Miss Budget Beauty

Michelle Buteau is a longtime figure on the comedy scene. If you’ve watched Netflix in the past six months, you’ve likely seen — and laughed with — her. She’s also a new mum to twins, Hazel and Otis, whom she and her husband welcomed earlier this year. Here, she shares her best tips for curly hair and an offbeat trick for better sleep…

Perhaps it’s easier for us to love our eyes, lips, or hair — since such features are already traditionally proclaimed beautiful, and there are tons of products made that encourage us to enhance and bring more attention to them. But our freckles are one of the only characteristics of our bodies that we can’t add anything to in order to “make them better.” Rather than trying to fix what isn’t broken, though, let’s come to terms with, appreciate, and recognize the natural allure that they possess. It sure is a lot easier to let them shine than trying endlessly to cover them up.

Why do you bother with haircare?

What a great and loaded question! Not to sound like the back of a cereal box, but it really is from within, I think. Beauty is about how you feel, in any shape, size or season. I wish more people would have told me that when I was growing up, ‘cause a lot of it was like, ‘Summer’s coming, time to work on your bikini body!’ I wish people would have said, ‘Listen, as long as you’re happy, you’re okay.’

Be proud of your freckles

I started getting them when I was about 10 years old, and I get more every year. Growing up, I got made fun of for having freckles and curly hair. Now, as an adult, all the stuff I was teased for is the stuff that makes me unique. I’ve always loved my freckles, but not all the things that come with having them. Like, walking down the street, a guy will catcall me like, ‘Can I kiss every one of those freckles?’ No, you cannot, sir. But it’s fun too, because no matter where I travel in the world, if I see another black person with freckles, we look at each other like, ‘Hey, sis!’ We’re automatically family.

What do you hate about you?

M y least favorite part is that everyone thinks you should know everything after a certain age. And it’s like, no, you don’t! You might graduate from school but that doesn’t mean you stop learning. I notice people are often insecure about not knowing stuff. But it’s perfectly okay not to know all the things all the time

My avid readers will know that guest bedroom didn’t always look like that.

When me and hubby moved into this house, it became clear that decorating ideas needed to come thick and fast. The guest bedroom walls had chunks out of them and were painted lilac. The thin blue carpet was threadbare in places, and stained with drips and drops of lilac paint. The faded floral curtains were mounted on a wonky, plastic curtain-pole. I bought a double bed, but was startled to discover the prices of brand new headboards and resolved to find one in a charity shop (I never found one).

The only other furniture was an wobbly IKEA wardrobe called BILLY that was left by the previous occupier. This is our guest bedroom so it was so utterly important to be welcoming to friends, I found myself apologising whenever people came to stay.

Sometimes it pays to buy, not upcycle.

I only buy the best stuff. Such as a limited edition Graham & Brown wallpaper, a stupidly-posh Schreiber bedhead (RRP £449) and a set of G-Plan bedroom furniture. See, I said I wouldn’t scrimp on quality! The cost for that lot? A little over £600, including the wallpaper paste. I am swimming in money pretty much, but I don’t like to boast. This is about being a penny pincher but sometimes you have to spend some of it!

Now I don’t want to show off too much readers.

I did make two purchases for this bedroom that, while heavily discounted, were still jeffing expensive. (That Schreiber bed was one; the carpet was another). I’ll come to those at the end.

A couple of years prior, when it was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and there was a Royal Wedding and British memorabilia was all over the place, I won a move of excellent backdrop in an online challenge. It was restricted release Graham and Brown backdrop called Jubilee Design, and it was amazing. The backdrop was delineated with pictures of 1950s women in New Look dresses, with Big Ben and Tower Bridge out of sight.

I had an issue: a solitary move of backdrop doesn’t extend far. Not except if your divider is, little. Be that as it may, I cherished it and I needed to discover an utilization for it, so I accumulated it.

Accepting reality.

When we moved into this house and needed to brighten the visitor room, I realized the backdrop would be impeccable… and I pondered, since its getting late that had passed, in the event that I could discover old moves being sold inexpensively.

I got lucky on the first go: when I checked the Graham and Brown site, the backdrop was still there – on freedom. It had been diminished to £10 a roll. I purchased two moves for £20, with an additional £2 shipping. So I wound up with three moves of tip-top originator backdrop for £22. Nothing more needs to be said. Now and again, irrational accumulating satisfies!

However I underestimated just how much I would like this furniture. I’m even thinking that when we renovate our own bedroom (which is pink and flowery and bad right now – but that’s for another post), we could move the G-Plan furniture in there, dressing table and all, and find a couple of bedside tables in the Brandon style. I really like MADE.com stuff, but they aren’t cheap. Although I do use this site to find vouchers for them, I just sit back and watch it work. It’s incredible – I recommend you try it, if you search for voucher codes online like me. They never work!

Don’t be too surprised if you see this big ole’ wardrobe and these drawers popping up on another post here in the future…