{Guestpost} - Top 3 Summer Foundation and SPF Cream Essentials

Hello everyone, I'm Maria and I'll be taking over Rachel's blog today! Before I get into my top 3 summer foundation and SPF cream essentials, I'd like to thank our kind, lovely Rachel for letting me guest post on her blog. You are a doll!

Since we're already in summer, rain or no rain, we should highly consider stepping up on our solar protection, the damaging sun rays cause nothing but wrinkles, spots and pain and no matter what age you are, you still need a great sunscreen cream.

As a person with sun allergies and sensitivity, I live in SPF creams all year around, I've tested many of them so today I?m here to talk about what worked best from my point of view.

If you never leave the house without foundation, like me, here are my top 3 picks for foundation with a high solar protection factor added:

Adding layers of sunscreen followed by foundation can feel pretty heavy on your skin, but luckily Shiseido makes an amazing sun protection liquid foundation that keeps your face flawless and protects it from the damaging sun. This is my all time favourite as it worked great and had a pretty good coverage.

Le Blanc by Chanel also has a good level of sunscreen and a bit of coverage, it?s just perfect if you are going for a natural, dewy look.

Clinique's Moisture Surge CC cream is also a great pick, somewhere in between the two previous ones as far as coverage goes, and it comes with SPF 30, which is just perfect for your face.

Now if you don't care much about coverage, or foundation at all for that matter, it's ok, you don't need to wear it. But you do need to protect yourself with a good sunscreen.

The best sunscreen for sun allergies that I have tried is the La Roche Posay Anthelios SPF 50. It protects you from the sun even in the middle of the day, but I must admit I don't love the smell of it too much. It doesn?t remain on the skin though, so don't worry.'

Even if it?s just SPF 30, Dermalogica?s sunscreen is a very effective one. I enjoy the refreshing feel and the clean scent of it also.

Another good liquid SPF 50 sunscreen is the Pure & Free liquid daily sunblock by Neutrogena. Liquid sunscreen is perfect if you have oily/combination skin, but if your face tends to get very dry in the summer, you can go for the cream version of the ones I mentioned.

I hope you found this helpful, thank you beautiful people for reading and thank you Rachel again for having me. Never forget your sunscreen!

Love, Maria.

{Guest Post} Pixi Silky Eye Pens

Today's Guest Post comes from the lovely Karen from A Delicate Rosie Beauty.

I'm no stranger to raccoon eyes. I have slightly oily eyelids which usually results in whatever eyeliner I'm wearing migrating from my lash line to under my eyes within about 30 minutes. For years I had given up on wearing anything other than powder eye liner because every time I tried a pencil co-workers would look at me in horror and beg to know why I as crying. 

However, I found these Pixi Silky Eye Pens last year, and it's been a game changer for me. These don't budge. The colors are gorgeous, and they're fairly inexpensive. The only eye liner I've found that's even better at staying put is Chantecaille's 24 Hour Eye Liner pens, but those are more than double the price of these Pixi eye liners and Pixi offers a wider range of colors. Needless to say I'm a fan. 

Pixi Endless Silky Eye Pens in Bronze Beam and Cafe Gold

from left: Bronze Beam, Cafe Gold

cute green floral design

Swatches from top: Bronze Beam, Cafe Gold

Look at how pretty these colors are! Bronze Beam is a limited edition so it has slightly swankier packaging. It's a shimmering bronze that just adds a subtle pop to your eyes. It's gorgeous. Cafe Gold has more glitter and is an antique gold. I love it. It reminds me of a few higher end Chanel liners I've had in the past....except unlike those it stays in place. These last all day on me without traveling. Thank goodness. 

These each retail for $12. I purchased them at Target, and I've been using them every day since. I use these with Chantecaille's Wild Horses palette for a subtle smoky brown eye, but these could be used with Urban Decay's Naked palette or any brown/bronze eye shadow combination. They're gorgeous, but most importantly they don't melt off of your face.

20th anniversary of the Diet Coke hunk

I bet that got your attention! We all love the adverts right, go on admit it... the Diet Coke Hunk especially Andrew Cooper (yep Google him). Well imagine my surprise when I was told that it was the 20th Anniversary celebration of the Diet Coke Hunt - TWENTY YEARS!!

So, in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Diet Coke Hunk, a Flirt Machine was unveiled at the Katy Perry Prismatic World Tour. However, this was no ordinary vending machine, has a real life Diet Coke Hunk inside, he gives out prizes for any those who get him hot under the collar with their flirting skills! Prizes included cans of Diet Coke, bunches of roses, tickets to climb Up at The O2 and passes to travel via the Thames Clippers.

Unveiled at the Katy Perry Prismatic World Tour concert, the Flirt Machine is no ordinary vending machine as it contained a real life hunk inside, who was dishing out prizes to anyone who could get his pulse racing with their flirting skills.

