January '13 Favourites

Hey Everyone,

So, it's monthly favourites time again and this month I decided to do things a little differently and film a video instead of my usual blog post. It's the first one I've uploaded so it might not be the best but hopefully I did alright!

Products Featured

MUA Eyeshadow Palettes- http://www.muastore.co.uk/index.php/eyes/eye-shadow?cat=21 (they've recently had a huge sale so may be sold out of most things just now but they'll be back in stock soon hopefully!)

Nails Inc Nail Polish in Baker Street- http://www.nailsinc.com/nailpolish/baker-street-polish/1102/

Essie Nail Colour in Mint Candy Apple- http://www.feelunique.com/p/Essie-Nail-Colour

Essie Good To Go Top Coat- http://www.feelunique.com/p/Essie-Good-To-Go-Top-Coat-15ml

Lush Popcorn Lip Scrub- https://www.lush.co.uk/product/6080/Popcorn---25g

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey- http://www.boots.com/en/Revlon-Just-Bitten%C2%99-Kissable-Lip-Balm-Stain_1208067/

Rimmel Apocalips in Galaxy- http://www.boots.com/en/Rimmel-London-Apocalips-Lip-Laquer_1296026/

Scunci Bun Maker- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scunci-490702U-Bun-Maker/dp/B00A0N2OPQ

Scunci Perfect Pony- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scunci-490698U-Perfect-Pony/dp/B00A0N2OKG/ref=sr_1_1?s=beauty&ie=UTF8&qid=1359663160&sr=1-1

So, that's all of this month's favourites. Hopefully you enjoyed the video instead of a regular post from me- let me know in the comments either here or on YouTube what you thought and if I should make more or stick to writing! Also leave a comment or a video response if you want, about your favourites this month or anything about the products I mentioned.

Thanks for reading/watching!!

Lauren
Xx

Birchbox January 13- First Impressions

Hey Everyone, 

So, today was the day that I received my first ever Birchbox so I thought I would do a quick first impressions post about the box and the what I thought. As always, I haven't had time to properly test each product and links will be included where possible :)

Birchbox used to be in America only but it recently merged with Joliebox here in the UK and is now Birchbox UK. I never subscribed to Joliebox and stuck to just Glossybox but when I heard about the merge I thought I would give it a go as I've really enjoyed Glossybox and I wanted to see what the main differences were. It's the same price as Glossybox at £10 pus £2.95 P&P and I've subscribed for three months to start with as I thought that would be a good way to get a proper view on the box and giving it a fair try. 

The Box

Opened

The Products inside

 The first main differences between the Birchbox and the Glossybox is that Birchbox includes a little magazine in with each box which it says is designed to give you beauty inspiration before the next box arrives. I really loved this as it has loads of information, about products that aren't in your box and interviews and there's a nail art tutorial in this month's which is really well explained and simple. The product information is supplied on a seperate card. Also, the products are packaged in a reusable pink drawstring bag instead of the shredded paper which is much more useful and enviromentally friendly than all the paper which I really liked! Also the box it all comes in is very sturdy and can also be used for other storage. I think for these two reasons, I'm starting to like Birchbox more but we will see how the products compare over the next few months. Now, onto the products!

First up, and the thing I'm most excited about so far is the Fresh Sugar Rose Lip Treatment which is a really pretty tinted lipbalm type product which has SPF15 as well. I'v heard a lot of good things about this so I was really excited to try it but I think it's quite difficult to get a hold of in the uk. Birchbox claim that a full size is £15.50 but I'm not sure where it's available as I've only found American links. I'm very fussy about lip balms but this does seem to be really good and I like the tint to it, as I'd much rather wear a tinted balm than a lipstick. I was a bit worried that this would have a heavy rose scent to it, which I hate in lip products but it smells really nice and almost lemony. 

Next up is the KMS Frees Shape Quick Blow Dry which is a spray you spritz into your hair before drying and it helps to dry it faster. I've not had a chance to use this yet but I have high hopes for it and it smells really nice. It's also supposed to detangle, provide heat protection and is lightly conditioning. The full size product is £113.50 for 200ml and the sample is 30ml. 

