LookFantastic Beauty Box October 2015

The October LookFantastic Beauty Box has just landed and it is another great box.  Not only is it beautifully decorated, there are 7 products within the box which makes it pretty full!

The first item in the box is from Elemis and it is a 20ml tube of Hydra-Balance Day Cream which is suitable for combination skin. Well my skin is combination and this cream is specially formulated to provide continuous hydration and is said to be ideal for normal to combination skin, it's enriched with meadowsweet extract to regulate oil production, whilst hyaluronic acid locks in essential moisture to keep your skin balanced. It is infused with an aromatic blend of petitgrain, neroli and mandarin which work together to soothe and comfort your skin, this regulating cream will leave your skin feeling nourished without making it feel greasy. This has a value of around £17.

The second item is a 30ml tube of Murad AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser. Described as being a gentle cleanser it contains salicylic, lactic and glycolic acids to encourage clarity and brightness by dissolving skin cell build-up; jojoba beads to further polish and re-texturise the skin; sodium PCA and jojoba seed oil to help counteract dryness; and liquorice extract to provide anti-irritant and anti-inflammatory properties to your skin. This product had a value of around £8

The third item from the box is from Percy & Reed and it is the Volumising No Oil, Oil.I assume it is for thin hair, though it doesn't say on the bottle, but it is essentially described as being a lifesaver of a product when it comes to creating lovely locks which are smooth, sleek and shiny whilst also adding volume. It uses violet extracts and pro vitamin B5 acting to strengthen, deeply nourish and moisturise you hair, you can be sure that this non-greasy oil will give you only the best results. Also, with added heat protection properties, your hair will be kept safe from thermal styling. This 30ml bottle has a value of around £7.

The fourth item is a 15ml tube of Nuxe Reve De Miel Hand and Nail Cream. Said to be perfect for dry, chapped hands, the non-greasy formula works to nourish and repair the hands, protecting from premature ageing whilst smoothing and soothing to reveal, soft, supple skin. It uses a blend of honey, oils such as Avocado, Sunflower and Soyabean plus vitamin E to ensure hands are intensely moisturised and nails strengthened. This product has a value of around £4.

Next comes Balance Me Radiance Facial Mask in a 30ml tube.  This is the only product within the box that I have tried and I am a big fan.  The mask can be used can be used as a reviving exfoliating face wash or as a soothing, intensive treatment mask to replenish lost moisture and luminosity. Contains purifying kaolin clay to eliminate impurities and a bespoke fruit acid complex to restore a healthy glow. Enhanced with rosemary, palma rosa, lavender and Roman chamomile oils to help smooth and soothe your skin.  This product has a value of around £7.

The Monu Firming Moisturiser is the penultimate product in the box.  I am a big fan of Monu products and this is one I have never tried.  It is Enriched with marine collagen and Aloe Vera, fine surface lines will appear smooth and skin feels tightened and toned.  It also uses sweetly scented Neroli and Lavender essential oils which give a fantastic scent.  The cream should be used daily for soft, smooth skin. This 25ml tube has a value of £11.

The final item in the box is from Look Good Feel Better, a brand I have never come across until now, but I have the Eye Shading Brush. The brush is described as being a hand-sculpted blending brush designed for contouring and shading. Its flat-headed tip allows you to accurately buffer around the eye area for definition. This is a professional quality brush which has been handmade, it is also cruelty free and is suitable for sensitive skin.  It has a value of around £6.99.

Look Good Feel Better (LGFB) is the only worldwide cancer charity providing practical support for women and teenagers struggling with the visible side effects of their cancer treatment. 12% from all sales of the brush collection (HERE) will be donated to the LGFB charity.

So there you have the October offerings from the Look Fantastic Beauty Box and I happen to think it is fantastic. There is a nice mixture of products and some amazing brands included and the box has a value of over £50 which is amazing value for money when the box itself costs just £15. If you want one of these for yourselves, grab them quick right HERE.

World Sight Day with L'Occitane

Every Year for World Sight Day L’OCCITANE sells a special soap to help raise funds to support the fight against avoidable blindness in developing countries. This year World Sight Day is on 8th October and this is how you can help/

Almost 285 million people around the world are blind or visually impaired, even though 80% of blindness is avoidable! In 2014 L’OCCITANE raised €162.000 to support projects in Burkina Faso and you can read and learn more about that
right here.

