Laser Hair Removal with Sk:n Clinic Newcastle.

So...this is kind of embarrassing to blog about, but I know I'm not the only one out there who's suffered or is suffering with embarrassing facial hair as a woman!

Since I was around 12 and the hormones kicked in I started to get a bit of a hairy face, and as my colouring is quite fair skin with dark hair, it was obvious in some places, especially above my upper lip. I tried everything to remove the hair or make it less obvious and nothing really worked for me. Waxing and threading hurt like hell! hair removal creams burned my skin and bleach didn't really help the problem too much, and those twirly, springy, stick things are just torture implements. Around a year ago, I also started to notice more hair on my chin, and around 6 months go, my jawline. 

Lucky for me, I did also discover last year that I have polycystic ovaries. Side effects of PCOS can include, but are not limited to; irregular periods, weight gain, fertility problems, oily and acne prone skin, and yep, you guessed it! excessive hair growth, to all the areas as women we don't want it (body, face, etc) and hair loss from areas we do want it, like our heads! PCOS is a condition that is best treated with weight loss, but it also makes it harder to lose weight, so I am working on that, but from what I've read, issues such as the body hair or hirsutism as it may be called, don't tend to lessen with weight loss as much as other symptoms. I am quite lucky that I only really suffer with hair I would call excessive on my upper lip, chin and jawline, as some women really struggle with it on areas such as their backs, bellies, bum, and even the chest.

I'd toyed with the idea of laser hair removal since I knew it existed. I've thought about those home devices but never really felt they could be as good as getting it done in a clinic (I just don't think they'd let you keep a powerful laser at home!) and I decided to go for it! around a week ago, I had my first appointment. I'm not planning to post up pictures of my treatment as I go, it's one thing to talk about my hairy man face, but another to show you all it! However, I will be sharing the before and after photos when my treatments are over, and probably some as I go along too. I have booked a course of 8, which will take place every 4 weeks. I considered all the options but decided to go with Sk:n Clinic, after all they are the leading clinic in the UK for non surgical treatments and started out offering laser hair removal before adding in other treatments. Now, I'm not going to lie, laser hair removal is a very, very expensive treatment! and prices and more information about how laser hair removal works, and how it's different to IPL can be found here. Sk:n do offer various special offers throughout the year so if you're looking into having this treatment, do have a look around and see if you can find a deal.

So, there is my ultra embarrassing post on laser hair removal and why I'm getting it. Look out for my review of treatment one and my first impressions! I'm sorry about the lack of my own photos, but I really don't like the idea of sharing my hairy man face with you all!

All images found from google. 

Kerastase Nectar Thermique Review

My hair, is my pride and joy. After a hair dye disaster I cut my hair short, much shorter than I'd ever had before, and I started growing it out. Much later after that disaster, around 2 years ago I went to a new hairdresser and had my black dye lifted out to a very dark brown. She had used two products on me that made my hair feel so soft! I bought them both (online, for cheaper prices). One of the products, was Kerastase Nectar Thermique, now I'd heard it mentioned before and seen it on blogs, and I'd used one product from the brand before, a hair masque, but I'd never used any Kerastase styling products before as they are quite expensive at £18.90 a pop! This product can be bought for around £16 online.

This product is a hybrid of leave in conditioner and heat protectant as well as smoothing your hair and preventing frizz. It's a thick, white cream, which you apply a 'walnut sized amount' to your hands and then rub through your hair, I apply this mainly to the ends of my hair but as it's my heat protectant, I also take a light amount right up to the root, but very lightly. I find this product gives my hair so much shine, and does product my hair from the heat effectively. This is brilliant if like me, you regularly fail at using a spray in heat protectant (I also hate the smell of almost all of them!). This product smells really good, it's lightly fragranced but I can't described what with, it's a nice, and inoffensive smell. 

I'd actually put my hairs growth in the past two years partly down to this product. Of course, it doesn't make my hair grow, but it does protect your hair from the heat and condition it, and I think this has meant that at my regular trims, my hairdresser has taken much less off and my hair has grown much longer and so much healthier than it did in life before this product! I had a small period of time when I didn't have this product and bought it back as soon as I could. If you're after a smooth blow dry, some heat protection and a little bit of extra conditioning, then this is a great product.

