How To Concert: My 10 Concert Essentials - Lollie

Hello! It's Lollie here!
It's less then a week now until I see Luke Friend and I have to say I am very excited about it. I've seen him multiple times before but never at his own show as this is his first tour, I can't wait!

I thought, because I am attending a concert next week and I go to a lot of concerts, I'd take you through my 10 concert essentials!

1. The Ticket - You cannot get in without this. DO NOT FORGET THE TICKET. I have done this before, however the security were nice enough to check my booking and let me in, however, I can't guarantee that this will happen for everyone so make sure you have your tickets to get in.
2. Phone with battery, a decent amount of storage for photo taking - I cannot express how many times I have been to a concert and I've either run out of phone battery or storage and have been unable to take any more pictures. 
3. Portable chargers - December 2013, when I was hanging out in the hotel reception of the Hilton in Wembley to meet Luke, I had to charge my phone up using the extension cord that the massive Christmas tree was plugged into, to keep my phone charger. For Christmas I received a portable phone charger and oh my gosh it saves lives well... Battery. Now there are three types. The Phone Case chargers which range from about 5 pound to 15 pound on Ebay. If you want one that lasts longer, buy the more expensive one, it's worth it. The charger sticks are usually about 15 pound found on Ebay and at all good Tech shops and the third type is the charger block which can rang from 10-15 pound.
4. An over the shoulder with purse and essentials inside - Trust me, I know over the shoulder bags don't always look the best but they are the most comfortable bags to have at a concert if you don't want to part with your possessions or pay the amount to put them in the cloak room. You need one that is big enough to contain: your purse, your ticket, you phone and charger equipment, any drink/food you want and any other things that you need for the concert. It needs to be small enough, however, for you to be able to jump around and not cause people around you any harm (I've had this happen to me, it's the worst). 
5. A hair band - either take one with you or just wear your hair up. It can get really sweaty at standing concerts and when you are packed in, the worst thing you want is someone's hair hitting you in the face and going in your mouth (I've had this happen to me before too...). Also, a hair band will prevent you from getting sweat and over-heated.
6. (meet and greet only) your fans letters, presents, scrapbooks, cakes, teddy whatever you have to give to your sunshine - Make sure you have all of this and that its is in order and ready to just hand over as some meet and greet can be very rushed and there will be no time for you to stand and tell the artist what their presents are from you.
7. (Q and A ) Questions - Don't go into a Q and A with nothing to ask. Yes others may have questions, but don't count on it, be prepared and have some ready to ask!
8. ( Soundcheck )  Enthusiasm - Have a smile on your face and don't be afraid to put up your hand as you never know what could happen, your bae might invite you to sing on stage with them for the soundcheck, you never know. Also, enthusiasm gets you noticed, so does a big smile.
9. A comfortable outfit - My usually concert attire consists of leggings, boots that don't hurt if I wear them too long (always flat shoes. No one wants to jump around or stand in heels for two and a half hours), a cardigan, - no coats because, yes, you might be cold queuing outside but once you get in, you either have to keep your coat on and sweat to death, have your coat on your person and cause inconvenience for those standing around you or pay the amount to have it stored in the cloakroom - a t-shirt that has the artist on it or because I am going to see Luke, maybe a grungy shirt... and the bag obviously.
10. Last but, not least, a drink of water - There have been way too many standing concerts that I have attended where people have passed out, collapsed and been taken over the barrier by security, because of heat exhaustion and dehydration due to the amount of people in such a small space and the amount of shoving and pushing that goes on (don't shove or push... it's not great and no one wants to feel like they are going to fall over or be push to the floor). A small bottle of water to take with you to drink while there is great because not only does in hydrate you, your throat will most likely be sore and dry from screaming and singing and shouting so it cools and soothes the throat. At some concerts, depending on the venue and security staff, have security at the front who pass plastic cups of cold water back through the crowd to keep everyone hydrated and to reduce the amount of people passing out.

I hope this helps anyone attending any concerts in the future!

Until Next Time - Allons-y!

Lollie xxx

How to wash your makeup brushes - Saturdays with Payton

Hey
It's Saturday again with Payton and this week I was stuck for ideas for this post, now I've done a couple of posts on organizing and so I thought 'what have I done this week that you lot could benefit from?' And then it came to me!
So from the title of the post you will have worked out that I am going to tell you how I wash my makeup brushes.

Quick disclaimer. By no means I am a makeup artist however I would say that I have done my research and read many things and watched many YouTube videos on how to wash your makeup brushes and now I have found something that works for me.

One last thing before I tell you what I do I quickly just want to tell you what brushes that I have because the type of brushes that you have and what they are made of can affect the effectiveness of this method if washing your brushes. So most of my brushes including the majority of my face and eye brushes are from Real Techniques by Sam and Nic Champman, I do have other face and eye brushes which are usually from the sets of makeup that you get.

So let's get started!

Things you will need:

• The brushes that need washing
• A bowl or plate
• Paper towels 
• A soft clean towel
• Regular dish soap (I use fairy liquid)
• Olive oil (I personally use extra virgin olive oil and this works perfectly for me)
• Water (usually a running tap)

Method:

This method for washing your brushes is best done in a bathroom as you will need to use a sink.

I usually start by getting a couple of sheets of paper towels and my brushes, I start with the cleanest brush or the brushing use least and then I wipe the brush on the paper towels to start to get some of the build up of the makeup off the brush, now it doesn't matter if you don't get much off as this is going to make the rest of the process slightly easier. Once I have done the ' cleanest' brush I then do the same thing with wiping the brush with the next cleanest brush and so on, working my way up to the direst brush.

Next I take my bowl and my olive oil and my dish soap, I start by putting my dish soap into the bowl, now the amount that you put in will depend on how many brushes that you need to clean and how dirty they all are. I put a generous amount in around 3 or 4  squirts of dish soap into the bowl, I next put around 1 squirt of olive oil in the bowl, overall you want around a ratio of 1 part olive oil to 3 parts dish soap.

Next I take my cleanest brush and I dip the brush slightly under water for a second and then into water  into the mixture that has just been made, only dip the hair which has makeup on,
Quick Warning:if the mixture along with water get into the top of the brush where the hairs are all glued, then the mixture and the water will make the glue weak and the hairs may fall out.
Anyway, once the brush has the mixture on it then move it around against your hand to foam up the mixture, don't put a lot of pressure onto the brush, only put the same amount of pressure on the brush that you would do when you put makeup on your face.
If the foam created from the brush is coming out the color of the makeup used on that brush, I give the brush a rinse under the tap, making sure not to get all of the hair on the top of the brush wet, and then I re dip the brush into the mixture and do the steps above again until the color of the foam is a very light color.

I then place the brush on its side on a cabinet which has a paper towel on it and, I then repeat the method above for each of my brushes.
Once all of the brushes have been put into the mixture, I then rinse them one by one, starting with the brush that I put into the mixture first. I rinse the brush off until all of the soap has gone.

I then get my towel and fold that a couple of times so it is slightly bigger than the size of a paper towel, I then lay out my paper towel on top of my normal towel and I place the brushes on top of then all spread out. I place all of this in a hot room to dry , however I have found if they are in a room with a dehumidifier, then the brushes dry the quickest.

And that is it, how to wash your makeup brushes! I hope that you like the method that I use to wash my makeup brushes, comment below if you have tried this method or the method that you use to wash your makeup brushes. I would like to say thank you for sticking with today's long post!

See you next Saturday!

~Payton <3