Melting Honey Solidarity Soap is made with nourishing shea butter and softening honey from Provence, this soap gently cleanses the skin while enveloping it in the delicious scent of melting honey. As you can imagine, it smells absolutely delightful and is a pleasure to use. A 50g bar will cost just £3 and for each soap purchased, the money raised will enable a patient from a rural area in Burkina Faso to have access to glasses and eye care.
Also within this Limited Edition range there are other products, all of which have matching packaging an really do capture your attention:

Melting Honey Exfoliating Sugars - This melting balm contains sugar crystals and ground walnut shells which work to gently exfoliate the skin and remove dead cells. It is also enriched with shea butter and honey from Provence and after using, it leaves skin feeling silky smooth and delicately scented with tender notes of melting honey.

Melting Honey Soft Shower Gel - If ever there was a shower gel that smells good enough to eat, it is this one.  As with the Exfoliating Sugars, this shower gel is enriched with softening shea extract and honey from Provence.  It is a golden-coloured shower gel that gently cleanses the skin while leaving it feeling supple and comfortable with the delicious scent of melting honey.

Melting Honey Lip Balm - No Limited Edition set from L'Occitane is complete without a lip balm and this one is my favourite yet. Formulated with 5% of nourishing shea butter and softening honey from Provence, this luscious balm leaves lips beautifully soft and scented.

So for £3 you can help L'Occitane and get yourself an amazing scented soap!

Midnight Gelly from Barry M

Barry M is one of those brands I absolutely love, I find them a bit quirky and within their range, there are some amazing products just waiting to be discovered.  

The Midnight Gelly range is a set of four off-black nail polishes which have really captured my attention and they are perfect shades for AW15.  The description is as follows:

"Devilishly dark past the midnight hour. AW15 saw a range of dark moody hues hit the runway, get the look and rock an off-black shade this season".

Now I wear dark shade nail polishes all year round.  I am not the kind of girl who likes pastel shades on my fingers at all.  You'll often find me sporting an off black shade - usually a deep burgundy or my latest favourite being a dark grey shade, so for there, these are quite exciting.

Within the range the four shades are Black Grape, Black Pistachio, Black Currant and Black Cherry and I like each and every one of them.  

Black Grape isn't black and it doesn't remind me of grapes either, but what you do get this is stunning deep blue shade which looks black out of the sunlight or away from my camera flash.  

Black Pistachio again isn't black but what you get is a deep dark moody green shade which as you might have guessed, looks black away from the sunlight and away from my camera flash.  I am not usually a fan of green, but this shade I absolutely love.

Black Currant is everything a good Ribena should be.  Brooding, not quite black but definitely purple and it is an amazing shade which you can clearly see from the swatch above.

Black Cherry is possibly my favourite of the four shades.  If I was to described black cherry as a shade, then this would be it.  It is dark, moody not quite black and definitely not a red but somewhere in between.

So here we have four great shades for AW15 and even better for those, like me, who prefer darker shades of polish on our nails.

What do you think to this collection?

Damaged Hot Oil Treatment by Lush

Do you remember those little Hot Oil hair treatments that you use to put into a mug of boiling water for one minute, snip the end of and then cover barely 1/3 of your hair? Me too... So when I heard Lush had their own version, the chances of me leaving the store without one was pretty slim!

There are a total of three hot oil treatments to try - Kinky which is for those with curly hair, Damaged for those who need a little bit of TLC for their hair and Tangled to tame those tangles.  I opted for Damaged.

Damaged Hot Oil Treatment is packed full of extra virgin olive, shine-enhancing almond and avocado oils to replenish deeply and re-hydrate thirsty locks. It comes packaged on a stirring spoon, made of wood, which is a handy tool to have for this treatment.

To use, you place the treatment in a suitable container and whilst in Lush, they used an empty black pot during a live demonstration, so I use one of my empty black pots too.  Then you need to boil the kettle and once boiled, slowly add a small amount of water to the solid treatment and then gently stir. You do need to add the water slowly so that the product will thicken.  Then after around 5 minutes of gradual stirring, you should have a nice creamy hair treatment and an empty stick!  

