In April I've Loved...

Along with the banana, strawberries, honey and lemon smoothies I'm getting into the habit to drink every afternoon, these are the things that I've loved in April...

Beauty.

Yummy Mummy Shower Gel & Body Conditioner ℅ Lush.

My skin has been so sensitive, itchy and problematic that I'm blessing the existence of gentle natural body products, the only ones I can actually put on my skin nowadays! My favourite shower combination of the moment comes under the name of Yummy Mummy, in both shower gel and body conditioner form: the range is available now at Lush exclusively for Mother's Day, and I can't think of a better gift to give to a mum! The scent is sweet and floral with geranium and orange notes, the shower gel has some pretty silver glitters in there (which doesn't stick to the skin, but shine while you're foaming it up on your body) and the body conditioner contains organic cocoa butter which makes it such a good moisturizer without feeling sticky or thick on the skin. I probably need to stock on these two before they're gone!

Garnier Micellar Water - Natural Organic Deodorant ℅ Earth Conscious.

I've always been such a fan of Bioderma that I wasn't able to think of switching it up with something different one day. I haven't changed the typology of the product at all, but one day, in desperate need of a makeup remover that was a bit cheaper than my usual choice, I picked up the Garnier alternative - this is how I got to cynically try the Garnier micellar water to discover it's actually a valid alternative to other expensive offerings. It's as gentle as Bioderma and as good to remove my makeup (even though I'll always be partial to my beloved Bioderma, you know!).

As I said, my skin is being very dull and problematic over all my body, so it came the day when I stopped using all those alcoholic deodorant that were just a torture to me and got back to my Natural Organic Deodorant by Earth Conscious. It smells like lavender and comes in a creamy consistency that is extremely easy to apply. It doesn't last as long as other non-natural deodorants, but it doesn't ever cause itchiness or redness on my skin, which is a huge bonus!

Style.

ASOS JOB ON Lace Up Leather Shoes.

I remember featuring these shoes in my first spring wishlist this year: I've spotted them months ago and kept my eyes on them ever since, until they went on sale and I received a 10% off coupon via email - it was meant to be. Not only they turned out to be the cutest shoes I own, but also the comfiest softest pair I could ever wish for! They're made of soft real leather, and there's something about the colours that make them perfect to be paired with any spring outfit really!

Home.

IKEA 365+ Glasses & Coasters.

Since the day I've spotted and bought this glass set, I've been obsessed: they even inspired a couple of DIY projects, but not only that, they're also super pretty to drink coffee or smoothies in! I love the simplicity of the clear glass and the cork coaster combination, so much that I have a feeling I'll be adding more similar homeware to the collection!

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These are my favourites for the month of April! I'd love to discover new things in the next month, so let me know what you've loved this month! x

Get a tan :: a guide!

With the weather starting to be nicer and warmer, the occasion to go out bare legs start to be more frequent, even for one that wears tights as long as she can. If some of you are as pale as I am, you'll understand how revolutionary was to me to introduce self tanners in my life, and if one thing is for sure is that, starting from now, they are a firm staple in my late spring and summer days (especially since I'm not the huge fan of natural tanning!). After typing down my Guide to mark free self tanning almost an exact year ago, I thought it was about time to share my self tanning tips all over again!

CLEANSE, SCRUB, EXFOLIATE ; Something that hasn't change during this year, is the importance to me to cleanse and scrub my skin before using a self tanner. You want to apply it on a clean and smooth skin, and no doubts the cleaner and smoother it'll be, the more your tan would look natural and last longer!

Especially if I'm applying my self tanner all over my body, I think it's important to start scrubbing a week or a few days earlier, and then scrub again the same day of the application!

MOISTURIZE ; No one likes their tan looking like patches of skin are falling apart, this is why to me it's very important to hydrate especially where my skin is very dry and flaky. This isn't something of a quick process, it's necessary to have consistency with it and apply a moisturizer every day (or almost) both before and after applying a self tanner. Having a nourished skin means the tan will look at its best and last longer!

