UK Beauty and Lifestyle Blog

January 11, 2013

L'Occitane Tree Game Prize


During December L'Occitane ran a Christmas Competition on their website where you had to decorate a tree with their products and flowers and then people got to go and vote for their favourites. Naturally, being a massive L'Occitane fan I entered this competition and asked if my friends and family could look up my tree and vote for me. When the competition closed on Christmas Eve I didn't actually think I'd have won as some of the trees literally had thousands of votes but at the very start of the year I got an emailing saying I was one of the 20 winners and that I going to receive a prize! I had no idea what this was going to be until it arrived yesterday.


The prize turned out to be their Shea Collection Gift Set, which includes an amazing hand and body wash, their hand cream and foot cream, two body lotions and an extra mild soap! I can't tell you how pleased I am and how thankful I am to everybody who voted for me. Thank you all very much :) I haven't tried all of these products so I'm looking forward to using them. I'll post reviews when I feel I've had long enough to properly test them out. 


Have any of you entered any good giveaways lately?

Angelica


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January 10, 2013

MY NO-FOUNDATION CHALLENGE: Update #1


Day 10
Hello everyone! If you didn't read my post on January 1st about my Challenge, basically what I'm doing is a 31 day challenge to see if I can go without wearing any base products for a month! I'm on Day 10 of my challenge and so far it has been going well. My only sadness is that (mainly due to stress and lack of sleep) my skin isn't looking its best, quite far from its best really. However, I haven't given in yet- I've been foundation, BB cream, powder etc free since December now. The photo above is of me with absolutely no make-up on (I definitely wasn't as happy about sharing that photo as the one from New Year's Day!) and the two below are of two of the ways I've done my make-up over the last 10 days.


All I'm wearing in the above photo is mascara, some Body Shop lipstick and I've filled in my eyebrows with my HD Brows Palette. I love wearing so little make-up during the day!


Again, all I'm wearing here is mascara, I've done my eyebrows with the HD Brows Palette and I'm wearing a mixture of my Kate Moss Lipstick 107 and Max Factor's Colour Elixir Lipstick in Bewitching Coral (the MaxFactor lipstick lightens the Kate Moss one to a shade I really like).

I have to admit that I'm looking a little tired in all three of these photos! But I do think that my the pores on my nose have shrunk over the last 10 days (probably from an improved skincare regime given that I know I can't hide anything with make-up) and in the first photo which is the most recent my cheeks look noticeably less red. To see what products I've been using daily click here to see my first post on this challenge. The only product I've added into my routine since then has been Laidbare's For Richer For Porer Pore Refining Facemask which I really love and mentioned in my Sunday Pampering post on Monday.

Overall it's going well! I'm loving my skincare routine and I'm loving focusing more on different lipsticks than worrying about primer, base, powder etc. We'll see how things go over the next week or so and I'll be doing another update post at the end of next week.

How are you New Year's Challenges / Resolutions going? 


Angelica


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January 09, 2013

REVIEW: Soap & Glory Hand Food and Heel Genius

moisturising hand and foot cream very effective for dry skin

As you might have seen in my Christmas Beauty Haul I received the Soap & Glory 'Best of All' gift set for Christmas, and among the 9 products were these two lovely products. I've never tried any Soap & Glory products before (apart from their Thick and Fast mascara which I didn't love). I also haven't ever really followed Soap & Glory as a brand so, although I know that they're popular, I didn't really know what to  expect! I have to say though, the first thing I noticed about both of these products is the packaging. I absolutely love the colour and the font and the descriptions on the back of both were really cute (I've taken photos to show you). I know we shouldn't choose skincare on the packaging it comes in but liking the aesthetic of a product is never a bad thing!



Heel Genius is a fantastic product. I instantly really liked it and when I used it for a few days and saw that it really worked and that my skin were continuing to get softer and smoother I was really happy. This product is cream but feels a lot like a gel when you apply it and it has a minty scent (like a lot of foot products) but it isn't very strong. This is essentially a foot mask, you apply this on your feet before bed, slip on some cotton socks and wake up with softer feet. It is so easy to get into a habit of using this daily that I almost can't believe I haven't always been using a product like this! I'm hooked on this and it has become a part of my routine that I enjoy using. I'd definitely recommend it.

I think this is cute!