What are your holy grail hair products? 

Macadamia Natural Oil Deep Repair Masque

This week, I finally decided to use my Macadamia Natural Oil Deep Repair Masque (gosh, that's a mouthful!) sample I received in a Beauty Box back in February! Yep, you read that right, February! Soon after, I cancelled all my Beauty Box Subscriptions as I found I got more shower gel than anything, I've got an actual reserve of them so if there's every a zombie apocalypse and we run out of shower gel, I'm your girl, but I did get a couple of little gems in them (Although far and few between) and this feels like one of them!

So first a little bit about my hair, my hair is fairly long, hitting the top of my bust now and I've been growing it out for around 4 years now, after my brilliant idea to go blonde aged 14 (all photo evidence of this time as been destroyed) I had to have most of my length cut off and my layers cut short as I'd damaged it so much by trying to do it myself, A word of warning, please go to a professional for a drastic colour change I used to be a dye hard home hair dye girl but I am no longer! I rocked the look of a huge side fringe like the emo teen I was, and me and that fringe finally parted ways in June. I have fine hair but I have far more than my fair share, it's naturally quite wavy but not a nice wave and is naturally quite dry, but due to it's texture I use more heat on it than I'd like too to try and keep it looking decent! 


My sample came packaged like this and is 30ml in size.

 This is how the masque was packaged, please excuse the tear from when I opened it.

 I took one look at it and it's size, and went "hell no! that won't be enough for my hair!" as I do have tones of it, I go through Shampoo & Conditioner like water as I have SO much hair, and find it very hard to spread through my hair, but this surprised me as not only did I not need all of it, I only needed around half the sachet! this amazed me as I tend not to be able to get away with so little product! 

This is obviously not the amount of product I used, but this shows the thick cream texture of the masque.

I left the masque on for around half an hour, the packet recommended 7 minutes (Very exact!) but I had some things I needed to get done so I left it on an went about my business before washing it out. As I washed it out I noticed my hair felt very smooth and soft, but sort of naturally soft, rather than a silicone smooth I often feel from cheaper conditioners, it definitely felt different than it normally did as I washed out my conditioner. 
When I dried my hair and I just sprayed in some heat protectant and dried my hair smooth with a paddle brush, my hair felt soft but not unmanageable and looked very shiny, my hair fell really well as well, so I had that good hair day feeling. It also made my super dry ends feel great and seemed to mask my split ends. My hair was a little frizzy, but as I skipped my regular products to see the true effect this masque had on my hair, I didn't really expect it be frizz free. I ran some of my regular smoothing product through my hair, popped on a little make up and ran off to college without paying much attention to my hair since noticing how it looked at first when I dried my hair, and when I got home from college at 9pm, I did some work then jumped into bed, without tying my hair back or bothering to do much other than run my fingers through to ease out the tangles.

I'm really sort about the lighting in this photo as it was starting to get dark and the rain had set it, but you can really tell how shiny my hair is in this photo, especially at the front.

The next day, I had a very long meeting at the Bank with my parents as we're all switching accounts. This meeting, unknown to me before I agreed, took 3 hours! during the first sort of 2 hours which I wasn't needed for I was trying to keep myself entertained and that's when I noticed how super shiny and soft my hair still was! I'd also just ran a brush through my hair and left the house that morning and each time I caught a glimpse of myself, I was happy to see that my good hair day from the night before had lasted, and I looked human with minimal effort!

The masque is sold in two sizes, a 250ml option at £23.95, and a 500ml option for £36.75, but both are available online for a lower price, I found the 250ml size for £19.15 & 500ml size for £24.08, both with free delivery. 

Overall I found this masque to be really nice to use, and based on the amount I had to use, I think pot would last me for quite a long time, making it pretty good value for money and I would definitely recommend it to a friend as I'm really impressed with how it made my hair look and feel.