Being I probably the laziest when it comes to apply moisturizers, I've been quite the fan of all those body conditioners that only need to be applied in the shower and rinsed off. I highly suggest to try one of them it you feel the same as me about sticky legs in tight denim!

PICK A FORMULA ; Coming to the self tanner itself, I bet we all have our preferences. As much as I like mousse formulas for my body, I go hand in hand with a serum and nothing else for my face. However there are so many different formulas one can chose from, that there's something for every taste really: mousse, serum, spray, lotion, cream and more usually all available on online beauty retailers that stock a wide range of tanning products like Just My Look.

If you're new to self tanning, try the mousse option (try Fake Bake): to me, it's the easier and quicker to apply and with a tiny bit of practice it's easy to achieve a perfect tan effect! I'm not the big tanning accelerators fan, but if you are after a natural tan and are considering one of them, then never forget the importance of a SPF!

DON'T DO IT WITH BARE HANDS! ; Always use a tanning mitt, it will gives a nicer smoother effect, plus your hands won't turn and stay orange for days afterward!

BE CONSISTENT ; Especially if you're going for a serum or a gradual tanner, remember to be consistent with both the tanning but also moisturizing and scrubbing, to avoid to build up too much unnatural colour and create darker patches.

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This are all my tips and tricks for a beautiful and natural looking fake tan! I'd love to know if you have more advices - as one never really knows enough tricks to make her tan look at its best, right?! x

* don't forget to enter my blog's first birthday giveaway! *

#Guiltfree Easter at Lush

I've always been a fan of Lush Christmas ranges and that's actually the main occasion I think a Lush haul is totally necessary. Besides from their hair products that are staples in my haircare routine, I've never really been attracted by their other collections, maybe just because I'm not a huge bath lover and surely I am not when the weather is nice, and yet when it's super freezing outside, then it's actually lovely to take some time with a steamy bath and a lot of deliciously smelling bubbles! I love their shower gels but again I'm always been a fan of their sweet winter scents, so I rarely venture into a Lush store when wintertime is over.

When I was invited to discover their spring and Easter range, it was like a reminder that Lush does exist in other periods of the year either than only at Christmas, and that their innovative products and scents might be as interesting as in wintertime especially now that pastel colours and floral scents are on the agenda (and how can't you love them both?!). So I headed there to discover what they had in store for Easter this year, and between a glass or two of delicious healthy orange, carrot and apple juice and lime and cucumber water, I've fallen in love with Lush again like my first time!

Think of springtime in the form of pastel coloured bath bombs, carrot shaped soaps, bath golden eggs, and glittery jellies, add a handful of bunnies and bees and you get the magic formula behind this year Lush Easter and Spring collection! I couldn't help but fall in love with their Carrot Soap, whose original shape is a big carrot and that, once cutted into slices, reveals a white bunny rabbit right at its heart, with a delicious smell of carrots and lemon, filled with a white heart of fair trade organic cocoa butter. But not only that, their Immaculate Eggception Bath Bomb is super fun: coming with a little surprise chick or bunny shaped bath bomb inside, is big enough for being used in three different baths!

Lush is promoting a #GuiltFree campaign this spring where environmentally-friendly and reusable are two main key words. They aim to introduce more Knot-Wraps as an eco-friendly alternative to classic harmful for the environment Easter eggs packagings as they make for perfect reusable, cute and colourful packaging that easily transforms into gift-wraps, scarves, picnic bags, decorations. At Lush they showed us how a few simple sequences of knots and twists can create lovely bags, gift-wraps and chocolate eggs packagings! I especially love their new Easter themed Hoppity Poppity Knot-Wrap (isn't it the cutest thing ever?!), and now I only have to decide which of the infinite ways to use it is my favourite!

