Selfridge's Box Part 1

I'm sure you're probably sick to death of hearing about the Selfridge's Beauty Box, especially if you didn't get one so apologies for that.

But we are doing a giveaway for one (woohoo!) and so we decided to do a more in depth post on our halves with mine being up today and M's being put up next Sunday.

I was super excited to try out the Stila One Step Correct Serum, the Philip B Katira hair mask and the Antipodes Avocado and Rosehip Divine Face Oil so that's what i chose from the box and M will be covering the other three items next week.

(We split a box between us, you can find more details on the giveaway page here)

First up is the Antipodes Organic Avocado and Rosehip Divine Face Oil all the way from New Zealand.

Antipodes are a brand that I'm really interested in because their skin care range uses only bioactive botanical ingredients, many of which are organic, and also have a strong ethical value.

Also I love that they have loads of scientific information on their website, I've fallen in love with a brand again!

The website states:

Scientifically shown to stimulate Type I collagen in human skin fibroblast cells by up to 51%*.

Give a lift to tired, stressed and sun-damaged skin with this nutrient-rich, certified organic face oil that helps to deliver essential nourishment for fresh, healthy skin. The superior collagen boosting action of avocado oil helps reduce the appearance of lines and age spots, while added rosehip helps avocado oil target scars and wrinkles.

Interesting!

Also how much do you love the bottle??

I love old style medicine bottles including these dropper style ones.

I mean obviously you'd have to use this for a few weeks to notice a big change and to give it time to work its magic....but I've been struggling big time with my skin recently.

I've been breaking out left right and centre and every spot seems to leave a really bright red scar that doesn't heal. Initially I was worried about using an oil on my face as my skin has always had issues with oil.

It's early days as I've only been using it since Wednesday but I am 100% sure that the scars have started fading which was not happening at all before.

I'm hoping over the next few weeks it will improve even more and hopefully will turn into the wonder product I've been waiting for!

I've tried every other product you can think of so here's hoping.

Next up is the Philip B Katira Hair Mask which I used this morning.

I've also been having a few issues with my hair being very dry considering I don't heat style it and have been taking good care of it.

First off I love the packaging as I love simple and anything talking about 'Magic' sounds good to me!

The website states:

PRODUCT DETAILS

A gentle yet surprisingly versatile rejuvenator for all hair types.

The unique, clear-gel formula sinks right in to plump up fine, limp strands or calm and smooth coarse, hard-to-manage hair.

HOW IT WORKS:

Pure Katira Extract – the "it" conditioner of the Middle East – fills in weak, damaged spots in the hair cuticle for added smoothness and strength. It also gives your hair a slight electrical charge – you’ll feel it during your blowout – that leaves it fantastically light and bouncy.

A high-tech L-Amino Acid Complex infuses your hair with a perfect dose of weightless, oil-free moisture and nourishing proteins for enhanced control and elasticity. Just one application will instantly revitalize your hair color, speed up blow-drying time, and lock in shine for a sexy, touchable, red-carpet finish.

It's also paraben and pthalate free (woo!)

I quite liked the consistency of this but it was quite thick and I can imagine needing a lot of it.

It says on the back about mixing it in with their conditioner, so I mixed it in with my current conditioner and applied it, leaving it for as long as I could (probably around 5/10 minutes).

My hair definitely feels in better condition though I can't agree that it took less drying time as I didn't feel there was any difference.

I was impressed to see that my hair doesn't feel heavy at all however so I will definitely be using this a few times this week with the hope of improving the condition over time but so far it's doing the job!

Last but definitely not least is the Stila One Step Color Correct Serum.

I didn't own any Stila products until a few conveniently found there way into poundland!

But I have ALWAYS lusted after this product.

Everyone can see how cool it looks but for me, being obsessed with science as I'm a complete geek this is the ultimate in make up.

It looks like a beautiful DNA helix or something which is just amazing (I'm going to stop waffling on don't worry!)

This is all written on the box but straight from their website:

The revolutionary new product contains 3 colour-correcting brighteners: 

• Green tone instantly neutralizes redness and conceals blemishes 
• Lavender tone counteracts sallow undertones for a vibrant, energised look 
• Peach tone brightens, illuminates and helps diminish the appearance of sun spots

Sooooo pretty!

Here's a few hand shots, not the most convenient but I don't have a working tripod or someone to take photos of my face where I don't look a bit silly! Plus my skin is awful!

