Summer Essentials with MaireMe 🍋

Hellooooo my beauties!! I'm so excited to be writing again, I just never get the time to sit down on my laptop and blog because I'm literally never in the house, but today I made it my mission to get a wee hour and tell you all about my fabulous essentials which have saved me for the first couple of weeks of summer. What more do you want during the summer than to be tan, with smooth skin and white teeth?? I don't know about you but for me that's goals. Although I 100% am not your biggest beach babe right now, with these three wee treats I am going to blog about today, I feel like I'm getting there and that's good enough for me - happy mind happy life and all that LOL! 

First I want to tell you all about Marissa Carter's Coca Brown tan, I'm probably about 5 months behind with this but I don't care because it really is a god send. I always hunt for tan that, gives a nice finish (no green or orange hands please..) and one which washes away evenly, and not to mention something that's affordable. I really don't see the point in paying extremely dear for tan when it washes away down the drain after a couple  of showers.. realistically like?? So I found Coca Brown hidden in my sisters bathroom cabinet one night, and well.. I made myself welcome to it, sharing is caring and all that. God bless my big sisters because I really am a torture, everything she buys new I have to get a go of it, mostly before she even gets to try it herself, but sure that's what baby sisters are best known for LOL. Anyways back to the point of looking gorgeously tan, at the time she had purchased the medium shade in the tan, and I usually would wear dark because I would already be naturally tan anyways, but I still gave it a go and WOW!! On the bottle it says '1 hour tan' but when I was applying it I was thinking to myself 'Nope it probably will still need overnight to reach a good colour' .. well within an hour I was a bronzed babe, I am not even lying girls it went on so evenly and it looked so natural.The next morning when I woke up it wasn't much darker but there was a slight difference and it just looked so nice!! I never believe any bottle of tan when it says 'instant' because it never just comes out a lovely bronze colour it always still takes some time to develop, and one wee drop of water and you go patchy NUMBER ONE HATE!! However that wasn't the case with this tan,I genuinely think it would be near impossible to get this tan patchy it just is so easy to apply. Also I thought I'd add in tips on how I apply my tan, people always say to me, your tans so even 'it never goes like that around my hands' and oh my I definitely know the struggles of hand and feet tan, not forgetting them elbows and knees - the struggle is real. All I do to ensure my tan is even is to apply a generous layer of Soap and Glory Moisturiser all over my body before applying the tan,

I always leave my hands and feet till last. Whilst applying the tan to my arms and legs I avoid my elbows and knees until last and then whatever is left on the tanning mitt I just skim it over. The reason I do this is because the skin on your elbows and knees is hard skin, the tan doesn't absorb very well into these areas instead it just sits on top, therefore if you apply a million layers to these areas its just going to look so dirty, and I just cant deal with that!! Now to my hands and feet, feet aren't that hard to do, I honestly do just think they key is lots of moisturiser, before I put the tan on, I sit a blob of moisturiser on each of my feet, I DO NOT rub it in just yet, I then put on a small amount of tan with the moisturiser and rub it in along with the moisturiser, it makes it easier to apply and ensures it reaches every part not leaving any tracks or white patches. When it comes to my hands I do the exact same thing (please do your feet before your hands and then scrub your hands clean otherwise your going to have extremely orange hands LOL). When tanning your hands please make sure you apply your tan and moisturiser to the top of your hands and NOT the palm of your hands, otherwise the wotsit palms strike again, and that's not attractive!! Other than that do the exact same thing and moisturise the tan and cream into your hands together, I find that sometimes I can have excess moisture on my hands, what I do for this is I get an old towel or a dark coloured one and put it in between my hands and wipe my palms on it then continue to moisturise the tan and cream into my hands, I repeatedly do this until I feel the tan is well rubbed in and my hands are no longer sticky. A tip I also learned off Marissa Carter who is another Irish blogger, (go follow her she is amazing!!) was that lemon juice helps encourage tan to develop, it works as a tan accelerator. The only place where I would use it is my chest, the layer of skin on your chest is usually much thinner than the rest of the body so just like the elbows and knees the tan finds it hard to absorb here, so last week I put a thin layer of lemon juice on my chest just before applying my tan and it worked a treat and really helped the tan develop!! Please test the lemon juice on your skin first to ensure you are not allergic to it, or to ensure the skin does not react in any way, but if it doesn't it really is a useful tip! Coca brown is also only £7.99 in Gordon's Chemist, also available in Primark! Also girls you know me, Coca Brown tan is 100% Cruelty free, so why would you not try it ?? 

I'm wearing Coca Brown in both of the above photos and as you can see, the finish is so glowing and smooth.. I just love it! Definitely recommend you try it girlies!

Know I know some of you have probably got bored, closed out of my blog liked it on Facebook and scrolled on, but this one is for you lucky humans who kept reading - thank you! Because now I'm going to talk about whiter teeth wooooo!! Right so, I wasn't really set out on getting extremely pearly whites asap as i'm going to the Philippines in a few months and i want my teeth at their whitest then, but for now I genuinely was just looking for a better toothpaste, me and Kyle were on Very.co,uk one night and we scrolled across Mr. Blanc Charcoal Teeth Whitening Polish, and if your Instagram is anything like mine, every two pictures I scroll past is them charcoal toothpastes being used by pure babes with nice shiny teeth - depressing I know! But anyways I was like will we try this, it was only £14.99 an usually other toothpastes and teeth whitening strategies are quite expensive so we thought why not and ordered it. Also another point I would like to make whilst I'm on the topic is please don't order anything for your skin or face off eBay for a cheaper price unless you know it is a genuine seller, because I just have such a fear of it damaging your teeth or skin - it FREAKS me out!! Anyways I've only been using this toothpaste for about 2 weeks and I absolutely love it!! I hasn't made dramatic changes to my teeth but I definitely feel better and feel like I have a brighter smile, I will also admit I do not brush every morning and night most days its just the morning, so I can only imagine the difference I would see if I faithfully brushed morning and night! This product is also 100% cruelty free, so don't worry gals I got you covered! TIP: Whilst brushing my teeth I try and leave the charcoal sitting on my teeth for 1-2 minutes before brushing for another 1-2 minutes, I found this was giving me the best RESULT.. 

                                     BEFORE                   AFTER

As I said the results aren't dramatic but girls you get what you pay for and I definitely am impressed!! If you have any more questions about the product do not be afraid to message me on Facebook or Snapchat i'm always happy to help!

So gals (and boys) that's me for today, just a few tips on how to look good, feel good just at the beginning of summer! Happy Mind, Happy Life it is so important to be comfortable in your own skin and feel good about yourself, what better way to do this than to share your beauty tips with others, one reason why I LOVE writing my blogs, it's helping to empower other girls and make them feel better about themselves. Before I get all emotional and deep I'm going to leave it here.. but I promise i'll be back soon and wont keep you all waiting as long next time!

MaireMe xx