I’m Back! Some Changes Around Here And The Beginning of My Healthy Living Mission

So... It's been a while. As much as I've been loving the blog and writing I've been investing time into some other things recently and found that my amount of free time was running pretty low. I'd been burning my candles at both ends and ended up crashing pretty hard and decided I needed to take a step back to re-evaluate some things. Which is really just a long winded way of saying I'm going to be switching up my schedule for the foreseeable future and will now be posting on Tuesdays and Fridays.

It's been a tough decision but I realised that I'd been avoiding the blog for a few weeks now because I knew I don't have the time or energy to continue producing 3 good posts a week. I didn't want to start posting sub-par content or become unpredictable with my schedule and thought reducing it down to just 2 posts a week might make things more manageable. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for myself but I have a full time job outside of blogging and trying to keep up with a relatively demanding schedule on top of my job was taking some of the fun out of it for me.

Anyway, now that all of that is out of the way, what have I been up to lately you might be asking? Trying to get myself back into shape, mainly. (I know that somewhat rounded is a technically a shape, but you know what I mean). For those of you who didn't know; I work in a call centre, which involves a surprising amount of being bribed with junk food and a very non-surprising amount of sitting down all day. That in combination with my range of very active hobbies (blogging and binge-watching TV shows on Netflix) and a diet of Domino's and freezer food resulted in a gradual but substantial weight gain.

Whilst, strictly speaking, I'm currently on a diet, I'm following the Slimming World programme and I'm hoping to use it's "food optimising" mindset to make some long-term healthy lifestyle choices. I've used this healthy-eating model before but fell off the band wagon when a combination of a severe lack of cooking ability and messy shift patterns made proper meal prep something that needed attention. I've also joined a gym and have vowed to go at least 3 times a week (we'll see). I'm planning to do a few posts about how I'm making healthy living work for me which should hopefully be helpful to my fellow shift-rotation friends who are struggling.

So that's it for today, I hope you don't mind that I've had to cut back on my posts a little. Thanks for taking the time out of your days to read my posts. See you on Friday!

Then and Now - L’Oreal True Match

I've been using the L'Oreal True Match Foundation on and off for a few years and it's been in and out of my favourites list ever since the first time I tried it. After having forgotten about it for a while I rediscovered it around a year back and fell back in love so I was a bit nervous when they announced that they were reformulating. (I though it was going to be the Revlon Colourstay all over again). Long story short, I picked up a bottle of the new formula and I've been trialling it against the old one to see how it compares.

In terms of the packaging, quite a lot of people have been commenting that the new packaging is "more sleek" and seem to really like it. I think it's just really basic and I prefer the shape of the old bottle. The old one has some nice curves to it and it just looks a little more unique and a little more interesting. Both the old and new bottles are made of glass, both have sturdy silver pumps and both have clear plastic lids so they've not changed up the layout, it's just the shape.

I use shade "N1 Ivory" in both the old and new formulas and there doesn't seem to be any difference in the shades available. None seem to have been renamed and none seem to have been removed so if you had a skin tone match in the old formula the shade you used previously should still match you in the new one. The blendability is equally nice on both formulas, I personally like to apply most foundations with a damp sponge and that's what I do with both of these.

In terms of the actual formula, it does seem to have changed. The new formula has a slightly higher coverage and is a bit more moisturising on the skin. Interestingly, despite there seemingly being a higher moisture content in the new formula, it also seems to last a little better on my skin. The original formula seems to start breaking down after about 6-8 hours where the new one I probably get 7-9 hours out of the new formula before any shine starts breaking through. Not much of a difference there but still worth mentioning for those who struggle with staying power.

One thing I didn't like so much about the new formula is that it's not as matte in finish. This is obviously going to be one of those things where your own personal preferences will come into play but if you do prefer the matte look, you can take away some of the shine with a mattifying finishing powder. It's possible that L'Oreal have made the True Match less matte as their Infallible Matte Foundation is now catering to that audience for them and they wanted to make this a bit more of a middle ground option.