Yearly Archives: 2015

The April Beauty Heroes Box!

A new month means only one thing… A new Beauty Heroes box of course. This month’s expert selection is worth $118 and could all be yours for only $39 (shipping worldwide) so what’s the brand? Well. It’s a good one. True Nature Botanicals! And the product? Their cult classic Exfoliating Moisture Mask ($90) and a deluxe sized sample of their original face oil ($28).
TNB is one of my all-time favourite brands and they’ve been featured countless times on the blog. The Exfoliating Moisture Mask is deceptively small but mighty. Green and white tea, lactic acid and mango butter combine to hydrate, refine and brighten skin, you only need the thinnest layer for 5-10 minutes to see a serious difference. This mask is powerful. Get the box.

Alyaka Is The Green Beauty Shop To Watch.

Alyaka has been busy doing some really exciting things lately and is bringing us previously impossible to get in the UK brands. Most recently Axiology lippies, Mahalo Skincare and MUN Skincare! Finally! Not to mention they also stock brands such as Kjaer Weis, de Mamiel, RMS, Earth Tu Face, May Lindstrom and many more. I would have a look at their sample service too, you can sample the entire May Lindstrom line for £22 which you can then redeem against a full-size product, they also off this for the makeup brands too! Very cool.

New From Moss & ILIA.

Moss has just launched a new, more gentle version of their best selling spot treatment Zen Physic. Zen Doux is it’s gentler sister, with fewer essential oils for sensitive skin but still as potent for healing acne. ILIA have launched their spring collection recently too, featuring a radiant beauty balm, SPF powder and two tinted lip conditioners with SPF.

Offers & New Releases at Cult Beauty!

I’m really interested in the new brand Kiki Health that has just launched, I love me some superfoods. I especially want to try their aloe vera juice and magnesium oil spray. Plus any purchase over £20 receives a free Nature’s Living Superfood (20g).
Tata Harper currently has a great offer running too, perfect if you want to try their new Purifying Mask or Eye Serum. A £60 spend rewards you with a free 50ml Regenerating Cleanser worth £38, nice.
Finally, SkinOwl’s latest release Neck + has launched exclusively on Cult Beauty (with free delivery worldwide) I haven’t seen many, if any green products specifically for the neck so I’m interested to hear more about this.

New & Exclusive Brands at Being Content.

As always Content have been busy discovering new british beauty brands for us and their two latest brand launches are Amly and Supernatural Beauty (who you should already be familiar with if you’re a regular reader!).

The Latest Detox Market Beauty Box!

The lovely folks over at the Detox Market have just released their spring box, and it’s pretty epic! The box contains 8 full size items, is super limited edition and costs $129, but is valued at $230 if you were to buy everything separate!
The box contains: Odacité Invigorating Jasmine Mimosa Body Scrub, Pure Provence Lavender Soap, Pursoma Minerals De Mer, Pai Camellia & Rose Gentle Hydrating Cleanser, MV Organic Skincare Signature Mineral Mask Set, One Love Organics Organic Cleansing Sponge, Osmia Organics Sunset Body Oil and the Affect Health Daily Balance. Get the box.

New @ Naturisimo.

Finally! More new beauty bits to wet your whistle. This time from Naturisimo. Lily Lolo’s Sculpt & Glow kit looks like a great way to start learning the art of the contour. Kure Bazaar have some new spring shades out. This new tea brand Bloom looks beautiful. and many, many more.
Plus spend £35 and use the code “SATORI” to recieve a sample vial of Lina Hanson’s Satori perfume (this sample usually costs £9!).

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Here we are with the December Dog and Beauty Favourites. I’m being silly with the dog part, of course; I only have one dog and so of course he is always the favourite. But as many of you will know, he was very ill throughout December and having him fit and well again for Christmas was just the best present ever. So he’s in my favourites along with hairbrushes and dry shampoo and whatnot.

More on the dry shampoo very shortly – my High Street Spies tell me that they have seen it in Superdrug, so I’ll do a full post asap. It’s the new addition to the Colab range; a dry shampoo that targets root volume to banish flatness and that lank, bleugh kind of look that tends to creep in when hair hasn’t been washed for a day or so. Watch this space – I’ll tell you more just as soon as I’ve had confirmation that it’s on the shelves!

Other December favourites of note include the Chanel Velvet foundation, which I have used more than anything else for the past few months, and the Wet Brush hairbrush for detangling wet hair, which is just the best thing since sliced bread. I’m also very partial to the new Lips and Boys lipsticks from Tom Ford, despite them costing about five and a half billion pounds each, but I’ll be doing a more in-depth post on those later this week. You can find the links to everything mentioned in the video at the bottom of this page.