You then apply the treatment to dry hair and leave it on for around 20 minutes before shampooing, to allow the ingredients to get to work, hydrating and replenishing your hair.  Once I applied the treatment, I put my Shower Cap over the top to ensure there is no spillage.  Once those 20 minutes are up, you shampoo and condition your hair as you normally would do.

What I love about this treatment is firstly making it, standing there and doing the stirring in a pot is oddly relaxing but it also smells absolutely delightful and it does leave your hair feeling soft and smooth, incredibly hydrated and an absolute pleasure to style.  For £6.50 this is one product I will be purchasing again.

Have you tried any of the Lush Hot Oil Treatments?

Stay well, warm and in control this winter with smart meters

Autumn has arrived and with winter hot on its heels, I’m already starting to think about how the colder weather and darker evenings will affect our energy bills. To suggest that our flat is rather draughty is the mother of all understatements and I absolutely hate dragging myself out of bed on a winter morning.

Energy bills are not the sexiest of subjects but once the mortgage has been paid it’s actually one of the largest outgoings in our household. Combine draughts and expensive-to-run storage heaters with a husband who can multi-task to watch football on the TV and a film on the iPad, whilst simultaneously bashing away on a laptop, and our bills look something like the national debt.

Having no way of knowing how much electricity we’re using, or how much it is costing us as we go along is a pain. This plays out with the constant chopping and changing of our direct debit to our energy supplier – either being in debt to them, or as is the case at the moment, them owing us (a lot).

I’m always looking out for ways to save on our bills, so I was really pleased to hear that the energy industry is finally modernising, and help is on the way.

Between now and 2020, every home in Great Britain will be offered a smart meter by their energy supplier, at no additional cost. Smart meters automatically measure and communicate the gas and electricity we use, meaning accurate bills and an end to unpredictable estimates. Best of all a smart meter display provides near real time information on energy use in pounds and pence, so we can finally keep track of what we’re using (in my case, what my husband is using!) and reap instant rewards from any energy saving changes we make in our homes.

It’s essential to stay cosy and comfortable during the winter months – and I’m certainly not one to scrimp on lights and heating when I need them on – but there are plenty of small changes we can all make to help keep the costs down… and no, I’m not talking about locking my husband out! Smart meters make this journey a whole lot easier because they let us see the real cost of leaving devices on standby, and help us compare our outgoings when we invest in some thicker curtains to keep the heat in, or run the washing machine at a lower temperature.

Smart Energy GB is the consumer campaign for smart meters. Their independent research report Smart energy outlook has shown that those who have a smart meter are more confident in the accuracy of their bills and the information they have available in order to make decisions about energy.

Sometimes we all need a helping hand to cut back, but using a smart meter is just one way to stay well, warm and in control this winter. Even if – like us – you haven’t had yours installed yet, this Smart Thermometer graphic will help you get started with some tried and tested energy saving tips from smart meter customers and energy experts. I’m definitely going to give them a go this winter.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored content – however, my husband does work for Smart Energy GB (and raves constantly about smart meters).

Aromatherapy Associates Clear Mind Bath & Shower Oil

I felt very priviledged to attend the launch of Clear Mind Bath & Shower Oil at Liberty. Aromatherapy Associates, of whom I am a massive fan, and Liberty have come together and created this amazing collaboration. Not only is the scent amazing, but so is the packaging.

Clear Mind has been created to harness and encourage the effects of mindfulness, an interpretation or meaning which is: 

"Mindfulness is the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment, which can be trained by meditational practices that are described in detail in the Buddhist tradition". 

So for me, this sounds like the perfect product for those days when your to-do list has grown in epic proportions, you are not really in the mood for anyone or anything and when you just need a big slab of chocolate and an even bigger glass of wine and a nice soothing bath. One thing Aromatherapy Associates manage to do for me is sort out my mood, there is something about the blend of oils that have the power to click their fingers and oomph, mood change! Breathe Support, which I mention in this post, is the best product I have found to shift a rotten a cold - amazing.