On the same wavelength, they introduced us all to the bases that bring together everyday an old favourite of mine, their Cupcake Fresh Face Mask - can you see a recurrent theme here with all the chocolate, carrots and bunnies?! In fact they showed us how they create Cupcake from scratch, how they put together all the ingredients that compose one of their most famous fresh masks. Lush buys cocoa beans in Columbia from a group of non-violent and peaceful farmers, then transforms them in cocoa powder and cocoa butter that are 100% organic and coming from their fair trade. Discovering the story behind it and the ingredients that make it such a good fresh mask, totally make me love Cupcake even more and I'm now extremely excited to put it on my face! Making my own chocolate mask and having my own "Made by" label on a Lush product can now be ticked off my to-do list!

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Check Lush Easter range out to discover all their new products and fall in love with their pastel and bright colours and citrus floral scents! How did you spend your Easter weekend? x

Easter Pastels

Springtime is by far my favourite time of the year (did you guess it already?!) and Easter is my favourite holiday second only to Christmas and no doubts a huge part of the deal is due to the amount of beautiful flowers you can spot everywhere while walking along a street, the amazing view of trees covered in pink blossoms, the huge amount of bunny and Easter themed cards and objects you can spot in stores around this time of the year, all of which makes for the perfect excuse to wear, buy and cover myself in pastel coloured things, clothes, foods and nail varnishes! No real need to wonder if pastels really do bring you in a happy, relaxed, inspired, calm, content and joyful mood!

I've been buying a few too many pastel objects recently, but some are actually been dusted off from the previous years, and there hasn't been a thing that made me in a happier mood than finding and falling back in love with pink hair bows, lipsticks and measuring cups and blue washi tape, paper straws and tea scented erasers! I couldn't help but display them all in a cute flat lay and snapping away with the help of some Lindt Gold Bunnies (old Easter favourites of all time indeed - I can remember being a child and getting overly excited about my milk chocolate Gold Bunny at this time of the year every years!). Hope these shots can bring a bit of colour and happiness to your mornings (or evenings!) too!

{ Links }

Gold Bunnies & all the chocolate ℅ Lindt

Paper Straws - Similar

Washi Tape - Tiger

Tea Scented Erasers - Kikkerland

Spot Triangle Bra - ASOS (Similar)

Pink Hair Bow - Similar

Lipstick - Pret-A-Porter by Paul and Joe

Measuring Cups - Tiger

Shampoo Bar - Lush
Ceramic Bowl - Similar

Lip Balm ℅ Sweet Cecily's

In March I've Loved...

March is already over! Can you really believe it?! I'm ready for the new month to come though, as April is by far my favourite time of the year; with Easter, spring coming to its climax, a few exciting opportunities ahead and my blog's birthday, how couldn't I be as excited as ever for it to come?! Springtime it's cheering me up (bye bye winter blues!) and this not only means I'm pretty excited for literally everything, but also that I'm trying as much as I can to improve my mood and positivity... and also that I started enjoying and appreciating everything I have around, both material or abstract. So yep, expect a huge list of favourites this month! Ready?

Stationery.
You might have guessed I have quite an insane obsession to stationery by now, but this month a pair of little treats has been added to my collection. No notebooks in sight (I have way too many, right?), but I've got that beautiful trio of colourful washi tape from Tiger last week, and I'm obsessed! The leopard print one must be my favourite! That adorable cat pencil case is from Petite Mila: made out of 100% organic cotton and the cutest designs, her pouches (which easily double up as pencil cases or whatever you want them to be) and tote bags are probably the most adorable things I've seen in a while, and the quality is amazing too!

Candle.
If it's not a mug than it's a candle that seems to always appear in my monthly favourites! But I love them! Ikea candles: sometimes they're lovely others not that much. They are super duper cheap, as cheap as a full size candle can get, but sometimes they don't really smell of anything really. That's not the case! This LUGGA Soft Vanilla Candle is one of the best I've got from them (especially on the vanilla department) and it won't last as long, but it surely makes my room smell intensely sweet as sometimes only expensive candles can do!

Kitchen.
No new mugs this month (I've been forbibben to buy any other!) but a new entry between the ceramic bowls (similar) was needed when I spotted this cute hearts bowl in a local shop. It's the cutest thing to eat breakfast in, and pastel colours make the whole experience even more enjoyable. I mean, there must be a theory of something that says colorful tableware makes people happy, right?