 This is the Taaj Creme Mains Delhicates Hand Cream and is another product I was interested to try as I've heard really good reviews about other products from this brand but have never tried them. I'm not usually a fan of hand creams as I hate feeling like I have something on my hands but this sinks in really well and you only need a small ammount. It's got a subtle cinnamon scent to it which is unusual but I really like it. A full size is £10 for 75ml which is quite expensive for a hand cream I think, but I think it would last a long time as you only need a little. 

 This is the Teapigs Chamomile Tea Bag and is probably the thing I'm least excited about in the box this month, simply because I'm not a fan of flavoured teas, especially chamomile. There were also peppermint or superfruit ones available which I think I would have been more up for trying but who knows, maybe I'll be brave and end up really liking it! It's supposed to be good for  soothing anxiety and promoting sleep and relaxation which I am in desperate need of! Fifteen teabags cost between £3.49 and £3.99 depending which flavour you buy. 

 Last up is the Wei White Lotus Moisture Rich Eye Blend which is another thing I'm not too sure about. It smells nice and seems to be quite a thick cream but the full size product is £60 which is a tad out of my price range, especially for just an eye cream so I doubt I would repurchase this product, unless it's the most amazing eye cream I ever try! 

So, that's all the products in the Birchbox that I got and all in all I'm pretty impressed with the products and the box as a whole. Leave a comment below if you got a Birchbox, what was in it or if you've used any of the products before :)

Thanks for reading

Lauren xx

Glossybox January '13- First Impressions

Hey Everyone, 

It's GlossyBox time again (it seems to get dispatched earlier and earlier or is that just me?) and mine arrived this afternoon so this post is going to be mostly first impressions of the box and products. It was only dispatched yesterday so next day delivery is pretty good going! 

 This month the box is back to the usual pale pink boxes with plain black paper and pink ribbon after the special silver themed box last month. The boxes are really useful for storage (mine are currently home to my nail polishes) but I'm not so much a fan of the black shredded paper used to pack the products. Especially this month as I didn't think the inside of my box was packaged as nicely as it normally is- there was less shredded paper and it seemed to be packed upside down, when usually the sticker is on the top, this month it was underneath. Also I noticed that the larger paper fold out leaflet from last month's box has stuck, instead of the cards that used to be included detailing the products. I really like the change as it includes more extra information than before which is nice. 

When I first opened the box

The products in the box with not very much paper this month!

The products inside

This month's box theme is detoxing from the excesses of the Christmas and New Year period, with the products inside intended to help everyone get back into their usual routine and being a little more healthy which I thought was a really good theme and will most likely help a lot of people do just that, as well as finding some new products to add. So, let's have a closer look at the products included-

I'm going to start with this GlossyBox sleep mask, as it's not included on the information sheet and is just an extra little thing they've thrown in. It's a good idea and fits with the theme of the box but I'm pretty sure I won't be using it as the thought of waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to see terrifies me! (In fact, I recently woke up in the middle of a power cut and thought I'd gone blind because it was so dark but that would be a whole other embarrassing post!)

Next up we have the Elemis Fresh Skin Skin Glow Exfoliating Face Wash which is an exfoliating face wash designed specifically for those in their teens to mid-twenties to help nurture skin and prevent premature aging. It smells really nice and fruity, which is usually something that I like in face wash products although the exfoliating beads don't seem to be very big so I do wonder how well it would work as an exfoliator- I prefer to really feel like a product is doing something to my face. Having said that I was skeptical about the Dermalogica MicroExfoliant for the same reasons and that turned out to be amazing so I'm keeping an open mind for when I properly try this. The sample is 30ml and a full size is 100ml at £12.

