Comparison is the thief of joy.

Upon scrolling through every aspect of social media on a lazy sunday morning I couldn't help but realise every picture I saw made me feel bad about myself. I constantly ask myself why I can be so happy for my friends on their achievements whilst at the same time being made to feel lesser a person because of that.

When my friend has lost some weight and is looking amazing, I am so overjoyed for their success especially when I know how much it means to them. Then at the same time I ask myself, how come I haven't lost any weight yet? What's wrong with me?

When my other friend gets an amazing job that pays well and looks perfect, I'm so relieved they are getting settled and things are going in a great direction for them. Why am I suddenly also jealous? I recently just got my dream job a few weeks ago and yet I'm still jealous, why?

On a daily basis I hope I can become less jealous and more confident but there always seems to be something i can compare myself to, to suddenly make my achievements seem like nothing. I am often referring back to this quote 'comparison is the thief of joy' and it resonates so clearly with me. I can be so proud and relieved when i feel like i have achieved a goal of mine whether it is big or small, however within seconds this can be diminished into emptiness when I compare it with the success of somebody else. Everybody is on a different journey and everybody has a variety of goals throughout their life. Some people will achieve them sooner than others but that does not then limit your own chance of success. I know I can lose weight if I truly put my mind and full motivation into it regardless if my friends have lost weight too. 

It's almost embarrassing to admit to being jealous of friends because girls are always told to be supportive and i always love cheering my friends on. Although, nobody can control how they feel and I can't stop myself from feeling jealous. However I want to try to make a conscious effort to change the jealousy into inspiration. Why not be inspired by their weight loss or their dream job or their new house? Why not let their successes jump start you into your motivation in achieving goals? It is important to stop comparing myself with people on my Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and everything else! You need to celebrate your own victories and start applauding yourself for any personal achievements whether big or small. The encouragement and positivity can only push you further. This is going to be my focus for the next month and I want to see how this can positive effect my life and I hope this could inspire others to do the same.

Over and out,

Pale (Abi)Gail

x

Becoming a mermaid

My final piece of work at University for my Musical Theatre degree was a personal study. This allowed me to pick a topic of my choice as long as it related in some way to Musical Theatre as a whole. We could do a written or performance based dissertation and personally i chose to do a portfolio on The art of Make Up. This allowed me to look at a wide range of make up looks from stage or screen. I took inspiration from existing make up looks and recreated my own.As somebody who is obsessed with make up and love having a creative input myself, i had a lot of fun. One of my favourite looks was for The Little Mermaid as the character Ariel. Being my favourite disney princess i couldn't resist going a bit crazy with the makeup and GLITTER. I'll go through steps of the make up look if you want to recreate yourself after all halloween is under 4 months away...

Firstly, hope you're enjoying the cornish pasty hair, i was half way through performing in another show at University whilst doing my portfolio, it comes out soon! These pictures are the first three steps of creating this make up look. Start with a blank canvas as they say, i used a foundation colour which matched my skin tone and covered any blemishes/dark circles as best as it could, obviously not a miracle worker! I associate the turquoise and purple with Ariels colour palette due to her tail and shell bra and wanted to use these bright colours for the eye shadow. I used fairly cheap eyeshadows from the 120 Makeup Full Colour Eyeshadow Palette.I started with the turquoise blue as a base on the eyelid then went in with purple and worked from the outer area of the eye moving in to the crease and shading them together. I chose a strong brow mostly because defined eyebrows are very important on stage as they help emphasise the acting and emotions, normally i'd go for a much softer brow.

Next i added a winged eyeliner drawing the eyes out, giving the 'big disney eye' effect and helping to enhance the lashes when eventually on. I used the purple eyeshadow from before  and mixed it with a shadow based primer with a lot of shimmer. I shaded from my forehead above my brow bone round to my cheeks with the shadows and added turquoise in certain areas. To add a bit more sparkle i began with the glitter, who could resist, with purple and turquoise glitter i put it on top of the shadow using a liquid latex adhesive and applied with an old make up brush. Moreover to add a bit more sparkle to the eyes i added turquoise shadow close to the waterline under my eye and using a silver eyeliner i added MORE GLITTER (why not) to make it more magical and mermaidy. To complete the eyes i wore some outrageous false eyelashes complete with little flowers to give tribute to Ariels love for underwater flowers through the film.

