The Neverending Eyeliner Search

Anyone who knows me will tell you - I love eyeliner, always have, always will.

Over the years I have dabbled with many brilliant brands, but never found The One.

When I was younger, it was kohl all the way, and I mastered the cat eye with a pencil.  As I've gotten older, I've become accustomed to a felt tip liner, and here brings my dilemma.

I CAN NEVER FIND ONE THAT DOESNT PRINT ON MY EYE LID/LAST ALL DAY (or at least my working day)/NOT TURN MY EYES INTO GOO.

I found a great contender in the Collection 2000 24 hour felt liner (4/5) - cheap as it rings in at £2.99, lovely jet black, glides on and the nib is JUST the right size between thin and thick.  This has actually been my staple throughout the hunt as it's cheap as fuck and doesn't affect my sensitive eyes. This is an example of it applied.

Avon also do one, the Super Extend Liquid Eyeliner (3/5). Again, a good sized nib though quite sharp.  I got this in navy for a change, and although it prints on your eyelid within an hour of using it, it's a lovely colour and really does last (so much so that even after scrubbing it off with makeup remover I had blue outlines until I applied fresh makeup the next day.  I may try it in black when I next get near a catalogue.  This also slightly irritated my eyes, and I especially found once removed that my eyelids stung.

Colorsport (3/5) was a brand that caught my eye on sale through my day job.  They usually have their products hanging up in the beauty tool section, with this 24hour eyeliner being packaged on a hanging card.  This was actually an eyeliner I used to use when I first discovered felt liners, and I remember it being amazing.  However, I repurchased it recently and it doesn't seem the same, it goes on very well, the nib is again a great size, but it wears off very quickly. Still, I will keep using it as it cost me £8 and it does the trick for work.

Revlon Colorstay have a felt liner (2/5) and after being recommended it by a friend, I gave it a go and I didn't get on too well with it.  The nib is a lot thinner than the others, and I found it smelt odd (yes I'm weird). It also didn't stay on too long, which is always the decider for me because I'm just too darn busy to keep reapplying makeup all day.  Whenever I've worn it it hasn't been very bold colour-wise either, usually my eyeshadow has shown through within an hour or so of applying.

My final review is one that I stumbled on whilst browsing Superdrug this week and the reason for this blog. My trusty Collection 2000 was running out and I figured I needed a new one, but I found myself at the Loreal stand. I haven't noticed their eyeliners before, so it must be relatively new (I use their foundations, powders and blushes religiously) - the Superstar Superliner (4/5).

Check out that nib. Glorious! It is very black, glides on just like the C2000, and what's more IT STAYS. Yes! It actually stays on, doesn't print on your eyelid, and lasts a good amount of the day.  I feel this product will last well in heat (yet to try that one out..) and I think I may be converted.  It does cost £7 but if it's as good as it seems to be I really don't mind!

As you can see, none of them have top marks, so the hunt is still on.  I expect some of the high end brands may bring it all to the table, but I'm a high street gal at heart.  I hope this has been of some help to my fellow liner addicts, and please do comment if you've tried anything particularly spectacular that you think I should try!

New Infusing Toy

Sounds a bit ominous, but I promise you.. It's pretty tame.

A month or so back I decided to jump on the bandwagon and purchase myself a water infusing bottle.   Great, I said, will make me drink so much more water, I said.  Of course, same as most things I used it twice then it put on its invisibility cloak and returned a gym bottle.

I must admit, the only thing that I really liked in it was strawberrys, and blueberries but this is probably because I didn't actually buy anything else to try... I dabbled with  bit of cucumber but I'm not gonna lie, it tasted a bit rough.  I'm a sugar gal.

But yeah, given the right strawberries, it tasted great, and I DID drink a lot more on the days I used it.  

Fast forward a month and I'm sitting here, Once Upon A Time marathon in full swing, and I am PARCHED.  As normal, being the avid soft drink fanatic that I am, I only have half a carton of hazelnut milk, a bottle of redundant strawberry and kiwi squash for emergencies that JUST.WONT.DO, and plain ole h20 in my fridge.  Here comes the ingredients for the genius which has become my debut blog....

