If you love fragrance, then you'll love our Discovery Club

A few weeks ago a received an email inviting me to join The Fragrance Shop Discovery Club, have you heard of it?  If not, this is the description:

"If you love fragrance, then you'll love our Discovery Club.
Our exciting new club allows you to explore the very latest fragrance launches from the comfort of your own home. For just £5 per quarter, each edition comes with fragrance samples for you to try, details on each of the fragrances included, as well as discount vouchers so you can make some big savings on all the scents featured."

Then in a bit more detail you are told:

• Exciting fragrance samples delivered straight to your home
• £25 of exclusive member discount vouchers inside
• A selection of the top fragrance brands
• Only £5 per quarter
• No commitment - cancel at any time!

So for £5 per quarter, which is not a lot of money, especially when my first box was free, it was too tempting not to take part, so I duly signed up.  Today my box arrived, which is really quick and I was quite surprised at how lovely the box was and how well made it is, all too often people are complaining that their beauty boxes are all flimsy and break... this one is very well made as you can see below.

Then once you have opened the outer packaging and have found the box inside, it is loving wrapped with this dark blue tissue paper with a silver seal featuring the initials DC on it, clearly standing for 'Discovery Club'.  Then once inside the paper, this is what you find:

Inside the box there two booklets.  The first one features details and information on all of the samples you will find in your box and those details include what sized bottles, how much they cost and a short paragraph on each.  The second booklet is your voucher booklet and in this you have 5 x £5 off vouchers for each of the five fragrance samples you have in the box.

As this is my first box, I was quite excited to find out which fragrances I would find in my box.  I love perfume and I love testing perfume, so for me this is really a great idea to have signed up too and to be honest inexpensive.  My fragrances this quarter are:

• Vera Wang Lovestruck Floral Rush - It is a prequel to the Loverstruck Story
• Roberto Carvalli - Just Carvalli - Described as sexy and provocative
• Juicy Couture - La La - Described as being funky, punk and a rock fragrance with heaps of spirit
• Lacoste - eau de Lacoste Pour Femme - Described as being modern, iconic and breathtakingly simple
• Nina Ricci - Nina L'Eau - Described as being a fresh new offering for Spring

So this is what is in my box and should you wish to read more about them, you can do so by clicking HERE. 

As these fragrances are just samples you get a smallish bottle containing around 4fl oz which you can see more clearly here:

I am really pleased with this box and I love the fact I have new samples to test and try out without having to go into a shop and cover myself in perfumes to see if they smell okay on my skin.

If you think this is something you would like to sign up to, you can find the link HERE along with further information.

So what do you think to my box? Are you a subscriber? 

Will you subscribe?

Nail Varnish Haul...

I randomly found myself in Superdrug, as you do, looking for a pale pink nail varnish, the one I had was quite old and crusty and in need of replacing.  Anyway, as soon as I walked into Superdrug my eyes lit up:

Essie Shelves in Superdrug

A brand new Essie section that hadnt been there a week before!  So naturally I had to look and before I realised I had been stood there for a whole hour trying the different pinks out to decide which ones I liked best.

Then I moved along to the Rimmel section and NYC and put a few more varnishes into my basket and 7 varnishes later....

this is my Nail Varnish Haul...

My Nail Varnish Haul

So quite a few different types of varnishes in my collection now and the only one I have worn is Essie Delicacy which you can see below:

Essie Delicacy

Excuse the state of my nails... but hopefully you can see that it isn't too pink and instead adds a pearl-esque colour to my nails, which I really quite like.  I wasn't too sure to start with, but it has grown on me over the last few days and it hasnt chipped either which I am really impressed with.

What do you think to my haul?

Unclog and invigorate with Bioré Nose Strips

It has been a long long time since I have used Bioré^® Deep Cleansing Pore nose strips and it happened that I came across them on offer in Superdrug whilst distracted by the Essie stand that I decided to buy them.

I have oily-combination skin, though thankfully I am not prone to enlarged pores, flare ups of spots or blemishes.  Also, despite living in London where no doubt we have a lot of pollution, I don't have too much of a problem with blackheads and try as best I can to keep them away using scrubs and masks.  However, as it has been a while and these Bioré^® strips were on offer, I decided to spend £5.32 instead of the usual £7.99 and see how effective they are and as I type this review, I have one on my nose and you can find them HERE

Inside the box, as you can see, there are 6 individually wrapped nose-strips (I am sure you used to get 12) and the foil packaging itself contains all the information on it you need to know about using them and it has a handy arrow pointing to a top section where you can open the packet.  Once out of the packet, the nose strip is neatly stuck to a piece of plastic and as you can see it is designed to fit over the bridge of your nose and to the sides of your nostrils, the places where perhaps you have the most problem.

How to Use

I used this strip exactly as I was instructed to do. I cleansed and cleaned my face to remove my day’s make-up along with other dirt and grime which might have been clinging to my face, patted my skin dry and then wet my nose to apply the strip.  One thing to make note is that please do ensure that the strip is completely in contact with skin and not hanging off anywhere or is loose, as you apply the strip, I found it clung to my skin with minimal effort.  Once on the skin you can tell there is tea tree and witch hazel used as ingredients because you can smell them, thankfully they are no too over-powering as you have to sit and wait for about 10-15 minutes for the strip to dry, I myself am not the biggest fan of either fragrance, but it was bearable.  

After your allotted time, when it comes to peeling off the strip, it is pretty straightforward though it does feel a little odd because you can feel it pulling off your skin, I assume it is pulling out blackheads and other bits of gunk as you rip.  Once off the nose, as you can see there is the evidence for all to see, little pockets of blackheads and other bits of dirt, quite gross really!  I have to admit, there is also something satisfying about ripping these off your face (yes I am a ghoul).

Once I have removed the strip and binned it, I always wash my face again and then ensure that my face is properly moisturised because in the past I have found similar strips to be quite drying on the skin.  Overall though, these strips clearly do work and they do leave my skin looking much clearer.

For more information on Bioré^® Nose Strips, you can find it HERE along with further information on other products from the Bioré^® range. 

**Did you know...

• Over 28.8 billion pores have been unclogged by pore strips sold to-date!
• The average pore is about as large as the point of a ballpoint pen. (With Bioré^® Pore Strips you can make yours appear even smaller!)
• Pores are about as deep as the ridges on our fingerprints — about a hundredth of an inch.
• Blackheads are full of bacteria. So fingernails and squeezing can actually tear your skin and spread bacteria, but using Bioré^® Pore Strips helps get rid of dirt and oil that can cause blackheads without tearing your skin OR spreading bacteria.

**Info taken from Bioré^®