Tips On Choosing Your Foundation Shade Online

The ease of buying a whole heap of make up in my pyjamas speaks to my soul and is more often than not what I do. Although, as with everything, shopping online has it's draw backs and one of which being picking foundations that match your skin tone. Heres a few tips I've discovered to picking your perfect shade.


Know Your Undertone

Let's talk about how to tell what undertone you have. There are 3 options, pink, yellow or neutral. The easiest way to tell is by looking at the veins on the underside of you wrist (it's best to do this in natural day light). If they're blue you have a warm or pink undertone, if they're green in colour then you are a cool or yellow undertone and if they look both green and blue you have a neutral undertone - pretty much equal balances of warm and cool/pink and yellow. Other ways to tell is when you get a tan warm undertones usually turn pink first, or red depending on the shade of your skin, in the sun and then tan later or are very prone to burning. Cool undertones tend to tan easily in the sun and rarely burn.

What to look for in a foundation shade name if you have warm tones: pink, salmon, blush, rose, warm and any abbreviation (e.g W). *Usually most shades titled 'fair' have pink undertones.

What to look for in a foundation shade if you have cool tones: yellow, golden, cool and any abbreviation (e.g C). *Usually shades titled 'sand' have yellow undertones.

*Of course the synonyms and descriptions above are not true for all foundations but I've found it to be the case for a lot of different shade names etc. 

Look Up Swatches

Once you know what undertone you have this is the best way to find your match. Whether it be the flat image swatches on the website or a quick google image search of the foundation of your choice followed by the word swatches. Most of the time you can tell what shades are warm, cool and neutral from a swatch but if you can't decide then have a look at the brand's website and check if they have a description of each shade of the foundation you want. They don't always tell you the degree of pink and yellow for every shade but they will most likely tell you if they are warm in tone or cool.


Foundation Match Websites
findation - matchmymakeup - foundation matrix

All 3 are great if you're looking for a specific foundation match or just want to check your shade in a lot of foundations. They work by you inputting your current foundation shades and then they'll calculate what shades you are in other foundation. Findation is a little outdated and doesn't have newer releases like the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Foundation, Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation etc but still has a lot of choices. Matchmymakeup is the best one in my opinon, it has pretty much every foundation and you can choose a specific foundation, select a whole bunch or look at them all. It also tells you the closest match if they don't have the exact shade in the foundation you want and they tell how it's different which is super helpful. The foundation matrix is probably the most accurate but has a pretty awful system in terms of looking for specific products.


And there you have it - my tips for picking your shade online.
Do you normally shop for make up online or do you prefer going to a store?

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Blogging Props

Taking photos of products brings me inexplicable joy - that may well be one of the saddest things I've ever said but it's the truth. I love arranging make up to create a beautiful photograph but sometimes the picture just turns out boring and empty. Editing obviously brings life to pictures but it's always helpful to start with something good and make it better rather than something a bit crap and end up with something less crap, know what I mean? To make my pictures more interesting and add different colours and textures I use 'props'. Over the past 2 years I've created a little blogger corner in my bedroom full of stuff that I use in my pictures and I thought I'd share some of those bits with you. I highly doubt any of them are unique and original ideas but at least it's handy to have a list of them all in one place!

• wooden (chopping) board - for flat lays to add texture & dimension.
• prints - as a background to add colour.
• rings - to fill out empty spaces in flat lays.
• flowers/plants - to add colour & texture. Almost all flowers and plants photograph really well so they're definitely an easy prop to have.
• notebooks/books -  to add height when taking 'landscape' photos, great for backgrounds too.
• packaging or other products - to fill out empty spaces in photos. Taking a picture of a lipstick? Use other lipsticks to fill out the space.
• patterned bowls/plates - again good for flat lays as a background or for adding height and colour, I'm sure you've seen everyone and their mother use that marble tray from H&M in their pictures recently. 
• candles - cute candle holders make great backgrounds as do lit candles, especially for A/W posts.
• magazines - again good for backgrounds. I particularly love stacked Vogue's in the background of some of my pictures.
• wallpaper - buying a single sheet of wallpaper, especially a wooden effect, makes for a gorgeous background. You can also use contact paper that works exactly the same - and you can get marble look ones too.