Packaged inside this amazing Genevieve Print by Liberty, which is from the Autumn/Winter 2003 print collection, is my very own initialed bottle - how cool is that?.  The oil itself is a blend of chamomile, which soothes, comforts and emotionally calms; frankincense, to help focus the mind and encourage deep breathing and spiritual awareness; palmarosa, which is a cleansing, balancing and a circulatory stimulant; and bergamot, to uplift, refresh and revive. Putting all of that together makes for one super soothing and relaxing scent which I just adore and it definitely is a de-stresser and it most definitely does calm you down!

The Bath and Shower oil costs £48 and is available exclusively from Liberty from 1 October right here and I think it is worth every penny. If you have never used an Aromatherapy Associates Oil before, all I can say is that a little definitely goes a long way, all you ever need is one capful into the bath water for the oil to work its magic, obviously you can also use it in the shower, but I personally prefer to enjoy the scent whilst relaxing in the bath.  Grab it quick!

The Amazing Seventeen Makeup

SEVENTEEN is one of the very first makeup brands that I tried growing up, it was from 17, as they were then that I bought my very first lipstick and lip gloss. Things have changed a lot since then and they have become a brand which has not only upped there game, but one that has some amazing products. Not only are they always on trend, they are also affordable and great quality to boot.

I recently received an amazing surprise parcel from the lovely people behind the brand, containing some of their best selling products, some of which I use and some of which I hadn't ever tried, so here is what I found within my box:

Define & Conquer Contour Kit in Medium*. £5.99

Attempting to Contour isn't something I have found that easy, I have mastered strobing much better. That said, this handy little kit is not only quite sleek in design but it is also handbag friendly and hosts a decent sized mirror. The formula of this is so creamy and pigmented that it blends with ease without looking orange or dirty. The darker powder helps to define you face whilst the lighter powder helps with definition. It comes with a handy 'How Too' guide for those like me, who still need some practice.

Skin Wow Primer*. £5.99

This is a product I have wanted to try for a while now. I am slightly obsessed with highlighters right now and this one is definitely worthy of its name. You can either use it on its own under make-up to create a nice base or on top of your foundation on cheekbones to give a highlight effect or you can mix it with your foundation to create a dewy effect. For £5.99 this is a fantastic product, one I absolutely love and it is perfect for strobing.

Instant Glow Shimmer Brick*. £4.99

I have raved about this shimmer brick here as a great Bobbi Brown Dupe, but it is an item I use constantly. The Shimmering powder brick contains four different shades which work incredibly well together. Starting with a lighter shade and ending with a dark shade, sweeping your Kabuki Brush across all 4 shades creates a fantastic light or dark bronzing affect, depending upon your preference.

Brows That! Brow Kit*. £5.99

If there is one part of my face that I don't do much with, it is my brows. Now before you frown at me there is a reason. Around 3 years ago, I went to a well known store with a friend for threading but it didn't quite go to plan and I ended up with almost no eyebrows at all! Now three years on and after not touching them, I almost have something to resemble eyebrows. This brow kit is quite something, it contains brow wax, brow powder, highlighting powder, brow sculpting pencil and a brow brush. Add to that a handy 'How to use' guide and a decent sized mirror, you have everything you need to do your brows on the go.

Falsifeye HD Mascara*. £6.99

One item I could never be without is mascara and it is the one thing I never leave the house without. This mascara is a brown black shade which isn't too dissimilar to my own eyelash shade. What I love about it is the wand, it has a lovely long handle but the brush itself is so easy to use between the lashes that it does give some volume, something I need more than length as I have long lashes.

Gel Colours in Hurricane & Irish Coffee*. £3.99 each
Gel polishes are it for me. I can no longer be doing with a polish that lasts for a few days on my nails before chipping. I have Hurricane which is the most stunning shade of blue that ive worn a few times now and it does last for just over a week without chipping. Irish Coffee is a stunning nude shade which is perfect for all occasions and both polishes glide onto the nail, the brush is a perfect size for coverage and I have only ever applied one coat. For just £3.99 they are amazing value for money.

There isn't a single product here that I do not like, it has been so good to find some new amazing products to add to my makeup bag. Have you tried anything from SEVENTEEN lately?