A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Nggggggghhhhhhh.

That’s the sound of me procrastinating over the writing of this post.  I am one of those annoying oversharers by nature, but there are some things in life that are easier to share than others right?  I’ll show you my pretty nails, you show me your hairy chins?  Or maybe not.  But… it’s been a year since my last update.

OK, I’ll show you my hairy chin and scare off any poor site visitor who doesn’t know the back story.

You see, I have PCOS – which stands for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  It’s quite a common thing to have and affects around 1in10 women in the UK.  To over-simplify it a bit (a lot), it means that your hormones are whack… which brings about all sorts of rubbish symptoms including: infertility, acne, weight gain, hirsutism (excess hair).  Those are the playful symptoms, some of the more serious ones (heart disease & diabetes being two of them) are yet to be fully understood as the syndrome was only officially recognised as affecting more than just a woman’s ability to procreate a mere 30 years ago.

Not everyone gets every symptom.  Personally, I experience: infertility *looks at Leila with wonder etc. etc.*, weight-gain (well, I might aswell blame it on something?), hirsutism, and insulin resistance (which is where your body fails to react to the release of insulin in a normal manner – may or may not be a precursor to diabetes).

Still being fairly young and vain, my biggest hatred of the syndrome when I was first diagnosed was directed toward the hirsutism.  No girl in their teens wants to wake up and see a member of ZZ Top looking back at them in the mirror.

This was the extent of my hirsutism a couple of years ago, prior to undergoing laser hair removal.

Devastating is the most accurate word I can use to describe how something like this can make you feel.  Masculine would be the other.

This is how my chin looks today.  Take note that this is almost TWO weeks of hair growth, not two days as shown above.

Two freakin’ weeks people.

I’m actually inclined to believe that the top lip is generic old-lady (getting there) moustache growth rather than hormone related.  It’s fine and downy (which you can probably see), my old hair-growth in this area was coarse and stubbly.  Which basically means that I’ve just shown you my ‘tache and I have no “hormonal” excuse for it.  Cringe.

To say that my life has been changed by laser hair removal is an understatement.  You only need to look at the pictures to understand the daily struggle I had with excess hair.

Let me clarify exactly what I’ve had done…

In the summer of 2010 – I had 6 laser sessions at my local sk:n clinic in Southampton (I received this treatment gratis, so that I could review the service).  It was fantastic and I can’t recommend them enough – I vlogged about most of my sessions, you can find the posts by reading my laser hair removal adventures tag.  I followed this up in the Summer of 2011 with 5 IPL (intense pulsed light) sessions that I purchased via Groupon at another local salon.  This ‘topped up’ my original treatment and kept things gradually improving.

We’re now approaching Summer 2012 and I’ve just booked in for 6 IPL sessions at another local salon, again via Groupon.  The cost for the 6 sessions is in the region of £100.  A small yearly price to pay in order to remain almost completely hair-free.

There’s a common misconception about laser hair removal and IPL.  It’s not permanent hair removal and if you ever see it advertised as such, call bullshit on the provider.  It’s permanent hair reduction and salons are not actually legally entitled to use any other words to describe it.  As you can see from my experiences, it’s pretty full-on (fan-frickin-tastic) permanent hair reduction.  I would say that my hair growth has been reduced by at least 70% and shaving only once a week (once a fortnight sometimes) instead of twice a day has ensured that I will forever advocate the use of laser hair removal for PCOS sufferers.

Feel free to email me if you have any more sensitive questions you think I might be able to help with about the process.  Let me know how you guys are doing with the PCOS crap, I know that many of you have it (and it’s how you found the blog in the first place!)

OK, you can all stop looking at my chin now.

Remember my post a couple of weeks ago about bringing salon-style beauty to the comfort of your own home? I wasn’t convinced that DIY options generally lived up to the expectations or convenience of salon service. Well, the people at Sensationail rose to the challenge and sent me the Sensationail Starter Kit* to give it a whirl for myself. I’ll do the review in two-parts, today is the application and initial results and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to let you know how the manicure lasted.

I should also preface this by saying that I’ve had two gelish/shellac-type exeriences in a salon and both were poor, with lifting after only a few days. That’s Groupon on for you I guess? Basically, I’ll admit that my expectations aren’t all that high.

The kit is frankly over-priced at £85 in the UK. Over-priced? I hear you say. Yes, not because it’s lacking in quality (although the bottles I received did have the writing peeling off them and the labels weren’t fully stuck down which didn’t give the best impression of quality) but because in the U.S., our neighbours across the pond are charged $59.99 for the same kit. That’s around £35.

Cross-border rip-offs aside, in theory – you should still be able to break even fairly easily with this kit against the cost of getting your nails done in a salon. The average price in my area for shellac/gelish nails is around £22 – so you’re looking at around 5 manicures before you get your money’s worth. Which is all well and good, providing the kit lives up to its name and actually provides a good quality gel nail that lasts the course.

I’ll admit that application was indeed, very simple and didn’t cause a single problem for me. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, the lamp worked just as it should (although I did wonder how I was going to fit all five fingers and thumbs inside until I read that you er, don’t).

In the starter kit, you receive: an LED curing lamp, gel cleanser (basically an alcohol solution), gel primer (nail dehydrator/bonder), gel base/top coat, gel colour, and some lint-free swabs.

Following the instructions, from start-to-finish, I was completed in around 30-minutes and the nails were completely bone dry at the end of it. The beauty of the UV-activated gel is that you have ample time to get your manicure applied neatly, my biggest tip would be to keep the coats as thin as possible. The base/top coat in particular had a tendency to pool in my cuticles while I was completing the other nails, not really a fault of the system… simply a sign that my coats were not thin enough.

If you do get some gel on your skin, make sure you wipe it off before curing…. not only will it feel pretty uncomfortable with this hard resin stuck to your skin but it will also cause your manicure to prematurely lift at the edges.

Here’s my finished result… basically, it looks and feels great.

I’m going to embed a tutorial video which I found on the Boots website, you may notice that she hasn’t capped the tips of her nails with the polish (you can see this at the end) – this is a pretty crucial step when it comes to making gel nails last. If you want them to stay the distance, you need to take a little more time to ensure that you’ve bullet-proofed your manicure.

I haven’t been able to fault the application process but the bottles in the starter kit are tiny and feel/look cheap. The UK price hike is outrageous. Ultimately, my final thoughts on Sensationail’s worth will come down to how long this manicure lasts on me. I’ll be back with an update soon, but hopefully not too soon eh?

Check out the brand’s UK Facebook page for more information, they’re also active on Twitter (something this Twitter-addict always likes to see!)

You can purchase the Sensationail Starter Kit instore and online at Boots.com, priced at £85.00 (individual colour gels are priced at £15.00 each)

* press sample