The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask

Hey everyone, hope your all having a good week? Just thought I'd do a quick review of The Body Shop Ionic Clay Mask which I briefly mentioned in my 2011 Favourites.

I bought this mask after I'd tried out the Dermalogica Sebum Clearing Masque that contains Kaolin and Bentonite Clay as I basically wanted to try a cheaper alternative and I'm a big fan of The Body Shop's products already.

Mask when applied.

Mask when dry.

The Body Shop claim that the mask draws out impurities, clarifies and refreshes the skin and I can certainly agree with their claims! In a nutshell, this is a fab mask if you have really oily skin as it pretty much sucks out all the dirt and oil. You do experience a tightening of the skin (see the cracks in my skin above?) when the mask starts to dry which I know is not everyone's cup of tea but I rather like this as it gives me the impression that the mask is doing it's job well.

The mask is available for £12.00 from www.thebodyshop.co.uk

BUT...I actually purchased mine from an eBay seller for around half the price so I would definitely recommend having a look on there if you want to save yourself some money, obviously make sure it's not used!

What other masks would you recommend for oily skin? Have you tried any of the other products from the Body Shop's Seaweed range...I really wanna try the mattifying day cream!

Nappy Creams Tried & Tested

When it comes to nappy rash, my little one has been fairly lucky so far with only one moderately bad bout of it so I've mostly used nappy creams as more of a preventative measure before bedtime and every other nappy change. When she did have it however, I was obviously keen to get rid of it asap. I've pretty much used up most of the samples I got in my bounty packs so I thought it may be helpful to review the brands I've tried for those of you that have a poor little one suffering!

Johnson's Baby Nappy Cream

I'm a big fan of the whole Johnson's baby skincare range but this for me was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to the other nappy creams I've tried. The texture is quite thin and runny so it doesn't really adhere to the skin which is important when you have an active baby.

£2.00 Available from Asda

Sudocrem Baby Skin Care Cream

Sudocrem is a hugely popular nappy rash cream and I cannot fault it really. A little definitely goes a long way with this so it lasts forever!I've got a full size tub of this also but I still have loads left in my little sample tubs. I slather this on Elyse at night and it looks as if I've just applied it when I change her in the morning. Nice, thick consistency and it helps to heal really quick. Sudocrem is also multi-purpose as it can be used for dry skin and spots which makes it a bit of cupboard staple product for me!

£2.00 Available from Asda

 

Burt's Bees Nappy Ointment 

I cannot stress how much I love this hence why I thought I'd save the best till last! As you can hopefully see from my swatches above, this spreads on really thickly and it adheres to the skin brilliantly. It has a strange scent to it, can't quite decide whether I like it or not but who cares when it's only going on to what will probably soon to be a smelly bottom! I also love the fact that this contains lots of natural ingredients, I don't think Elyse is particularly sensitive to anything but I'd rather not slather her in products with ingredients that I can't even pronounce! I know this is the most expensive of the three but I would still recommend this time and time again because of how effective it is at clearing nappy rash and how well it adheres to the skin.

 £4.99 Available from CheapSmells.com

I really hope this post was helpful, have you found any nappy creams to work better than others? Please feel free to comment if you have any other recommendations or if there's anything else you'd like to add!

Much love,

My Perfume Collection

I'm sure you've seen a few perfume collection posts knocking about the beauty blogging community and I personally enjoy seeing what perfumes other people recommend as I love adding to my little collection and if I'm honest, I love getting ready and looking at all the pretty bottles on top of my drawers...sad I know!

So this is my collection of perfumes minus any mini bottles and samples that I also have. Admittedly, I haven't bought a single one of the perfumes here (lucky me) so there are some here that I barely use and actually a few more that I'd love to add to my collection. I'm gonna run through each one below starting on the left.

Very Hollywood by Michael Kors

I asked for this for my 21st birthday a few years ago, simply because I loved how gorgeous the bottle was but after having a sniff of it, I'm afraid to say I wasn't so keen on it! I can't really put my finger on why I'm not keen on it it as It's quite a floral scent which is what I'm normally attracted to, I think maybe it's a little too strong for my taste and I just wouldn't want to wear this everyday.

