clean

Why you should drink kombucha

beauTEE, beauty, essential, gym bag, Health, holistic, holistic medicene, inflamation, lifestyle, natrual

Kombucha has been around for centuries but as with many other things the western world is only just beginning to fully embrace the wonders of kombucha. I was first introduced to kombucha at the back end of 2018 after attending a yoga class followed by a vegan meal, the yoga teacher brought in some kombucha for people to pass around & try & I was hooked, almost immediately. I’m not going to lie my actual first response was eww this smells like beer but once you get past the smell it’s actually delicious.

Kevita kombucha

Just to be clear when I say I was hooked… I mean like full on addicted. My car is actually filled with kombucha bottles and my mom even added a bottle to my Christmas stocking! It’s that serious.

There’s a reason health fanatics are so pro-Kombucha and me! The fizzy drink is full of good gut bacteria that offers a natural energy boost, it’s known benefits are endless check them out:

1.} Detoxification.

2.} Joint care.

3.} Aid in digestion & gut health.

4.} Helps with constipation ( fun shit– literally ).

5.} It’s immune boosting.

6.} Aids in liver function.

7.} The tea is vegan, gluten-free, & contains no GMO

It’s so good that Deliciously Ella talks about it all the time & makes her own!

Healthy kombucha

Okay so I may get overly excited on this topic so let’s back track a little…

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a fermented (yes fermented hence the beer like smell) tea packed with millions of good bacteria. It’s a probiotic containing both Vitamins B & C. It’s super cleansing and detoxifying and I think it’s an absolute power house of an elixir. 

What are the benefits?

If you still need convincing Kombucha is excellent for improving gut health & gut health is on trend for 2020! For years we have all underestimated the importance of a good healthy gut even though we’ve all seen the Actimel adverts. The diet culture of reduced everything has had its day & people are turning to more raw & basic foods to reduce risk of allergies and chronic disease. No one needs the fake overly processed options anyway even if they are low fat! Kombucha packs a punch and works wonders for your internal health. (And tastes delicious with champagne)

Kombucha champagne cocktail

So what makes Kombucha such a magical drink?

The key ingredient is scoby – a miraculous piece of living organisms. Not only is it fantastic for making Kombucha but there are so many wonderful things you can do with them. I’ve read about multiple face masks you can easily make at home with scoby & a Nutribullet, blending it down and putting it on your face! I’ve not tried this yet but I’ll keep you updated on Instagram (if you don’t follow me head over to my page reali_tee ).

My favourite;

My favourite by far is Captain kombucha get the raspberry it’s insane! You can pick it up in Holland & Barrettes or Kevita in every flavour going!!!!

Captain kombucha raspberry

Kevita kombucha

Have you tried kombucha? Are you just as addicted or should I seek help?

– Tee x

How to keep your shit together this Christmas season.

beauTEE, lifestyle

‘Tis the season to be jolly! That said the closer we get to the big day the more stressed out we seem to get and we’re so focused making sure we’ve got everything for everyone else or too busy going out that the self care sometimes takes a back seat.

 

Whether you’re getting ready for your works do, going for festive drinks at lunch, seeing old friends or driving home, we all want to look our best this festive season.  Surviving Christmas does of course mean fighting hangovers, dull dehydrated skin, and puffy eyes & face thanks to one too many helpings at the Christmas buffet.

So here’s my Christmas self care survival guide, for your sanity, for your headaches and for your skin.

 

Relax this Christmas

1. Preparation
It sounds obvious, but with all the rushing around at Christmas, it can be so easy to forget the things we need.  I love a list and it feels so good when you tick something off. Whether it’s a list of presents to buy or a packing list if you’re away for a night or two.  Knickers, contact lenses, medication & skin care! Better to take too much than not enough.

Organisation

2. Eat well
When you’re starting every day in December with a lump of chocolate from your advent calendar it’s all too easy to let any kind of healthy eating plan go right out of the window! Treats are fine after all it’s Christmas but it’s also important to remember the age old adage that you are what you eat!  Trust me; you’ll feel, and look better for it. Stock up your plate with veggies and star your mornings with some fruit, these will help your insides (and let’s face it if you’re anything like me your liver will be working over time this month). Leave the bad dietary choices to your party goblin & make good choices while you can.

