Cleansing Conditioners and 2in1 shampoos. What's the difference?

 

Superdrug has recently brought out their own range of cleansing conditioners and to be honest when reading the back of the bottle, I thought it sounded pretty much the same as a 2in1 shampoo and conditioner. 2in1 shampoo and conditioners should be wiped off the face of the earth in my opinion. They're terrible for your hair, just ask any hairdresser. So are cleansing conditioners just a glamourised version of a 2in1 shampoo? I decided to do a bit of research online and this is what I found.

Cleansing conditioners were created by WEN hair care hairstylist Chaz Dean and he claims his cleansing conditioner is a "5in1 formula" because it's your shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner, de-tangler and deep conditioner all rolled into 1. Fair enough. So I checked out some Youtube reviews and pretty much everyone seems to love this stuff, especially people who dye their hair a lot and have quite dry hair. However, looking at the ingredients of these cleansing conditioners there's not really any ingredient that "cleanses". Here's a little bit more info that explains it better than I can...

"Instead of using typical shampoo ingredients called surfactants (such as sulfates, glucosides, or betains), cleansing conditioners use only a group of ingredients referred to as fatty alcohols, most commonly cetyl alcohol or cetearyl alcohol. These fatty alcohols do have moisturizing properties but they only have minimal ability to cleanse hair or remove the buildup of styling products. They certainly don’t clean hair even remotely as well as surfactant-style cleansing agent."(unknown source)

I decided to give Superdrug's cleansing conditioner a try to see what all the fuss was about and whether it was this glamourised crappy 2in1 conditioner or this 5in1 must have. Obviously you could argue that Superdrug's £4 cleansing conditioner is not going to compare in quality to the WEN £40 cleansing conditioner but I've checked and the ingredients are literally the same apart from WEN has fancier fragrances.

I used the orange and jasmine Superdrug cleansing conditioner (smells amazing I'll give it that) and I followed the exact instructions. It did just feel like I was applying conditioner to my hair. It's not soapy or foamy. After drying my hair etc, my hair did feel really soft, looked healthy and my ends did look better than they usually do. But, by the end of the day my hair was super greasy and that's unusual for me. I personally feel that this stuff is just a conditioner, it's not even a 2in1 shampoo, it's literally just a conditioner. I think if  you didn't use shampoo and just used conditioner you would get the exact same effect.

Shampoo does dry out your hair a bit and can have some harsh chemicals in them, but it's needed to break down excess oils and hair product in your hair. I read in a hairdresser blog that when using shampoo, you should just apply it to your scalp, massage it in and then let it rinse through your ends. I've been using this technique and it has been helping my ends. When it comes to deeply nourishing your hair, use oils like coconut oil and argon oil. These work really well and are natural products so no harsh chemicals. When it comes to cleansing conditioners, I wouldn't bother.

 

Gina xo

 

Tomato & Mascarpone Soup Easy Peasy Recipe

Last week I went to this small Italian restaurant called Novapizza which was absolutely amazing. If you're ever in Edinburgh then check this place out. It's a little cosy vegetarian Italian restaurant near Stockbridge with a wide range of beautiful veggie dishes. Most vegan restaurants have quite dull menus in my opinion (maybe that's because I'm not vegan) but this place has all your favourite Italian dishes that you're used to but with quorn meat and other veggie supplements. The most amazing dish that I tried there was the tomato and mascarpone soup which inspired me to make my own. So here is my very own tomato and mascarpone soup recipe on the cheap!

What you'll need:

tin of chopped tomatoes
mascarpone cheese
600ml vegetable stock
garlic
half an onion chopped
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 carrot
Tomato puree
olive oil
Salt and pepper
hand blender


I usually shop at Morrisons or the lidl and you can get all these items for less than a fiver. Some of the ingredients are your basics that you probably have in your cupboard already! In the herb aisle you can also pick up an Italian herb jar which is split up into different sections with different herbs and flavourings to sprinkle in to season and give it your own little twist.

Method:

Take a large saucepan and drizzle in some olive oil and bring it to a medium heat. Grate the carrot and add this and the chopped onion into the saucepan and cook for around 10 minutes. Add in your garlic, salt and pepper and some Italian seasoning, then add the chopped tomatoes and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil then leave it to simmer for 10 minutes. Add in the mascarpone cheese and use the hand blender to blend everything together. Keep adding in the cheese and blending until you get the desired thickness.

Serve with crusty bread or croutons. Mmm lush!

Gina xo 

 


 

Green Glitter Eyes

As we go into the party season I wanted to see what party/seasonal make up I could come up with. I always see those insta models with amazing glitter eye shadow so I went online to see what I could find that's similar and cost effective. I'm all about the 'cost effective' part. Barry M had a few glitter eye shadow pots but at £4.00 each I wasn't ready to part with my money. So I had a little browse on Ebay and I found this seller that was selling setting gel and pots of glitter. They have amazing colours for just 99p each and it's free postage AND it's buy 3 and get 3 free! Absolute bargain. The gel is £1.97 and basically you just apply the gel to your eye lids and dab on the glitter. The gel definitely works by the way. I went on a night out and woke up with my eye make up still in tact. These are the links:

Gel: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231176493483?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Glitter: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281163189083?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=580223059369&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Ooh I Found A Bargain

"Tis the season to be jolly, lalalala". It's not long till Christmas now peeps and if you're a huge Xmas fan like me  (I own 4 Christmas jumpers and I put my tree up 2 weeks ago....yeah in November) then you'll absolutely love these amazing novelty earrings I found in Primark for a bargain price of £1.50 each. I cannot wait to wear these to work!

