Thursday 18 September 2014

Beauty Rehab

Hi there!

I'm slowly and painfully working my way through my stash, it has been a long process and if you'd like to catch up on my series you can do so by following this link (lots of empties!)

I thought I was getting somewhere recently but an influx of shopping, weak moments, presents etc has meant that actually, I'm barely better off. I really do need to grow some balls and just get over the fact that i have no space and no money for any more!

Batiste Dry Shampoo - always the best, always repurchase. Especially now I need to preserve my hair colour as long as possible!

Aussie Shampoo - loved Aussie but having heard that they animal test I'm rethinking all of my products and its unlikely that i will be repurchasing.

Anatomicals Shower Gel - this has fun packaging and a citrusy awakening scent but i wouldn't repurchase as it came in a set.

Antipodes Juliet cleanser - liked this, think my skin needs more from a cleanser though so will have to try another of theirs!

S&G Clean Girls body wash - had this in my gym bag for ages, lasts forever!

Evian moisturiser - do they still even produce this?? Who knows! Wouldn't repurchase.

Dr Organic coconut oil night cream - Far too thick and heavy for my skin, wouldn't repurchase but loved the smell
Argan oil day cream - too greasy for my skin, wouldn't repurchase this either but love most things from Dr Organic

Origins Eye Doctor - already repurchased! Sadly have found out they also test on animals so am on the look out for a replacement.

Next Spa scrub - lovely texture and it really glitters, part of their seasonal range so cannot repurchase

Pores No More - not a fan, not quite sure what this was for really!

EOS Sphere - love these and always have a spare, didn't really like the yellow one though it was very hard and dried quickly

Collection concealer - always repurchase for the price

Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes mascara - loved this, will wait for the Christmas sets to possibly repurchase as they are very good for the money.

Murad Skin Perfecting Primer - wouldn't repurchase currently as i have a stash to get through, may do in future tho as it lasts a while.

Rimmel Stay Matte pressed powder - gutted I dropped my handbag! Lucky it didn't spill everywhere though. I had a back up already...

I'm halfway through another bag of empties already and I'm hoping next time I write a Beauty Rehab post I will be really checking myself into rehab and will be downsizing as opposed to replacing, one in one out is not going to work for me!

How are you working your way through your stash? I find bath products a lot easier than make up, project 10 pan or something similar would just take me forever and it doesn't take up the bulk of my collection.

What have you been using recently?

L xxx

Spring Series: Body Care

As it's March (this year is speeding by already!) we decided to start up a new series of posts for Sunday's.

With Summer coming up, in case it's in April again, we've decided to start a series of posts on how we get skin ready after the drying effects of Winter and Spring/Summer trends for clothes and make up.
We'll be doing them every Sunday in the hope that by the time we've finished them some good weather will be here!
Our first one is on body care, hope you enjoy :)

Body Scrubs

Through winter my skin goes horrible, especially my legs, they get so dry and no amount of moisturiser seems to help. Plus honestly I get lazy with moisturiser. I hate getting out of the shower and having to be cold while I rub in moisturiser! Now hopefully warmer weather is nearing it's time to prep my legs as I'm hoping soon I can wear skirts.

For body scrubs I love the Next Spa Sugar Body Scrub. Unfortunately I can't find this one online so I'm not sure if it was just a Christmas product. The texture of this scrub is one of the best I've used. It's very thick and almost jelly like. It smooths onto the skin and gently exfoliates with a good size particle. It leaves skin feeling moisturised leaving it with an oily feeling after. I love that it has a glitter sparkle through it. The only downside is the smell. As this is from the spa range it's a very fresh almost woody scent which does make you feel like you are entering a spa which is nice but for me I prefer more sweet or fruity scents. I will be looking out for this in shops and hopefully I'll be able to find it again. We were lucky enough to get this at a Next Blogger Event.

Body Butters

I'm a huge body butter fan. I love the thickness of them and the instant moisturising feeling they leave. I usually use Body Shop body butters, I love the variety of scents these leave and you can quite often get them on offer. They smooth onto the body easily and leave a nice scent on the skin.

I love how big the pots are and a little does go a long way. I tend to prefer body butters to lotions as I like that they are thicker.

Body Lotions

I did get the Soap and Glory Smoothie Star Body Lotion for Christmas. I love the scent of this. It's sweet and creamy smelling and I love that it comes in a pump bottle as it means when I'm wearing fake nails I don't get loads of product under my nails. This sinks in easily and leaves my skin well moisturised. It has converted me from body butters and as it's lighter it will be better for during the day on hot days.

I also like Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Pump Lotion. I love Palmer's products as they smell amazing. This is again a pump lotion so it means I don't get product under my fingers.