I added the red lip to complete the Ariel look with some high beam on the cheek area to give an extra glow. This really helps enhance the makeup look on stage but still looks great for a fancy dress party or any other event where one might require to be a mermaid! This really was such a simple make up look even though it looks a teeensy bit complicated. 

 

Let me know what you think about the look and if you recreate it! Mermaids love a selfie, who knew.

Over and out,

Pale (Abi) Gail

x

Travelling Europe: All about Berlin

A previously mentioned in my last post i have just got back from a 5 week trip around Europe! Honestly, one of the most amazing and extremely busy experiences in my life so far. Travelling around on trains every 2 to 3 days and ending up in a different country most of the time was mind blowing. The whole trip went so fast and it never truly sunk in each time we arrived at a new destination, where we were. In preparation for the trip i kept trying to stumble across tips and advised places to go from people who had already travelled Europe. Of course, there was so much and everyone's opinions were hugely different. I wanted to shed a light on my personal opinion on the places i visited and am going to start with my first stop Berlin...

Fat Tire Bike Tour 

 Berlin was our first stop and it was a shock to the system to say the least. After getting off the flight and eventually finding the train station closest to the Schonenfeld airport(a 5 minute walk) we hit our first hurdle. As it was late at night there were no staff to help us figure out which train we had to get on and we could not find any heading for Alexanderplatz, despite it being the main area of Berlin or so we'd heard. Finally, we asked a man for some help and he put our destination into his phone and showed us which train we needed, hallelooooo. If you're thinking of going to Berlin, try to figure out the trains in advance(like we should have done). Upon eventually arriving at our hostel with more chaos following the poorly written directions we stumbled into our room at 11pm. To greet us was 6 sleeping people who weren't too happy with us scrambling around attempting to make our beds with an iphone light. After a few minutes and a man declaring we had 'already woken everybody up' we turned on the lights, said our hello's, made the beds then went off for a well deserved beer! 

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

We only had one full day in Berlin and had planned to do the Fat Tire Bike Tour which lasts around 5 hours with a stop in the beer garten half way through for drinks and food (well deserved may i say). Now i am not the fittest person in the world, although i have always danced i was a bit worried about the prospect of a 5 hour bike ride. However i was very pleasantly surprised. It was a light bike ride on the roads of which the cars are all very respectful of riders, plenty of stops to look at main sights and the longest period of cycling was around 10 minutes. Perfecto. I thoroughly enjoyed the bike ride, stopping off to see lots of sights and the tour guide, i forgot his name :(, but he was American and lovely! Much of Berlin had been destroyed in the war so there were a lot of rebuilt buildings and a lot more concrete than i had imagined. Cycling around we heard a lot about the history of the Berlin Wall and the second World War and for me not being much of an intellectual, i actually found it so interesting. I could write so much about what i saw and learnt but i wouldn't want to ruin it for any future bike riders! Just know, it was well worth the money.

World Clock in Berlin

A major downside to Berlin for me and my friend was the location of our hostel. We hadn't realised but we were on the complete opposite side to where all the bars, east side gallery and quite frankly all the fun was. Although we enjoyed the bike tour we just weren't too struck by what we had seen of Berlin in the day. It was only on returning to our hostel where we met two Americans that they explained where the east side gallery was and how it was so much more of a hub around that area. With that knowledge in hand and not wanting to miss out on a huge part of Berlin we headed over for the evening. We walked along the East Side Gallery, the stretch of the Berlin Wall with all of the amazing graffiti art work. It was amazing to see this after seeing many pictures online before, it was especially beautiful at night. We had some drinks around this area and then headed for a club to dance the night away. Some of the clubs in Berlin were quite strict and my friend not being 21 yet we could not go into the one we had wanted. However we did end up in Matrix which is beneath the underground and met some friendly faces and ended up having a decent first night. 

