Beauty: Holo Taco Review

Why holo everyone, it’s me, Crystina with no ‘h’ :p

You may have noticed in my Get Abs Challenge Day 12 photo that I had some nice fancy nails. The eagle-eyed among you may even have been able to identify that, yes, it is indeed Holo Taco nail polish. Allow me to tell you all about it!

Holo Taco is the brand created by YouTuber Cristine aka Simply Nailogical. I’m super late to the party, but I only found her videos in the past few weeks or so and only heard of her recently after Emily D. Baker mentioned her in a live stream at some point. In fact, I only found her channel after her most recent “I’m Not A YouTuber Anymore” video showed up on my recommended feed.

I was instantly taken with her professionalism and personality. A bunch of videos and nail oil later, I put in a Holo Taco order and waited in eager anticipation of the arrival of my new nail polishes. On Friday, they finally arrived.

I’m not the type to want holographic or bright coloured nail polishes. In fact, I barely get my nails done ever. I had a mani-pedi a few months ago but before that I don’t remember the last time I had one. I didn’t even get my nails done for my own wedding (I wore stick-ons) and, while there was a time where I went to a brilliant nail tech in LA, she retired so no more nice nails for me lol.

After purchasing some of the nail care products Cristine suggested and using nail oil, I could literally see a difference in the health of my nails. That was enough to convince me that Cristine was legit and knew what she was doing. Even if she only scored 60-something-% on the nail technician test ;)

Originally I was just going to buy her base coat and holo taco/matte taco top coats to wear as a nude polish, but out of a desire for free shipping, I took a look at the polishes available in the build-your-own bundle and fell in love with the One Coat Black with Gold Flakie Taco.

The OCB is pretty famous in its own right because Cristine wears it so much haha. But I was unfamiliar with everything else to be honest. It was a little overwhelming to browse the website as an absolute nail newbie and I hadn’t watched enough of her polish-intro videos to understand what all the cremes and toppers and holo and multichrome etc. were, but I think that was probably my error for not Simply Watching The Right Videos lol.

I’m still very happy with what I ended up with, and I’m already considering buying more! Full review below.

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I Tried Going No-Poo for 18 Days

As the title suggests: I tried to do no-poo for 18 days. That’s no shampooing my hair at all, and if possible not washing for as long as my hair will permit, starting 1st June.

Yep, perhaps I have gone crazy, or perhaps I’ve been newly inspired? Or perhaps I’m just next level lazy. But now that lockdown is easing and I have had my COVID vaccine, what better way to celebrate re-engaging in social life but to… not wash my hair for almost 3 weeks. Lol. (To clarify, I am still showering during this period, just not shampooing my hair. Hygiene is important.)

To be fair, it’s something I have attempted and failed a couple of times in the past, so I don’t have high hopes that it’ll somehow come to fruition this time. In fact, this attempt comes hot off the tail of another failed attempt. I lasted about 4 days before my scalp got so itchy and gross that I had to wash it with water, and a week before I gave up and had to shampoo my hair. Same thing happened at the start of quarantine when I first saw videos about it cropping up on YouTube.

But COVID restrictions are being lifted, I have a much-needed haircut scheduled for 18th June, so figured I may as well try once more as a last hurrah, and will make sure to tip my hairdresser well when the time comes haha.

When I was younger, I only washed my hair every 3-5 days and it was always fine, but at some point in my life it was stigmatised and I was told that I should be washing my hair daily. That never came naturally to me because my hair just… never got that greasy or gross in a day? I did start washing my hair more frequently, and now that I think about it, all it did was make my hair greasier if I didn’t shampoo & condition it every day or two.

Fast forward to these days, there’s a huge No-Poo movement where many, many people claim to have not shampooed their hair for months or years and their hair looks great. All of a sudden I don’t feel bad for not washing my hair as frequently, and if there’s a chance I could wash it even less frequently and have it still be fine, perfect haha.

Naturally, if you’re reading this post, it means that… well, something has happened. Either I gave up, or I succeeded. Either way, there will be photos of potentially very gross-looking hair and scalp so if you’re morbidly curious and not easily disgusted, read on. If you don’t want to read about my full experience and would just like to skip to my key takeaways from this, click here.