M xxx

Body Scrubs

I am what you would call a 'Soap and Glory girl' through and through. When it comes to scrubs the first thing I think of is their Sugar Crush scrub.
I absolutely adore this grainy substance which smells very strongly of sugar and lime, basically it's like a mojito and I just love it.

I also love their Pulp Friction scrub which foams and has more of a fruity smell and feels more moisturising because of the foam.
I pick and choose which one I fancy using depending on my skin condition at the time, and of course the smell I'm after! I find they do a really good job at sloughing off all of the dead skin cells so the new ones can push through and make moisturiser easier to sink in.

Body Butter

I'd never really used a body butter before I received a Soap and Glory one a few years ago, so they were a new thing for me. I have now become obsessed with how luxurious they feel on my skin especially after winter where my skin has taken a bashing from the cold and heating in the house.

I love how thick it is and it obviously smells amazing.
I do also like the Body Shop butters, they are on a similar standard and have a great variety of flavours. Satsuma is my next one to try!

Body Lotion
Again, having received the Soap and Glory bag I also like the Body Milk that M likes. The pump makes things so easy!
I also like the Vaseline and Dove moisturisers as most of the time they are so easily absorbed into your skin that you rarely need to wait long for it to sink in, so these are my favourites for week days and after the gym when I haven't got much time but don't want to skip it.

A product I would love to try is a body oil. I've tried baby oil and it was too thick for my skin and took forever to absorb. I've heard drier oils are better and the Palmer's cocoa butter is one of the ones I've heard rave reviews about and definitely need to try. Do any of you have any recommendations??

So there's our first Spring Series post, what do you think? Do you use scrubs often?

L xxx

OOTD: George Coat

I've never done an outfit of the day post before, mainly as I rarely wear anything exciting on a day to day basis (have been sat at home on my laptop for the past few months writing my dissertation!).

If I do leave my house it's for the gym...not such an exciting OOTD? Maybe I'll do one if I'm feeling I look good haha.

Anyway, I've had plenty of compliments on my new coat so I thought it was a good place to start.

This is my newbie to my wardrobe:

NOTD: Next Gold Library - Green

If you've seen our recent posts (or our tweets) you'll have seen that we were lucky enough to be invited to the Next Beauty event last week.

It was great fun and we met some lovely bloggers and chatted our way through the evening.
(Post here if you wanted to see the pictures!)

As a bonus to the night there was also an area where you could have a massage, threading or a manicure done, which I couldn't wait to have!

The poor lady was very nice and had to go through the arduous task of removing my glitter nail polish from my nails first (I had china glaze and saffron glitters piled onto the tips!) but she was lovely about it, and even complemented me on my natural nails, how nice!

Here's the colour that I chose:

It's a gorgeous bottle green shimmery colour that applied opaque in one coat, but had a second just to ensure it lasts.

The colours were all really impressive, and I'm missing this particular colour from my collection and wouldn't hesitate to go out and buy the box set as the colours in it are amazing!

Here's a photo of the Gold collection with a close up of the Nail Library on the right:

You can see the great range of colours that would be a perfect gift for all females at Christmas time!

There's a blue, green, red, purple, bright pink and some gorgeous shimmery metallics too.

This green colour also complements most skin tones as it isn't too yellow toned.

I personally couldn't stop staring at it in the lights!

The lady at the manicure station applied Seche Vite as the top coat and this kept the nail varnish on for a good 5 days before the chips started coming through.

I would definitely say this is a perfect gift for someone as Christmas, or even yourself!

It's a bargain at £10 and can be found here which is great for 9 polishes in wearable colours.

Would you pick this up as a present for family or a friend?

Do you love the range of colours?

L xxx

Next Beauty Event

On Wednesday we were invited to attend the Next Beauty Event, something both L and I were excited about. We couldn't wait to get there and see all the new products that were coming out for Christmas and hopefully get to meet other fellow bloggers. This is a long post...tea may be needed!
We just had a great night and wanted to share it.

Here we've just arrived in Paddington and are both wearing our new matte Kate Moss for Rimmel lipsticks which we love. We were a little early to the event so thought we'd stop and take quick photo outfits. Luckily it was a quiet street.

L is wearing a new coat from Asda for a bargain £25, it's still in store now and it's lush. She is also wearing the disco pants from Alice and You at Debenhams which look amazing. A sheer black shirt from New Look and black heeled boots from good old M&S.

M is wearing a checked snood from next, a green jumper with cut out shoulders from Asos, Next special purchase jeggings, Next horse belt (I ended up unintentionally wearing a lot of Next stuff. I really like the clothing in there) and Clarks tan heeled boots.