Also in the box was a Jason Lips Bee Healthier Lip Balm which is a 70% natural lip balm made with beeswax, peppermint, aloe, shea butter and many other ingredients that are good for your lips! I've used an aloe vera gel from this company before as an aftersun/sunburn product and really liked it so I was interested  to see what the lip balm was like. Also, I'm just a bit of a lip balm addict so this was always onto a winner with me! You can definitely smell the mint in this, and also the shea butter smells a lot like chocolate to me, so this is like a chocolate mint lip balm. The mint definitely tingles your lips but not too much, like the beeswax Burt's Bees lip balm that this reminded me of when I first saw it. The lip balm is basically like most other lip balms- it applies nicely and is moistursing but I feel like it's one of the ones I will find myself having to reapply a lot more than other lip balms that I own. This one does melt really quickly as well which is nice, as it feels almost like a lip gloss and does leave a subtle gloss to your lips but with no colour or tint to it. It's a bit of a meh product for me, simply because I can be quite fussy when it comes to lip balms but for £1.99 for 4.5g it's not too bad really. 

Next we have the Duck Island Limited Body lotion in the scent mandarin and bergamont. Usually I don't like citrus scented products, especially orange scented but this is really nice and reminds me of orange calpol from when I was little. The bottle is really cute and I like the lid which is quite unusual but then everything starts to get a little odd from there on in. The lotion feels very thin, almost watery so I'm not sure how moisturising it would be and I'd feel like I needed to use a lot before feeling any real benefits. I've just been on their website for pricing and to get a link and discovered something very strange. In the Glossybox leaflet it says 2x250ml- £24.95 Shop at Duckisland.co.uk but I've just been on the site and unless I'm being incredibly stupid, you can only buy the small 30ml bottles in cases of 200 at a time and the larger 250ml bottles in cases of 20 at a time. Also there are various products (hand lotion, body wash, soap, hand wash etc) but they are all only in the scent of mandarin and bergamont, which is a bit of a bummer if you don't like it! If anyone can explain to me how this makes any sense, or knows where you can buy less than 200 or 20 bottles of this, please let me know in the comments!!  

Second to last, we have the Monu Aromatic Mask which I'm really excited to try as I love face masks and I've heard of this brand before but have never used any of their products. It contains lavender and rosemary which are what it smells mostly off, which I'm not usually a fan of but with this I think it will make it really relaxing to wear. It's quite a generous sample size at 30ml, when usually you just get one or two sachets but it's quite a hard plastic bottle and the mask is quite thick so may have to cut it to get everything out. I hope that the larger size (which is £24.95 for 100ml) doesn't have the same problem! 

Lastly we have the Premae Skincare Balance Rescue Face Tonique which is a face toner designed to reduce oil and pores, leaving your skin feeling fresh and plump. I'm not sure what to make of this really as I've never really used a toner in the past or really known what they're supposed to do if I'm totally honest! It doesn't even have really much a smell to it so there's not much really I can say. On first impressions this is probably the thing I was least excited about but even then, it's not definitely something I would never use like some of the things I've recieved in previous boxes. Also there's a bit of an issue with the price as Glossybox is saying a full size is 50ml and £27.50, whereas the website they supplied for buying the product claims a full size is 100ml and only £17.50... who knows?! 

I'm not going to work out the maths of the box this month because it's now twenty past midnight and I'm being lazy hehe (maths was never my strong point!) plus there's some issues with the full size prices as I mentioned, so I'm not sure I would be able to work it all out anyways!

All in all, I thought this month's box was one of the good ones and there wasn't a product that I definitely hated straight away, like the Milk Shake hair stuff that I mentioned from last month's box. However I do know that some people got other things in their box- for example my best friend Marion from BeautyGeek90 got all different products in her box and wasn't very impressed with it I don't think. 

Have you recieved your Glossybox this month? Is there anything you got different to me or have you used any of these products previously? Or can you explain to me what the hell is going on with the pricing of the Duck Island body lotion hehe!? Leave me a comment below =D 

Lauren

xx

Nuxe Rêve de Miel Lip Balm Review & Comparison

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted anything for a while but I'm hoping now that Christmas and the New Year is over I can get into a regular posting routine. Also I hope you all had wonderful Christmases and New Years! 

