Raw Honey | Acne Week

Hello there!
I'm going to start a series- it's about time I started posting, isn't it? Hopefully I'll... enlighten you a little.
The most beautiful thing I have discovered lately is raw honey. Yep. It's amazing. I use it for everything. I am fortunate enough to live in the country, on the same road as a beekeeper. And that beekeeper has reasonable prices and large amounts of raw honey. Yay!
I mostly use it for eating (on everything- it tastes so good!) but I also use it for natural remedies and skincare. I'm moving toward not putting chemicals in or on my body, so this stuff is a miracle! I also know exactly where it came from and what's in it (uhh... honey?) because I know the people who harvested and processed it. It's fantastic. Raw honey is great in all sorts of ways, including having healing and antibacterial properties. I struggle with acne and extreme klutziness, so I wash my face with it in the morning and use it like Polysporin on minor cuts and scrapes. It really helps my skin to heal more quickly!

Here's a lovely pimple spot-treatment from Empowered Sustenance to send you off with.
This is what she says:
                      "I mix raw honey with enough cinnamon to form a paste, add some freshly grated nutmeg, and store it in a small container in my bathroom. I’ll leave this spot treatment on for a couple of hours. If you want to use it as a full face mask, leave it on for only 10-15 minutes."

Hope you have just as much luck as I did with it. I'll see you again tomorrow!

♥

Hello there! Here's my newest escapade: I've stopped shampooing my hair. That's right. I've also stopped using conditioner- for the second time. Here's the link to that article: here. I now wash my hair with aloe vera juice, and condition with coconut oil. I've only done it once and my hair hasn't entered the "detox" stage of rejecting everything in general. It's incredibly soft and the ends are impressively less crunchy. I harvest the aloe juice from my aloe vera plant and pour it through my hair about half an hour before I shower. I warm up about half a teaspoon (I know, it isn't much!) of coconut oil and spread it evenly through my hair from my earlobes down. I'll keep you up to date on how it's going!
That's about it,
Anna
♥

I'm Trying to Have a Nice Face.

Hello there! I've decided to write because I've made the leap and I'm going to post my acne journey online. This may be a very bad idea.
Today I broke down and popped my pimples. I had been keeping myself from doing it for a really long time, and I really regret it today. My face is swollen and red, and it's worse than it's ever been.
That's a nice image. Sorry about that.
Hopefully I'll have good news soon!

Long-Term Disney Marathon

Hello there! I've decided to take this opportunity to watch all of the Disney films. I'm watching Pocahontas II at the moment. I am a very ashamed Disney fan to say that I hadn't seen quite a lot of them until now. My mum thought that they were too scary for me growing up. My excuse is that it's improving my language skills (I'm watching them in French). All of the songs are translated, too! "La vie est super, mieux que sur la terre, je te le dis!" (the little mermaid, under the sea). There's also "L'air du Vent" instead of colours of the wind... just little things like that. They didn't change John Smith's name is Pocahontas, though, and it's super English. I still think they're just absolutely adorable... and Arièl has an accent, just like Sébastien.

I really don't know why, but I'm incredibly attached to Disney films. I didn't grow up with them (except for Winnie the Pooh) and I didn't meet Tiana, Ariel, Pocahontas, or Rapunzel until this year, but I still love them. Who says an independent-world-travelling-young-woman can't like kid stuff? I have to admit that I haven't seen Aladdin (gasp) or Beauty and the Beast (double gasp).

HOWEVER, I used to watch Sleeping Beauty at my babysitter's house. I wasn't completely deprived of Disney. Don't tell my mother. The film scared me so much that I would hide behind a cushion for half of it, but I begged to watch it every time because I loved being scared. Sleeping Beauty is a horror movie for five-year-olds. I was such a weird child.

I also found a fantastic Disney parody song- If you ever wonder why Disney tales all end in lies, here's what happened after all their dreams came true...

If your mother deprived you of essential education when you were younger, leave a comment below! (or just tell me your favourite kid thing that you still do...)

So... yup. That's about it. 

