Rain Africa Baby Giveaway

 

Before going into the details, here’s a bit about Rain Africa and a short review on the products I was sent.

Rain is a proudly South African International brand that is handmade in the small town of Swellendam and the company has stores in South Africa, the United States and The Netherlands. The beauty brand focuses on protecting the skin from modern life’s harmful effects by using natural ingredients for all of their products. Their beauty products contain no harmful ingredients such as parabens, petroleum jelly, mineral oils, liquid paraffin and petrochemicals. Everything is handmade by the locals of Swellendam. The company is accredited by Fair Trade, Beauty without Cruelty and the Vegan Society. They’ve sent me a lovely hamper to giveaway to one of my readers.

Rain also has a range of goodies for babies, which are also completely natural and handmade. Some of these products could be used by adults as well, though I don’t think a twenty two year old would be able to fit into these cute booties.

If like me, you’re not pregnant or planning on having babies in the foreseeable future you should still enter this giveaway. Let’s be real, we all know at least one pregnant woman who is due in August or September (these are babies conceived during the festive season) and this hamper would make the perfect baby shower gift. Check out the rest of their baby range here.

Sheep booties

These adorable booties are blue and it is lined with a woollen fabric. It fits size 0-3 months and is embellished with a cute fleece sheep.

100 % Natural talc free cornstarch powder with lavender and chamomile essential oil

This cornstarch powder is a great choice if your baby suffers from talc sensitivity. It looks and feels like regular talc powder and it is scented from the essential oils. The scent is very light with the chamomile as the top note.

100% Natural pillow spray with sleepy chamomile

Chamomile is known to relax the senses and help with insomnia.  This product will help baby relax and fall asleep faster. This pillow spray has a very strong scent so one spray on baby’s pillow before bed will be enough.

100% Natural gentle baby soap with lavender, avocado and olive oils.

This soft has a sweet lavender scent and the olive oil will leave baby’s skin completely smooth.

Terms:

This giveaway is open to people who currently reside in South Africa.

Each of the following counts as an entry and it has to be done via the Rafflecopter widget:

• Leave a comment stating one of the harmful ingredients that Rain Africa does not use in their beauty products.
• Like Rain Africa on Facebook.
• Follow Rain Africa on Twitter.
• Follow O so inspired on Twitter.
• Tweet about the giveaway. Remember to add a link to this post and to tag me and Rain.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

It ends at 12AM on the 29^th May 2013.

May the odds ever be in your favour!

Well hello there!

It's been a while since I've blogged. I would like to pretend that I was out and about being a busy socialite, but unfortunately that's not the case. Naturally I have a plethora of excuses:

I started on my blog redesign but stopped half way because I thought it would be a waste of time because I intend on moving to self-hosted Wordpress.

In my second New Years Resolution post I stated that I was busy with an initiative. Well I started on the website for it. It's self-hosted on Wordpress and I'm kind of learning as I go along. I left it for one week and when I tried to log in, I discovered that my site was hacked by some twelve year Turkish hacker whose name I cannot recall, but he wrote that he "WAS HERE" all over the site. I can only imagine that he's twelve because no one over the age of thirteen uses that phrase. My site was 80% complete and I failed to back it up, which meant that I had to redo everything. I've been working on this initiative since November and will reveal everything once it's near completion.

I graduated. I'm officially a Master of the Arts in Media Studies. I had a few last minute rushing to do, to finalise the binding of my treatise and tie up some loose strings.

In the first part of my New Years Resolutions posts I stated some books that I wanted to read. One of my goals was to either read Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey. Well, I read Twilight and it took a while for my brain to recover. Needless to say, my opinion on it remains the same. I also read The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice, because apparently it is apparently better than 50SG and both books are in the same genre. Reading this book was very traumatic for me and I am seriously disturbed by it. If the Sleeping Beauty trilogy is supposedly better than the 50SG, I do not want to read it at all.

Instead of sleeping, I made a Tumblr. It's filled with pretty pictures, quotes and stuff. You can find it here.



I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and read the novella by Truman Capote. I am absolutely smitten with both the film and the short story. With the exception of a few paragraphs, the film is nothing like the novella. The film is glamorous and wonderful, where as the novella is raw, and at the end the reader is left with more questions than answers. I also noted that Ryan Goslin looks like the young George Peppard. Now I'm not one of those crazy Ryan Goslin fans, but I do recognise and appreciate that which is aesthetically appealing.



I've been eating chocolate. That's all, nothing else to say on that.

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that I've finally taken the risk and cut myself a fringe. I don't regret it, but I miss being able to push my hair behind my ears so I don't think I'll be keeping it for long.

I've run out of excuses. Thank you to my loyal readers and fellow bloggers, who have stuck around during my hiatus, especially to Desle who checked up on me. Follow her, she is a darling!

I'll be posting a Rain Africa giveaway in this week. So watch out for the details!

