My Charity Shop Challenge

Following on from my post the other day about my beautiful boots, I've decided to set myself a little challenge. Hopefully if I succeed then I'll make this a bit of a regular thing!

As anyone who knows me knows: I love magazines.  Having something I wrote appear on a "you the fashion jury" article in Grazia approximately forever ago is still one of the highlights of my life. I'm just that cool.And as such, it's not been unusual for me to see things in magazines, decide I love it forever, and then go out of my way to get said thing... But, these days I'm trying not to buy so much new.  I want to limit the impact I have, but I still have a bit of a magazine addiction.

So, here is my idea: I find a few things in a magazine that I like the look of, and then I see if I can find something in the same theme or trend in charity shops, eBay, Vinted, car boots, clothes swaps, the back of my wardrobe, vintage fairs, or any other avenue that means I'm not buying something entirely new.  Then after a couple of weeks, I'll share with you what I've found, and where I've found it, and how I'm going to wear it.

The aim of this is to prove to myself, and to you, that to have on trend items doesn't mean you have to rush out and buy anything with "new season" on the placard next to it in the shops.

It's pretty straightforward. Hopefully.

Right, let's look at the pictures.  These are the things I liked the look of while perusing the pages of Hello Fashion Monthly (don't judge me on my taste in magazines; I'm like a moth to a glossy celebrity fueled flame):

Look! Look! Look! I absolutely adore art deco, it's divine. And I also quite like shiny things.  My aim is to find some geometric gems, and then pretend I'm an extra in the Great Gatsby (as the saying goes: there ain't no party like a Gatsby party, cuz a Gatsby party don't stop until at least two people are dead and everyone is disillusioned with the jazz age as a whole).

 

Next trend to try and find: slogan clutch bags.  There's something subtly pop-art about these, which appeals to the (GCSE level) art student inside of me, who never quite got over the brilliance Warhol's Brillo boxes, and let's not even talk about Varoom by Lichtenstein (or maybe we should, maybe we should).  

So these are my challenges for the month.  Fingers crossed my first charity shop challenge won't be my last!

A Little Charity Shop Bargain...

I recently popped into my local St Peter's Hospice shop while out with my friend and mum, and wanted to share with you some photos of the things I bought in there!

And by things I bought, I mean these boots:

 I know these might not be to everyone's tastes, but I love these, I love the tan colour, the wooden heel and I especially love the faux shearling on the front.  To me, these boots epitomise autumn. I saw one on the shelf as I was heading towards the till, and I just fell in love... Picked it up, and lo and behold, they're my size (6.5 - not the easiest size to come by), tried on its friend, and decided it was fate.  They were £8.50 which isn't a bad price at all, especially when I looked at the bottom, and inside, and realised they really hadn't been worn at all - perhaps just worn around someone's house, or just for long enough to realise the heel was too high for them. I'm not sure, but they're mine now!

 Yup, I've been trying them on at home, trying to work out what to wear them with - I've got a few tops which feel very autumnal, in burgundy, khaki and mustard shades, so I'm thinking of putting them together with some trusty black jeggings, or even tights and denim shorts.  Maybe pop on my ever faithful taupe aviator jacket. Very autumnal! Admittedly I probably won't be able to walk miles in them, but I think I will probably wear these babies until they are worn out!

 Just look at all that lack of wear by their previous owner!  I know charity shops might not seem like an obvious place to have a look if you are looking for something on trend, and season suitable, but I really want to show you that it can be done!  These boots were originally from Next, and I've had a little scout about on their website, and found that near enough exactly the same boot in black is currently selling for £75 new. Definitely a good feeling all round!

And finally, this is what I wanted to have a look for in there in the first place: books for the people kitten... These are the two that came home with us, for a bargainous price of 50p each!

In short: St Peter's Hospice Shop on Sandy Park Road, I heart thee!

Finding the Pefect Facewash Update, and an Important Reminder

This is just going to be a quick post following up on my post about microbeads.  

There was a comment on the blog from a lovely friend of mine recommending I try an exfoliating facewash by Jason - I'm going to be ordering this next week (gotta wait til payday!) so look back for a review of this soon :-)

I also has a comment on Facebook from another lovely friend of mine that makes a facewash from glycerol and rosewater.  I absolutely love the smell of rosewater, and I love the idea of just combining a couple of simple non-chemical filled ingredients.  I've done a bit of searching, and will be making myself something similar using ingredients I've found on a site that sells organic herbal waters and oils (again, just waiting until payday).  I've since started searching out "recipes" on Pinterest for making my own beauty products, and now have a few more things that I'm keen to try!  Again, everything I make, I will review!

