Lumie Acne Treatment Light Review

This is a long overdue review, so I really must apologise, but it's not the easiest thing to write about.  Once upon a time I believed there would be a time between the spots and the grey hair.  But the grey hairs started to appear when I was 15, and at 37 (yep), the spots are still hanging around.  Not quite as much as in my teens, but they're still there.  So when I heard about Lumie Clear LED light therapy for mild to moderate acne, I thought it might be worth a try.

It's an impressive piece of kit.  The light machine has a pattern of red & blue LEDs, apparently the red soothe inflammation & the blue kills acne bacteria.  The light part itself comes away from the base, so you can use it either freestanding, or directly on a small affected area, and it comes with protective goggles, because the blue LEDs may cause damage to your eyes if you look into them unprotected.  The light therapy treatment is offered as an alternative to creams & drugs and is safe to use during pregnancy.  I wish someone had mentioned this to me then, because my skin was a mess while I was expecting.

The length of time you use the light for depends on how far away from your skin you have the LEDs.  The machine works in blocks of 15 minutes, and automatically turns off at the end of this, but if it's further away you will need to start it again for another block, or however many are required.  I concentrated on my forehead because that tends to be the site of the majority of my breakouts, and I was able to hold the light on or close to my forehead, so I could use the shortest time.  I found the light was really easy to use, I took it off the base unit, and I could read a book or watch tv with one hand while holding the light with the other.  The base unit's useful if you want to treat a large area such as your back or need both hands free.

Lumie reckon you'll see visible results after a month of regular daily use, so I've given it my best shot (which is why this review is so delayed), though I have to admit I haven't always been able to make the time, and there have been days I've missed.  And I haven't taken before & after photos because no-one needs a close up of my spots!  Sorry. If that floats your boat, I'm sure there are other bits of internet out there for you.

Terrifying!

Did it work for me?  That's the question you really want to know, isn't it?  Honestly.  I'm not sure.  It hasn't stopped the breakouts, but then I don't think anything short of a total head transplant will!  But it has reduced the length of time they last, and their severity.  I haven't had any of those horrible painful spots that hang around for a week getting bigger & redder, those that I have had have gone away pretty quickly.  The downside is I felt (and looked) a bit of a prat using it, and it does take a regular time committment.  Laugh away. It's not easy to light your face with one hand & take a selfie with the other while wearing protective glasses.  That said, I think I feel a new facebook userpic coming on.  I'm going to persevere with it, though I can't promise it'll be every day.

My one criticism is that the power cable is a bit too short.  I was quite restricted where I could use the light, as I had to be close enough to a plug socket, a longer cable, or battery power option would make the light a little bit more user-friendly in my opinion.

The Lumie Clear light therapy machine is available direct from Lumie, and also from other retailers including Argos and Amazon, RRP £149.00.  You can also buy a refurbished model for cheaper, which is probably worth the saving.

Disclosure: I was provided with the Lumie Clear light free of charge for the purposes of this review.  I was not told what to write and all opinions are my own. Links are provided for convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Row, Row, Row your boat

When I was a lass, there was only 1 verse of Row, Row, Row your Boat.  And the most interesting thing about the song was that episode of Men Behaving Badly where they sing it in the pub.

Then along came Squeaky and language & play groups, and we learned "if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream", and shortly after "Rock, rock, rock your boat, gently to and fro, Watch out, give a shout, into the water we go."

And a little while later we discovered CBeebies podcast and learned verses about polar bears and lions.  To be honest, I'm getting a bit concerned about this rowing expedition - it seemed to be going a very long way & through some very dangerous territory.

However, Squeaky is bored of the limitations of these, and has now made up her own verse. Inspired, I believe by our trip to Folly Farm last year. I'm kind of impressed, it rhymes & everything. Ladies & Gentlemen, I present the final verse.

Row, Row, Row your Boat
Gently to the sea
If you see a giraffe
Don't forget to wee-wee.