Custom Kindle Covers

Earlier this month I purchased a Kindle cover off ASOS. It was my first time purchasing from them. The cover I chose is not custom, but it is pink. Although I found some nice covers in a few local stores, I could not find a single pink one. The only other times I've purchased from an international seller, it was small items and they arrived earlier than I expected so I thought all international mail is. Turns out that's not always the case and combine this with the illegal strike at the Post Office in Gauteng, I'd be lucky if I receive my parcel sometime in April, that is if it doesn't go 'missing', which has happened to a parcel of mine before. Fortunately that was a small item.

While I'm waiting for my Kindle cover to arrive, I done some online browsing and found these cool custom kindle covers.

Handmade Kindle Cover by artsci



Ship Wheel Leather Cover by Joe V. Leather



Genuine Black Napa Leather Flip Open Book Style Carry Case Cover for the Kindle Fire by MiTAB



Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray Book Cover by chicklitdesigns


Nancy Drew The Secret of the Wooden Lady by retrograndma


Peacock Feather Case by 8daysoftreasures


The Book of  Infinite Pages by ReviveGifts

I would really love to make me a cover from one of my favourite books. A Nancy Drew version would be perfect as I loved reading the series during my teens,  but I just cannot bring myself to destroying a book that I love. I love the colour pink, so I can't wait for my ASOS cover to arrive!

I bought a domain!

That's right, from now on www.osoinspired.com will direct you to my blog. Initially I was looking for a South African company, because she you know 'Local is Lekker', but I couldn't find one that offered Whois privacy. There was no way I was going to have my address and phone number available online to practically everyone. So I chose GoDaddy, they're not exactly the cheapest, but then I happened to find (read Googled) a promo code to buy a .COM year's subscription for only $2.95. So I paid in total a mere $11.12 for my domain and privacy protection. Converted into rands it's R102 and I could not pass that up. This is one step closer to OSI becoming a self-hosted blog (even though I love my redesign in process). So if you have my site bookmarked, set it at www.osoinspired.com.

Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color 5.25 Frosted Chestnut

When Beauty Bulletin called for ladies to take part in a hair product review, I immediately entered.  I haven’t dyed my hair in over a year. The last time I did, I dyed it dark brown to cover the henna I was growing out. The dye didn't last due to a hair treatment I used on my hair a few days later. The treatment removed a lot my colour. For some time my hair has been a subtle gradient from brown to reddish-brown mid-shaft and at the ends of my longest layers, black. I didn't mind because the gradient was only obvious under bright light.

Beauty Bulletin and Garnier sent me the Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color in 5.25 Frosted Chestnut. The Nutrisse Ultra Color dye is a permanent nourishing hair with ultra visible reflects. Garnier has formulated a new conditioner that contains 3 oils and claims to have 8 weeks of anti-dryness. The conditioner contains almond, olive and avocado oil. The top right flap of the box can be removed and stored in my purse so that I can remember the exact shade should I want to dye my hair with the same shade. The box contains an applicator bottle of developing crème, a tube of nourishing color crème and 1 bottle of nourishing conditioner. It also has a pair of gloves and an instruction leaflet.

I chose 5.25 Frosted Chestnut for two reasons. The first being that I couldn't go much lighter than a medium brown due to the henna in my hair. The second is that I anticipated that Beauty Bulletin would only send one box. Even though my hair is thin, it is long and if I took a vastly different color and the box was not enough I’d end up with blotches. Seeing that Frosted Chestnut is only a few shades lighter than my natural hair color and similar to the henna in my hair, if I did end up with blotches it wouldn't be obvious.

I washed my hair the night before so that it would be dry and product free when I dyed it. I de-tangled and divided my head into four quadrants and clipping each section up. I started at the roots of the front quadrants, that way if I did end up with too little product, at least my hair on top would cover the blotches.  I used my hands and a wide tooth to quickly spread the product. After I completed the roots of all four quadrants I applied the product to the length. It was enough to cover my hair, but truth be told I spread it quite thinly. If you have long hair get two boxes.

Before I became crazy about hair care, I dyed my hair a different shade almost every three months. So I had become quite a pro at ensuring that I didn't get any product on my skin, clothes or the floor. Clearly I lost the ability to do that. I managed to get product on my forehead, both of my arms, the basin, the floor as well as my left big toe. Only my big toe still has a slight mark.

The conditioner smells divine, mostly due to the avocado oil. It is also super thick and creamy. I tried using all of the contents in the small bottle, but then I realized that I already had too much on my hair. I still have a little left that I intend on using the next time I wash my hair (never shampoo your hair within three days of dying it).

After styling my hair, I was surprised at how light it became. Honestly I didn't expect it to lighten much. However, it was shined a very reddish-brown. I did not expect it to have such a red shine and if I knew that, I would have taken the darker brown. The shade is lovely, but it’s just not what I wanted. Fortunately the color settled over the past few days and it’s not as red, but more brown. With the exception of my hair being a bit darker at my ends due to my black dye, which I don’t mind because I need a trim, my hair is one shade. My hair is also not damaged and it feels smooth. Unfortunately my camera makes my hair look darker than it is, but hopefully you can see some difference in these pictures. 


I know my hair looks terrible in the before pic. I was not going to blow dry it just to dye it and blow out my hair again.

Check out my rating for Ultra Color on the Beauty Bulletin site here.