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery posing

It was so lucky we had been advised by the hostel roomies to visit this side of Berlin otherwise we would have left feeling much more disappointed by the city. I would love to revisit here again and stay in the right area this time as it just seemed a hive for quirky bars and clubs with interesting people on every corner. I'd say it was so much bigger than i thought it would be and location is absolutely key if you are planning to visit. It was fairly affordable and had we had more time there we may have seen a lot more.

Hope this helps any budding travellers out there!

Over and out,

Pale (Abi)Gail

 x

Top five products when travelling!

Woe is me, i have just returned home after travelling around Europe for 5 weeks. With an Interrail ticket in hand and my best friend by my side i managed to see 12 different places in 10 different countries. Staying in hostels along the way and getting on way too many trains to count i had some of the best experiences i could ever have imagined. Meeting people from all over the world, trying different foods and even getting on a paddle board- those that know me will understand the level of this achievement! In being away for 5 weeks, having a fairly tight budget and little space in my trusty back pack i had to keep my beauty products down to a minimum, luckily i chose well...

1. Hot Damn

Wowzers. Europe was HOT. With an exception to Berlin and Poland which were both a bit rainy when i visited, everywhere else had amazing weather. With highs in Italy at around 40°C i had to be suuuuper careful of sun exposure. As any pale person would understand, (especially us gingers) sunburn is just horrible. Much as i love her my mum was useless when i was a kid and i would get badly sunburnt all the time especially on my face and arms! Blistered, peely sunburn for days, radiating heat off my skin and pain for days that could ruin a holiday. As soon as i had half a brain for myself and realised how i could prevent it, i was practically obsessed with reapplying it every hour. Now, as a fully fledged adult and having been on a few holidays without my momma bear i have got sun protection down to a tee! My number one suncream product for the last 4 years has been: 

Riemann P20 Once a Day 10 Hours Protection SPF50 Plus

On applying this product to my face and body, i was able to walk around in direct sunlight of high temperatures as well as swim in the sea and pool in little to no shade -two main factors of holiday activities! It lasts all day in my experience, very water resistant as advertised, i would apply a little more on my face and shoulders if i had been in and out of the water a lot. Any other brands of suncream have been good for around a hour but i have found that once i've walked around for a while i begin getting red. it seems other suncreams aren't as strong or don't work as well for my skin type. I found only a few downsides to this sun protection however they weren't deal breakers. Firstly the smell is quite alcoholic and first thing in the morning, it wasn't the easiest to deal with. Secondly the product is very oily and especially when applied to the face you are left noticeably shiny,On the body it did not seem to be anywhere near as bad. i could usually combat this with a powder foundation. Lastly, yellow in colour the suncream can tend to stain certain clothing. Many of my white clothes have been damaged during the trip because of constant sun cream appliances and long wear of the clothes. However this can happen with any suncreams, my advice would be to wear darker shades or coloured clothing apposed to white, it did not effect these clothes to my knowledge.

2. (nearly) Flawless face

Not just on holiday, but for the last few years i have been in love with:

Max Factor Facefinity Compact shade - Porcelain

This is one of my favourite foundation powders for many reasons. The handy packing complete with mirror and sponge is easy to throw into your bag on a daily basis and lasts for a fairly long time. Compared to any other powders i have used, this gives the best coverage. for days when you don't want a heavy liquid foundation on but are still conscious of blemishes and dark circles- this is the perfect solution! Especially when i'm on holiday, i want something lightweight and natural to give me a bit of coverage without feeling caked in foundation day or night. This was a perfect solution to combat the shiny face caused by the greasy suncream(previously mentioned). A good thing to mention is the shade, i find it suits my skin tone fairly well without looking too orange, which many 'porcelain' shades can do.Furthermore, this product contains spf 20 which is great protection even in the english summers!