Follow me on Instagram to see pictures of Edinburgh Christmas Market! @ginageogeorge

Red Hair - Best Red Dyes/ Maintaining Red Hair/ Removing Red Hair Dye

When I first dyed my hair red last year I really struggled to find blog posts on how to stop the red from fading because anyone who has ever dyed their hair red will no it fades pretty much after one wash. I found myself having to dye my hair every 3/4 weeks and in between that time being a weird ginger colour and wrecking my hair in the process. Split ends galore! Everything in this blog post is things I've learned myself or tips and tricks I've picked up on the internet.

Red hair dyes I have used and would recommend:

I'm a big lover of Garnier when it comes to red hair dye. I personally think that they have the best range of red shades. I've used all the red hair dyes below but there are even more shades than this! Garnier Olia has no ammonia in it so this is really good if you're trying to keep your hair as healthy as possible. I'm currently using Garnier Olia Dark Garnet Red 4.62 which has given me this amazing red wine colour which you will have seen in my latest photos.





Maintaining red hair:

I didn't think there was anything you could do to maintain red hair other than dye it all the time however, after browsing in Savers I came across Smart Beauty Colour Boost Vibrant Red. This little red hair life saver is an absolute god send. It lifts your colour dramatically and looks as though you've just dyed your hair. It contains no ammonia or PPD which means it doesn't cause any damage to your hair. It even says "no hair damage" on the box itself.

How'd ya use it?

Whilst showering after you've shampooed and squeezed out all the excess water in your hair apply a 1/4 of the bottle into the palm of your hand and apply it to your hair like shampoo. Try and make sure all your hair is covered. Leave it in for 3 minutes, rinse it out and then apply conditioner. It's as simple as that. No mixing, no carry on. However, if you wish you can apply it like a hair dye using gloves and leave it for 30 minutes to get a more intensive colour but if it's just to top up your already dyed red hair then there's no need.

Just a wee warning though, you will look like you've murdered someone in your bath, it will stain your towels and your hands (a little bit). So use black towels and clean your bath and hands quickly after use.

 

 

 

How to remove red hair dye without using harsh colour removers:

 

I absolutely hate those Colour B4 kits with a passion. Katie Price promotes it, says it all really. They not only wreck your hair but they absolutely stink and just leave your hair ginger and all kinds of fucked up. I removed my red hair all naturally by myself and went from bright red to brown hair with highlights for my graduation back in June. My hairdresser was stunned when I told her I had dyed my hair over 5 times red + topping it up with colour boost and still managed to get every last trace of it out.

 

Get yourself a giant bottle of the minty Head and Shoulders and a big bottle of conditioner. Wash your hair every single day with Head and Shoulders shampoo. It's a really harsh shampoo full of chemicals but because of this it strips the colour out of your hair. This will dry your hair out a little bit so make sure you apply lots of conditioner afterwards each time. Once you've been doing this for a week or more you'll be left with that weird washed out ginger colour. So, the next thing you want to do is tone all of this out so you're left with a natural brown colour as a base to work with for your next colour of choice. You will need green food colouring and more head and shoulders shampoo ( and now you're probably thinking "wtf"). The reason for green food colouring is green cancels out red the same as violet cancels out yellow/orange which is why you get violet toner for blondes which I mention in my how to maintain blonde hair post.  

 

Get a mixing bowl. Fill the mixing bowl with Head and Shoulders shampoo, apply the green food colouring and mix together until it becomes a dark green mixture. Apply this all over your hair like you would if you were dying your hair and leave it in for 15 minutes or more depending on how bad the red tones are in your hair. Once you've done this wash it all out and apply conditioner. Your hair will now have some green tones in it. Next thing you want to do is buy an ash brown hair dye. It has to be specifically ASH brown because ash brown hair dye has green undertones in it which will help to cancel out your red tones and give you an even colour. Apply this to your hair and you should be left with normal brown hair. Ta-dah! :)

 

 

 

Gina xo

 



How to maintain red hair! Coming soon!

A Winter Warmer Fruit Crumble Made Simple

As the nights get colder and you've been studying or working hard there's nothing better than a bit of comfort food. When people think about making a pie or a crumble they think it's going to take a lot of effort and if you've been working or if you're just uber lazy like me then the last thing you want to be doing is running around the kitchen. But this recipe is quick and simple and super cheap to make.

Here's what you will need:

 

Total cost: £4.24 for food. Pie dish £4.00 from Lakeland

Method:

Get your ceramic pie dish and put a couple of handfuls of frozen fruit into the dish. Then put a teaspoon of ground ginger and a teaspoon of cinnamon on top of the fruit. Put four table spoons of white or brown everyday sugar on the fruit and stir this altogether. Then sprinkle the crumble mix over all the fruit in the dish until it's completely covered. Place it in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes and you will have a delicious crumble.

I usually have mine with cinnamon biscuit ice cream and I strongly recommend you do this. LUSH!

Gina xo