Find the right yoga for you

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26 poses, aches or pains, alignment, and straps, Ashtanga Yoga, basics, beginners, Bikram Choudhury, Bikram method, Blocks, breathe, builds muscle strength, calm, choice, cleansing, constant movement, demanding, energy, faster-paced, flexibility, flow, flowing style, focus, gentle backbends, gentle postures, Hatha Yoga, heated, increases blood flow, Iyengar Yoga, journey, key yoga postures, Kundalini Yoga, lower body, more intense, muscles warm up, Pattabhi Jois, perfects posture, physically demanding, popular, poses, Relax, Restorative Yoga, Seated forward bends, sleep, slow paced, strike a pose, sun salutations, sweating, tight muscles, Vinyasa Yoga, wellbeing, yoga, yoga blankets

Yoga is as popular as ever and for good reason. As well as helping you to relax and sleep better, it also improves flexibility, builds muscle strength, perfects posture, increases blood flow, helps you focus and improves balance.
If you want to start practising yoga, but are confused where to begin because of all the choice, you aren’t alone. We have had a look at the main types of yoga, and are sure there will be something that will make you want to strike a pose.

Hatha Yoga
Hatha yoga is one of the most popular yoga choices and is a good place for beginners to start. Hatha is known for slow-paced, gentle postures, and not only will it give you time to get to grips with yoga, but will also be a great chance for you to start to unwind and relax.

Vinyasa Yoga
With Vinyasa (flow) yoga there is an emphasis on matching your breath with the key yoga postures like sun salutations. Postures practised during a class effortlessly flow from one to another, with deeper stretching exercises at the end of a class. Vinyasa yoga tends to be a little more demanding than Hatha because of the continuous flow of movement, but it is still a good choice at the start of your journey.

Ashtanga Yoga
Ashtanga yoga is a faster-paced, more intense, flowing style of yoga founded by Pattabhi Jois in the 1960s. In an Ashtanga class you always performs the exact same poses in the exact same order, which makes this more physically demanding because of the constant movement.

Iyengar Yoga
Iyengar yoga is about bringing the body into its best possible alignment, often using yoga blankets, blocks, and straps to assist students as necessary to get the most from their class. Iyengar practice usually involves holding poses over longer periods of time rather than moving swiftly from one pose to the next, so it could be something that can be tried once the basics are mastered.

Bikram (Hot) Yoga
Hot yoga was pioneered by Bikram Choudhury and is where classes are taught in a room heated to around 95 degrees. The reason behind this is because the heat allows tight muscles to relax and encourages sweating, which is thought to be cleansing. The Bikram method is made up of a series of 26 poses and because your muscles warm up thoroughly, there should be no aches or pains the next day, just a sense of calm and wellbeing.

Kundalini Yoga
Kundalini yoga focuses on the breath and physical movement, and is meant to help free energy in the lower body and allow it to move upwards through all the chakras.

Restorative Yoga
Oh, this sounds nice, because it is . Restorative yoga is all about relaxing the body into poses over several minutes, then holding the poses for more time than usual to enhance stretching. Seated forward bends, gentle backbends, and twists are the type of poses that can be adapted to be restorative and with the addition of props like blankets and blocks, it can be used by many people.

If you are still unsure what type of yoga is best for you, ask at your local gym or yoga centre and they will be happy to help explain more.

Team Pure Beauty

Pack a thriller in your suitcase

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agoraphobic, best friend, best-selling author, bikini, bookshop, café, charming man, chic lit, children, complex web of lies, curious, dark story, date, ddebut author, dead, divorce, Don’t Close Your Eyes by Holly Seddon, edgy, epilepsy, evidence, families, fear, girl, Girl Before by JP Delaney, great reads, gripping story, heart, home alone, husband, husband and wife, innocence, journey, karma, landlord, last word, Lisa Jewell, lives alone, man, marriage, memory, mirror, missing, mistress, One Folgate Street, one session read, page turning twists and turns, Perfect Friend by Barbara Copperthwaite, pool side, protect, psychological thrillers, real, right and wrong, safety, seat, secrets, separated, sinister call, sunglasses, T. A. Cotterell, tense tale, terrifying attack, The Date by Louise Jensen, The Dead Ex by Jane Corry, The Girl on the Train, Then She Was Gone, thriller, toothbrush, tough choice, trust, truth, twin sisters, unanswered questions, What Alice Knew, young age

As well as your bikini, toothbrush, and sunglasses, if you are heading away on holiday this summer, be sure to pack a poolside thriller in your bag.

Offering something a little edgier than chic lit, psychological thrillers have seen a rise in popularity in the past couple of years and there is no end of choice when it comes to great reads.

The Perfect Friend by Barbara Copperthwaite is a truly dark story about the turn Alex’s life takes when her husband leaves her and her children won’t talk to her. All she can do is to turn to her best friend, Carrie, who knows all her secrets and is the only person she can truly trust. Carrie would she’d never let her down, or would she???

Following her divorce, Ali goes out on a date with a new man on Saturday night, but on Sunday morning, she wakes up alone with no memory of what happened to her. And when she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her. If you loved The Girl on the Train, then The Date by Louise Jensen is for you, and if you haven’t read The Girl on the Train – where have you been?

For a ‘one session read’, it has to be The Dead Ex by Jane Corry. A terrifying attack leaves Vicki suffering from epilepsy and without a husband after he runs away with his mistress. When a call comes to say he’s missing, she starts to believe in karma, but when evidence suggests he is dead, things get real and she needs to prove her innocence.