Ralph Lauren Notorious

My lovely boyfriend bought me this a few years ago and I loved it that much I actually managed to finish the bottle, something that very rarely happens! It smells very musky and vanillary which I love, I tend to wear this at night though say if I'm going out clubbing or something.

Calvin Klein Eternity

I've had this for absolutely donkeys now but I kinda use it as a room spray instead of a perfume! It's fruity and floral but again not something I'd want to wear everyday.

Calvin Klein In2U

I recently posted about this in my Christmas Haul and as I've said before it's a nice, fresh, fruity scent which I'll enjoy wearing during the spring/summer months.

Hugo Boss Orange

I've raved about this before so I'm sure if you read my blog you'll already by aware of how much I love this! When I first seen the adverts for it I ignorantly thought it would smell really citrusy but it's actually quite floral with hints of orange and vanilla. I'd definitely recommend you all to have a sniff of this!

Kenzo Flower Summer Edition

Kenzo Flower was something I used to absolutely kill out when I was in my teens until someone stole my bottle of it when I went to some crappy teenage rave! This is extremely floral as you can imagine and very sweet smelling. It's a lovely feminine scent though although maybe not to everyone's tastes.

Paco Rabanne Lady Million

Another perfume that I've been using lots recently, I wasn't really keen on this at first but it's definitely grown on me. Even though it smells quite fruity I think it's more of a night perfume as it has can be quite overpowering and it has a very sweet smell to it. I adore the bottle though!

DKNY Be Delicious Fresh Blossom

I'd been wearing DKNY Red Delicious for years when by chance my pops bought me a twin set of Fresh Blossom and the original Be Delicious when he was on holiday. I'm so happy he did because they are two lovely fragrances. Fresh blossom is very fresh, subtle and floral and something that gets thrown in my bag pretty regularly.

DKNY Be Delicious

Whilst Fresh Blossom is quite floral this is a lot fruitier which I think is what the whole Be Delicious line is all about. It literally smells of apples but in a nice way? I can't really explain it but I would definitely recommend you to have a sniff of this and also Red Delicious which I religiously used to go through bottles of.

Nina by Nina Ricci

 I'm sure I can smell toffee apple in this! This is a nice, young fragrance i.e. not something I'd really wear anymore. I have got a lot of use out of this but I literally never wear it anymore, definitely something for a younger lady or older girl.

As always I'd love to hear your recommendations! Are there any perfumes in my collection that you also like?

NOTD: Peachy Floral

If you read my blog you may have noticed over the past few days, my layout has been going through a bit of an identity crisis but finally I have a new blog design and I'm pretty happy with it...for the time being ;-) So, to commemorate I thought I'd do not one but two NOTD's in honour of my girly new layout!

Photo taken in natural daylight, apologies for the lack of focus!

 First of all, sorry for the mess around my cuticles and pinky finger. I was rushing slightly as I'd just found my camera and sunset was rapidly approaching. Any bloggers reading this will understand how much of a nuisance it is having to make sure you take photos before daylight has started to fade :-\

Taken with flash.

Taken with flash.

 So as you can see, I've kept my first NOTD quite simple. For the flower detail on the ring finger I used a floral nail sticker that I received as a free gift with a China Glaze nail polish I purchased off eBay. For the base colour I've used Barry M nail polish in Peach Melba which I previously swatched here and featured in my favourites for 2011.

Taken in natural daylight.

Taken with flash.

 As you can see, I went a bit crazier with this hand! For this design I used my old but always reliable Collection 2000 nail polish in Ebony to stamp on a design taken from one of the fauxnaud monster bundle plates I posted about a few months back.

Top L-R: Maybelline Salon Manicure Base Coat, Barry M Nail Polish in Peach Melba, Collection 2000 Nail Polish in Ebony and Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. Bottom L-R: Nail Art Stickers and Monster Bundle Plate (Design used is on the left of the plate).

