Beauty Christmas Crackers 2014

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Whilst beauty calendars might have been and gone, sold out or are too pricey for you to have, there is one other option - Beauty Christmas Crackers - yes! I did a similar post last year where there was a whole lot to choose from and it looks as though there is to be a similar amount this year - the details of which are only just trickling in, so these are the ones I have so far.


Harrods - A handpicked selection of the best the beauty world has to offer, the set of six crackers are enveloped in our signature silver and black colourway and tied with embossed Harvey Nichols grosgrain ribbon.

Each cracker contains: a snap, silver foil hat, motto and one of the following treats: ESPA Pro Serum 8ml, Bliss Energizing Mask 10ml, bareMinerals 'Inspiration' Ready Eyeshadow Duo 1g, Prada Candy Florale Eau de Toilette 7ml, Laura Mercier Lip Glacé 6ml, Deborah Lippmann Nail Varnish 8ml

Boots No.7 - Presenting this selection of our favourite No7 mini nail polishes and skincare products in 6 beautiful crackers. The No7 Cracker Collection makes an indulgent festive treat for ladies this Christmas.

Contains:
No7 Stay Perfect Nail Polish in Temptress (4ml)
No7 Stay Perfect Nail Polish in Beanie (4ml)
No7 Stay Perfect Nail Polish in Damson Dream (4ml)
No7 Protect & Perfect Day Cream (25ml)
No7 Protect & Perfect Night Cream (25ml)
No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Eye Cream (5ml)

    Jo Malone - well if there is one cracker I would quite like it would have to be this one, I can't afford the calendar but this looks equally good.  Priced at £32 this cracker looks amazing!

     This Works – Can currently be found at places like Feel Unique and Debenhams for £10 and inside this cracker you get a 10ml deep sleep body therapy spray which is an innovative spray on body treatment that helps you fall asleep. Priced at £10 per cracker.

Balm Balm The All Over Body Cracker - Priced at £21 this cracker includes:

• Balm Balm Calm All Over Balm 100% Organic 30ml 
• Balm Balm Detox All Over Balm 100% Organic 30ml 
• Balm Balm Indulge All Over Balm 100% Organic 30ml 

Lancôme's Christmas crackers which cost £54 for 6.  They contain six premium products including:

• Hypnose Volume Mascara (black), 
• Le Crayon Khol Eyeliner (black), 
• Advanced Genifique 
• Youth Activating Concentrate, 
• Lip Lover, L'absolue lipstick and 
• Bi-Facil Eye Make Up Remover.

Clarins - Add the perfect final flourish to your table setting and make sure your festive season goes off with a bang. Enveloped in opulence, these crackers offer a selection of iconic miniature Clarins products such as Beauty Flash Balm and Nail Treatment Cream.  Priced at £39 for six you will find inside

• Wonder Perfect Mascara 3ml
• Gentle Refiner 30ml
• Beauty Flash Balm 30ml
• Hand and Nail Treatment Cream 30ml
• Eau des Jardins 30ml
• Rouge Eclat Lipstick 1.4g

Cowshed - The name says it all really as this gift set from Cowshed would make a cracking stocking filler and comes in a Christmas cracker-inspired box, adding a touch of fun during the festivities. Filled with two luxurious little treats to restore and moisturise hands and lips daily.

Set includes:

• Cow Herb Restoring Hand Cream, 50ml 
• Natural Lip Balm, 5ml

Molton Brown - Pamper someone from head to toe with Molton Brown's Pink Pepperpod Christmas cracker body care gift set. Each item is beautifully presented in a festive, cracker-shaped box with pretty ribbon detailing, making the ideal Christmas gift and priced at £20

Set includes:

• Molton Brown Pink Pepperpod Replenishing Hand Cream, 40ml
• Molton Brown Pink Pepperpod Body Wash, 50ml
• Molton Brown Pink Pepperpod Nourishing Body Lotion, 50ml

Philip Kingsley - Ive spotted two different ones from Philip Kingsley so far this year. The is choice is between Soft & Shiny or Body and Volume for the cracker and they cost £10 from sites like FeelUnique.