The Girl Before by JP Delaney is a tense tale full of page-turning twists and turns. When Jane moves into One Folgate Street, she falls in love with her beautiful minimal new, despite the bizarre rules it comes with. As the landlord, and the house, become increasingly strange, Jane becomes curious about Emma, the girl who lived there before her and starts to fear for her safety in her gripping quest to find the truth. Tip, don’t read this if you are home alone, but definitely, do read this.

Secrets in families are never a good idea and that is what is at the heart of Don’t Close Your Eyes by Holly Seddon. Twin sisters Robin and Sarah were separated at a young age and now, in their 30s, one is agoraphobic and lives alone, while the other seemingly has the perfect family and perfect life. When Sarah is accused of something terrible, she needs to track down her twin sister to put together the pieces. A gripping story that will keep you on the edge of your seat right to the very last word.

Back to the husband and wife scenario, and in What Alice Knew, debut author T. A. Cotterell, takes you on a journey of complex web of lies that will have you turning the pages in fear. From the outside, Alice has everything, that is until her husband goes missing one night. After receiving a sinister call, she faces making a tough choice that has her questioning right and wrong and wondering just how far she can go to protect those she loves.

While Then She Was Gone, by best-selling author, Lisa Jewell, isn’t new on the shelves, it is oh so worth a read. Laurel is trying to piece her life back together, 10 years after her daughter, Ellie, disappeared and seven years since her marriage fell apart. When she meets a charming man in a café, their flirtation develops into something deep, fast. Before she knows it, she’s meeting his daughters, and all those unanswered questions that have haunted her about her own child come flooding back.

Pop along to your local bookshop and buy your books before you go away and let us know what you think.

Team Pure Beauty

Grab a great holiday read

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50-year-olds, advice, Anna Akana, band members, beautiful cousin, best reads, best-selling, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, big screen, blushes, book, brilliant read, brutally honest, camp counsellors, Camp Marigold, cocktail, commentary, Cornwall, danger, debut novel, Englishman, escapism, fashion, flight, friendship, G&T, hat, hate, highly engaging, Hollywood beach babe, imagined, instruction manual, iPad, journey, Kindle, laughter, London, love, lover, Mandy Berman, Modern Lovers by Emma Straub, My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier, mysterious, nostalgia, Paige Toon, paper, partner, passport, people, Perennials, perfect, pool bar, poolside, power, prose, put down, quirky journalist, relationship blog, shades, share, shelves, So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister, story, students, suicide prevention, summer 2017, tale, talent, tears, The Duchess by Danielle Steel, The Last Piece of My Heart, tickets, tissues, transatlantic flight, travel, younger sister, YouTube channel

Whether you use a Kindle, iPad or are still a lover of paper, having something good to read when you are on holiday takes you to a whole new level of escapism.

A book is the perfect way to get through a flight (add a G&T), is the perfect poolside partner and if you get stuck on the way home, you can read away the hours.

We have had a look at some of the best reads out there for Summer 2017 and wanted to share them with you.

If you are looking for a little nostalgia, look no further than Mandy Berman’s debut novel, Perennials. This easy to relate to friendship story reunites Rachel Rivkin and Fiona Larkin at Camp Marigold, but as camp counsellors rather than students. This is a summer of heat, flagged by the past, flamed by the present and page by page the thrill and pain of growing up becomes apparent from a writing with endless talent and perfect prose.

OK, it’s not new but if you haven’t read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, where have you been? If you are looking for a book you won’t be able to put down (perfect for a transatlantic flight), download this totally addictive read. Love, hate, danger, power, fashion, it’s all there for the taking people.

Another coming of age book is on the shelves this summer and this time it is Modern Lovers by Emma Straub. This is the tale of three friends, who also happen to be ex-band members, who are now old enough to have kids doing the things they remember, only too well, themselves doing. This time it might be 50-year-olds coming together but they do it in a style that beats any Hollywood beach babe who might be on the next lounger.

Maybe not the lightest read on the shelves right now, but So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister by Anna Akana, is a brilliant read. After her younger sister killed herself, Anna started what is now, a 1.8-million strong brutally honest, highly engaging YouTube channel that cleverly combines advice with commentary and has a deep emphasis on suicide prevention. This outstanding first book is part memoir, part instruction manual, and it is equally as compelling as Anna herself, but have the tissues ready!

If you want a mix of laughter, tears and travel, it has to be Paige Toon’s latest novel, The Last Piece of My Heart. Bridget a quirky journalist has decided to turn her popular relationship blog into a book, however, after a number of painful rejections she gets a very different proposition. From London to Cornwall and further onto Thailand, readers join her on an unexpected journey into the unknown and what unfolds is better than she could have ever of imagined.

Out at the end of June, The Duchess by Danielle Steel hit the shelves. If anyone can write a really good beach book, it’s the fourth best-selling fiction author of all time. This time she brings us the story of how a high-class British lady becomes a French madam and it’s all there for the taking. We can’t wait to get our hands on this, but may need shades and a hat to hide our blushes.

To end this round-up we are going for a classic, My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. Currently out on the big screen, this is the tale of a young Englishman who plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings take a turn and this fabulous page, turning mystery-drama will keep you guessing to the end of your cocktail at the pool bar.

So, pack your passport, tickets and sun cream, buy your books and relax.

Team Pure Beauty