All About Lou

Hello everyone and welcome to my little place on the internet. On this page you can basically a little bit more about me Louise the face and voice of LouLouLand

First up, why LouLouLand? well to be honest I can't really remember why I originally called it that way back in 2007 but now the name now represents a sneaky peak into my world. I've thought a few times about changing the title but there is a Louise in LouLouLand and my blog explores some of the things that I love and that I want to talk about and that's the way I want it to stay. I never wanted to produce a super corporate or dare I say it professional faceless blog, I really want to keep myself and my personality at its heart.

So what about me, well I'm from a little place in Co Durham in the North East Of England. It's a bit out in the sticks but I can usually get to Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland without too much trouble. I'm in my early 40's and I live with my mum and my two cats. Nearly 18 years ago now I was diagnosed with ME / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / CFS and my life spiralled out of control. I had everything going for me and then wham!, my body confirmed it hated me even more when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

When you're struck down with something like that you're almost grasping for breath and clutching at all the straws you can get. I have some amazing family and friends though and for that I'll always be grateful. but being at home can get very lonely though and I started posting on a few forums, and social media sites and in 2007 I set up this blog.

I really set it up as a means of escape in those early days I never thought the blogging community would snowball the way that it has. I've always used my blog to talk about the things that I love and even from an early age I loved clothes, and make up and trying to make the best of myself. 

Whilst LouLouLand started off as a predominantly fashion and beauty blog over the years I started to feel a little bit pigeon holed, and whilst they remain my first love there is so much more to me than that. Being vegetarian a I've started to cook a lot more than what I used to and it's something I really enjoy. Experimenting with food and ingredients and inventing my own recipes became a major part of what I did on a weekly basis so it was understandable that I started to integrate it more into my blog. I also love home decor, home styling, and crafting, and these are definitely ares that I want to start featuring more on the blog in the future.

The thing I probably do most through when I'm not watching football, or documentaries, crafting, cooking, blogging or spending time with family or friends is reading. I love reading so much - I read a bit of fiction but non fiction is my true love, I'm a huge reader of true crime, and true life stories. I think it stems a bit from my degrees I have a BA (Hons) in Sociology and and MSc in Social Sciences as both courses involved a fair amount of criminology - a least I hope that's where the interest comes from ;) In the future I'd love to return to college or university to study further. I've already done a few distance learning courses whilst I've been ill but my ultimate goal  when I recover is to gain some professional qualifications so I can go on a completely different career path to what I did before I was diagnosed.

So I hope you enjoyed that little sneaky peek into my world and I hope that from that you've learnt a little bit more about the Louise in LouLouLand x I'm going to finish this page be giving you a little bit more information about my skin. body shape, hair etc that might be handy to know when you read posts and reviews on my blog x I hope you find it useful x

Skin

Despite being in my 40's I still have a combination skin. Although it's been a pain over the years it does mean that my skin doesn't seem to be ageing that badly. I hope upon hope that I've inherited my mums skin, she is in her 80's now and her skin is fabulous. I still have an oily t-zone, large pores and get the odd hormonal breakout but I'm getting more and more dry patches particularly on my cheeks and towards my hairline. As I say I haven't noticed too many wrinkles yet but I'm noticing a little bit of sagging on my jawline, and I'm noticing some fine lines under my eyes and my eyelids whilst remaining oily are starting to look a little crepey.

As for skin colour I'm quite prone to redness so my skin always looks quite pink especially across my cheeks. I am quite pale and my skin also has a natural pink undertone, but strangely enough I do tan.

Hair

My hair at the moment is quite long. I used to have deathly, straight shiny glossy hair but over the last few years it's changed. I do take a lot of medication and that and my various illnesses have played their part. My hair is now at the very least wavy, and more often than not if I leave it to dry naturally, curly. I do have the odd silver grey hair coming through now I am partial to a bit of hair dye. My hair is by nature fine but I have quite a lot of it so it can appear quite thick and unruly but I do lose quite a lot of hair again down to medication and illness and I often suffer from breakage at the hairline particularly where my parting is. Condition wise it needs a bit of everything it can get oily at the roots and very dry and frizzy towards the ends.

Body

I am about 5"8 in height. I take a size 7.5-8 in shoes, and at the moment I'm plus size and wearing about an 18 depending on the make. I've always struggled on and off with my weight and I've worn everything from a size 8 to a size 20 in my adult life.I'm a classic apple shape and carry all my weight around my middle. My skin like that on my face is pale with a pink undertone but again I tan.

Eyes And Lips And Facial Palsy

The biggest thing that you've probably noticed on my blog is my face. I have a condition called facial nerve palsy, which was caused by birth trauma - I was coming with a facial presentation and then I stopped and got stuck so my mum ended up having to have a Caesarean section. Basically some of the nerves and muscles in my face were damaged. This means that my mouth and face can often look uneven, and my left eye either looks lazy and to put it simply I have problems closing it. There was potential for me to have surgery to correct the problem  to some degree but to be honest it's no quick fix so I decided against it. It's not to say that I won't have any sort of treatment in the future but I've lived with it all my life and I've dealt with every cruel comment you can probably think of and I've survived. Bullying made me a much stronger person, I just wish people would think before they speak or type, but at long last I've started to accept myself for the way I am. Obviously it can cause problems with beauty blogging but I do my best yes my lips often look uneven in lip shots but nobodies perfect. You'll also notice that I very rarely take photos of both my eyes, for eye make up shots I just use my right which is my "good" eye. I do occasionally do full face of the days but I hope this section explains why I'm often reluctant and why my face lacks symmetry. Having the blog though has given me more confidence so I'm hoping to show my full face more often as hopefully the above picture shows. For more information on facial paralysis please have a look at this very informative website written by sufferers and their families.

Apart from that I have green eyes and I wear glasses as I'm short sighted in one eye and long sighted in the other. I do often wear them in face of the day posts but obviously I take them off for make up pics x 

Thanks for reading and thanks for learning a little bit more about me xx If you have any other questions (keep it nice) please don't hesitate to email me at louloulanduk@gmail.com