I am a thirtysomething from London, with a cat, a husband, bookshelves which keep threatening to crush me under their load and chronic health conditions. Basically your average over stressed millennial. Welcome.
I ordered this through Etsy as international subscriptions are not currently available. It cost £20 but contents comes to approx £60.
I wanted April’s Goddess Yoga box but sadly so many of the items were out of stock so I got May’s instead.
– Sweat house Brands yoga towel and saucha spray – keeps your yoga mat fresh.
– Frisky Fish essential oil blend with lemon & lavender. Smells amazing.
– Below the Oak solid perfume in Vixen. I do like solid perfume and this one is subtle and warm.
– Lasting Smiles Peppermint Creme lip balm. I can’t get the lid off! But an organic, cruelty free lip balm is a win in my book.
– Poppy & Elle set of 3 headbands.
– Amazing Grass shake mix – super healthy blend of fruit, veg, greens and plant proteins.
– Go Macro cashew caramel snack bar – gluten free, vegan, macrobiotic. Not 90% dates ( which is brilliant as I’m sick of all the dates in health bars).
– Yokibics four AM meditation downloads.
– Recipe card – date and almond chocolates
– yoga pose card – bird of paradise
– inspirational quote card
I also got the toe socks from the April box as an apology for not being able to send me the box I asked for, which is very sweet and unexpected.
I do think this box is very good value for money, and you don’t have to be a yoga bunny to appreciate it. I just hope they start offering international subscriptions soon and then I won’t miss out.
On Sunday my friend Janet and I undertook the #boldisbeautiful walk in Central London in support of Refuge and Look Good, Feel Better sponsored by Benefit Cosmetics.
Refuge is a charity I have a lot of time for, having spent the last few years working for a charity that supports victims of crime, and Look Good, Feel Better helps women fighting cancer to learn how to use skincare and make up to boost their confidence despite the changes to their bodies and skin.
This is the first year Benefit have run this, and it shows.
Our route
We were told to wear minimal make up as we would get a makeover en route. This meant a spot of lip gloss and some blusher, which wasn’t quite up to Benefit’s claim.
We were given freebies of sample sized items at each checkpoint and offered others to buy (all proceeds to the charities). As well as a make up bag to keep them in.
There was branded water bottle available, which was definitely needed in the hot sun. Everyone was given a canvas bag to keep their treats in, a pair of comedy glasses, a cape, cookie and T-shirt. We also received a medal at the finish line.
However there were some serious issues.
My friend is a wheelchair user, and parts of the route were so badly planned as to be completely inaccessible. There was a info box on the sign up sheet stating wheelchair users should speak to an organizer, so we did and were told it would be fine. It was not.
Tired, fed up super woman
Then there was the frankly offensive sizing issue with the t-shirts. A medium fitted a four year old girl there with her mum but not any adult women. One girl I spoke too said she was a size 8 but needed a large. The XXL tees ran out incredibly quickly as they were the only ones that fitted anyone comfortably.
XL - are you kidding me??
The average size woman in the UK is a 16, so why order t-shirts for a charity event supporting women that fat shames?? I couldn’t even get the supposed XL over my rugby player shoulders, let alone my boobs. Because of this I felt like I wasn’t really part of anything and seeing the same five generically pretty girls being photographed for all the promotional material was quite frustrating.
Women come in all shapes and sizes and can be victims of domestic abuse or contract cancer regardless. Disabled women are four times more likely to be victimized, their abusers are usually intimate partners or family members who take on caring roles.
There was almost no promotion done, I only knew about it as I’m on Refuge’s mailing list. Janet went into a Benefit store on Saturday and the staff didn’t know it was happening.
Finally. At the end of the walk, a party atmosphere was being encouraged so imagine our horror when Blurred Lines came on over the PA system. At an event supporting Refuge is a song about date rape appropriate?? Is that song ever appropriate?
When I mentioned this on Instagram, Benefit had the cheek to claim it was a public playlist. Clearly it didn’t occur to anyone to vet the playlist and check there wasn’t anything inappropriate on it.
Everything I lugged home
I personally think it was a good idea but just executed a little poorly. Hopefully lessons will be learned and adjustments made to make it feel more inclusive.
My energies are now focused on the 10k London Bridges walk in September for Refuge. Look out for my sponsorship requests. :):)
This month’s theme is Free Your Mind and so Birchbox have sent out a colour-it-yourself box.
Personally I think they’re just jumping on the adult colouring book fad, which I do as part of treating my anxiety but isn’t for everyone. This box feels both try-hard and lazy at the same time.
On to the contents.
As well as your booklet on the items this month’s cloth bag features;
– Mirenesse Mattfinity Lip Rouge in a deep pink. Weirdly it seems to have dried up despite never having been opened so I’m not really impressed.
– Lumiere d’hiver reconstructing face masque in a sachet. It says it’s 100% vegan but worryingly for me the second ingredient is a form of alcohol, which I try to avoid in skin products as it has drying properties that inflame eczema and sensitive skin.
– Parlor Moisturizing Sea Salt Spray – this has been discussed on a lot of blogs and there seems to be a concern about whether this will wreck your hair or give you the tousled surfer babe waves it promises. Sea water is not your hair’s best friend and neither is salt so I totally get the questions. I have to quite naturally wavy hair so it’s hard to tell if it had any effect. My furry assistants thought the noise it made was interesting but less so than their dinner. So the jury’s still out.