1. Water infuser bottle filled with water (or a glass of water will do, if you're that quenched you haven't got time to faff)

2.  A couple of herbal/green tea bags (the amount depends on how strong you like it)

3. Sugar (small amounts, if needed, we are trying to be healthy after all!)

THATS RIGHT FOLKS, I have many herbal teabags knocking about my flat that smell amazing and taste..okay.., and that I've never got round to drinking.  So on impulse I thought, hey, I'm thirsty, I could really drink that Blackberry and Blueberry tea cold right now.

I dunked two teabags in a cold cup of water, and within a few minutes the water was pink and infused.  This is where my plan was devised.

My instructions to you are this.  Stick the teabags into the infusing tunnel, put it back in your bottle of water and voila.. Instant iced tea (ice optional). Tasty and hydrating, easy and cheap.

I can't wait for work tomorrow.

The Military Diet

Maybe this will become a thing, who knows?!

So the last couple of months have been quite hard for me, at the beginning of April I started exercising properly again and eating healthily; using a calorie counter and really cutting back on takeout. When I did crave my favourite Chinese, I would walk and only get chicken and mushroom, take it home and cook a basmati rice to go with it. I became engrossed in many other fitness bloggers, such as The Lean Machines and Carly Rowena, and my good friend Christie who is a personal inspiration of mine. They've really spurred me on. I made weekends my cheat meals (evening meal on Friday or Saturday and then lunch on Sunday), whilst still being sensible. I cut out red bull and portion sizes and instead of doing one big shop on payday I split my food money into 5 weeks and started buying fresh food to cook with.

However, some stuff then happened at work and I fell back into a routine of takeout, and snacking, and put back on the 7 pounds I originally lost, and so this brings me to today. I find healthy eating easy peasy, but the ease of cooking it is my downfall. If I get home and am even slightly tired i find every excuse in the book to order a takeaway. Obviously even with the best workout pattern this isn't the best regime to have, so this results in my either not losing ANY weight, or putting it on.

This weekend, I realised something had to change. I'd saved some money for some new clothes, as I hadn't bought any in a while, and I just got so fed up with thinking I can't wear what I want to wear because I look lumpy that I came home with some biscuits for the cat and some cleaning products. DEPRESS. Whilst looking at my usual YouTube channels, I saw some videos by other people about the 'military diet', a diet which claims you can lose up to 10 pounds in a day. 

Too good to be true I said. Will be so expensive I thought. 

 WRONG! 

The website gives you the meal plan, the substitutes and even suggests a plan for the days off the staple 3 days it recommends. I watched a few vlogs and after deciding it didn't look TOO hard, and like I wouldn't hate myself too much from doing it, i bit the bullet and popped to tescos. Baring in mind some of the products used you will have leftovers after the three days, the whole plan came to £7.99. I had a couple of things at home already, so I reckon it would be around a tenner otherwise. I thought this was so good for 3+ days of food, especially as I usually only spend about £15 a week on a food shop anyway. I will link the plan at the bottom of each post so you guys can see it in full. 

DAY ONE: 

STARTING WEIGHT: 12 stone 7 lbs. (I have about 2 stone to lose, I was at 10stone 10 a few years back and would like to get back to that plus some and then carry on a healthy lifestyle so in no certain circumstances am I doing this long term. If it works I would like to do it every other week until I am at my goal weight and happy with my contingency plan) I woke up feeling quite excited for some reason. Maybe it was thought of potentially being 5-10 pounds down by Thursday, or maybe it was the fact I love everything on the breakfast plan! 

BREAKFAST: half a grapefruit, one piece of toast with a table spoon of peanut butter and a cup of green tea. Breakfast filled me up quite nicely - I rarely eat breakfast and when I do it's normally a lot later (as I have work today I ate this at 7.45am), so I'm hopeful already because I'll have more fuel than a normal day start. The toast and peanut butter was quite dry, but after a few glugs of green tea and bit of grapefruit it goes down a lot better. 

DINNER: half a tin of tuna, a slice of toast and a mug of green tea I was particularly worried about lunch, as I have quite a gruelling job and had visions of myself keeling over halfway through the afternoon. However I think having breakfast really helped set me up to keep going to dinner (12.15pm) and then some, as I didn't start to feel hungry until around 4/4.15pm! (Either that or I was too busy to worry about it!). Thankfully today at work isn't filled with endless treats being brought in (half of why I got in this position in the first place!) so I find it easy to keep to plan, filling my mind with other things! I made the tuna and toast into kind of a sandwich so it felt more bulky. I must point out that you can eat the bread as either toast, or plain bread, and you can switch the meals around just so long as you eat all that you're allowed to in a day and no more.

