Macadamia Natural Oil's Deep Repair Masque

One of the things you do get told about being pregnant is that your body will change, and then they will go on about the 'glow' you will get after your 3 months are over. This can be lie for some people, I didn't really get a glow until about 18 weeks, before then my skin looked dull and my hair looked life had left it.

I had tried this previously from another event I went to (got this one in my goodie bag from London Meet Up), so I knew it would already re-kick the recovery of my poor hair. The hair mask uses a combination of macadamia and argan oil infused with tea tree oil, chamomile oil, aloe and algae extracts. You put onto clean, damp hair for 5-10 minutes and then wash off with warm water, dry and style as normal.

It is a thick pale coloured cream and found that because I know has shorter hair (down to my jaw line), I could split the sachet into two uses in one week to give it a full recovery programme. After the first use it felt significantly softer, that kind of soft where you cannot stop touching your hair. It looked glossy and moisturised. After the second weekly use, it had looked like I had been at a salon and had treatment done, it looked more improved than the beginning.

For 100ml tube it starts from £12.50, which if I have worked this out correctly, for my length hair will give you about 7 uses at £1.79 each (my hairdresser tries to sell me their treatment at £4.79 each time). There is 250ml (£26.95) and 500ml (£36.75) available.

Read more about Macadamia hair range here

World Mental Health Day

There is a majority of people who will read the title of this and skip over it, Mental Health still has a huge stigma clapped onto it. I am one of the 1 in 4 people who suffer with a 'illness', and I mean 'illness' loosely. Why do I mean 'illness' in that way? Because it's something that never be cured like an illness, and you will never really recover from it.

Mental illness is something that you live with, you learn how to cope, where to go if you need help and guidance. You have great, good, poor and horrid days (sometimes even minutes and seconds). Everyone also has different symptoms, different ways that it effects their life but also different ways of coping.

It's encouraging for someone like myself who are the 1 in 4, that there has been some progress - Time-To-Change that works towards openly talking about it, politicians and celebrities 'coming out', channel 4's Mad Season (however for me the name still re-enforced the 'mad part of mental health.). There are however many things that need to improve but the seeds have been sow.

There are many inspiring people out there who are knocking down the stigmas that people not in the know have. Rachael at Live, Food, Love writes the most honest and beautiful entries on her life that includes coping with Mental Health. Then, there's Amanda from Beauty From Pain Blog who not voices her opinions on Mental Health but SHOUTS about it for other sufferers, using her experiences to re-educate non-suffers.

You can also read my other entry Hope You're OK about my mental illness.

If you have read this, thank you for taking the time to stop, taking the first step of breaking the stigma and reading this rather than skipping over.

Hope You're OK

My name is Helen and suffer with bouts of depression.

On my darker days I cannot get out of bed, even getting dressed is an accomplishment. I'd rather hide away and disappear into my shell then having to deal with situations. Most of time I feel like I am the only person in the world dealing with this, and constantly feel emotionless. I call my depression "black cloud" because it builds up and rains when it wants to.

It can affect anyone, not only the people themselves but the knock on effect on families, loved ones, friends. A depression suffer will often suffer in slience because they feel they don't deserve help or don't want to bother anyone. The biggest thing for anyone to do is admit that they need help and actively reach out for it.

There is still much of stigma attached to having a mental illness, all most of us want is someone just to show that we're there when we need them. The Mind Charity were there when I needed them (and still there for me while I battle on through bouts), they provide a safe welcoming, enviroment where people can get help or just be with people who are going through the same thing.

You want see true beauty and strength, go to twitter and search #mymind.

If you want more information on how you can help, please go here