To be honest most decor items work well as props in a photograph, you can pretty much use anything you have to make a picture more interesting. The only tip I have is don't over do it. Too much can take away from what you're actually photographing so just make sure the product stays the focus. 

I hope this was helpful and if you think I've left anything out, or you use something that I haven't included then leave a comment and let me know.

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How I Blog

It's weird that when you become a blogger you're often at a complete loss as where to start when writing a post. There is a pretty long checklist in the recipe of a good blog post like a nice background, pretty presentation, a unique writing style and the boring stuff such as links, information and of course something to actually talk about.
In the 3 years I've been blogging, and the year before that of religiously reading them, I haven't really seen anyone talk about their blogging process. I know that I'd love to know how other bloggers go about writing and preparing a post so I'd love to see anyone reading this doing one of these. I'd find it super interesting to see if there are any similarities or any differences too - so please have a go at this! Any excuse for more blog post ideas,  am I right?!

I'll use a beauty product review as an example as that is the main bulk of my posts. Usually I wait until I've collected at least 4 or 5 products before I'll actually get them all out to photograph. When I finally do get round to setting everything up to start taking pictures I'm normally quite happy with a white background especially if I have the outer packaging of a product to use as a prop but if I think it's too boring, I'll grab a cute notebook, an interesting print or just put it on the wooden floors in my house to jazz everything up a bit. I also bear in mind that the product needs to be the focus of the photo so I'll always try to keep things to minimum which suits my taste and photography style anyway. Photographing products is the longest part of a beauty post, for me at least, and that's why I like to devote a good few hours to doing a bunch at once, taking pictures everyday gets a little tedious. After taking photographs of everything, most of the time I try to aim for at least 3 per post, I edit them. I'm really inexperienced with editing software so I've just stuck to using my camera settings and it works fine for me so far. I'm considering getting photoshop and taking the time to learn to use it but it seems really daunting. I guess I'll have to learn sometime so there's no time like the present but anyway - after all that, I create a post, upload the pictures and start writing.

I hardly ever write all 4, 5 or however many reviews I have all at once. I generally do 1 or 2 the day of photographing and then finish the rest during evenings later in the week. I post 3 times a week, sometimes more if I have something I particularly want to talk about but that gives me time to work through posts at a much more relaxed pace. I find introductions the hardest part of writing a post and it often takes me a lifetime to get things going so I start by using bullet points of information on the product then that slowly forms into a post and then the introduction and ending is a piece of cake. When a post is complete, I add the labels and then leave it until the day of posting. The day of, I proof read it all to check it's in the right tense, there's no mistakes, the link still works etc and if it's all good then I press publish. My posts either go up at around 1pm or 7pm as that's when I get the most traffic (thanks Google Analytics - which if you don't use I'd recommend doing so, it's super helpful) and then that's it!


I hope you find this as interesting as I do and if you write one of these please comment, or let me know that you have and I'll definitely give it a read.

What's your favourite and least favourite part of writing a post? Do you struggle with anything?

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Being Yourself With Blogging

I found it extremely difficult to overcome the barrier that presents itself when you first start blogging. I'd say it took me a good year to get past that and write as I would if I was typing an anecdote to myself or telling a friend about something - terrible puns and over the top descriptions included.

I think it took so long for me to find my blogging voice because it's hard to open up straight away. Just like when you meet someone for the first time, you try to be the best and most pristine version of yourself but that's not what makes people want to spend time with you. It's all the things that make you different from everyone else that makes anyone interested in you and that is what your blog is - it's you and that can be hard to put on the internet for a bunch of strangers to read.

It feels unnatural to put your uncensored personality, your stories and your life on the internet for anyone to find it. It can sometimes feel intrusive and you have to decide if that is a feeling you can overcome or not. Of course writing about make up products doesn't really give all too much insight into your personal life but the words are yours and for me, I still felt the need to put up a little barrier by trying to be as vague as possible in the way that I wrote a review.