Bone broth veggie soup

3. Keep hydrated
Remember it’s 8 glasses of WATER a day, not Prosecco. During in the day I stick to water and herbal teas and only one coffee (don’t forget coffee dehydrates you!) Before heading out leave a glass of water next to your bed and down it before your head hits the pillow, you’ll thank yourself the day after. It’s not just the booze, long nights and cold days can leave my skin looking dull and dry, Summer Fridays jet lag mask is a absolute must for me most nights in December it’s so hydrating and leaves me skin with a nice healthy glow each morning. My second favourite beauty product is glossier balm dotcom, just a little bit is packed with antioxidants to nourish dry and chafed skin.

Hydration for the skin

4. Take your make-up off
This isn’t just a December rule,it should be an actual law! At the end of a long day, I get it your bed is so tempting and calling you at 1am but you need to resist. Stay strong and spend a couple of minutes getting it all off. Cleanse, tone and moisturise!  Lay your nighttime routine out before you leave so it’s there as a reminder when you’re back. No one wants a breakout at Christmas.

Nighttime routine

5. Relax
Between lunching with girlfriends, getting the food shopping done and fighting for the best Black Friday deals it’s easy to forget to chill out, especially if you’re out with friends but that can still be draining and if you’re out night after night your sleeping partner is bound to take a hit.  If you’re flagging, 15 minutes in a hot bath with a few drops of your favourite oils or natural salts does wonders for your soul – and keeps you glowing and refreshed!

6. Have fun!
It’ the most magical time of the year and you deserve to have fun! Try not to get yourself so bogged down with trying to make sure that everyone else has an amazing Christmas that you forget to have a good time yourself!  Step away from the already perfect Christmas tree and stop rearranging those baubles.  Christmas is a time of love, laughter and being in the moment.

Christmas fun

I hope you have a magical Christmas and enjoy all the festivities 🥳

What’s your survival tip for the festive season?

Love Tee

Are you doing these 3 things before a workout?

beauTEE, beauty, beauty inside out, Don’t sweat it!, essential, fitnessbeauty, glow up, gymskin, inflamation, life hack, lifestyle, makeup cheats, moisturiser, must do, natrual, skin

Happy Sunday everyone, doesn’t everything just feel better when the suns out? I’m loving working out outdoors this week, it’s such a refreshing change.

Every week at 5:30am Sunday morning my alarm is going off. Yep I’m THAT girl. Crazy early morning workout even on a weekend. What can I say I like to workout before giving myself an excuse not to, although I can think of plenty while hitting snooze, but I also like to get it over and done with and have the rest of the day to myself. Also let’s face it we look better after a workout, not immediately but when the beetroot has faded we look & feel better.

As you can imagine at 5:30 am I’m not sitting there giving myself a facial massage for lymphatic drainage and jade rolling. However, there are a few things I make sure I do, no matter how tired I am, before I work out. You don’t workout without a warm up so why push your skin? It’s just asking for breakouts. I like to keep this pre workout stage as simple as possible, think basic bitch but more basic.

Here’s my 3 pre workout skin care tips.

Light.

This sounds weird I know but switching lights on, open the curtains or get outside, tells your brain to get moving. We all need a little motivation first thing.

Mini cleanse.

I like to wash my face first thing and get out anything that may be blocking my pores. I have such dry skin that I use a fairly thick moisturiser at night so I get all of that out of my skin and let it breath again. In a rush? A all in 1 waterproof miscellaneous cleaning water works wonders and will life away any dirt in your pores while removing the need for additional rinse and repeat. I’ve also being using Elemis pro collagen cleansing balm it’s too early to review the product but I can tell you with complete certainty it smells AMAZING!

Pre workout skin cleanse

Hydration.

Green tea for my body (Although I’ve been loving mint water lately so refreshing) & my disciple for my face. I know I constantly go on about this anti inflammatory oil balanced cocktail but it really is a fav right now, I’m taking it everywhere and at £15 why should it not be in your bag, on your dresser in your gym locker? Back to the point, dehydrated skin is unhappy skin. It looks dull because dead skin cells are blocking your pores. Freshen it up and hydrate from the inside out.

