Beauty Rehab

Hey there!

I thought I'd end the year on a Beauty Rehab post; I've been working hard to use up my stash over the last few months. Body products suddenly seemed to be taking over my life so I've been working through them and trying not to replace them. I was doing well but now facial skincare appears to have taken its place. Nothing like being prepared though right?!

So let's get started on the mammoth collection of empties I have this time:

Label M Protein Spray: loved using this and as someone who doesn't dabble in many hair products that's a pretty big deal!
Korres Shampoo and Conditioner for coloured hair: Bought in Waitrose, expensive but did last longer than other shampoos and conditioners I've used, would repurchase as a treat or when it's on offer.
Batiste: Nothing better than the original dry shampoo! Always have a stash of this
Philosophy Vanilla Birthday Cake Shower Gel: Bit of a sickly sweet smell for me but extremely thick and luxurious and was a lovely present, wouldn't repurchase though.

Nip and Fab Cleansing Fix Oil: No longer available to buy from what I can gather but actually works well at removing make up - not convinced though as it contains mineral oil so I'm worried it will make me break out
No7 Brush Cleaner: had lots of hope for this but unfortunately you need to use a lot of it to get make up off and sometimes it still wasn't enough. Useful for emergencies but baby shampoo is always the best!
S&G Righteous Butter: Finally down to my last 2 pots of this (eek!) it's a fabulous body butter and smells divine I'm just not patient enough to sit and let it sink in sometimes! Love it.
Dove Summer Glow Lotion: the best one for me and my pale skin, usually go through bottles of this but I've been embracing my pale skin for the last few months. (seeing photos at Christmas parties has brought me back to my senses though...)

Lush So White Shower Gel: Kindly given to me from Lush Cardiff at an event, was a new product to me and I loved the apple scent as some are overwhelming me, I'm so not adventurous with scents!
Nivea Facial Wash Gel: Made my skin drier as I no longer need products for combination/oily skin it would seem! Definitely need something more hydrating nowadays!
Neutrogena Deep Clean Daily Scrub: Unfortunately not a product available in the UK, this was sent to me from a friend in America and I have treasured it until now!
DGJ Berutti Oil: Hair products don't seem to have any effect on my hair, this one smelled lovely and did add shine but didn't seem to help the condition long time. 

Dr Nick Lowe Age Correct Eye Serum: I love an eye serum, this one sunk in easily and I'd consider repurchasing on a Boots 3 for 3 deal.
Laura Mercier Silk Creme: already repurchased; the perfect second skin look, and although it's pricey it does last a really really long time as you use so little.
Clarins Body Wash: A sample given to me, not a fan of the smell so wouldn't repurchase. It smelt herby which was weird!
Origins MAD Cleansing Milk: I prefer a foaming wash but this was great on days where my skin was feeling sensitive so it was good for my gym wash bag.
Nip and Fab Viper Venom Wrinkle Fix: Loved this and would repurchase, probably will when I run out of my other 6 or so serums...(oops)

E45 cream - massive allergic reaction to this, used it for ages so no idea why but won't be repurchasing!
Origins MAD Plus Rejuvenating Moisturiser - love love love! Hoping to get a Christmas gift set of this to fill my stash back up....
Nip and Fab Bee Sting Fix Eye Cream - this was ok, not the best eye cream and I was disappointed with the amount of product inside the pot
Origins High Potency Night A Mins - another love, I have another in the sidelines...
Lush H'Suan Wen Hua Hair Treatment - I thought this worked well but the huge pot only covered my hair 2 or 3 times so the price and value might be a bit off, would like to try others

L'Occitane Shea Lip Butter - this was quite hard so wasn't great on chapped lips but really moisturising when it melted a bit, wouldn't repurchase
Balance Me Wonder Eye Cream - lovely, would repurchase
Benefit Porefessional - love the mini/travel sizes, extremely useful!
Benefit They're Real - again another love, but I wouldn't purchase it on its own, value is much better in a set and it's often in magazines...it's a Boots points kind of purchase!
Lancome Hypnose mascara - love their range of mascaras, their Christmas sets are great (fingers crossed)
Caudalie Polyphenol Detox Oil - loved this, will need to buy it in full size to fully get the benefits!

