Welcome!

Hellooo You beautiful readers and welcome to TEASE!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Lottie, an animal loving, vegan, hairstylist from London.

A few things to get to know me... firstly, I love, love, love travelling, discovering beauty in another country and exploring what it has to offer makes me so appreciative to to world we live in. My children come in a form of two golden retrievers, they are literally my life! I'm Disney obsessed, a slight yogi and supposedly a bit of a free spirit!

My new lifetime goal (it is a big one) is to end ALL ANIMAL CRUELTY! It's not something I can change overnight or in a year, but I want to try my hardest to spread the word and work towards stopping this!

This goal of mine is mainly what has lead me to starting up this blog and in future I will be sharing my views and ideas about how we, yes we, can stop the cruelty that we are often blinded to. I will also be touching on general lifestyle (aka an ethical way of living), hair and beauty and maybe if your lucky, a few tutorials!

In this first post I want to share with you my story and how my journey has got me where I am today...

I was introduced to hairdressing ten years ago, when I was just 15 years old, I quickly developed a strong passion for it and wanted to become the best in the industry and nothing was going to stop me!

For the next 7 years I revolved my life around hairdressing. Nothing else mattered!

After I graduated from college I started working for John Frieda in the West End. I was working over 50 hours a week so its safe to say I had little time for anything else!

As the years went by I kept seeing photos on social media of old school friends going on gap years and exploring these magical places. The more photos I was seeing the more my need to travel grew.

After a few years of saving I finally plucked up the courage to quit my job (I never thought I would leave) and jump on a plane to the wonderful land of Oz! 

During my year backpacking, I had made friends with so many different characters and listening to all their unique stories had made me realise that I really had been a workaholic and hadn't experienced much else my life. This needed to change.

During the course of the year I rediscovered my love for animals and learnt so much about animal welfare, how they are mistreated and even though I knew a bit about animal testing, I learnt about it in a lot more depth. Hearing all the horror stories about this made my blood boil! I was so angry! How could people harm an innocent animal? All that went through my mind was 'I really need to do something to stop this!'

I've been home from Australia a little over a year now (I honestly cannot believe how quick it has been!) and I've loved it! I have reconnected with all my home friends as well as gaining so many travel buddies! I'm back working in a salon that I love, with the most amazing clients and I'm allowing myself more 'me time'. I also made it my mission when I returned to teach as many people I could about animal testing and switching their products to more animal friendly brands. I made sure every single thing in my home was (and still is) cruelty free and every product I now use in the salon is also cruelty free. I was feeling so positive about my new home life. Everything has just been perfect despite the hurdles that life had thrown at me! I was once told 'If you fall down you just pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and carry on with a smile' (hard sometimes, trust me I know). l think I’ve come to believe that life throws you these hurdles to challenge you, to learn and to help you grow and this messaged I have found to be very important (hence why I wanted to share it). 

After Christmas however I found myself heading into January feeling quite lost as if I was just aimlessly walking into 2019 not having a clue what I want to do or what I want to achieve. Was I suffering from the January blues? I had felt as though I had lost all my ambition which is a very odd feeling for me. I always had it in my mind that I would be a salon owner one day but now its just not what I want. But what do I want?

I began to put a lot of pressure on myself not knowing where my life was heading. All my friends are on the road to settle down and it left me thinking 'Is this what I should be doing?' I'm 25 now and my story is so far from being completed. Do I want it to be?

It wasn't until a couple of nights ago, I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep and it hit me! I am so wrong to put that much pressure on myself. I was making myself miserable. Everyone's life is mapped out so differently. Just because some peoples path is to settle down now, it doesn't mean its the same for me nor do I want it to be. After that clicked in my head I realised that I hadn't lost my ambition at all! It has been staring me in the face this whole time! Animals. I want to do anything I can to help end animal testing! Having a salon just doesn't do it for me anymore but doing something that can help our little planet fills me with so much excitement and determination. I know it sounds like a big thing and people think its never going to happen but it has to start from somewhere right? And isn't it better to try rather than doing nothing at all?

So this is where my blog and all you lovely readers can help!

The more people I can make aware and the

more people that can start with just a small change the closer we will to ending animal testing.

If you ever have any questions or want any advice or even have stories of your own you would like to share then just drop me a message and I will be more than happy to listen and help!

Lots of Love

Lottie xx