 Hope you enjoyed this post, if you've any questions at all or just want a chatter please drop me a comment in the box below :-)

NOTD: Avon Sequinned Turquoise

I didn't actually go out for New Years Eve but despite staying in I kinda pretended I was going out and got all done up (sad I know!!) which obviously meant I had to do something with my naked nails. I really wanted to find a use for the Avon nail polish I was bought for Christmas and thought it would be a perfect glittery colour for NYE celebrations. However when I swatched two coats on my nail wheel I didn't think the colour really suited me so I came up with the idea of layering it over a black glitter polish by W7 that I'd kinda impulse purchased when I was doing a bit of Crimbo shopping in B&M's.

And this is how it looked, I'm gonna apologise now for how untidy my nails are, I was literally only having a little experiment and didn't expect to like it so much! I'm not a big fan of blue or green nails as I really don't think either of the two colours do anything to compliment my skin tone however I really like this teal sort of shade. I know that the colour on my nails is almost identical to the colour you see in the bottle but for some reason my camera has made the bottle seem a lot darker than it actually is :S

Products used from left-right: W7 Cosmic Black, Avon Nailwear Pro in Sequinned Turquoise and Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.

 As you can hopefully see in the above picture, the Avon polish is more of a turquoise colour. I used one coat of the W7 polish, then painted one coat of the turquoise over the top and finished with the Seche Vite Top Coat for a glossy finish.

Top 10 Favourite Products of 2011

Hey everyone, just thought I'd share my favourite products for the year seeing as it is the last day of 2011. I cannot believe how fast this past year has gone!! This time last year I'd finished the first semester of my final year in Uni and was just generally enjoying Christmas after the past few stressful, deadline filled months...now I've graduated with honours and I have a baby, madness!


There's quite a few things included here that I've still not posted about on my blog but I'm afraid I have one rather demanding child so I've just literally not had time. Hopefully now we're all in more of a routine I'll have a few more spare moments to dedicate to my blog :-) Anyways, here's my favourites of 2011!

Barry M Nail Polish in Peach Melba
I wore this to death over the spring/summer months and I'm yet to find a colour that suits my skin tone more than this.

 Estee Lauder Double Wear Maximum Cover Foundation
This is quite a recent purchase but I love it so much that it just had to be in my top 10. It's without doubt, THE best foundation I've come across for covering blemishes and acne scars which I'll be reviewing next month so keep an eye out for that.

Sigma F80 Synthetic Kabuki Brush
Another recent purchase that I fell in love with immediately. This helps blend foundation seamlessly whether your using it to stipple or brush normally. 

HD Brows Eye & Brow Palette
I've never really done much in terms of grooming my eyebrows until I received this in September's Glossybox. The shades are perfect for me and really pigmented.This has also been a true lifesaver recently after some silly woman got overexcited and threaded my eyebrows to within an inch of their life :-\

 

Make Up Academy Heaven & Earth Eyeshadow Palette

My daily used, go to palette, I love love love this! Full of neutrals, super soft, easy to blend and well pigmented for a bargain price...what more do you want?!

Maybelline Pure Cover Mineral Concealer
I've repurchased this soooo many times over the past year and despite purchasing the much raved about Studio Finish Concealer by MAC, I still reach for this every time.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion
One of the most raved about products amongst the online beauty community and I can certainly see why.

Hugo Boss Orange Perfume
As I mentioned in my Christmas gift post, I received this as a gift and I've not stopped wearing it ever since. A gorgeous floral scent with a hint of fruitiness.

The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask
I don't wanna say too much about this as I'll be doing a full review of it soon. This tightens my pores, extracts all traces of oil resulting in instantly mattified skin. One of my favourite face masks ever!

Maybelline The Colossal Volum' Express Mascara
Hopefully if you read my blog you will of seen my review of this so you can see the results for yourself! My favourite mascara ever, period!


And that concludes my top 10 favourites of 2011!! Hope you all have a great night tonight whatever your doing! 

Happy New Year Dolls!!

