Self-confessed ‘cup half full kinda girl’, luxury lifestyle blogger and YouTuber Amelia from xameliax.com spends her time reviewing new beauty products, amazing places to explore and stay, delicious restaurants, easy to make recipes and cocktails, and fitness tips. We caught up with her to find out how she incorporates her ‘good vibes only’ attitude into her Sunday evening ritual, from winding down right though to lights out.
The Wind Down
I absolutely love having a lie-in on a Sunday. I think it’s really important to take things slowly and have at least one day of the week when things are really chilled. In the afternoon, my boyfriend Chris and I will take my cocker spaniel Toby for a long, leisurely walk around a local Castle where he can run around with all the other dogs, which is so cute. Then we’ll while away the afternoon with Sunday lunch in a pub. Believe it or not, I’ve only just discovered roast dinners. I wasn’t really a roast kind of person until recently, I think it’s because my mum’s cooking is quite traditional, and she’d always just cook a chicken which I found a bit boring. Then recently we went out one Sunday and I had a lamb shank with a really nice glass of wine and it was SO good, it turned me. We’ll get in around 5 or 6pm, which is when I’ll start my self-care Sunday routine as it gives me the rest of the evening to binge watch Netflix with Chris and Toby.
The Routine
I’ve got two different playlists, depending on what mood I’m in. I don’t really do the whole spa thing, I prefer to listen to more motivational, upbeat songs when I’m pampering, or piano music without any words, so I can just relax. I’ll light my Jo Loves candle, I prefer fresh, floral fragrances as opposed to a musky or earthy scent, and I always wash on my hair on a Sunday night because I like to wake up on a Monday morning with fresh, clean hair. It just makes me feel like I’ve already ticked one thing off my To Do list before the week has even begun. So, I’ll have a shower because I just can’t wash my hair in the bath. About a year ago I had my hair cut quite short, but it’s still really thick and it tends to be a bit on the dry side, so I like to treat it with a nourishing hair mask, followed by a colour correcting shampoo to help keep my blonde balyage looking fresh and bright. I always cleanse my face in the shower, I love Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Botanical Cleansing Oil, it smells so delicious and calming and my skin just loves it. I’ll follow the cleanse with a light exfoliating face scrub. When it comes to skin, I’m mainly looking for products that lock in moisture but that don’t break me out and Kiehl’s really works for me.
My body is quite dry, especially at the moment as I’ve just got back from holiday, and so I like to use a moisturising shower gel to help hydrate my skin and preserve my tan. I like anything with rose. I’m really rubbish at using a body moisturiser, it’s just an additional step I can’t be bothered to do once I get out the shower, so I’ll use an in-shower body moisturiser or oil instead. The last thing I do in the shower is cover my whole body in Frank Body Coffee Scrub. I absolutely love it, it feels like it’s actually scrubbing away all the dead skin cells but at the same time coats skin in a gorgeous, glossy oil. When I get out of the shower, I wrap my hair up in a microfibre towel, which is literally like a sponge, and I’ll keep this on while I brush my teeth or finish off my skincare routine, just to help seal in the moisture. They really do work! Before I go and join Chris and Toby in front of the TV, I’ll sweep my skin with a glycolic acid toner, to keep blemishes at bay, and I’ll pop on the Kiehl’s Instant Renewal Concentrate Mask, which I find fits my face really well. I follow this with my favourite Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate. I’ll then remove my hair towel and put a hair oil through the lengths and ends, blow-dry it and quickly flick the straighteners through it.
Bedtime
Emails are banned on a Sunday and I try to avoid my phone as much as possible. After a bit of TV, my boyfriend and I will read our books in bed with a cup of tea. I’m so sensitive to caffeine that if I have it after 6pm, I’ll be wide awake, so I tend to stick to herbal sleep teas. I read a lot of self-help books but I do like fiction too, I’ve just finished my friend Elle’s book, The Other Sister, and I loved Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Chris and I are both night owls and don’t usually switch off the lights till about midnight, but before we do I’ll massage a magnesium body lotion into my legs as I suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome and I find the magnesium really helps with this. I spray my pillow with This Works Pillow Spray and pop on a silk sleep mask which is very diva-ish of me, but it really does help me to sleep. There’s a sky light in my bedroom, so when it gets light in the morning it does wake me up really early. I do struggle to drift off to sleep because my brain is always going at a million miles per hour, but once I’m off, I’m dead to the world. The very last thing I do is apply Dr. Lipp Original Nipple Balm, it contains lanolin which is super moisturising for lips. I always keep it on my bedside table so I can apply it liberally.
Monday Morning
One of things that works well for me, being a freelancer, is that I don’t have to get up and go into an office. My boyfriend gets up and goes to work around 8am, so I’ll start stirring around about then. He’ll bring me a cup of tea in my little Nespresso mug that keeps it warm so if I fall back to sleep it doesn’t go cold. I tend to take things slow on a Monday morning and lie in until about 9, 9.30am. I need a lot of sleep and I’ve done some research around this lately because it always makes me feel like a horrible person when I’m tired all the time. I know you can train yourself to become better at these things, but I could honestly sleep for hours and hours and still go to sleep in the evening. All the motivational books tell you to get up early and imply that you can’t be successful if you’re not an early riser but that’s simply not true. So, I’ll get up, have my tea and slowly go through my inbox and tentatively open the YouTube comment section of the blog. I try and avoid that until later on in the day, because I don’t like to start my week off with a load of hate! While I’m going through my emails I’ll pop on a set of undereye gel patches, which I keep in the fridge, and these really help to wake me up. I’ll follow with Kiehl’s Day Reviving Concentrate and that’s it, I don’t tend to wear any makeup when I’m at home.