Face mist

BONUS ROUND! If I’m heading outside on the occasion that it’s nice & dry ALWAYS WEAR SUNSCREEN. I’m a little crazy when it comes to this honestly 365 days a year no matter where in the world I am. If the sun is out so are the UV rays. All this hard work to look good I’m not going to let a wrinkle or two stop me.

Are you already doing any of these or have your own routines? Share below.

Love,

Tee

x

How to start your day faster & still look good.

beauTEE, beauty, beauty inside out, essential, fitnessbeauty, glam up, glow up, gymskin, Health, intention, life hack, lifestyle, moisturiser, must do, skin, style, sun, sunless tan

Happy National Rosé Day. Surely this should be a bank holiday weekend right? We should be allowed an extra day off work to enjoy a nice chilled glass of rosé, although the British weather right now isn’t exactly screaming summer vibes. Okay I’m going off on a tangent here, lets circle back…

I don’t know about you but I am not one of those girls that can spend 3 hours + getting ready for a night out, if I’m going out I want to be out out! The whole, shower, wash my hair, blow dry, style, prime face etc etc just gets boring to me. I’m a one hour girl at most. I’d much rather be out drinking the rosé than reapplying my eyeliner for the 3rd time because the flick wasn’t right.

National rosé day

I’m an extrovert get me out of here…

My point is whether I’m going from the gym to the office, or from bed to the coffee shop or more importantly heading to a bar I want to be getting to where I need to be, not messing about with three different shades of blusher. But of course I ALWAYS have to look presentable, it’s just nice to take some pride in yourself right. So (no surprises here) but I have a routine, and I have this down to 45 minutes. It doesn’t matter if I’m getting ready at the gym or in my bedroom I know what products I need where they’ll be and I’m good to go.

Here are a 3 hacks I do to make sure my mornings start off right, if anything throws me off course too early it changes the whole tone of my day and I find that it will just throw me off, anyone else?

1) Sort it out the night before. Yes I’m hyper organised and if being a PA paid more I’d probably do that just for the enjoyment of organising peoples lives, but here’s what I do. I prep EVERYTHING the night before, & I mean EVERYTHING. Even the underwear I’m wearing. Because I think sleep is so important I like to get every last second I can in bed so all my meals will be prepped the night before, if I’m going to the gym my gym bag is packed all toiletries in the bag and gym clothes laid out on my chair so I can literally get out of bed, wash my face drink some water, brush my teeth get a peppermint tea to go and head straight out. This can result ion carrying about 10 different bags but it just makes life easier. I’ll also make an iced coffee the night before. I really try to limit how much money I spend on coffee a month and since I started getting coffee pods from Grind delivered (this is totally on point today as all their branding is pink, just like rosé) my home made coffees are just better. Sorry coffee shops but it’s true, I get the best London coffee straight out of my Birmingham home. Anyway, bags are packed food is ready and coffee is good to go. I’m out the door in 15 minutes.

Prepackaged your stuff the night before

2) Keep your stuff together. I feel like everyone is on the tidying hype lately with the likes of Mrs Hinch & Marie Kondo all over social media that organisation is in fashion. With fashion comes loads of cute boxes & storage options. I have two little boxes one for AM & one for PM (these are actually the boxes that my Grind orders arrived in, no plug I promise but they’re the perfect size, pink & really cute). As I’ve mentioned before I love to buy stuff in sample sizes because it’s just more gym bag friendly. This makes life so much easier when getting ready because I know exactly where my stuff is so I can just grab & go. Ironically there are three things I ALWAYS lose… headphones (I forget which pocket of which jeans/ coat/ bag I was wearing) glasses (which is annoying once I’ve taken my lenses out, now I need glasses to find my glasses) & keys…

The AM box

Keeping your stuff together

3) Keep the makeup looking simple. Call me a basic bitch but I’m not a fan of a heavy made up face. I like to look like me, and if it’s a day I plan to go running at lunch or to the gym after work I really don’t want to spend ages removing layers and layers of makeup. Honestly once the skin care is done, I can keep it as simple as 4 products. IT Cosmetics CC cream, clear brow gel to brush my brows into place, bit of mascara (honestly I can live without this some days especially if I’m wearing my glasses, big glasses are great to hide behind) & Lanolips 101 ointment, 100% natural multi-balm for your lips. I love this product so much. You only need a little but it really softens the lips smells great and leaves a classy shine.

