L'Oréal's Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington ad campaigns banned | Media | The Guardian

L'Oréal's Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington ad campaigns banned | Media | The Guardian

Have you ever bought a product because you were sold on it transforming you into the image on the poster? Did it? Would you like to write a guest post about it? If so, get in touch with me at mylifeaccordingtomarieclaire@gmail.com

Did you know I've been rubbing concrete into my face?!

I passed through Selfridges this lunch time, not to buy anything - I age just looking at the price tags in that place.
In the centre of the beauty hall there was a stand for the Clarisonic Skin Cleansing System.

Soap and water? Pah. Cleanse tone and moisturise? Pah. Exfoliate? NOT LIKELY.

According to the heavily made up woman presenting it to me, this wondrous little device that was invented "by the same people that invented the electric toothbrush" have come up with the "Next Botox". All very strong claims for something that looks like the hybrid love child of a sex toy and washing up brush.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that this gadget ranges from around £120 - £179. Having obtained my degree in product design, I'm fairly confident in saying that this hand held unit with an oscillating brush on the end is commanding a huge profit margin. So either A) the claims are true, it is the next botox and thus the company can put such a high value on the results. Or B) it's a complete and utter rip off.

The lady then demonstrated the brush on my arm. Apparently all the exfoliating I have been doing in my adult life has been like "Rubbing concrete" on my face. Speak for yourself love, if that's what it takes to get half the Benefit makeup counter off your face, so be it, but I certainly have NOT been using anything even similar to concrete. She went on to explain that the gentle oscillating brush manages to deeply cleanse my face, without me having to perform some sort of unknown building materials related self harm. Seriously, where do they get these nitwits from to sell these products?

I picked up a leaflet with some before and after shots on it. Apparently girls, up until now all we have been told by the beauty industry is a lie. Cleansing and toning or washing your face with any one of the plethora of products out there in the beauty market has NOT been working. I repeat NOT been working. We still have makeup lurking on our face and the only thing that will help is a vibrating dish brush.

I will try this gadget later on in the blog and see for myself if it works. If it does I'll personally go and find the Selfridges nitwit and shake her hand in a sort of stealth apology for accusing her of talking rubbish.

Flat Spelt bread fail

The next step on my journey to a wrinkle free future was too cut the sugar out of my bread.

What I didn't realise, until after I bake this loaf is that the yeast needs the sugar to increase the mass of the dough. So my Spelt loaf has turned out a bit crap.

I used honey, but it obviously wasn't good enough.

This cutting out sugar business has resulted in a few late nights for me, experimenting with these kitchen gadgets so I can make my own stuff. The late nights are cancelling out the cut in sugar.

I'll do some research and see what I can come up with in a couple of days on order to make the bread rise.

In the meantime, if anyone a spare brick, or something to rest their feet on while thy watch T.V, this Spelt loaf would be perfect.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

No 15. Cut out the white stuff

I love cake, I view cake as a food group and part of my 5 a day. Cake is probably responsible for for the last 12lbs I can't seem to shake off since having the baby. But it's my friend. My crumbly, moist, sweet bakey cakey friend. I also love chocolate, but not as much as cake, don't tell chocolate because it might get jealous.

No. 15 in the article is to cut out sugar. I'd rather stick pins in my face (and I will as facial acupuncture is on the list and far more appealing than no cake).

So I scoured the internet to research this "cutting out sugar", my fingers sieze up just trying to type the words. I came across a great blog "My Years Without Sugar" written by a woman after my own heart. One that likes to document her experiment whether it succeeds or fails. She was doing great, but then fell off the wagon at the start of this year.

I believe this is because if you fully cut something out of your diet, it makes your brain flip out and go into battle. I'm sure if you have ever been on a diet, you have found you start to obsess about what you can't have. I know I certainly have. On more than one occasion I have snapped on a diet and been found snaffling the chocolate / bread / *insert cut out item here* in the local supermarket car park, like some sort of binge eating Gollum.

So I'm going to opt for weening myself off sugar by replacing my usual brands of sugar laden foods with alternatives one by one, but not have a thrombosis if I have a little bit of birthday cake or a slice of Pizza now and again socially. This cut down should still be significant, and luckily for me, I've found oodles of refined sugar free recipes for cake.