TEA: a cup of green beans, 3oz meat (I chose cod steak as that Was what I already had), half a banana, one small apple and a cup of vanilla icecream Sadly I was really looking forward to this meal because it had the most in it!!! I'm not a big dessert person, but I must admit the thought of the icecream kept me going all day! I have spread this out a bit so had the apple and the beans/meat at around 5.45pm, and have just had the banana on top of the icecream as a later snack (7.45pm). 

All in all I feel like today has been fantastic for a first day,I have felt full enough, not tired and most importantly I've actually liked all the foods I've had! I've also probably drank about a litre of water which I wouldn't normally do, and need to start doing! I'm gonna round off today with some light exercise (swim machine for 10 minutes, cycling for 10 mins, step ups for 5 mins).

DAY TWO:

I slept rather well but woke up a bit tired. Not sure if this is because of the diet or the fact it was so friggin hot last night!

BREAKFAST: half a banana, one egg (cooked however you want) and a piece of bread (I toasted!) and a cup of green tea! The egg was the blandest thing ever I'm not gonna lie. I scrambled it, and had it on the toast. I had to drink a glass of water halfway through because my mouth was so dry. Need to think of better ways to eat egg, maybe making the yolk runny would be the one?

LUNCH: was meant to be a cup of cottage cheese, but the thought of that makes me wanna vom so I subbed in a can of tuna again, 5 crackers and one egg (I boiled this one as I was gonna be at work for it)

I was full til lunch (12.15) again, so one up side to dry eggs I guess! I hard boiled an egg this morning as well for lunch, and put it in the fridge at work. The tuna went down fine again, and I cut the egg up into slices which was fine thankfully given the breakfast nightmare. I also had a lot of water and a cup of green tea. Crackers were a bit different to bread so that was a nice change,

TEA: half a cup carrots, a cup of broccoli, two hot dog sausages, half a banana and one cup of icecream.

This was my least fave so far. Makes the dry egg brekkie look like GBK. I stir fried the broccoli, carrot and sausage as I'd seen someone on YouTube do it and it looked alright but it was awful. I think next time I do this meal I'll do it as boiled veg. The sausages were fine Though! Thankfully I was starving because despite not being hungry til around 4 again I waited for a bit when I got home and just had the banana, then after a shower had the rest.  

All in all, an ok day, not as good as yesterday but hopefully it'll pay off! Tomorrow is the day with the least food so we will see how I fair!

DAY THREE:

I can't deny that I feel a lot better from eating breakfast. I am waking up slightly earlier and getting up earlier in order to have it which wakes me up a bit more than rolling out of bed, getting ready and leaving within 20 minutes!

BREAKFAST: piece of cheese, 5 crackers, mug of green tea, one small Apple

This was surprisingly filling. I was actually running slightly late despite my opening sentence, so I took the crackers to work and ate them within an hour or so of being there which also helped with the rest of the day.

LUNCH: one egg, one piece of toast, cup of green tea

This was up there with the rank stirfry from last night. So bland, I actually cheated and had a banana as well.

TEATIME: cup of tuna, half a banana and a cup of icecream

This was the smallest tea so far but thankfully I get on well with the tuna so I was happy with that. This is definitely the hungriest I've been this week and I was hungry at around 3pm after lunch today, but I soldiered on!

The hardest day but I see why they put the smallest day at the end of the course!!

RESULTS:

Drum roll.......

-5pounds!

I am quite happy with this, though obviously anymore would be have been grand! But I'd be happy with losing 5 pounds every time I do this! 

Other than the weight loss, these three days have really motivated me to get going again, and to reach my goals and then maintain it.

I have sat down with my original plan and used the substitutions list on the MD site to change anything I wasn't too fond of (cottage cheese, the hot dog meal and the lone egg being the ones), so this may help me next week keep on track a bit more.

I have realised the importance of breakfast, and I feel a lot less bloated from eating clean foods. It is actually proven to be healthy for humans to do a few days of this kind of diet, or another fasting style diet such as the 5:2 (this one is definitely more substantial than that one!). Plus it's mega cheap!

I would recommend this to anyone who would like to kick start a healthier lifestyle, especially if you never ate breakfast before like me, as this instantly gives you more fuel for the day.  I'll be doing it again for sure!

http://themilitarydiet.com/military-diet-results/