-RMK Point Make Up Remover. This is a Japanese brand and helpfully no one translated the information on the bottle and my kanji reading skills are non-existent. It’s an oil remover, which have become increasingly popular but I’m still not sure about. The last one I tried made no difference to my skin and still needed a cream cleanser to actually take my make up off! However after the hand incident (see next product) I used this to remove the make up with just a tissue so maybe oils need another go round!
– Caudalie Vinoperfect Tinted Moisturiser SPF20 in 01 Light. I am very pale and this is way too dark for me. As you can see in the below photo of my hand. I squeezed a blob out that could coat my entire hand but be way too obvious, not something I want for a product designed to be subtle.
This month’s ‘choose your own’ product was from a line up of WAH nails items. I chose a nail art pen as I have so many polishes and don’t wear stick on nails. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet but it is a very deep blue so I’m not 100% sure which nail polishes it would work well with.
– Finally the lifestyle item. A pack of 6 mini colouring pencils to decorate your box with. Needless to say I think that’s pretty pants. None of the decorated boxes on their Instagram were done using just the six colours and some were done with pens and paints. Pencils cost pennies. It would have been nice to have something that spoke a little more to the theme.
Do you subscribe to Birchbox? What did you think of this month’s products?
This is a one off box of organic make up and skincare, I ordered it after seeing it on Which Beauty Box UK a really good blog all about beauty boxes.
It’s a small box, should fit through most letterboxes.
Inside is a selection of sample sized items.
Jane Iredale Mascara
Inti Ultimate Lip Tint in candy
Jane Iredale Just Kissed Lip & Cheek Tint
Bella Pierre Cosmetics Kabuki brush
Madara Moon Flower Rose Beige & Golden Beige tintinflg fluid sachets.
The Green People Tinted SPF15 Moisturiser sachet
The mascara is really hard to open, the cheek tint so pale I can’t see it on my skin, the lip tint is sheer but very soft.
Haven’t tried any of the sachets yet, and I already have 3 kabuki brushes (not sure how!) but will keep it in case any of my others start moulting.
I think that it is a nice little introduction to see organic skincare and beauty brands, I had only heard of the Green People before, and if that is important to you, then this a good box.
The products are small but would do well in a handbag for touch-ups although I don’t think the sachets are good as there’s probably only one use in each of them.
So, I have been signed off work since late August. Because of the two conditions in the above image. Anxiety and depression. The devils on both shoulders.
There has been a lot of discussion about mental health issues recently, partly because of next week’s elections and concerns about how the outcome will affect the provision of mental health services, and partly because there is still a distinct lack of knowledge and understanding of mental health conditions and what living with them is truly like.
I will never be ‘better’, there is no magic cure. Instead, with a combination of therapy and medication, the aim is to manage my condition so I can lead a relatively ‘normal’ life and go back to work.
I don’t like the word ‘normal’, in fact I spend a lot of time wondering what exactly is normal?
Last summer I tried CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) but it wasn’t for me, I know it has helped a large number of people manage their mh but I don’t have the tools to exchange negative thoughts into positive ones. I may never.
Currently i’m doing a psychotherapy assessment, meeting every other week with a consultant to assess whether psychotherapy is for me.
I also regularly see my GP to monitor the tablets I take and check in.
Sometimes it feels like I spend my time going round in circles, with good days where I get lots done and feel able to cope with things and then I can’t get out of bed at all, forget to eat and spend too much time sleeping.
Stupid things trigger my anxiety – the phone ringing, a knock at the door when I’m not expecting anything, opening the fridge and not finding anything I want to eat even though there’s plenty of food.
The thought of going back to work makes me feel worse than anything else, but I have to make a decision.
This weekend we went to get a few things to make my new flatmates at home.
My new flatmates won’t be human though, instead they are rodents. I know some people (including my mum) hate rats but they’re cute, fluffy, smart and squeaky.
Mine are two brothers courtesy of the lovely Georgina of Fuller Figure Fuller Bust whose girl rat had some babies a few months ago.
I’m allergic to cats (which is a shame) and we can’t have a dog in the flat so small mammals it is.
My cousin used to have a rat as did a good friend of mine, so I’ve handled them before and have knowledgeable people on hand.
My boys will have better digs than me, their cage has three stories, toys, tunnels, a hammock, water bottles, food troughs, a litter box, ladders and soon, a wheel. They’ll also have lots of things to play with outside like a zorbing ball and the entire front room to explore when I come home to them.
They even have room service and a cleaner – me! Regular baths and new toys and treats.
Wish I was that lucky!
We have named them Justin and Algernon. Both are literary references. Justin was one of the super intelligent rats in Mrs Frisby & the rats of N.I.M.H and Algernon was the mouse in Flowers for Algernon (which is one of the OH’s favourite books).
Justin munching apple
Algie is brown and Justin hooded (a mix of colours, in his case brown and white), which makes telling them apart easy.
Algie all snuggled up
At the moment there are curled up in the corner sleeping, all wrapped up together, probably exhausted from their exciting day of moving and rampaging round their new home.
Pictures will appear on my Instagram. I can’t take any when they’re curled up in the corner.
Rats are very clean, intelligent animals, capable of learning their names, how to do tricks, they spend a lot of time grooming themselves and each other. They can be toilet trained (mine have a litter tray).
They’re affectionate, social animals who use social grooming to bond (and will apparently groom you too), they like hiding and have an abundance of tunnels to scoot through.
Rats didn’t spread the plague as was previously thought – it was gerbils! The gerbil PR machine must have gone into overdrive spinning that one.