The video has just been released (enjoy!):

Diet Coke surprised visitors at The O2 in London last week by unveiling a vending machine that was more than meets the eye, as it contained a live Hunk who dished out prizes to anyone who could successfully flirt with him. 

Yao Yao Cha - The new craze in town!

Yes that is right, the new craze comes all the way from Taiwan and it is called Bubble tea! When I was invited along to come and try it out, I jumped at the chance and I am soooo glad I did - here is why!

Yao Yao Cha, literally means ‘shake, shake tea’ in Chinese, and the very first bubble tea shop has just opened at 24 Earlham Street, close to Covent Garden. If you live in London or are visiting, I urge you to go and try it, it might just change your life!

When I visited Yao Yao Cha, the first thing that entered my head was how bright and airy the shop was, everything is brightly coloured which instantly lifts your mood and it is amazingly cool inside, which in the hot weather is most definitely something you need.

I was offered my drink of choice to try and having never ever experienced Bubble Tea I opted for something safe - Salted Caramel, whenever I am in other establishments, this would probably be the flavour I would opt for in any new drink. That drink arrives in a plastic cup and whilst it was being made for me, the mechanics of what would be in it was explained to me in great detail. The salted caramel green tea, which also happens to be tea of the month for June, looks like similar products only at the bottom are these round little black balls, these are tapioca balls which go through a cooking process and add some depth and sweetness to the drink you are having. Now when I heard the word tapioca, I was immediatly thrust back into school with one of my favourite frog spawn puddings, all that was missing was some syrup in the middle. 

 These tapioca balls, which are edible, are actually really delicious and I could have quite happily sat there eating them from a bowl. 

Source

Source

Bubble tea apparently started in Taichun in Taiwan back in the 1980's and Susan, the owner wanted to bring a little bit of home to London and opened her first shop. Susan was absolutely lovely the whole two hours I was in her shop making my way through the menu whilst happily answering all the questions I was throwing her way. I admit that having given up caffeine back in October, I was now obsessed with fruit tea, mainly of the decaffeinated variety, but every now and again if I fancied a brew, I would have one. Whilst at Yao Yao Cha I was more than happy to try everything I could.

The menu itself currently has 24 different options which are within 4 different categories - Jasmine, Matcha, Frappe and Black teas. within each of those options are those 24 options which include:

• Blueberry
• Mango
• Passionfruit
• Cherry tomato - yes really
• Matcha green tea
• Taro
• Lemon
• Salted Caramel
• Chocolate

To name just afew, see HERE for more. Most of these combinations are the cold versions, though I am assured that as winter looms there will be hot varieties (exciting). As well as the main varieties you also have different types of balls which are called fruit pops which are flavoured balls which are full of flavour when you bite into them, cubed jellies such as coconut which I had in my final drink and again they are full of flavour and those tapioca balls which I have already mentioned.

This might not be the first time you have heard of Bubble Tea, apparently in SoHo it is also a popular drink served in many restaurants, but I am assure it just isn't the same and there are three things I picked up from Susan as to why that might be:

1. Those Balls that are soft on the outside and chewy on the inside – There is a strict cooking process of 4 hours with Susan, if you leave them for too long they come harder and sticky when they should be glazed in honey or brown sugar and soft enough to eat with a slight chewiness to them.  Apparently they also differ in size!
2. Well made tea – As there is a skill to making good green and black tea it is all in the brewing. If you leave it for too long it becomes bitter and leaves your mouth feeling strange, almost as though you have burnt the team but on the reverse, if you don't leave it long enough then there is no taste at all – so you should, if the tea has been made correctly, be able to taste the tea even with the flavouring.
3. To check the authenticity, check the Taro Bubble Tea – This fascinated me the most, the Taro tea I had was a beautiful lilac colour and it is quite hard to describe the taste, it wasn't too sweet nor was it too bitter it was perfectly inbetween the two which is the best way I know h0w to describe it.

Whilst I was at Yao Yao tea I made my way through a mango and strawberry frappe, a salted caramel tea of the month, a taro tea and the special tea which has been made just for the world cup, though it is very limited edition and the colour, as you can see below is simply amazing and it tastes just like a Caipirinhas but without the alcohol - it is instantly cooling and refreshing and perfect for this weather, but if you want to try it, I urge you to go there right now, because there are just 24 Virgin Caipirinhas available per day. Once they are gone, they are gone!

How much are they?  Well a regular size tea is just £3.50 and you can go large for just £1 extra.  Frappes are just £4.00.

The only thing I can say Blogger is that if you haven't been - Go, if you haven't tried it - Try it... it was honestly just fabulous and I am so grateful that I had the chance to go, test and drink as well as have Susan on hand to answer all my questions, as well as brainstorm some weird and wonderful flavours that could be introduced - look out for the July special!!

For more information you can find everything you need to know and more on the main website: www.yaoyaocha.com.  There is also Facebook and Twitter

Have you tried Yao Yao Cha yet?