The left is before, and on the right you can see how all three colours come out in each pump (the peach is slightly hidden underneath)

Then on the left the colour blend together SO easily and pretty much melt into your skin leaving a really nice finish, not shiny at all but the area looks really moisturised and even.

I can't wait until my skin is better and I can just apply this to my skin as I can imagine it looking great and makes everything so much easier in the mornings!

What do you think of the products? My current favourite has to be the Antipodes face oil, as it's a god send if it continues to get rid of my scars as nothing else I've tried has worked.

However I can imagine the Stila taking over if my skin clears up :)

If you would like to win these products and the other 3 also in the box, you can enter the giveaway here.

It's always worth a try and you can tweet each day for more entries!

L xxx

Review: Aveda Damage Remedy products

I realise these are only tiny samples but I just had to blog about them after the effect they had on my hair.

This is the Aveda Damage Remedy trio:

My hair isn't in bad condition normally, and in fact I never owned a hair oil until 2 weeks ago.

But recently my hair has been feeling awful, especially at the ends.

It's really frustrating as after straightening it twice all year and curling it about 5 times, as well as getting it cut at least every 2 months, it should be in pretty damn good condition!

I use heat protector and occasionally some Sebastian Potion 9 when I remember and that's usually all it needs.

However I think because I've been growing it for so long it's probably in need of some TLC.

This was why I ended up investing in a hair oil (Tresemme Liquid Gold if you were wondering, post soon!)

I've always been pretty lucky with my hair but in my hour of need, my nan (of all people!) had been given this in a shop and donated it to me, perfect timing!

This is the Aveda Damage Remedy set and contains a shampoo, conditioner and leave in treatment.

The details are:

Damage Remedy Shampoo

Organic Damage Remedy Restructuring Shampoo is a gentle daily cleanser most suited to dry, damaged or chemically treated hair. It helps repair damaged hair. With the addition of Quinoa Protein, Babassu and Coconut Oil your hair is moisturised and restored.

Damage Remedy Conditioner 

Damage Remedy Restructuring Conditioner is a lightweight yet deep daily conditioner. The formula using Quinoa Protein, phellendron and Sandalwood repairs and restores the hair shaft resulting in smoother manageable healthy looking hair.

Damage Remedy Intensive Restructuring Treatment 

Damage Remedy™ Intensive Restructuring Treatment combines essential flower and plaint oils to repair and rebuild. It restores and moisturises the hair shaft and helps to smooth out the hair cuticle. Used twice weekly alongside the three step programme hair is restored to shiny healthy condition.

So onto my thoughts...the shampoo and conditioner both smelt lovely.

It's really hard to describe but I could smell a sort of almond and aniseed type smell at different times which was odd but nice all the same.

Definitely couldn't smell the coconut oil in the shampoo, but it lathered up nicely and my hair felt very clean afterwards.

The shampoo was also thicker than others I've used suggesting it was a lot more moisturising which I'm guessing it was with the result it gave me.

The conditioner felt very nice to put through my hair as it sort of melted as I applied it.

I ended up using the entire tubes of shampoo and conditioner in one go as my hair felt like it needed it and 10ml isn't a lot!

I left the conditioner on for a good few minutes in the shower and my hair felt a lot better even whilst still under the water.

Lastly I used the leave in treatment just before I blow dried my hair which was a serum type product, if a little runnier than normal.

The result was that my hair felt absolutely amazing and I loved it!

I would definitely consider buying these 3 to see what the long term effects are if the short term effects are so instant.

Other products just don't seem the same since and my hair doesn't feel as great a week later so I'm going to have to try something else as at the moment my budget won't stretch to Aveda.

It's a shame that the tubes weren't a little bigger really! I'm going to have to dig through my collection and find some hair products to use up.

Have you used Aveda products before?

I've heard lots about them but have never used them, this was my first time and I'm thoroughly impressed!

L xxx

Also don't forget to enter our Selfridge's Beauty Box giveaway!!!

You can find it here

*CLOSED* Selfridge's Beauty Box....Giveaway!!

Good morning ladies!

I hope you've had a lovely week and are looking forward to the weekend as much as me!

As most of you will know, Selfridge's are opening up a new beauty hall which is in fact THREE times bigger than it was previously.

This is the kind of news dreams are made of!

When they announced that to celebrate this, they were creating their own version of the infamous beauty boxes making the rounds of the blogosphere this was quite frankly the highlight of my year!

Having seen a few bloggers post about the contents I drooled for a little while and then hastily signed up, and text M to hurry up and do it too!