Style.
My wardrobe definitely needed a few spring new additions as everything looked a bit too grey and black and white and... woolly. I've got this Forever21 Coral Ruffled Dress on sale on a very impulsive online shopping session and I couldn't have been more right. I'm obsessed. I love the ruffled collar and neckline and the flowy skirt is the most flattering on me. I can already see me wearing it non-stop this spring!

Makeup.
I'm not one that mention makeup that often on here anymore, but I've been loving this Rimmel Scandaleyes Thick And Thin Liner - not sure where they are going with the "thick and thin" thing, but I surely like the waterproof formula and the thin felt tip for a fool-proof application. I seem to be able to make my eyeliner look almost identical on both the eyes with this one and it's something that rarely happens to me!

Drink.
Jasmine green tea, what a lovely invention! I've become quite the fan of green tea (only think I didn't like it at all and now I drink a cup practically everyday) especially when combined with floral or citrus flavours (I've rambled about tea flavours lately here if you'd like to read more on the topic) and I've discovered jasmine green tea is probably my favourite thing ever! The tea in the pictures is from RealTea which I think is only available in Italy, but the Jing Jasmine Silver Needle Tea is another favourite of mine.

App.
Believe it or not I'm quite over Instagram and that's all thanks to Steller (and the fact that Instagram pictures never come out as I like, arg!). Steller is a way like another (but neater and surely well-arranged) to tell a story. It allows you to put together a few pictures and phrases and displays them in beautifully disposed pages users can flip through like they're reading a real book. It's like a pocket-sized blog, where photography and writing meet into creative stories! I love reading and flipping through others stories as well as creating my own. I'm completely obsessed and have decided that would be the place where to publish all those never-seen blog posts I thought they weren't that relevant to appear over here (including never-seen recipes, I'm warning you!) - so if you like to have a peek or give me a follow type 'mielcafeblog' in the search bar of the app or check my stories out over here.

Workout Clothes.
I've treated myself to some new yoga clothes recently as I've been good and stuck with it until now! I've especially been loving these super inexpensive Striped Knit Tops from Forever21 as they're just the perfect material for moving into them without feeling too tight or too loose.

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And that's a wrap! These are my favourite from March! I'm excited for the new month to come as for spring to completely flourish and to discover new places and things this springtime! So do let me know what you've loved this month! x

Shine!

I bet I'm not the only one who envy some healthy (and not-gross) shine on normal not oily hair! The thing with having a oily scalp is that you have to try and eliminate as much oil as you can to avoid to feel the need of washing your hair twice a day, this means using targeted products that aim to get rid of the excess oil but that also sometimes leave your hair a bit dull and too matte. This is not my thing, I like my hair to be as voluminous and texturized as healthy and shiny looking!

As with my oily skin, I've always been afraid to put on my hair any kind of oils as I've always thought it would have just made it worst. But just like with introducing natural oils in my skincare recently and being that my skin seems to (actually!) quite enjoy them, I thought maybe I should do the same with my haircare... and I wasn't wrong!

Sahar Morocco Argan Oil  ℅ Hairtrade

Of course I'll always stay away from anything too heavily oily, but I've found out oils are not always that bad onto a oily scalp. This Morocco Argan Oil* is perfect for lightly moisturize and add some healthy shine to my hair: I love the fact that is made out of natural ingredients and that aims to rebuild and repair damaged hair; even though it's targeted at dry damaged hair, I think it can be a great addition to any normal-to-oily haircare routine too.

I apply a very small amount (just a few pumps) of the oil right after the shower directly onto my damp hair, concentrating it on the ends and going up towards the scalp with the remaining product, this way my scalp doesn't get too much excess oil - that is the worst nightmare of any oily girl! Then I simply dry it and in the end I'm always left with softer, shiny, moisturized, healthy looking hair. And it isn't more greasy than usual in the slightest, not even when dealing with second day hair!

So far so good, I'm definitely not going back to a skin/hair care without oils! How does your hair get on with oil-based products? x