Recently I had a bit of a reminder about why I'm wanting to use less chemicals: around the time that I started writing this blog, I requested some samples from a high-end brand, that although have a very clear no animal testing policy, are chemical laden.  I had filled in a questionnaire on their site to ascertain my ideal skincare products from their range, and they sent out some samples.  I was really chuffed when they arrived - I was sent a lot more than I was expecting, and it all looked so great.  I decided to try their eye cream duo first, and used the "night mask" which promised to reduce puffiness and bags around the eyes.  Within about 15 minutes of putting a very small amount around my eye area, it felt stingy and burning.  I don't have particularly sensitive skin, so I was a bit surprised to have had a reaction, and washed it off immediately.

I apologise for the blurriness of this photo - but this is one of my eyes (totally devoid of any make-up or creams/ lotions/ potions), six days after.  In essence, this cream burned the skin around my eyes - the skin is swollen, puffy and flaking - it's not what you want from an eye cream, especially not one that is meant to cost £129.95 a pop.

I emailed the brand, they replied the same day.  This is apparently not a known issue, but they really wanted me to try all the other samples they had sent.  It's not going to happen.  I'm steering clear of anything chemical filled.

Make & Do's 1st Birthday

First of all, let me apologise for taking a week to get around to writing this - it has been another busy week of looking after the people kitten and working my bamboo fibre socks off!

Last Sunday was the first birthday of the ridiculously awesome fabric shop Make & Do Emporium, and I was invited along to their birthday party.  Now, as some of you will be aware, I live dangerously close to this shop, in fact, it's the closest shop to my house, and as such, I've become friends with Mrs.Make&Do (aka Kirsten), so I basically wanted to use this opportunity to tell you a little bit about the birthday party and also a little bit about Kirsten.

This is basically what Make&Do looks like inside - so many beautiful rolls of fabric on the shelves to the left, buttons and things to your right - every time I visit I see something new - and then there's fat quarters on the tables.  The furthest away table is used for workshops and for craft club; the full programme for each is available on their website (linked above).  I've been to a few craft club sessions and also made a lampshade at a workshop here, and highly recommend both of them to fellow Bristol based crafty folk (and non-crafty folk that are all fingers and no thumbs, it's still fun).

At the birthday there were gorgeous little cupcakes with button icing, and tea served in beautiful vintage cups.  There was also cherryade, because apparently it's not a party unless there's cherryade...

There was also plenty of time to chat, shop and pick up information about upcoming workshops and craft club sessions.

Something I've always loved about Make&Do is its atmosphere - it's so welcoming, and it's also a very child friendly shop!  I took the people kitten with me, he crawled about, shouted loudly, skirted about the chairs while I accidentally bought several fat quarters (not quite sure how that happened), flipped through sample books and chased balloons.

All in all, it was a rather lovely afternoon, but something that was particularly special about it, was seeing Mrs Make&Do back in the shop and looking so well again.  You see, in about May, Kirsten was paralysed by Guillain Barre Syndrome, and has only recently returned home from a long stay in hospital.  During her time in hospital, she had intensive physio and OT, learning to eat and walk again. 

GBS isn't something I had even heard of before, as I'm sure many other people haven't either - and that's why raising awareness with medical staff as well as the average Joe is so important.  Since leaving hospital, Kirsten has set up a Just Giving page for GAIN... She is currently just £15 shy of her £250 target, so if you can spare a couple of quid, then please please do. If you wanted to pop into the shop or visit Make&Do online, then please do too! :-)

There's an app for that

Welcome to the first in a new series of posts I think I might as well do, about various apps that have some sort of ethical element to them...  I was reminded of this by a friend just a few minutes ago who sent me a link to an app that I've had for a little while now, called Vinted (also available in website form, but be sure to check you enter .co.uk if you're a UK dweller, or you'll get the US site)...

Vinted is basically a site that allows you to buy and sell secondhand clothes, directly from the current owner, or, and I find this most exciting, swap them for other goodies. I haven't fully used this app yet to know how it works, but if you have some more information on it, then leave me some info in the comments :-)  I'll be adding some items to it this evening and having more of a browse on it then, so will have a better idea of how it all works later, so I'll update you all then!

