The Lush Boxing Day Haul/FAIL (wordy)

So, like most of you Lushie's out there. The boxing day sale is THE place to be to get all of your favorite seasonal items at half price or better, including some of their awesome gift boxes.
    And like most for the past 3/4 years now it has been a long-standing tradition of mine to treat myself using either Christmas money or my own hard earned December overtime money (if you work in retail over Christmas you'll know what i'm talking about)...i usually hit their website around 8am...or if i have work as i get up and get myself ready i'll load it up...but this year it wouldn't load. The web page had multiple errors... i was putting items in my basked that had been on my favorites for a month or so and they'd disappear right before my eyes... but i gave Lush the benefit of the doubt, Thought to myself "i'm working all day, i'll have another try on my lunch break they usually dont start selling out until the next day or so."
So that's exactly what i did, i took my lunch break around 12, sat in Costa, got myself some lunch on the go, a coffee, sat in the warm and relaxed, loaded up Lush.com to see it was crashed completely...hummm this has never happened before.
   So i went onto their Twitter feed, and saw they had announced technical difficulties but it should be back within a few hours, which was fine, my beloved lush was keeping me up to date, i'd just try again when i got home.
   I got home around 7pm. fired up the P.C...Lush.com... and VOILA!!! it was alive...but had a que system in place... ahh. Well i'll join that and get dinner on... "estimated time 4 hours and 50 min"
   Right then i wanted to face-palm, but by now i'm determined. It's become a past-time, a TRADITION. i will get some things in the lush online sale (i should probably note here there is no lush store within a 40-mile radius of where i live, and i cant drive so i rely on online services and have never ever been failed before, plus i was born in the UK...ques are my life.)
   So...the time passed, by this point i wasn't sure i actually wanted anything that bad anymore but it was out of sheer stubbornness that i was in a que and i was going to make it to the end...and i did... i was exhausted...tired...sleepy and cranky by the time 12 pm rolled around and i finally got in, i added my stuff to my basked and purchased my gift boxes i wanted, as well as my HUGE bottle of snow fairy and a few bath bombs. As far as i was concerned i was lucky i got everything i wanted and more...then at the checkout as payment was processing... the site almost like refreshed and suddenly i was back to square one, no order number, nothing in my basket, no money had come out of my bank, no confirmation e-mail. I took a photo as evidence and tried again but the same thing kept happening.
   I took to twitter to join the other people asking who had similar experiences and i was IGNORED. = STRIKE ONE....yet other people around me were being answered fine... so i e-mailed them and over a week and half passed= STRIKE TWO, and the response e-mail was polite yet completely over-looked my question, my problem and where my items were and if i could still have them even though for whatever reason the website was breaking every time i tried to use it...well by the time they had replied the website was fine again but nothing i had wanted or had ordered was left.
   Their response was "to visit your nearest Lush store to see if any of the items you want are still available" or to "purchase similar items on the website"- which weren't in the sale, nor what i had ordered in the first place so = STRIKE 3.
THEN to add insult to injury, people OUTSIDE OF THE UK were receiving their orders they'd done through the UK website and sharing all of their lovely images on Instagram and twitter... rubbing it in my face. I was not impressed at all. after all these years i was let down and i didn't like it...LUSH, THAT WAS SO NOT COOL. = STRIKE 4.
   So needless to say, Lush and i are in a complicated relationship. My bottle of snow fairy i purchased way before Christmas is dwindling, i have no bath bombs left, no face moisturizer or shaving cream, i even ran out of perfume. But i'm on strike. I am genuinely (and sadly) so un-trusting of their website now. And there seem to be a lot of people in the same situation. Im just going to have to wait until i can travel to my nearest store. But that totally doesn't help the situation with the fact im now sans-lush. POUT.
xoxo

Beauty Tips, My Night-time Face care routine; for younger-looking glowing morning-time skin!

Since starting Beauty Therapy i have learnt a lot about Skin, (obviously) and my own skin in particular, for instance; I'm 26 and i have not one line nor wrinkle yet...YET. It WILL happen. It comes to us all... but that compared to some of my younger friends, between the ages of 19-24, who have un-believeable crows feet, brown furrows and even cheek/chin sagging. I thought it was mere good-fortune and excellent genetics, but no! Alas it is my years of methodically and almost obsessively looking after my skin.
Not one make-up wipe (mostly), i don't smoke, i don't drink, my caffeine intake is minimal, i drink plenty of water, i wear SPF15 moisturizer daily, without fail, despite my Italian heritage my skin stays a pasty white, there's no olive tones here! And apparently because I've done this since i started wearing make-up when i was 13/14 my skin isn't far off the condition it was back then. Obviously naturally you'll loose collagen, time and environment and stress are all factors but this is your basic list of things you need to keep yourself and your skin young and healthy;

Night- after the makeup comes off!

1- Take your make up off without fail!!!

Next morning-No make up

No! a night out on the town and you coming home drunk ISN'T a good enough excuse to neglect your skin. You still need to take that make up off, all the damage you've already done tonight drinking and smoking/passive smoking is enough to keep your skin desperate for air for a few days so you must do all you can do to relieve if of the stress it'll be under, and taking off your slap is essential. Soap and water is only acceptable if you put on lathers of excellent non-greasy moisturizer after, as soap doesn't tend to help your skins natural PH levels and can dry your skin out, and the fact your pours are open and exposed from cleaning, if your prone to break-outs or spots a non oily or greasy moisturizer is the only option, there's no point in cleaning your face and replace it with more stuff it has to flush out...
Ideally you want to be using a good Cleanser, Toner and Moisturizer and get yourself into a good routine. The products don't necessarily need to all be the same brand- but test a few out, avoid high alcohol toners if your skin is dry, they're more for people with oily skin as the alcohol dries your skin out, (that is also why makeup wipes are bad, nay TERRIBLE as they're basically just scented cloths of alcohol) Obviously most beauty products are labelled for your skin type so Dry, Combination, Oily, Mature etc... Get used to doing this Cleanse-tone-moisturize routine EVERY NIGHT without fail. You'll end up with breakouts if you miss a couple, and after a good few you'll notice it in dry patches on your face, and eventually in the future as lines on your face!



2- Drink Water.
Simple, and what it says on the tin, drink your 2Ltrs of water a day to stop your skin drying out and becoming a flaky mess.

3- STOP TANNING
Yes, okay pasty white isn't a fashionable look, but when you're 40 and look 60 and us pale-faced sun-avoiders are 70 looking 40 you'll be the one who's miffed. If you must have your glow, or orange hue- fake it! But make sure you still use a good high SPF Everywhere on your body. On top of your fake tan. UV rays can get you even on a cloudy day, the sun always emits this radiation, so if its light out, there's rays about... and that means your skin's going to be working its butt-off to protect itself and you. So help it out a bit!

4- Treat yourself.
Your skin needs a good deep-cleans every month, so use a light slightly abrasive facial scrub, or a mask...or even go and get a facial treatment at a local salon. You'll love it, your skin will love it and if you cant really afford premium salons, go to your local collage's beauty school. they will require models and the prices are usually significantly reduced, and you'll be in good hands as no college tutor would let their therapists in training do a bad job.

5- All beauty products have use by dates
Every single thing you put on your face has a use-buy date, from 3 months, to 34 months, as indicated by this little symbol on every product you own. If its out of date it wont do anything it says its supposed to, no anti-aging, no SPF, no nothing... so use it up or if its out of date...get rid!

 





















So thats the basics, I'll be doing a post on identifying your skin type next week. So stay tuned for that. As usual don't forget to follow me on all my usual haunts;
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