Inside the soft and Shiny Cracker you get:

• Elasticizer, 40ml 
• Moisture Balancing Shampoo (20ml) 
• Moisture Balancing Conditioner (20ml) 

Inside the Body & Volume Cracker

• Elasticizer (40ml)
• Body Building Shampoo (20ml)
• Body Building Conditioner (20ml)

Arran Aromatics - Choice of three different crackers, so will it be
Frankincense & Myrrh, Mandarin & Petitgrain or Christmas Spiced Vanilla, Each beautifully embellished festive cracker includes three votive candles.

So these are all the ones I have to date and I have no doubt there will be more to follow. As and when I do get some information, I will update this post!

Do you think you will be treating yourself or a friend to a Beauty Cracker?

Lush Christmas Launch 2014

A few weeks ago, I excitedly made my way to the Lush Christmas Launch just off Regent Street with the lovely Kimberley and Zoe.  What I love most about Lush Christmas is the launching of new and exciting products that I am yet to try and the bringing back of trusty faithfuls that I cannot help but love - yes Snow Fairy... Get It Now!!

Once inside Lush it was nice to see a massive turn out but more excitingly the chance to see all the products, gift sets and of course the Lush Advent Calendar which I mentioned on my blog HERE and to see it in front of me was amazing because it is rather large!

There are a lot of gift packages also available again this year and they range in price from around £8 right up to over £100 and within each package you get a good selection of products.

As you can see there are some trusty favourites from last year such as Snow Fairy, Candy Mountain and The Christmas Penguin, but there are some lovely new products too such  as The Christmas Hedgehog (how I am going to squish him into the bath is beyond me, he is far too cute), Dashing Santa, Butterbear and Baked Alaska Soap to name but a few!

If like me you are massive fan of Lush and love what they have on offer for Christmas, I can only advise you to get down there quick and buy something new and exciting as well as someone you might buy every year, because there is a whole lot more than I can possibly show in one blog post!  Go Go Go!

What is your favourite Lush product?

Isle of Wight Natural Candle Company - plus reader offer!

Autumn here and the candles are burning quicker than they do all year round and I always seem to run my selection right down during the autumn months, even though I burn candles all year round.

Anyway, today I want to introduce you to some new candles called Isle of Wight Natural candle company and each candle is lovingly hand poured in the Garden Workshop.  Each candle has the highest quality soy wax to ensure they deliver a perfect, cool, even burn, with no toxic chemicals in sight such as petrochemicals! One of the aims of the IWNC.Co is to make paraffin wax a thing of the past, and introduce the clean, tunnel free burn that all candle fans deserve!

I was very kindly sent a Lavender and Lavender & Bergamot scented candles and as soon as I opened the box, the scent was absolutely amazing. If like me you are a big fan of Lavender, then you will love this, it is just as though you have been walking through the Lavender fields, the scent is that fresh.  As soon as you place the candles in a room or within two different rooms as I have done, even after a few minutes the scent is really noticeable and that is before they are alight.

The Lavender and Beragmot candle is described as being one that will "instantly restores a sense of calm and balance. The cleansing fragrance of Lavender has been celebrated for centuries, and is said to relieve tension and headaches; paired with the fresh and uplifting notes of Bergamot it provides the perfect indulgence for any time of day".

The Lavender candle is describe as being one that will "melt away the tension and strains of the day melt away as you drift off to a deeply relaxing place. The aromatherapeutic benefits of Lavender have stood the test of time, restoring a sense of wellbeing for many".

These candles come in three different sizes and three different prices and I was quite surprised at how good value they are.  A small candle which will burn for approximately 19 hours costs just £5.50.  A medium sized candle which will burn for around 36 hours is only £10.50 and the biggest candle which burns for around 45 hours is an absolute bargain at £13.50, details of which you can find on the homepage linked above.

All I can say about these candles is that they smell every bit as wonderful as you can imagine from their description.  Both are extremely relaxing, both leave a lovely scent to flow throughout the hour and if burned together, really compliment one another well. 

