History of my hair, and my current hair care routine

  The year was 2011, I lived in the United Kingdom, my hair was bleached blonde, dry from the everyday straightening and barely hanging onto my scalp. I am a dark brunette naturally, my hair is very wavy and frizzy, and I've been struggling to make it look presentable, for my whole life. I've tried many hair products while living in UK. I moved a few times while living there, but I always ran into the same problem - I had the hardest time washing shampoo out of my hair. Fun fact: Did you know that the same product for example a shampoo might have the exact same packaging but a slightly different amounts of ingredients depending on where it is sold? Companies that make the product take into account the hardness of the water in the country where it is sold.
When I lived in Lithuania, I knew that the water there was hard. It did a good job of washing out excess of moisture, or product out of my hair. The first thing that I noticed after moving was, that tap water in  the UK was very soft. That is supposed to be good for your hair, since hard water contains more minerals that can damage your hair or whatever... The water in UK is hard, but I'm gonna assume that every house I lived in, had a water filter. Still, the hair products in the UK are made for hard water (I am assuming). Nothing worked for my hair... I've tried many hair products, my hair was dry, damaged and horrible, the only products that helped a little were Aussie 3 minute Miracle deep conditioner and Moroccan Oil.
The minute I moved back to Lithuania my hair became way better, I went back to my old favorite products, stopped bleaching as much and I grew it out quite a bit.
3 years later some genius installed a water filter in my house. Coincidentally I have started bleaching my hair again. I've had a bit of a hair disaster (one of many in my life). My hair started to fall out, my favorite shampoo was irritating my scalp, when I washed it, my hair was very dry and no product helped to moisturize it. I was loosing a lot of hair too...

How I saved my hair.

1. I have stopped bleaching it. You'd be surprised how long a blonde can rock the outgrown roots (now I only add a few highlights a few times a year, and pretend that my hair is a stylish ombre balayage).
2. I started investing into some better and more expensive hair care products.
3. I have stopped washing my hair from 3 to 4 times a week to 2. My hair doesn't get as greasy now.
4. I try to put less heat on it, straightening only 2-4 times a month and blow drying only when I wash it before sleep.
5. I don't sleep with my hair wet. I always braid it before sleep.
6. Hair oil. I found a good hair oil that I apply after every wash and sometimes once in between washes if I feel that my hair is getting dry.
7.I try not to brush it wet. I have noticed that if I wait until my hair completely dries and applying some hair oil after, instead brushing it wet I loose way less hair.
8. Brushing the ends of hair first and with small strokes moving up  until I reach the roots. I have never had hair this long and I've read in some article online, that long hair requires more delicate and careful brushing.
9. Praying for the Hair Gods every night before sleep.
10. Trying not to worry as much. It is inevitable that my hair quality will decrease with age. The worst case scenario, I can wear a wig:

As for the products that I use, there's only four:

Best cheap hair mask I have found in drugstore + Aussie Shampoo + Aussie Oil and sometimes I steal a tiny bit of my mom's  hairspray to keep down the flyaway hair.

Makeup brushes from ebay review Nr.1

  Back in 2015 my cosmetic bag suffered from the deficit of makeup brushes. I has just discovered the joy of ebay and decided to order some brushes. What I have noticed long time ago, is that even the cheapest and shittiest makeup brushes at the drugstores are expensive. And I had no intentions of splurging on high-end makeup tools. So I looked through the most popular makeup brushes on the website and ordered 10 piece set of face and eye brushes.

This is what the picture looked like or at least as close as I can find right now. 

And this is what they look like after two years of using.

Con Nr.1 - doesn't look as good in natural lighting. 

Con Nr.2 they shed. I have used this flat foundation brush almost to death.

Con Nr.3 - some of them are shaped very oddly. I had hard time finding a way to use for these two dense tapered brushes.

  Pros: price isn't big. They cost me 7$ and I don't regret buying them, back then there was way less to choose from on ebay. Today you can buy this set for less than 5$, so about 50 cents per brush is a steal. The set has given me enough of my money's worth. But I still wouldn't recommend buying it now, today ebay offers vast sea of choices, for similar price, and this isn't the best one. I'd rate this set 3/5 based on nostalgia and the fact that it was my first makeup brush set, but recommend it only for time travelers who will are going to 2015 and forget to pack makeup brushes.

  I have two more makeup brush reviews where I'll talk about brushes I prefer.

A battle of three hair oils

  I've always had dry hair and besides other hair products I use some kind of hair oil, was always an important step in my hair care routine.

  I've tried a few hair oils from the drugstore in the past 2 years, until I found my love, my baby, my holy grail. But before that I had to try a few others...

  First candidate to become my hair savior was Isana Oil Care, a product that is hard to find online for some reason. I used up good half of it before I got sick of it. The smell is sickly sweet, it adds a lot of shine to the hair, but it's thick and heavy, if used more than once before hair washing, can make hair seem very oily. Hard to disperse evenly. At the moment when I didn't have a lot of money or alternative products to use, it satisfied me. The price on kosmetikosdnr.lt is said to be around 4$, but I don't believe it, I feel like it cost me around 5-7$ and it was a while ago. Would not recommend it, unless there is nothing else to choose from price or quality wise. Maybe it could be used as an overnight oil treatment, before washing hair. I'd rate it 2/5.

  My old fling with avon maroccan oil products, (shampoo, conditioner, hair mask and this) was short, but I remember enjoying the hair oil. It has very potent smell, sweet and strong, it makes hair seem very shiny, better to use it on wet hair, it's less thick than Isana oil, but still, a bit heavy. I still have this, as a back-up if I ever run out of the good oil. Price is supposedly 6$, but I always see it on sale for 3$. I'd rate it 3.5/5

  I love other aussie products, and I absolutely can't live without this. The smell is very sweet and pleasant, it lingers long after applying the oil. It's surprisingly lightweight and moisturizing, it seems to sink into the hair, rather than heavily coat and weight it down. It's very easy to find in the drugstores and online. The price is 9$, but it's worth it, it lasted me more than 6 months, and my sister "helped me" to use it up too. I find that if you're patient enough, you can wait until 35% or 50% sale on aussie products, which comes around few times a year, at least in my local drugstore. I'd rate it 5/5 and ask it to marry me, if it wasn't an inanimate object. 100% recommend.

W7 Midsummer Nights eyeshadow palette review

  I've bought this palette a good while ago. Maybe it even got lost somewhere in my makeup drawers, but what the heck, it was only 4.83 (on sale at topbeauty.lt). I was obsessed with the idea that I need Mac eyeshadow palette "9x Burgundy", but after looking at some comparison swatches online, I've decided (surprise surprise) to save myself 35$ and go with obvious dupe from w7 instead. 

(Mac x9 burgundy on top, picture from pinterest.com)

Here's Mac and W7 palettes side by side, photo stolen from a better blog, I hope the owner doesn't mind. The post contains swatches of both palettes:

Link here

 I found this palette surprisingly pigmented, the packaging is very tiny, would be ideal for traveling, the only extra eyeshadow I'd have to pack with me, would be some light vanilla base/transitional shade. 

Without flash on, in artificial lighting

With flash on

Natural daylight swatches

With the flash on

  In my opinion, while not the best burgundy in the world, the bottom right corner eyeshadow is still really good and it was worth to buy the whole palette for it alone. I'd rate this purchase 4/5 and recommend (unlike some other w7 products, maybe I'll talk about them in some future post).