When the time came we obviously missed the original 50/100 boxes that were snapped up before 7am because we completely forgot (i.e. I was asleep!)

However we were both ON FIRE when the second lot (around 125 more) of them came out and managed to snap up one each and were massively excited.

We'd been thinking about doing a giveaway for a while having hit another milestone in our views and generally just to thank anyone who reads our blog and interacts with us on twitter as we have really enjoyed writing it over the past few months.

We met up one evening in the past few days and were discussing the contents to find that actually we could split a box between us as there were certain products we wanted more than others.....and being conscious of the massive back log of products we both have to get through we decided to share. (see Beauty Rehab here!)

Which basically leads me to say that against all of our beauty hoarding tendencies (it almost breaks me into a sweat thinking about it!) we now have a brand new, fully stocked Selfridge's box TO GIVE AWAY.

Yes.

To. Give. Away. (!!!)

So, if you missed out when furiously refreshing your page or didn't get your details online in time then this is your chance to get your hands on one of the 200(ish) boxes.

Firstly, here's a reminder of the box and the products that you could win:

A little slice of heaven!

Omorovicza Deep Cleansing Mask and Aesop Parsley Seed Anti-oxidant Serum

Estelle and Thild Lip Balm and Bioeffect EGF Serum (EGF-Epidermal Growth Factor)

Philip B Katira Hair Mask and the booklet that explains all of the brands and products, as well as details on the new beauty hall

Stila One Step Correct serum and Antipodes Avocado and Rosehip Divine Face Oil

Drool worthy aren't they???

What we love most is that they're from all over the world (incl. New Zealand, Budapest, Hungary and Sweden) and many contain natural and organic products, something that we are both very conscious of, and so this is the perfect give away for us.

So, onto the small print:

The winner will be drawn by rafflecopter so it is randomised.

The giveaway is open only to people in the UK. 

The winner will be contacted within 48 hours of the end of the giveaway, if there is no response after 1 week another winner will be generated. (remember to leave all your details!)

Following via GFC and on twitter, as well as leaving a comment and supplying your email address are mandatory but all others are optional. 

If you do enter, all options will be checked so be warned ;)

Good luck!

L and M xxx

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(please note that the time for the giveaway is in EST as I couldn't change it, meaning it is set to 5 hours behind UK time)

NOTD: Catwoman Inspired Nails

So I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOVE me some super hero films.

I loved Avengers, I love all of the Spiderman, Hulk, Thor and all the previous Batman films.

I'm not really that girly when it comes to film watching, I'm ten times more likely to see action with a buff man in than I am to see a romance like the Notebook.

Needless to say then, I absolutely loved The Dark Knight Rises and was so excited for it to finally come out, especially with the Tom Hardy/Christian Bale muscle show!

After I saw it however there was one thing on my mind (in the nicest way possible)...Anne Hathaway as Cat Woman.

Quite frankly I think she looked unbelievable in her leather cat suit and she's currently my motivation to go to the gym and replace stuffing myself with cake and ice cream with fruit and salad:

How is it that she can have such a tiny waist!

I read somewhere that she spent 10 months in the gym, good on her!

With this in mind, I decided to do my take on Cat Woman inspired nails

Here's my final result!

I went for simplicity over cramming too many details in.

I like that if you think about it, you can probably work out what the nails are about (if you are into the film as much as I was!)

Basically I used the black crackle from Barry M to paint 4 of my nails and the red colour to paint my ring finger.

The black crackle layered up looks great as a nod towards her leathers as they have some kind of pattern put to them which you can see in the pictures above.

The red is of course a nod towards her red lipstick, which she has for most if not all of the film.

I also covered all of the nails with a matte top coat.

Her cat suit and lipstick are both matte finish and I felt this would look better than a shiny top coat.

Lastly I used my new Model's Own nail art pen in white to add dots in a half moon shape at the base of my middle finger nail.

This is as you've probably guessed a nod towards the pearl necklace that she steals/wears during the film.

I couldn't find any other Cat Woman style nails but I hope this is something different to any others that are around.

What do you think of them?

Simple and enough? Or would you have added more?

Also....HAVE YOU SEEN HER SHOES?!

Those boots are to die for. But obviously strutting around Uni wearing these might cause some suspicions!

I'm going to give a very subtle hint that you should come back and check our blog tomorrow, as we have some AMAZINGLY EXCITING NEWS that I can (almost) guarantee you will love.

All will be revealed at 9am tomorrow, but you should definitely check back!

L xxx