Rimmel Wonderfull mascara - not sure the Argan oil makes a load of difference but it was a good mascara and Rimmel always seem to be the best for me
Boots Brazil Nut body butter - love these small pots, great for travelling!
Boots Nail Block - the cheapest and the best, always pick these up in 3 for 2 deals
Rimmel Stay Matte pressed powder - Always have more of these, the best pressed powder for the money, would never use any other

Phew what a way to end the year, so many pots and tubs I've gone through and still so many more to go!

Fingers crossed I'll carry on ploughing through at this speed for the rest of the year. What have you been using up over the last few weeks?

L xxx

Korres Coloured Hair Shampoo and Conditioner

Morning!

I seem to rarely buy or try hair products, I'm quite lucky that my hair is quite pliable and does what I want it to without much hassle. however it has become very dry after a long summer and lots of highlights. I've been dying it back darker recently and hopefully less of the stripping effects of highlights will also help, but after seeing these Korres shampoo and conditioner on offer at 2 for £10 at Waitrose I snapped them up for a try.

I chose the set for coloured hair containing Sunflower and Mountain tea.

The designs of the bottles are quite simple and standard, its a little confusing to have so many languages on the bottles but it's an international brand and I don't see why more brands shouldn't do this. Although the bottles are standard in design they do feel quite substantial so they won't break easily if you drop them in the shower, like I seem to do all the time!



The shampoo feels quite thick to use on the hair and lathers up easily, this is probably due to SLS being present which is confusing again as Korres are a 'free from' brand and do not use many chemicals that other brands do. Having said that, my hair felt clean but not 'squeaky' and it didn't matt together which it can do with shampoo that is drying.

I can't comment on it's colour protection as mine has faded since being dyed anyway, as it will with blonde hair being changed back to dark brown! But my hair did feel clean and I'd use it again.

The conditioner was also very nice, it was hydrating and felt thick and moisturising on the hair and scalp. My hair felt a lot smoother and silky after drying so it clearly works and I've enjoyed using it.

I also like that Korres list on the sides for each product what the formula facts are including everything that it doesn't contain and who it is catered for.

Having said all of this....finding out that at full price these products are £10 each I wouldn't say that these were worth that. The 2 for £10 was a great deal and I've enjoyed using them as a treat, but I couldn't justify spending £10 on them each as they're just no different to a lot of other shampoo and conditioners that I've tried.

Have you tried products from Korres? What is your favourite? 

I've heard their lip butters are amazing but I've got so many eos spheres to get through at the moment I don't need any more!

L xxx

Birchbox

Goooooooooood morning!

I've got a quick review for you today. I'm sure you've all probably seen these Birchbox reviews by now as they have been out for a little while, but I've decided to take a few snaps of them to share what i think.

I'm lucky that my aunty (who has recently turned 50!) was bought a 6 month subscription to Birchbox and although she loves products and in theory it was a great present for her she just won't use them.....cue me being the very happy recipient of every Birchbox for the next 6 months!

The first one I received was the Lulu Guinness box. I love the outer cardboard cover of this box, stripes and monochrome are a particular favourite of mine and the dress on the front of the box is a stunner as well, cannot complain one bit!

Generally I love these boxes as they're so handy for storing just about anything and they can stack up in display on your desk or shelving or be stored away  for safe keeping. I also really like the drawstring bags, they're so handy for travelling with and are actually really good quality and last very well.

As always these boxes come with a 'menu' and this one was no different. It contained a Korres body milk, Molton Brown hand cream, Pores No More pore perfector, Benefit Stay Don't Stray, a perfume sample and a Lulu Guinness stick of rock in the same black and white design.

I cannot wait to try the citrus body milk from Korres, I've heard so much about them and citrus is my favourite scent.
Molton Brown hand cream looks the perfect size for your hand bag and I'm looking forward to using this.
The sound of the pore perfector is ideal, but on lifting up the tube i can see straight through it and can see already that there is only a tiny bit of product in the tube which is quite disappointing and I doubt I will be able to get more than 1 or 2 uses out of it.