Right: on with the show. I must get back to watching Elementary (see the Sunday Tittle Tattle post) – we’re on the ninth episode of the day and there’s still time for two more before bed…

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I wrote about the Ultra Repair Hydrating Serum a little while ago for my post on dehydrated skin, but I’ve tested it far more extensively since then and it most definitely deserves its own write-up. It’s made by First Aid Beauty, a US skincare brand who make very effective, yet easily tolerated products that are nicely priced. If ever I want something to target a specific skin concern – red, flaky patches, for example, or really tight and dry skin – then I find that this brand usually has something to suit.

Skincare: do I really need to use a serum? 

I’m a serum fan and have been for quite some time, now. Read the post linked above if you need some convincing, but in a nutshell, I feel that serums usually provide a good, concentrated hit of active ingredients in a lightweight, suit-all formula. They are the shot of espresso in a big cup of milky, frothy coffee (forgive me if this analogy is wrong, I’ve never drunk a coffee in my life but it seems like a good comparison!) or the vodka in the – er – vodka cocktail. More often than not they are of a liquid, watery consistency, but sometimes face oil blends are called serums too.

The Ultra Repair Hydrating Serum is a great, relatively inexpensive serum for those who want to start using a serum but don’t really know where to begin. It’s a water-based, almost weightless gel that slides on easily beneath your moisturiser and – though it doesn’t promise any ridiculous, overblown anti-ageing miracles – it takes brilliant care of the skincare basics. It tackles hydration (the serum contains hyaluronic acid and collagen), soothes irritation (colloidal oatmeal and allantoin) and helps to protect the skin from the daily onslaught of what the beauty industry has snazzily labelled “environmental aggressors” (pollution, cigarette smoke, etc).

The fact that this serum is non-oily, hydrating and soothing makes this a great all-rounder; acne-prone skin that’s raw and irritated, dehydrated skin that’s on the oily side, skin that tends towards redness. You can’t really go far wrong. My own face is relatively “normal” at the moment – very slightly oily in the t-zone, sometimes tight and dry elsewhere – and the Ultra Repair works perfectly. It juices things up nicely, boosting moisture levels without adding a layer of “gunk” to my face, if I feel as though I want to keep things fresh and simple. If you hate having to wear layers and layers of product in the daytime then this serum works very well directly beneath foundation, if it’s a relatively nourishing one, or BB cream or tinted moisturiser.

A brilliant “starter” serum, then, but this actually stands up to products that are multiple times the price, and I’ve found myself repeatedly reaching for it when I want something gentle and soothing to apply before moisturiser. Great for sensitive skin, oily skin, dehydrated skin and spot-prone skin that’s also all of the above, you can find it online (with full ingredients list) at LookFantastic here – it’s £26.

A very quick and easy nude makeup tutorial – perfect if you want something smart and polished for the daytime but at the same time like to keep things pretty understated. It’s a touch more makeup than I’d usually wear in the day, but I just fancied a change this week – a more grown-up look.

This tutorial features the new Chanel Le Volume de Chanel mascara from the Rouge Noir Christmas collection. What a beauty! Lash-volumising, flake-free and with a gorgeous reddish-purple hue that looks so much softer than jet black. (Though I do also have a borderline obsession with Chanel’s Ultra Noir, which gives the most ridiculously long and full lashes but takes about five years to remove.) I got into a bit of a muddle with the Rouge Noir, thinking that there were loads of negative reviews online – which I just couldn’t understand. I thought that maybe theirs had been from a bad batch, or that I had landed one from a good batch, but either way I was really worried in case a load of people went and bought it to find that it wasn’t up to scratch… Then I looked at the reviews again and they were from five years ago when Chanel did a Rouge Noir version of their Inimitable mascara. Different product. Oops. Panic over.

So yes: a quick and easy nude makeup look with a softly defined eyes, perfectly finished skin and posh, sheeny lips. The lipstick is YSL’s Le Nu in the collector’s edition “Kiss and Love” packaging – you can find that online here. The Rouge Noir mascara, if you like the sound of it, is at Boots here – worth splurging your advantage card points on, for sure, or if you want something safer then plump for the Ultra Noir.

Read more mascara reviews…

Right – on with the show. You’ll probably spot Mr Bear in the background, as well as Dexter, Baby AMR and even a silhouette of Mr AMR if you have your wits about you. It was all going on that day… Product links are below the video pane, should you wish to get a bit more info.

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