As we arrived at the event we were some of the first few there. We were welcomed at the door and everyone was so friendly we felt instantly settled. The room was gorgeous and the set up of all the products was amazing. It was simple but pretty with fairy lights and flowers around the room. Straight away we could see lots that interested us. We were also offered threading and manicures.

This is the new Gold Collection which was definitely both our favourites. L loves Gold and I love leopard print. The perfume and perfume sets for this range come in the gold metal tins you see which is a great idea as little storage boxes are always helpful. The thing that most drew me to this and is now on my Christmas list is the beautiful hairdryer. A bargain £25 found here. The best thing about the Next sets are the reasonable prices. We both loved the fragrance and for a huge 75ml bottle it's only £12. All the Gold range can be found here

Just Pink has been a staple fragrance in beauty range for a while now. I always used to use this. The bottle has now been updated and looks much more appealing and up to date. It now sits on it's side and it a sort of heart shape. It's again a reasonable price for 75ml it's only £10. Just Pink is still a fragrance I love and I really like the addition of candles. I will be picking some of these up so the flat can smell beautiful. The candle in this range is only £5 (link here)The Just Pink range was full of great girly gift sets that I'm sure lots of people would love to receive.

Something a lot of us were surprised by was the fact Next sold branded items too. L was very pleased to see her favourite perfume stocked!! (JPG MaDame!)

Along with perfume were brands such as St Tropez (of favourite of both of ours for tanning), Models Own and Burt's Bees. I wouldn't think of Next to stock these brands so it's good to know.

The Collection was one of the new products being showcased at the event. Straight away we were drawn to the beautiful packaging. Simple with pastel shades adorned with a cute bow. What's not to love. Each fragrance represents a different fashion capital of the world. They are New York, Milan, London and Paris. We both loved Milan. Not being great at describing fragrances I'll leave it to the experts to find out the base notes and palettes of each fragrance you can read more here

As well as the four fashion capitals there are also a Christmas range, with candles, room sprays and reed diffusers. These are amazing. It smells similar to mulled apples. Just a beautiful Christmas/winter smell. The last range in this was the spa range. Full of products with a lovely fresh frangrance. The product we were most drawn to was the scrub. Not an oily base which L loved and glittery but still felt like it has a good scrub to it which I loved.

We just had to show you the food. Being basically the same person when it came to tastes we both picked the Japanese chicken. It was so tasty. All the food was served in cute little bowls. We washed it down with wine and fruit. Yum!

It was so nice to get to meet some other bloggers.

Big group photo. All the ladies were lovely and we really enjoyed chatting the night away. Everyone was so lovely. You can find their blogs here

An item that really interested us was the Cashmere palette. (Other Cashmere sets here) The colours looked beautiful. There was such a range of neutrals and a few accent colours in it that it just stood out. Plus there is a shade that looks like Mac Cranberry which we both currently love. Best of all though, for £6 you get 12 shades.

Another shot of our outfits for you. We both decided to do smart casual with heeled boots. This was our first event so we weren't to sure what to wear.

Make up wise L wore Studio Fix fluid foundation with Rimmel Wake me up on top to illuminate. Revlon PhotoReady cream blush. Her naked palette on the eyes with Rimmel Scandaleyes eyeliner. A great one for the water line, finished off with the new Kate Moss for Rimmel lipstick in the Shade 110.

Make up wise I used, Revlon ColorStay foundation, Sleek blush by 3, No7 blush in honey and Mac MSF on my cheeks. For the eyes I used my Naked 2 palette and the Rimmel Scandaleyes in Nude for the waterline. On my lips I wore Kate Moss for Rimmel in shade 107

Before we left we decided to have some treatments. L had her nails painted and I had my eyebrows threaded.

L went for a gorgeous winter green shade. The nail varnish was opaque in one coat which was impressive. You can buy a set of 9 mini nail varnishes for £10 here. They remind me of the Max Factor ones with the size and shape.

As we left we were lucky enough to receive a goody bag.

Inside we received the body scrub we'd wanted to try, the New York perfume, the Milan Reed Diffuser which is absolutely amazing!! It smells so good and scent really spreads around the room without being overpowering.

There was also an eye shadow and lipgloss palette which is only £4 and comes with 4 smokey coloured eye shadows and a lipgloss. The eye shadows are beautiful colours and pigmented.

We had such a great night, smelling all the beautiful fragrances and meeting everyone.

A huge thanks to Gemma and Next for inviting us.

Love L and M

xxx

Thursday 18 September 2014

Beauty Rehab

Sunday 3 March 2013

Spring Series: Body Care

Saturday 27 October 2012

OOTD: George Coat

Wednesday 24 October 2012

NOTD: Next Gold Library - Green

Sunday 21 October 2012

Next Beauty Event