I can't say that perfume samples excite me in the slightest. I'm hoping my cousins appreciate these as I've just filled a huge bag of samples and products I won't use for them and this has definitely gone into it!
Benefit's Stay Don't Stray has been on my list for a long time and i'm very excited to try it out, it's probably the highlight of this box for me!

So marks out of 10 for the first box....probably 6/10. I like the variety and there's a few products i will enjoy but the pointless tester of pore perfector and yet another perfume samples was pretty boring for me.

The second box has exactly the same set up with a drawstring bag and a menu card. Some people might consider the brown box to be boring but i really like it's simplicity. Brown paper is something that I love and it can be so effective at making things and it reminds me of this.

This box contained:
Benefit's Porefessional - I'm already a fan and have lots of tester sizes for 'emergency purposes'
Non Aerosol Hair Spray - this will be great for my gym bag or handbag on a night out! Fingers crossed it's an effective one.
Skin Life - I love skincare samples so I'm sure this will be put to the test soon.
Eyeshadow - gorgeous colour but I have many in the same shade so this pot has again gone to my cousins.
Perfume -  Again not a fan of these, I'm yet to find one that i actually like so they've gone to my younger cousins, I'm sure they'll love them!

So marks out of 10 for this box? Probably 7/10 for variety, the perfume still lets it down though.

I love receiving tester size samples and I'm so grateful to my aunty for sending me her boxes, it's so much fun to go through them all even though I get them late and could know beforehand what I'm getting by reading others blog posts. However I think if I was paying the full amount for each of these boxes plus P&P I'd be disappointed when I could be spending the £13 on something that I chose myself.

Maybe the next few boxes will change my mind! What do you think of beauty boxes in general? Do you think they're worth it?

L xxx

Korres Lip Butters in Jasmine and Mango

Tonight's post is going up much later than I planned. I've ended up spending the night in my kitchen cooking meals for the week. I much prefer cooking big meals all in one night so I can then reach into my fridge/freezer and have a healthy proper lunch or dinner at my convenience.

Anyway on to today's post. I recently picked up a product I had heard so much about from beauty gurus. I wonder if it could be that good. Every time a product gets hyped up I'm put off buying it as I think it won't live up to my expectations. 

Finally I caved and treated myself to two of the Korres lip butters. I got the shades Mango and Jasmine. For a while I wondered if they were worth it and wondered what category they fitted into. 

They remind me of a more moisturising version of a Sleek Pout Polish (reviewed here). The Korres lip butters have a thick glossy texture which apply to the lips smoothly.

They aren't my favourite type of pot as I'm not a fan of something I have to stick my finger in but I do like the simplicity of the design and the fact the lids are colour coded to the product.

Here is the colour of my natural lips so you can see the difference in colour.

Jasmine is a soft nude. With I nude lip I tend to favour a glossy lip. I find otherwise they look a bit weird on me. The only non glossy nude lip I seem to be wearing lately is this Revlon one. Jasmine has quite a sweet smell to it and on me makes my lips appear slighty paler and glossier. I tend to wear this if I am wearing a heavy eye look for every day.

Mango is an orange red and I picked it up as I thought it would be a great introduction to orange for me as it's a sheerer softer way to wear it. I love orange on other people but haven't found my shade yet. The scent on this is slightly sickly falsely sweet mango which is a bit annoying but when on the lips it doesn't make a difference. I love the colour of this on. It just makes my lips look like a glossier orange version of what they are naturally.

I really love the texture and the feel of the Korres lip butters. I do feel the scents are slightly artificial for my taste but that being said you don't notice when they are on. As they are more of a glossy lipbalm they don't have great staying power but I love that they are non sticky and don't dry out the lips.

I really want to try the wild roses one as it looks a gorgeous colour. Have you tried the Korres Lip butters? They vary in price I've found but are only £6.40 at the moment on Look Fantastic which also offers free delivery (must resist ordering the rose one as I'm skint!!) Have any of you tried the stick versions? Are they are pigmented?

Love M

xxx