My first replacement will be Yogurt. I thought I was being healthy with my daily dose of berries and low fat natural yoghurt for breakfast. Errr NO! 9 sneaky grams of sugar per 100ml. So this will be replaced with homemade yoghurt but first I need a yoghurt maker. I'll keep you posted as to if it's nice or not.

2 litres of water

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This is what 2 litres of water looks like, the orange one has a Berocca disolved in it (just in case you thought I was cheating).

No 9. Drink Plenty of water

Since having my little bundle of joy, I think I’ve frequently replaced what should be water with either coffee to stay awake, or wine to stay sane.
It’s all well and good trying to plough through 2 litres a day. Often however, that day consists of a demanding cycle of running around wiping up someone else’s bodily fluids and sqarking “No, don’t punch the cat!” So when you do get that precious 5 minutes to sit down with a coffee or (if past 7pm… well 11am some days) wine, it’s that little glimmer of relief and relaxation that allows you to regroup. Within those 5 minutes you take a well-earned breather and halt the plans you have been hatching for the previous few hours to try and sell your child to Madonna.

Some how over the past 10 months it’s seemed a waste to fill these golden moments with a glass of water when they could be used as some sort of speed date with your pleasure senses. “QUICK, BABY IS SLEEPING, GET CAKE, COFFE, 3 CELEBRATIONS AND A MAGAZINE!”

I used to be an avid water drinker, I’d drink it boiled instead of tea and coffee and my skin was always really clear. Now though, the zits are creeping back along with the frizz, eye bags and dark circles. I’ve helpfully annotated a picture for you taken today.

So this is the start. This is the “before” photo. 30 and knackered. No makeup and some large red arrows to highlight the pesky post baby issues.

As from tomorrow morning I’m going to aim for 2 litres a day. Which with a post baby pelvic floor could be a more entertaining read than you may anticipate.

Blog to you soon x

Age Against The Machine

Hello there!
Remember me?
I was the one who used to write a blog called “My Life According to Marie Claire”.
In a nutshell, I vowed to do everything Marie Claire told me to do for a year. It was a strange little journey, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but more often than not quite funny. The aim was to find out if you did EVERYTHING a fashion magazine told you to do, would you eventually end up looking like the wistfully happy, beautiful, rich, stick insects that drape across the pages?
One of the tasks was to look into my fertility, which opened up a whole new can of worms and ultimately took the journey on a different path. I had to stop the blog. I am now at the end of that path. Older, fatter, completely knackered and the proud mother to a strapping little chap.

I have not been churned out the other side of pregnancy and birth ala Abbey Clancy, who (THANKS NOW MAGAZINE YOU SHITS) was pictured just 12 weeks post birth, in a bikini looking like she’d spent the last 12 weeks in a health spa. I have been churned out a dress size larger, complete with stretch marks, or “baby lightning” as I have dubbed them as it makes me feel hard. But the one thing that has really bothered me is how absolutely knackered I look. My lifestyle of hardly any sleep coupled with a heroic amount of cake seems to have aged me a good few years.

This got me thinking. The anti aging industry is a powerful machine. Promises of creams, injections and operations to turn back the clock are everywhere. But what actually works without you having to staple the loose skin from your jowls back behind your ears? I got googling and found an article from the Daily Telegraph’s Web site “50 Ways To Look Younger”. The article states “None of these suggestions is going to make you miraculously appear a decade younger, like a candidate on a makeover reality show. Nor will they turn you into Claudia Schiffer or Keira Knightley. Pick out what appeals to you and give it a whirl. There's nothing to lose but a few wrinkles.”

Luckily, I’m not aiming for a decade off, or miraculously turning into a celeb. I just want to look like me, pre baby. Halting the decent into a life where I use double sided sticky tape to fold my eye bags back up on themselves. So if like me, you are interested in what is hype and what actually improves the facial furrows sign up and hopefully this little journey will be as fun as the last one. (I’ll try not to get up the duff this time). X Mrs T