Preparing for Denmark

Way back in time (May, actually), I was sat watching the Eurovision Song Contest with my beloved husband, and keeping up with the snarky comments on twitter (how did we watch the Eurovision before twitter came along?), when a tweet went past my eye that I couldn't look away from. Kenco Millicano were running a twitter competition during the Eurovision to win a trip to the winning country. Wild horses couldn't keep me from that one.  So I was amazed when I had a tweet a few days later telling me I'd won a trip to Denmark!  Copenhagen here we come!  (Secretly I was slightly relieved that Azerbaijan didn't win, I can't see them having a big tourism industry)

We've picked our dates, arranged a sleepover for Squeaky, and preparation is firmly afoot.  I'm not great at geography, but I've figured out where Denmark is, and a few important facts.  Denmark is the home of Danish Bacon, Danish Pastries, Carlsberg, and Hans Christian Andersen.  We're off to Copenhagen, the capital city, home of the Little Mermaid statue, and the Tivoli Gardens which seem to be a mix of theme park, showground, concert venue & everything else you can imagine!

I'm in the middle of researching places to go & see, so if you've got any suggestions, or know anyone who knows anyone, if you know what I mean, please do tell!

In the meantime, if you want me, I'll be here, getting in the mood...

Fresh Gourmet - Sesame beef & noodle salad. Review & Recipe

I was recently sent a selection of Fresh Gourmet salad sprinkles (I'm sure there's a better term), to try out for you, my lucky readers.  Fresh Gourmet are the leading brand in the US for salad toppings, and have now launched in the UK.  I received 4 bags to try out:  Crispy Onions, Cheese & Garlic Croutons, Sea Salt & Cracked Black Pepper Croutons, and Basil Pesto Ciabatta Croutons.

I set to making a special summer salad to try out some of my new noms... why not give it a try yourself?

Sesame Beef & Noodle Salad
Serves 1 as a main meal, or 2 as a side
Ingredients
100g beef strips
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp sesame seeds
60g rice vermicelli
Half red pepper, diced
Handful lambs lettuce
Splash of olive oil for cooking.
Fresh Gourmet crispy onions to taste
Fresh Gourmet cheese & garlic croutons to taste

Pour the maple syrup into a bowl, add the beef strips & toss to coat well.
Add the sesame seeds & coat the beef strips well.
Heat a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil, add the beef strips & cook on a medium heat until cooked through.  Place to one side to cool.
Boil the kettle.
Place the vermicelli in a large bowl, and cover with boiling water, cooking to the instructions on the pack (mine said 3 minutes)
Rinse the cooked vermicelli under cold water to cool down, and place into a serving bowl
Place the lambs lettuce & diced pepper on top of the vermicelli.
Add the beef strips, you can use some of the maple sesame glaze as a salad dressing if you like.
Sprinkle on the crispy onions & croutons.

I enjoyed putting together something a bit different, all too often my salads are just a boring mix of lettuce, tomato & cucumber, which is why I don't bother with them all that often!  If you've met me, that will be all too obvious.

The crispy onions were great, they added a lovely hit of flavour, the only danger is I can see myself tucking into them straight from the bag, and I'm sure that's not what they're designed for!  The croutons are baked, rather than fried, which gives them a slightly softer texture than fried croutons, which is quite welcome.  I find many commercially bought fried croutons are too hard and rip my mouth to pieces.  And the flavour of the cheese & garlic were lovely, they really added something extra to the salad.

I haven't yet tried out the sea salt & cracked black pepper, I'm thinking that they will go well with some homemade tomato soup, and the basil pesto ciabatta croutons are waiting for me to do some sort of chicken caesar salad, they'll work well with the flavours in that I think.

Fresh Gourmet toppings are now available in Tesco stores in the UK for around £2.00 a pack, which I think is really good value, the packs will last for ages (unless, like me, you decide to eat them instead of crisps!)

Disclosure: I was provided with the above 4 packs of Fresh Gourment toppings free of charge for the purposes of this review. I was not told what to write and all opinions are my own. Links are provided for convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive payment for their use.  By producing my own unique recipe using the ingredients I was provided, I have been given the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win kitchen utensils.

Bacardi Cocktails with #cbias

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.  I have not been told what to say, all opinions are my own. Links are provided for convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive payment for their use.

We've just got back home from a weekend away in (very) sunny Tenby, staying at a gorgeous little holiday park, and making the most of the chance to relax & soak up some sunshine.  We've been on quite a few £9.50 type holidays now, and we've got it down to a fine art.  Squeaky doesn't want to stay up all that late, we go to the kids disco, and sometimes she'll decide to join in, maybe we'll stick around for the quiz, then we head back off to our caravan, tuck her up in bed & kick back with a couple of drinks before going to sleep ourselves.