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What’s Up?

Quick little update: I’m doing well. We’ve still been sheltering at home. I’ve been lazy with posting again, but mostly because I’ve simply been distracted. It’s been really fun getting to know new friends on some of the Discord groups I’ve joined — one in particular has taken up a lot of my time and attention.

I’ve been taking good care of myself. Look at the cute little bunny ear headband! Haha. I use it to keep my hair out of my face during my skincare routine. As of this week, I’ve decided to finally ditch the Korean skincare products I purchased from Costco a while back – honestly, they aren’t doing much for my skin – and have gone back to my tried and true favourite skincare brand: ESPA. I’m much more excited and less overwhelmed to be doing my skincare daily now.

They’re a UK skincare brand so their products are pretty pricey in US. Last time my family came to visit in February I had them bring some over from England. It’s pretty much the only skincare brand I’ll use. I’m hoping to write a post about it soon but given my update schedule who really knows.

This year has flown by. Workout-wise, I haven’t done too much recently either, but I’ve been following MOVE-mber a little better over the past week or so! From Friday onwards, though, I’ll have a group of workout buddies to try out Chloe Ting’s 2020 2 Week Shred Challenge with, which I’m really looking forward to.

Since it’s only two weeks long again, I’ll try to document my progress using the same format I used for the 2019 2 Week Shred Challenge back in May. The new challenge looks a lot more intense so I had been too intimidated to try it, but since I have so many workout buddies now I’m feeling freshly motivated.

Her Ep 1. Full Body Workout video for the 2020 2WS challenge contains too many jumps for me (downstairs neighbours will still complain) so I’m going to be substituting it with her latest 15min Full Body Workout video. I’ve done it a couple of times for MOVE-mber and have really enjoyed it.

Another update is taking care of my hair. Both Jacky and I had noticed significant amounts of hair loss in our apt here and we suspected it could be the water. We recently got a water filter for our shower and let me tell you it has so far made a world of difference. (Look at the above photo! All hair gone! Lol, just kidding.)

I’ll keep using it for a while and if it lasts and continues to make a visible difference I’ll write about it. Speak again soon!

Muchos love,

Bobbie

Beauty: Current Faves

Believe it or not, the above two photos were taken within minutes from one another and both in the same room, and neither were taken with the lights on. Ah, the magic of sitting by the window vs not haha.

Today was a day where I felt a rare burst of productivity and energy when I woke up and I liked the way my skin looked after having done my 5-step Korean skincare routine (okay so it’s more like 5-7 steps depending on when you do it) so I decided to put on some make-up. And take this opportunity to write about a few of my favourite products.

In these pictures I am wearing:

– No Poreblem Primer (part of the Korean skincare routine)
– Billion Dollar Brows Mad About Brows eyebrow liner*
– Lord & Berry Line/Shade eyeliner in Dark Black*
– Annayake 24hr Nude Moisturizing Veil in Clair (kinda like BB Cream – it’s very lightweight, comes out dark but then magically matches your skin tone once on)*
– Physicians Formula Bronze Booster (apparently discontinued – similar)*
– Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited Supreme Matte lipstick in shade 342
– Mac Mineralize Blush in Warm Soul
– Blinc Mascara
Items marked * were gifted to me back when I worked in the industry (yep, they’re old. I probably shouldn’t be using them but I like them and don’t want to waste them) and to be honest, I never knew the value of these until now. Oh my gosh some of them are PRICEY O_O

But we’re not here to talk about all of those. We are here to talk about these three beauties:

The last 3 on my list; I absolutely adore these and I’ll tell you why.

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Retail Therapy

It’s quite rare that I ever get a weekend here in London.
Previously every weekend I had free was spent jetting back to my home-home in Coventry for driving lessons, and eventually my driving test a couple of weeks ago (I passed!  Hooray!).
So on a rare and wondrous occasion where I am both in London and the weather is actually decent for once, it’s time to go out and about for a bit.
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