If you would like to try one of these candles, I have a discount code just for you, simply type in BEAUTYQUEEN15** at the checkout for a lovely little discount and it covers all sized candles, but do it quick because it expires on 7th November!

Do these sound like the type of candles you would enjoy?

***Enter promo code at the check out. Discount code not to be used in conjunction with any other offers or discounts. Offer expires 31/10/14

WOW Facemask

Now I love a good face mask and I have tried quite a few in my time. I try to make it a weekly ritual that I will spend at least 2 hours of me time to pamper myself from head to foot. When I was asked if I would like to try the new WOW mask, I hadn't finished reading the introductory blurb before i quickly responded 'Yes please'.

That blurb reads as follows:

"WOW mask is a brand NEW Bio-­peptide Aqua Gel mask that contains innovative natural ingredients to restore the skin’s tone, elasticity and hydration to reduce the appearance of fine wrinkles. It releases the essence of nature’s most potent skin-loving plants at exactly the right speed for your skin to get the maximum benefit".

The packaging of the mask is quite something and there are little anecdotes which really made me chuckle such as "WOW are dedicated to the caused of perfect looking skin without the intervention of needles or a pact with the devil" an important yet light hearted statement.

Clinicians in Switzerland and beauty fanatics in California came together to develop this mask using ingredients that help to restore the skin’s tone, elasticity and hydration as well as to reduce the appearance of fine wrinkles. The mask isn't a cream, lotion, potion, powder or watery substance, instrad it is a Bio-peptide Aqua Gel Mask, which comes in two pieces to cover your face.

When it comes to using the mask, you need to ensure that your face is as clean as it can be and then dried. Then placing both sheets on your face, allow it at least five minutes to settle onto your skin, the reason for this is because it does feel a little slippery when first applied, but given those five minutes, all you need to do is sit back and relax for between 20-40 minutes as per the description on the packaging. After those allotted minutes, of which I chose 40, you simply remove the sheets from your face.

Institute Hyalual Switzerland, a scientific research centre dedicated to skin rejuvenation, created the mask as the simplest and most effective way to combine the moisturising effect of Hyaluronic Acid (HA), Argireline (famed for its skin firming properties) and RMCP-complex (a combination of ingredients that include fruit and leaf cell culture and flower extract). It’s the interaction between HA, Argireline and RMCP-complex which results in such a complete anti-ageing effect. The mask also uses newly developed Transdermal Cosmetics Delivery technology which is activated by skin temperature to allow the ingredients to reach the deeper layers of skin. This means that WOW mask provides 200% more hydration than other collagen-based moisturising treatments.

So after all that sciencey bit, what you are getting is a fantastic sounding face mask, which is very unlike any other that I have tried and when I did get round to using it, my skin had been a real nightmare all week. I don't suffer from breakouts as such, but my roseacea had flared up on both cheeks, it tends to do so when I am stressed, then it goes again within a week to ten days. So I decided to put this mask to the test and this is the result!

As you can see my cheeks beforehand were quite red, not as bad as they usually are, but it is obvious that I am not just flushing!  Then you can see the mask on my face after I first applied it, then as it begins to settle down on my face and form a sort of second skin, it is quite hard to describe, but it does feel really cooling on the skin and it does smell amazing, not at all chemical and really natural.  Then after I had removed it, wiped my face clean, the redness is a whole lot less than it was, infact amazingly so, I took a lot of photos of my face just to ensure it wasn't the light or the darkness, it was just the effect of the mask and one which remained for two weeks after using it.

The phrase "It’s not magic but WOW mask offers the best that nature and science can provide in terms of beautiful and youthful looking skin". I think is one that certainly speaks for itself.  Soft, smooth, moisturised and hydrated is exactly how my skin felt for days after using and the experience was incredible.  This mask isn't cheap, infact they come in a box of five and are priced at £99.99 which means every mask is valued at around £20 and I actually think it is well worth the money spent.  If my skin ever had a really bad Roseacea break out I am reaching for these as it is the only thing to date that I have found which works.

Do these sound like the type of mask you would love to try?