Club dances, hooray!

Don't panic, my daughter does actually have shoes, she just preferred to take them off, for reasons best known to herself.

Well, a couple of days before we went, I spotted a "Shoppertunity" through Collective Bias to have a Bacardi cocktail party, and I thought this would go down pretty well with Daddy once Squeaky's dropped off.  You can have a look at my Google + album here to see how I got on shopping.

My favourite aisle in Tesco

I made a mad rush to Tesco in Merthyr Tydfil, before we set off to the caravan to stock up on the essentials for a cocktail party in a new location.  It's amazing the things you never notice on a day to day basis.  I'm sure that flag has been up on the wall there for years, but I'd never noticed it until I took this picture.  I'm usually too busy looking at the wine!

Checking out the rum

Rum is great stuff, though I didn't know there were so many variants of Bacardi.  Looking through my cupboard at home now, there's Bacardi, dark rum for drinking neat, dark rum for mixing, and navy rum for when I've got a sore throat.  That's not excessive, is it?  I mean, there's far more types on the shelf, aren't there?

Well, after piling everything into the back of the car, off we set for Pembrokeshire, a lovely drive down and settled into our caravan.  Friday evening we just had a quiet visit to the clubhouse, and an early night.  I had plans for Saturday!

Don't you just want to dive in?

 Plans that admittedly involved a swim, and a trip to the beach.  But they're still plans.  Picnic sandwiches, sandcastles, and a paddle in the sea, all to build up an appetite.

Sand in my sandwiches. It's traditional.  Nails: Speciallita - Gracc Jelly - Queimada

Appetites built up, we headed back to the caravan for cocktails & a bit of a barbecue.  Daddy, while happy to join me on the cocktails, flatly refused to have his photo taken.  I think the umbrellas may have been a step too far!  I made up a selection of cocktails, with the Bacardi & peach schnapps I'd bought in Tesco, and a couple of other spirits I'd picked up from home.  I tried to recreate a few cocktails we'd had on holiday in the past, so there was the obvious Cuba Libre and Mojito (Daddy opted for the Cuba Libre, the Mojito was all mine.  Never come between me & my Mojito, unless you're offering me another).  Then there was a brown cow, made with Bacardi, dark rum & chocolate milk. Not quite as sweet as you'd think, but very rich, and I probably couldn't drink more than one of them.  Daddy wasn't impressed, but he's a hard man to please sometimes.

L-R Liquid Cocaine, Brown Cow, Cuba Libre, Mojito, Drama Queen

My last pair of cocktails were a bit more experimental - I remembered a cocktail from my dim & distant past called Liquid Cocaine, but couldn't find a recipe online that matched what I knew was in it.  There should be some pineapple juice in here, but I'd only got orange, so it's Bacardi, Amaretto & Orange juice. Sweet, addictive, and I could drink it all night.  The other is a twist on a "Sex On The Beach", as I was using Bacardi rather than vodka, and the internet tells me that Bacardi, Peach Schnapps & Orange Juice is a Drama Queen.  Again, very sweet, but Daddy preferred this one.  He must like drama queens, otherwise he wouldn't have married me!

Cheers!

Somehow, in amongst all the cocktail making, we safely managed to have a little barbecue as well.  Squeaky was safely tucked up in bed, having insisted on "normal" hot dogs for tea.  I love summer evenings, it stays so light so late, we were still sitting out til well past my bedtime!  Sausages, pork chops in a gorgeous BBQ sauce, and jacket potatoes with cheese oozing out.  Once we'd finished our barbecue, we were considerate caravan neighbours & made sure the fire was safely out before going to bed for a very well earned rest.

The aftermath

Parenting Classes - The Incredible Years

It seems a bit of a big confession to say that I've spent the last ten weeks attending parenting classes.  There's a bit of a misconception that you only go to classes if you're a bad parent, or social services have made you go.  But that's really not the case.  While it's a "course", it's not a classroom type "sit at a desk, write an essay" sort of thing, it's more like a chat with your mates over a cup of coffee & a chocolate biscuit (Yep, that's important)

Some things are important, OK?