Must have’s on the go

There you have it, my 3 little hacks to getting out the house and ordering that rosé so much quicker.

As usual nothing mention in this posted was gifted or sponsored but things I love and the options are my own, but I want to know yours.

What do you do on the go? Any top secrets on how to look completely put together in under an hour?

I want to know…

Love,

Tee

Gym hair don’t care!

beauTEE, beauty, Don’t sweat it!, essential, fitness, glow up, intention, life hack, lifestyle, must do, skin, style

I’m so protective over my hair it’s unreal. I can be like nooo my hair! But with good reason, I damaged it so badly a few years back with no stop bleach and heat that it was actually frizzled at the front. The only solution was to cut my hair into a lob, not like this made much difference considering it kept splitting anyway. So now I do everything to keep it long and healthy to the point where I just don’t wash it. It’s effort and I don’t particularly enjoy it. If you’re a regular gym goer than you know the struggle is real, because you’re most likely going to work up a sweat tomorrow so what’s the point. Gym hair, don’t care! I’ve also learnt is not smart to train arms the day you wash your hair because holding the hairdryer for so long will come back to bite you! Anyway it’s so much more fun to style dirty hair. What can I say washing my hair is not for me. However if you do a LOT of cardio you probably need to wash your hair at least twice a week to help your scalp.

I’ve recently stretched my washes out to once a week, and quickly learnt the dirtier the better. Anyway who has the time to wash their hair everyday? I’ve got this down to swimming once a week and then washing my hair straight away.

Gym hair wash

Here’s why I don’t wash my hair;

1) I pay for my colour, why wash it straight out? It’s true blondes have more fun but the more you wash your hair the more you wash out the colour. I’ve never been able to keep ashy silver tones in my hair because it naturally has a red tint (thanks dad) but since I started to wash it weekly and switched to Charles Worthington toning shampoo the colour has never been better. Exactly what I wanted, and that’s still the case 8 weeks later. When I do wash my hair I always opt for sulphate free shampoo, this one is currently still my favourite. (Added bonus shampoo and conditioner lasts sooo much longer when you use it less often)

2) It strips out your natural oils, it’s the oils in your hair that make it look shiny and healthy. Isn’t that what everyone wants? So why strip them out, makes no sense to me. You can also end up causing your scalp to produce more oils to try and replace what you’ve washed out, leaving your hair more greasy and you end up in a vicious wash cycle.

3) It’s so much easier to style. Yep, probably helped by the amount of dry shampoo I use but my hair has so much more texture and thickness to it that when I style it it actually does what I wanted, most of the time.

Hair style curls

Here’s some tips for keeping it healthy;

1) The sleep bun, doesn’t need to be a bun but keep it up/ tied back. Buns are great and I use these great crocodile clips which don’t leave a mark in my hair but braids work just as well. I’ve honestly noticed a huge difference in my hair since sleeping with it up more, when I sleep with it down it’s noticeable greasy the day after. Last time I slept with it down my boyfriend rolled onto it in the night and I was trapped, lesson learnt.

Sleep bun

2) Hair mask, we all love a good hair mask but my hair is always so much nicer after a hair mask and gym session. Yes that’s right a hair mask and gym session, I heat from my workout helps the hair mask and it’s more efficient instead of sitting around waiting to wash it out. I will comb my favourite mask through my hair from root to ends and then tie it up, completely out of my face so no product touches my skin.

3) Grapefruit oil, I have a little spray bottle with a concoction of water and grapefruit oil. Post workout I spray a little water on my roots and blow dry them for thickness the spray a little grapefruit to make it smell nice. And I’m good to go.

Hair care

It’s so much fun to get creative with your hair when it’s dirt, here’s a few of my favourite styles;

Up down do

Double buns

Vintage wrap

When it comes to washing your hair I’m definitely a less is more girl.

What about you? Hair secrets accepted below.

Love

Tee

x

Ps: nothing in this post was sponsored or gifted just products and things I’ve tried and liked.