How I unwind in the evenings ft Aveda, Clark's Botanicals, L'Occitane & Febreze!

In an attempt to develop a better work/blog/life balance, I've created a new little week night routine to help calm my noggin down at the end of the day and send me off to the land of nod.  I'd gotten into a habit of watching YouTube videos in bed and before I knew it, an hour had passed and my plan for an early night would be scuppered.  And at work, I'm in front of a screen all day and any evening that I'm not out at an event or launch is spent in front of the computer either blogging or editing videos. That's not good for the eyeballs or brain.

It's so easy to waste time online when you're trying to be productive, I'm a professional at that, but at night, it's easy for me to go from working at the laptop to watching stuff in bed on the iPad, so I needed to cop on and start looking after myself a bit more and being a bit more productive.  This is still a learning curve for me, because I had such bad habits, but I'm getting there!  So this is my week night army to help me wind down and relax the cacks.

Smellify one's boudoir

There's something about having a candle burning that just instantly makes me feel relaxed but I generally only burn them at the weekends because sometimes I'm so tired during the week, and I know if I get in to bed, I ain't getting up to blow out a candle.  And if I keep it on my bedside table, I'll knock it over, set fire to my house and have nowhere to live.  So I've been using and loving this Febreze Sleep Serenity duo that arrived a few weeks ago.

The Bedside Diffuser in the Warm Milk & Honey scent is as soothing and comforting as the name suggests.  It's subtle enough not to get up your schnoz and disrupt you from falling asleep but strong enough to do it's job and helps create that lovely calming environment in your boudoir.  I have that on the go all the time and right before I brush my teeth, I give a few sprays of the Sleep Serenity Bedroom Mist in Warm Milk & Honey around my room to intensify the scent a bit more and I have to admit, I love 'em.  The scent is soft, calming, smooth and perfect for creating an air of calm in my bedroom.  They totally help me unwind and now I associate them with getting ready to nod off so I'm screwed if I spray the mist during the day at all!

Rub some stuff all over yo' body

Lavender and sleepy time go hand in hand so on evenings where the thought of having a shower the next morning is too much (that means setting the alarm for 5.15 instead of 5.30, big difference at that hour) I have a nice shower using this Lavender shower gel from L'Occitane which is enriched with organic grade lavender essential oil from Haute Provence.  When I use it, it's how I imagine I'd smell if I was cycling through the lavender fields in Provence and I think when the evenings get darker and chillier, I'll be trying out the bubble bath in the same scent.  When I use this, I take my time washing myself and enjoy smelling the real lavender, the good stuff.  There's nothing synthetic about it and it leads me on to phase two of getting my body ready for bed!

I've been using this Stress Fix Body Creme from Aveda recently and it almost conks me out as soon as I apply it.  It's thick, luxurious and sinks into the skin quickly which is good because if it took any longer, I'd be fast asleep on my feet in my nudies.  With it's intoxicating scent of organic grade lavender at the forefront, if the L'Occitane shower gel didn't get me relaxed enough, then this topples me over the edge and I'm ready to face plant the bed.  It also has shea butter, sunflower seed oil and sea algae to thoroughly moisturise my skin so I wake up - eventually - with soft supple skin.  Pure luxury this is and if you can stay awake long enough to enjoy the scent, then even better.

Mask it up

I'm a bit obsessed with my latest evening skincare routine which I'll be going into more detail about soon, but I needed to tell you about this seriously amazing face mask that can also be used as a moisturiser.  I've spoken about the Clark's Botanicals Deep Moisture Mask in my July Favourites video but I had to reiterate my love for it again.  Each night, I apply a chickpea (very specific, I know) amount onto my face and when I tell you this stuff feels like silk on the skin.  We're talking instant plumping, hydration, nourishment and although I use a smaller amount than recommended, I leave it on overnight as a regular moisturiser and I can't stop using it.  I've so many other skincare products to test out and I can't not use this!  I feel thoroughly pampered in the face department and then I can get cracking on the next phase of Operation Calm Yo'self.

Turn off technology

I don't watch TV really but do spend a lot of time on the laptop or iPad so in an attempt to wind down, I've been making an effort to turn everything off for the last hour before I go to bed.  It's difficult getting out of that habit and I don't manage to do it every night, but I'm making a concerted effort, I promise!  And for the past few weeks I've been doing extra hours at work which means I'm working through lunch which used to be the time where I'd be able to catch up on emails and tweets from the morning, so all of my catching up has to be done in the evenings usually after dinner, so trying to get that done, blogging done and a bit of chilling is difficult, but I'm getting there.  Kinda!  If I turn my phone on silent and have it upside down on the bedside table, I still have to force myself not to check what's happening on Instagram or Twitter but I'm slowly getting there!

Read it and don't weep

I used to read all the time as dad used to be a bookbinder and would bring us home books every week from work.  I love browsing book shops and constantly have a cart full of new reads on Amazon.  There's nothing better than picking up a new book and smelling it isn't there?  Dad is the reason why I'll never be able to buy a kindle or any kind of e-book doo dah because he would've killed me for even contemplating such a thing.  Since starting the blog nearly 4 years ago, I've been reading less and less and so about two months ago, I decided enough was enough and started reading again before bed.  I usually have a couple on the go which was always the case with me but I'm trying to be a one book woman and recently finished This House is Haunted by John Boyne.  I bought it last year and forgot I had it until I was rifling through my bookcase and it was grand.  Nothing spectacular but nothing too scary before bed time!  It was a nice easy read that wasn't too taxing on the brain after all my destressing with the products above.  I'm about to start the new Bridget Jones book and will let you know how I get on with it, but I'm loving reading regularly again and look forward to getting through a few chapters each night.

So tell me this and tell me no more, how do you wind down in the evenings?  Do you have any beauty regimes that you find helps destress your body and mind?