The class I attended was The Incredible Years - Basic programme aimed at parents of children aged 3-8, and it was run by the parenting team of my local authority.  There were a group of 6 of us on the course, I already knew a couple of the other mums, all with children much the same age, and it was really easy to talk to them.  I think the first week we all felt a bit nervous, and it can be quite difficult to admit that there are times when you feel out of your depth, but the two course leaders really put us at our ease, and we were soon chatting like old friends.  In fact, there was a really funny moment towards the end of the course where we'd all arrived & were having a good old gossip session over our coffees, and giving our respective partners & in-laws a bit of a pasting, when one of the girls' phones rang.  It was her partner, her phone had accidentally called him from her pocket & we'd left him a 5 minute answerphone message of our conversation.  Oooops!

It's a real relief to find out that other people have the same difficulties with being a parent as you, that everyone else's child does the same (really annoying) things, we all face challenges, and you're not alone.  Equally it was great to get feedback where you're not sure whether you've handled a situation well, only to find out that, yes, you're doing OK, and it's a good way to deal with it.

The focus of the programme is on positive behaviour management, that rewarding positive behaviour, and spending positive time with your child is not only more rewarding, but also much more effective in managing their behaviour than punishment & negative attention.  Yes, there are times when you need to take action with a negative behaviour, but that is the exception, rather than the rule.  By investing positive time with your child, you develop a better relationship with them, they learn that positive behaviours get attention, and you are able to remain calm when they do act up, because you already have a strategy in place to deal with it.

Wherever you attend the Incredible Years programme, it's the same content, the same course.  The DVDs and course information come from a central source, and while the course may be tailored to a group's specific needs, the main structure, elements & methods remain the same.  There's lots of DVD to watch in the group and discuss.  Honestly I could have watched the short films all day, the films we watched were shot in the US in the 1970s, and the haircuts, clothes & furniture were beyond entertaining!  Humour aside, they serve a great purpose, as even though they're in an artificial setting, they use real children, real families to show ways to implement the methods used in the course.

I asked permission from the course leader before I wrote this post, I wanted her to know what I was doing.  She was more than happy for me to write about the course and told me that the Incredible Years programme is used around the world, and that every local authority in the UK has a parenting team. While they may not be running this exact course, they all offer parenting classes, and you don't have to be at risk, or a failing family to take part.  If anything, recognising that parenthood is difficult & seeking out support to deal with those challenges is, in itself, a strength, and shows that a family are further from risk.  There's groups for parents of children of all different ages, and those with certain other difficulties.

If you're thinking "I wish I knew what to do when ..." or "I'm sure mine is the only child who ...", it's worth getting touch with your local authority's Parenting Team, and finding out about parenting classes in your area.  I really would recommend it, even if you're a parent to more than one, and think you've seen & done it all before.  I would never have known about this course without a colleague mentioning it, but it's made a real difference to my confidence as a parent - all I need now is a similar course in how to manage husbands!

Learning to Lie

As our little ones get older, the milestones get less obvious. First tooth, first word, first step, we all know about them, but as they reach pre-schoolerhood the milestones aren't so easy to notice, and they can just pass you by if you're not paying attention.  I'm trying to keep an eye out, but it's difficult.  And I'm not 100% sure how I feel about our latest milestone.

Over the weekend, we spent the most of our time out in the garden, including having tea outside, as the weather's been so good.  I popped into the house to get something, and Squeaky followed me.  She asked for an ice-lolly.  I knew she'd just been at the table eating her tea, so I asked her how much she'd eaten (knowing she hadn't actually had much), she said "lots", so I said "what would daddy say if I asked him?"  Quick as a flash, she says "Don't ask Daddy!"  Hmmmm...

Ice Cream, motivation to lie

Image courtesy of nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Then yesterday, Daddy & Squeaky went to the beach, while I was slaving away over a hot computer at work.  When I got home, she told me what they'd been up to, and the first thing she mentioned was a smarties ice-cream she'd eaten.  About an hour later, again she asks for an ice lolly.  I asked her if she'd had an ice cream that day, she said no.  Just like before I said "What would daddy say if I asked him?" And just like before, she replies "Don't ask Daddy!"

I know it's part of a wider stage of development, not just lying, but becoming aware that different people know different things, that she can know something I don't, and vice versa.  But when it comes in the form of lying, I'm just not sure what to do. I want to encourage her development, to learn independently and to enjoy that learning, but I don't want the whole motivation being more ice creams! And I certainly don't want to encourage her to expand her lying repertoire, at least right now she's not very convincing!