Microbeads - Macro problem?

Hello pop pickers who are hopefully not spot pickers, because we all know that's bad for you, stop doing that, you'll scar yourself, and no one wants that...

We all get the odd spot from time to time, but generally as humans we go to a lot of effort to try and avoid getting them, and to get rid of them quickly when we have them.  We invest in face washes, blemish reduction "pens", nose strips that physically yank all of the dirt out of the pores around your snot holes, micellular waters, cleansers, toners, cucumber scented make-up removing wipes and so on. I'mas guilty of it as anyone else, but I've recently started to become quite interested in what's actually in some of these things we insist on smearing onto our bodies. In short, I want to have a little chat with you all about something that is probably lurking in your exfoliating cleanser somewhere on the shelf in your bathroom: microbeads.

 

This is a picture of an exfoliating cleanser I purchased recently, by B. from Superdrug.  In many ways I thought this would be a great ethical product: there's the leaping bunny on the back, it states it's suitable for vegetarians and vegans, and it's made in the UK to boot.  But it contains microbeads.

They sound pretty harmless (and kinda like tiny components of jewellery for the Borrowers), but if Beat the Microbead is to be believed, they're anything but:

• Sewage treatment facilities are not designed to filter these tiny microbeads from wastewater so some microbeads will still be present in effluent water leaving the treatment plant;
• Microbeads are found throughout the marine environment (from Lake Geneva to the North Pole);
• Microbeads will not biodegrade;
• They are ingested by various sea species;
• They can end up in the food chain;
• They attract persistent organic toxins (POPs);

So what can we do about this? In short I think the most effective thing to do, would be to stop purchasing items with microbeads in.  If enough consumers start buying (or making) alternatives which contained other exfoliating ingredients, which were biodegradable or naturally derived such as sea-salt, crushed nut shells or sand then would that not put pressure on manufacturers to review their use of these microbeads?

I'll soon be going shopping again for a more natural based facewash, so if you have any good recommendations, please let me know in the comments.  Alternatively if you have any good facial scrub recipes, then let me know, and I promise to blog about any that I try.  In the meantime, I'll be using old fashioned soap and water and to keep my face clean...

That Difficult Second Post (About Second Hand)

One of the things that I want to talk about in this blog is our obsession with always having new. I'm as big a fan as the next person when it comes to shopping, and buying, and new new new, but ultimately, I know it's not good. It's not good for my wallet. It's not good for factory workers working in horrendous conditions. It's not good for the environment to be constantly churning out new products and discarding the old. We all know this.  

But there is some good news and again, you know this: there are alternatives to the endless parade of newness, that are easier on your wallet and the environment, that still provide you with something different to wear/ use/ show off to the neighbours about. Yea, yea, you've got it, I'm talking about second hand.

There is a whole plethora of ways to get this second-hand-but-new-to-you fix (we could call it "SHBuNTU" for short, but that's not as catchy as "it's vintage darling")... Charity shops, vintage fairs, carboots, eBay and swap shops to name but a few.

One way that I've become increasingly aware of, since having had my people-kitten (yes, that would be how I refer to my child) is Facebook groups. Cue the really bad quality picture I hurriedly took on my phone.... 

 

I know it's a bad photo, but look at what's in the photo if you can see past the pixelated blur. This is a couple of photos of outfits I put together from a huge second hand bundle of clothes I recently bought for my son for 12 - 18 months, from someone who was selling through a Facebook group.

All I need to buy my son now is some socks, and some properly fitted shoes.  All the clothes I bought are good quality, in good condition, and are the kind of style I like to dress the people-kitten in.  Some items (like the grey jeans in the picture above) still have their labels on.  This has got to be a better solution than heading straight to the shops myself, buying everything new, while elsewhere someone throws away a load of perfectly good clothes.

If you're interested in buying from Facebook groups, then these are my top tips:

• Always ask to see photos of items first
• Don't send money to someone without seeing the item in person
• When you go to view and pick up the item, if you're unsure then take a friend with you.  They can give their opinion on the item in question.
• At no point are you under any obligation to buy.  If you aren't happy with it, you don't have to buy it
• Look over the item thoroughly before you part with your cash - you may not be able to get a refund later

Well, hopefully this post hasn't bored you to tears. Who knows, maybe I'll write something else tomorrow.