After a while of reading back through my posts I just found them boring, they had no life and I didn't want to be represented that way. So, I made a decision to let go of all the apprehension and write which ever way came naturally to me. I  had so much more pride in what I was pressing publish on and I enjoyed writing so much more and I think that absolutely came across in my posts too.

I actively seek out blogs with personality because that's what is the most interesting to read. I know it is a very common cliche among blogging advice to say 'be yourself' but that is the best piece of advice I have ever received. Having beautiful pictures, a well presented blog and a million followers are obviously great assets to have but engaging with readers and giving them an enjoyable experience when they're reading one of your posts by being completely and truly yourself is much more important to me.

I wrote this in response to email I recieved the other day asking for some blogging advice. I have only been doing this 2 years and I don't have a wealth of experience or advice to give but helping someone is something that I will always happily do, so I hope this helped you in some way.


What blogging advice do you have to give?
Have you struggled with being yourself on your blog?

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How To Deal With Depression

There is no tried and true way to deal with depression that works for everyone. Depression is a really private and unique illness that differs from person to person so there is never going to be something that works for everyone, not medication, therapy or any of the things I'm about to share with you.

 I had depression for 5 years and that in itself sounds so bizarre to me that I can say I 'had' depression because I don't believe it's something that ever really goes away. It's something that gets easier as time goes on and that, eventually, you learn to live with.

When I was deep admist it all I would search online for hours to try and find any way to make me feel better but all I found were countless blog posts, videos and articles telling me that it will pass, which in the moment, did absolutely nothing for me. 

So as I said depression isn't the same for everyone but I wanted to share how I managed to get over the worst of it just in case there is a little lost 15 year old searching through the internet trying to feel better just like I did.

You Are Not Alone
I know everyone says this and I know how head bangingly frustrating it is to hear but I got lost in thinking that I was the only person in the world that was this sad. I thought that I had made this whole thing up in my head and no one else was wasting their life in bed all day like I was. That I was just being dramatic and lazy. But I wasn't, and I wasn't the only person with thoughts like that or that felt like I did and neither are you. There are, unfortunately, lots of people that suffer from depression each with their own reasons who feel exactly the same as you do. It's not something you've made up. It's not just you being dramatic. It's real and you have to talk to someone. The support from friends and family may be enough to help you get through it but I would recommend talking to a doctor. There are a few options to treat depression including medication and types of therapy both of which I've tried and with time they help make it all a little more bearable. There are people who care about you and love you. You are not alone, I promise.

Don't Give Up
When you get to the point when everything feels completely hopeless try to remember that this is just a moment. That overwhelming feeling of being lost is just a moment in your life. You won't feel like this forever and this temporary situation isn't worth giving up everything you have to look forward to. People say that you will only ever hit rock bottom once and I completely agree. Once you have let yourself fall so far you will never let it happen again. You'll keep fighting until you come out the other side. It seems impossible at first but every day when you do something that you thought you couldn't do yesterday is a little win and you should feel proud of yourself.

One Step At A Time
One of the hardest thing I had to learn was that no one else can make me better, I have to do it. Support, therapy, medication etc can help you but can only take you so far, you have to be ready for the help and to push yourself through new experiences and situations. You don't have to do it all at once, everything about depression takes time but doing anything that makes you feel better is a step in the right direction. I found that planning my day helped me a lot and I felt better when I had something to work towards. Most of the time my lists would be of stupid things like making breakfast but it doesn't matter - you're trying and that's the important thing. 

Finding Help
I'm disappointed that I have to title this part 'finding' help. Help for people with mental illnesses shouldn't be something you have to hunt down. It took 2 years before a doctor offered me any kind of help. Luckily now there are more websites available with information on depression and the different kinds of treatment available. I personally went with CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). My depression stemmed from a trauma so it was a side effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which CBT heavily helps with. If you're interested I would be happy to do a post all about CBT and what it's like, what it does and my experience. 

If you go and talk to your doctor and ask for different treatment options for depression they'll be able to refer you to therapy/counselling, offer you medication, show you a list of websites that are either self referral therapy or self help community pages and more. You can decide which you think is the best for you and your depression. 

All I can hope is that this helped someone. Depression should definitely be spoken about more openly and not something that people are made to feel ashamed of.