Christmas Glossybox

I was really looking forward to receiving the December edition of the Glossybox after seeing a few sneak previews via a few lucky bloggers who are sent the Glossybox a week early. To be honest though, I was really considering cancelling my subscription after being a bit disappointed with the last few offerings...thankfully the contents of my December box suited me to a tee and made up for the last few months slightly disappointing boxes.

As ever everything arrived beautifully packaged I thought it was a nice touch for the Christmas box to be red.

Above photo is what I received in a nutshell and because I was so impressed I've gone into a more detail below.

Rituals Foaming Shower Gel

"This unique foaming shower gel gently cleanses your skin and leaves it silky soft & smooth."
 

 I love receiving a full size product especially when its something I'm likely to get a lot of use out of so this was a perfect addition to my box. It smells lovely and obviously foams up really well without the need of a shower puff.

 

  Bionova Eye Wrinkle Treatment

 "This product is utilizing the technology based on Life Science Nanotechnology by treating the skin with the same ingredients in the same quantities and ratio naturally produced by a Human Body. The customization factor takes into consideration the body area, gender and age. The hyper-natural ingredients help the skin to self-restore and self-heal bringing the Beauty from Within."

 All sounds very impressive but this is another product that will no doubt be getting passed onto the mother. I appreciated trying this considering the price (£14.00 for this tiny sample jar!!) but unfortunately I couldn't tell you whether the product merits the price as I don't own any wrinkles yet...touch wood :-)

Cargo Lip Gloss

 "Perfect pay off, great wear and high-shine without being sticky, this gloss is packed with a lip-nourishing botanical cocktail. The next generation of our non-tacky and comfortable gloss."


It was nice to see a lot more make-up products being included in this months box so needless to say I enjoyed trying the lip gloss out. This turned out to be a very neutral shade on my lips but I did like the formula which wasn't sticky at all.

Deborah Lippman Razzle Dazzle Mini Nail Varnish

 "Razzle Dazzle is a dark raspberry sizzle glitter, long wearing, high quality nail polish from the Deborah Lippmann Collection perfect for the upcoming Festive season."

This is a brand I have heard about so I was really happy when I opened my box and seen this especially with it being Christmas and me having a complete lack of glitter nail polishes. Whilst I did love the colour and glitter payout of the varnish, I found the formula to be a bit gloopy and 3 coats were needed for it to look perfect. Having said that I do still love this polish and I'll be sure to post a NOTD featuring it some time soon. The varnish remover mitts were a nice but pointless inclusion in my opinion as they didn't do much at all to remove the polish, this may of been because I'd applied 3 coats but one coat would never of been enough for the varnish to look even on the nails.

Blink+Go Eyeshadow and Blush Palette 

"This radiant colour palette contains six wearable soft-metallic shades (brown, bronze, khaki, grey, silver grey and cream highlighter). These earth-inspired shades suit all skin tones and enhance your natural beauty. It also includes a coral and pink blush to define the cheeks and cheekbones perfectly."


I was really looking forward to trying this out as I was still yet to be sent a make-up product and this is a brand I've never heard of. The eyeshadow colours were perfect for me as I tend to stick with neutrals.

L-R: Cream Highlighter, Silver Grey, Grey, Khaki, Bronze and Brown. Eyeshadow swatches taken in natural daylight.

Eyeshadow swatches taken with flash.

The finish of the eyeshadows is really nice and shimmery and hopefully you can see how well pigmented MOST of the colours are from my swatches...I was slightly disappointed with the pigmentation of the olive green shade. When I swatched it on my arm it seemed to appear like more of a dark taupe colour and when I applied it on my eyes I could barely see the colour.

L-R: Coral One Layer, Coral Two Layers, Pink One Layer and Pink Two Layers. Blush swatches taken with flash.

Blush swatches taken in natural daylight.

I was slightly scared of the two blush colours at first, if I'm honest the colours looked like the sort of shades you would get in one of them huge, cheap palettes. However I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the coral shade against my skin tone although I have to admit in my swatches the colours don't look much different to one another.

If you subscribe to any sort of beauty boxes, let me know your thoughts on the whole concept?