Hand Food is definitely the most hyped Soap & Glory product that I've come across so far. Everyone seems to love this, on #bbloggers chats I have been endlessly recommended this for my dry hands! I've been a faithful use of L'Occitane's hand creams for a while now and although I still really do rate them for their quality, I have to admit that Hand Food is pretty darn amazing. I threw this into my handbag because my Body Shop hand cream which I'd taken back to London with me exploded without mercy in my bag one day- those metallic tubes look really nice but if you try and fold those babies tears will eventually be shed! Anyway, as a result, I've been using this since Boxing Day which I know isn't ages but I've already noticed an improvement in my knuckles which I really struggle to keep moisturised at this time of year. This hand cream also smells really lovely without being so strong as to annoy you or those around you, and it sinks in really very quickly. Even when you accidentally apply too much, which I do all the time (it's no fault of the packaging I'm just a moisturizer glutton!) The packaging of this really is another strong point for those looking for something to keep in a handbag as it is unlikely to explode and the lid isn't a removable screw top which can get dropped into, or inexplicably lost, in your bag. Lastly, the price really appeals to me. You can pick a 125ml tube of this up from Boots for just £5.50 which I think represents excellent value for money.

Again, cute!

Overall, I've been really impressed with Soap & Glory and am looking forward to trying some of the other skincare products from the 'Best of All' kit. It also came with some Soap & Glory vouchers so if any of you would highly recommend any of their other products do let me know what I should put these towards!


Angelica


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January 07, 2013

SUNDAY PAMPERING #1




 I've been incredibly stressed lately because I've got two essays due in today (I've done them though!) but it has been a bit of a boring couple of weeks. I've also let some of my routines slide. I usually always have one night a week where I do enjoy a bit of a beauty refresher by doing a  face mask, hair mask, painting my nails etc.  It always makes me feel better about myself afterwards so yesterday (the fateful day before my essays were due) I celebrated finishing them by having a little pampering session with the lovely products I'll be talking about today.




First up is the remaining part of Lush's Santa's Sack Bubble Bar which I reviewed here not so long ago. I hadn't used the presents from the bubble bar and, a few people had asked what sort of effect they had on water as they're so much smaller than the bubble bar, so I thought I'd give them a try. I'm happy to report that the produce lots of bubbles! I used half of each of the presents, I started my crumbling half of the yellow present but it made the bathwater a horrible yellow colour so I thought I'd see what it looked like if I added some of the orange too. Sadly it didn't change it much which you can just about see in the picture I took of the bubbles below. The quality of the presents was good though and I really did love this Lush Bubble Bar, especially as it gives 3-4 uses.




After my bath I applied a face mask (it's a good idea to do it after a bath or shower as the heat will help open up your pores often making the treatment more effective). I used Laidbare's For Richer For Porer Pore Minimiser Facial Masque which I haven't really mentioned on my blog before. I've written about a few Laidbare products (all of which I've loved! Especially their cleanser which I'm still using) but this one was sitting in my stash unloved, until recently. It's a really creamy product with quite large exfoliating beads in it and it smells mainly of liquorice, although this scent is still very light so doesn't bother me. I really love this product, I've used it a few times now and although it doesn't produce miraculous results it does leave my skin clearer without any irritation. 




I then pampered my hair a little bit by spraying some of Macadamia's Healing Oil Spray on the ends of my hair. I left this on overnight (with a toweling turban over my hair when I'm in bed) and then just washed it off in the shower the next day. I always find that my hair looks shinier and healthier without it being at all weighed down. I've written a full review on this product here.




Finally, my skin is really in need of some TLC at the moment. I do love trying new products but one thing I know that I love are body oils and I do tend to buy a certain selection of these over and over. So when I saw this 'oil gel' from Vaseline I thought I'd try something new and give it a go. I've used Johnson's Baby Oil Gel which I really like to use on my skin after a shower if I'm going out and will have my arms and legs on show, so I had high hopes that this one would help my skin. It didn't as much as I wanted it to do but it did a great of moisturising my skin (I can really feel the difference today) and the scent is really gorgeous, it's lighter than normal Cocoa Butter products and lingers on the skin as a light vanilla sort of scent. I do like this but wouldn't use it everyday.




So there you have it! I'm thinking of making these posts a regular feature to try and encourage me to do an evening like this every week, so do let me know if you enjoy these sorts of posts :) Hope you all had a great weekend! I'm going to try and post more once my exam is over and done with next week so hopefully lots of exciting things will be coming your way soon.


Angelica



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