to treat your hair to a deep conditioning session. There are many great hot oil treatments and deep conditioning masks out there that bring the life and bounce back into your hair and leave it looking sleek and shiny, whatever the length. For the best results apply the product to your hair and then rub your fingers on your scalp in a circular motion for three to five minutes. Rinse the oil or mask out of your hair and leave to dry naturally.

Do go to the hairdresser on a regular basis. We know you are trying to grow your hair but a trim keeps those pesky split ends at bay so growth can happen.

Deep down, you know heat damage isn’t good for your hair. Use your hair-dryer and straighteners less and when you do, apply a heat protectant product to locks from getting damaged and breaking off.

It might feel silly, but flip your head upside down if you want to promote faster hair growth. Sitting upside down for two to four minutes a day is believed to improve circulation and in turn hair growth. It’s got be worth a go and it’s way cheaper than extensions!

If it is longer hair you want, cut the stress out of your life. It is believed that stress can disrupt the normal hair cycle and can trigger hair falling-out. We know this is easy to say, but try to manage your stress using meditation, taking exercise and getting enough sleep. If you feel things are getting on top of you, talk to a trusted friend or your GP and get some extra support.

It goes without saying the a healthy diet will also keep hair growing and looking healthy, so next week we will look at what to eat and why.

Team Pure-Beauty