 On top of the sun protection it could get a bit patchy after a few hours but this did not bother me to be honest. Most importantly you could never tell in pictures lol! The only downsides to this product is that the sponge can obviously get full of bacteria after using it on a daily basis on top of suncream, sweat (it happens in 40 degrees ok!) and other makeup. I must admit i have used it with the same dirty sponge for a good few weeks and that could perhaps lead to the spread of spots and bacteria but it wasn't easy for me to have another solution whilst i was away! Usually at home i would apply the powder with a fresh sponge of a brush.

3.Squeaky Cleany

After walking up Mount Vesuvius or exploring the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia in the hot weather the only thing getting you through can be the refreshing shower waiting for you back at the hostels. Often a bitter dissappointment in the hostels, paying £8 a night it can't all be perfect! One product which really left me feeling extra clean and refreshed after the long days, or before them, was:

St Ives Apricot Scrub Blemish Fighting

There are different types of the scrub for different outcomes but i personally prefer the blemish fighting one. As someone who struggles with spots a little it makes me feel better to keep those at bay the best i can. I didn't see a huge difference in my spots with this product however it didn't make my skin worse so hey ho! I tried to only use this product two to three times a week as over exfoliation can be bad for your skin. I found after wearing the tough sun cream all day and make up, i really appreciated the exfoliation element which felt as though all the dirt and grime of the day was being cleansed off my face. It also smells amazing! I think this product is reasonably priced at around £4 as it lasts for around 10 weeks with one person using it a few times a week. 

4. Hair repair

The sun, the sea, the chlorine. My hair was hating it all. Being the sort of person who only washes my hair up to two times a week, having to wash it near on everyday and it being exposed to high temperatures daily really took a tole on my hair. With limited space in my backpack for toiletries i picked up:

Hask Argon Oil

I found this product in a nifty little bottle at Primark for only £1 i think! The first thing that struck me was the scent, oranges! Perfect match for my gingey hair :) It smelt so fresh and silky when applying it to the mid and ends of my hair. I do think this made a big difference and had i not been using an oil my hair would have been in a much worse condition at the end of the trip. The bottle, with a really safe lid that did not leak once (thank goodness) seemed as though it would last only a couple of times. i was fairly generous with the amount i used but it lasted me the entire trip with some to spare when i got back. I was extremely pleasantly surprised by how long it seemed to last me for such a decent price and decent product. 

5. Deo for the B.O

When travelling around for five weeks in the heat the major product you need is deodorant. This is one of my favourites at home and whilst i was away.

Women Sure Fragrance Collection Bright

On discovery of this product i was way too happy. I have always hated deodorants that smell of soap or old houses and when i first smelt this deodorant i was in heaven. A deodorant that smells nice! I'd describe them as flowery scents which are some of my favourites, there are others as part of the fragrance collection, the purple one was really nice too. I liked the handy sized aerosols that could fit into small bags too. I was particularly grateful of the nice smell when we had no perfume whilst away to spray on clothes and into my bag to improve it a little! The only downside to this deo is due to the small size i think, it isn't the most powerful spray. Although it didn't always make me feel protected i never felt like it didn't work so just have faith. 

I hope my pearls of wisdom might have helped anyone whether your a pale ginge like me or not! Do leave a comment down below if you want any more posts about my travels or favourite products.

Over and out,

Pale (Abi)Gail 

x

Quintro

Here's a quick intro...As a huge fan of the blogger and vlogger community i thought it was about time to give it a go myself. Considering i passed English and am quite happy to chat away with myself this shouldn't be too hard. Hm.

Well, as unknowledgable as i am, i like to think i can give a few hints and tips to people similar to me pale/ginger/bit of extra chub. This blog will just be a bit of fun and in sharing my words of not so much wisdom-i hope you enjoy! 

Leave a comment below if you can think of any blog suggestions you'd like me to give a try!

Over and out for now,

Pale (Abi)Gail