Today's post is going to be a review and comparison of the Nuxe Rêve de Miel lip balms which come in either a pot version or a stick version. They have rather long, difficult to spell names so forgive me if I shorten them for the purposes of typing them repeatedly! 

Firstly I'm going to talk about my favourite out of the two which is the pot version, or the Nuxe Rêve de Miel Baume Levres Ultra-Nourrissant Ultra-Nourishing Lip Balm (told you it's a long name!). 

As I've probably mentioned on here before I have a slight addiction to lip balms because my lips can get very dry especially in the winter, which is never a good look on anyone! It never seemed to matter what lip balm I tried, the effects would always wear off and I'd be back to square one and I just never found a lip balm that I loved enough to keep using (which also added to the problem). I first heard about this product in the summer after reading about it on Zoe's blog Zoella (here's the post where she mentions it) and even though she said it was amazing, I was a tad skeptical and a bit unsure whether it would be worth the whopping £9.50 price tag, although there is 15g of product which softens that blow! Finally I gave in and splashed out and I am so glad that I did! It's definitely one of the best purchases I've ever made and worth the cost for sure. 

It's a lot thicker than any lip balm I'd tried before and is a sort of yellowy colour with a really nice citrussy sort of scent. A little goes a long way but I usually apply quite a lot especially when I wear it at night and by the time I wake up in the morning it's still there which is great. I've only recently started to cause a dent in the top which is pretty good going since I've been using it since the middle of June last year. 

My main problem with the potted version is that it can be very messy and so isn't very practical for using when you're out and about and also that you have to apply it with your fingers. I've never been a fan of applying products with my fingers but I've solved that problem for myself by using a hand sanitising gel beforehand. 

The problems I have with the pot version seem to be sorted in the stick version so I was really excited to try this out to see if it was just as good as the pot version. The stick version's long name NUXE Reve de Miel Stick Levres Hydratant Lip Moisturizing Stick 
which £5.50 for 4g (although it's currently in the Feel Unique Sale at 20% off so it's £4.40 at the 
moment!) so it is cheaper but that's for a lot less product. 

 This is much more like the usual lip balms that I've used in the past and has a more shiny finish on 
the lips than the potted version which looks quite matte, so it's good for using on it's own without 
worrying that it looks odd. It's a much paler creamy colour than the potted version and also has a 
much subtler scent to it which is nice. 

My main problem with the stick version is that I feel like I have to apply it much more than the potted 
version. That might just be me being weird and just thinking that I need to apply it more when really 
it could be fine the way it is but I really like the feeling of having something on my lips so I'm always 
reapplying whatever lip balm I'm wearing more than I probably need to. The stick has (and this will 
sound odd) but a thinner formula and texture than the pot which I feel is less moisturising, but is still a
really good lip balm. 

So, in conclusion before I ramble anymore than I need to and start repeating myself, I think that the 
potted version is a better product for me and is worth the cost for the ammount of product and how 
long it lasts both on the lips and in terms of using it up. The stick is still one of my favourite lip balms 
but I don't feel that it's any better than The Body Shop Born Lippy Stick Lip Balms which I also love 
but which are cheaper and come in different scents and tints. Having said that, I would still 
recommend both of these Nuxe lip balms depending on how dry your lips are. 

I know I got a bit rambley there but when can I ever write a post without doing that hehe. Thanks for
sticking through to the end and like I said at the start, I'm hoping that the start of this year will be the 
start of a regular posting routine!

EDIT: None of the links I had embedded in this post seem to be working so here they are just in 
case!-

Potted Version on Feel Unique- http://goo.gl/vXJVP
Stick Version on Feel Unique- http://goo.gl/8sght
Zoe's Post featuring the pot version- http://goo.gl/u5JRn

Lauren
xx

P.S- My posts will now also be featured on glipho.com just in case you're interested!

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