♥

Sometimes I put food on my face | Cinnamon-Honey Sugar Mask/Scrub

Hello there! 
Hurray for putting food on your face! It turns out that when I was learning to eat, I was onto something. Everything that you put on your skin gets absorbed, so if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your skin. That said, this is my favourite natural mask/scrub to use. It leaves your skin feeling clean, soft and moisturised, but it's oil-free. Perfect for oily skin. It's fantastic for acne (even cystic acne) because of the calming and antibacterial effects of the honey, mixed with the bacteria-killing powers of cinnamon and glycolic acid and texture of sugar. Perfect. I use this as a mask and then scrub it off in the shower. Not only is it great for your skin, but it smells great too!
If you're feeling adventurous you can add some plain yogurt to the mixture, but it makes for a more runny mask.

Here's what to do:

Make it like I cook. Mix a couple shakes of cinnamon with approximately "I don't have a clue how much this is" of raw sugar (or white sugar) and a whole bunch of honey. However, with the honey less is more or the mask won't go on as thickly as you'd like.

Put it on your face. Pay special attention not to get it in your hair-- or you will definitely regret it later. 

Wait. Rub it around. Rinse. I leave it on for at least 15 minutes, then at the end of my shower I use it as an exfoliating scrub and rinse it off. 

There you have it! Now go and make your face as sweet-smelling and soft as mine! Got any favourite scrubs or masks yourself? Let me know below! So... yep. That's about it. 

♥

Oh, and just as a little footnote, I take all of my photos myself. Please don't steal them.

I might be killing my hair.

I apologise for the stock photos. On the left is what my usual
hair is like, on the right is what  I used to use on my hair.

Hello there! Since I've been in France, I've used conditioner twice. After that, my travel bottle was done. Apparently, French people don't use conditioner. Had I known that in advance I would have brought a hundred bottles of it with me! I was addicted to conditioner. Not even kidding. And my hair drank it up like it was water. I usually use TRESemmé's shampoo and conditioner for dry/damaged hair, but my hair is neither dry nor damaged. It's incredibly soft, supple and smooth. And other words that start with 's'.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I miss conditioner or not... so I'll just tell you the difference. First off, my hair is about two inches above my waist in length. It is thin strand-wise, and thick in quantity. Yep. My hair is weird. I've been using this shampoo for two years now (yes, I know you're supposed to switch it up a bit... oops) and I've never had a problem with frizziness. Even though it is long and coloured, my hair is usually like a TRESemmé ad (unedited and without good lighting...), honestly (kind of). My friends regularly comment on how soft and shiny it is. I'm pretty proud of it (that part's true). 

On the contrary, when I stopped using conditioner and switched to some random other shampoo, my hair did interesting things. First, it tangled easily and felt greasy and brittle. I totally lost all of its shine. After about three weeks, my hair was shiny again and I could go three days between washes. It's still like that, and my ends are much less brittle than they used to be. Most of my split ends have disappeared (not sure how). I guess I should note that I also haven't used any heat on my hair for a month, and I kept on using Moroccan Argan Oil on my hair. 

Do I have a major misconception that everyone uses conditioner? (hurrah for big words) Should I go back to using it? Please let me know! So, yep, that's about it. 

♥

Hello there!

     Hello there! I figured I was doing some interesting things, so I'm gonna share them with you. Currently I'm in France on an exchange, so I've been able to meet some really cool people, eat come really cool food and take some really good pictures that you might be able to see. Later.
     I'm also a little obsessed with beauty in general, and I've noticed some interesting things about beauty in France. No, the "French" look isn't no-makeup. I have noticed that everyone here has fantastic skin, and natural hair. It's SO not fair. It's perfectly normal to do basically nothing with your hair in the morning... and French girls don't use conditioner. So I haven't used conditioner in more than a month. The houses here are cold, and if it snows, all of France gets shut down. I found it quite hilarious. I'm Canadian.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the cool stuff I've been doing.

I got to take all of these pictures myself.  I feel so lucky!
Yup. That's about it.