Dark Angels

I only got this new cleanser on Friday morning but I couldn't wait to tell you all about it! It's my new miracle product! I've even been giving bits of it to my friends at work! It's just too exciting!

I think a combination of stress, too much sugar and not drinking enough water culminated in a very painful and icky breakout. I had such awful spots that were all red and painful. I used this wonderful cleanser twice and my skin is already looking and feeling a million times better!

I got the version of Dark Angels that comes in the pot. It doesn't need to be refrigerated or anything but you do need to make sure you have perfectly dry hands when you get some product out to make sure it doesn't get any bacteria in there. That's the last thing you want in the war against spots!

This is the ultimate cleanser for people with oily or combination skin. It's charcoal based to absorb the excess oils in your skin but also has a bit of avocado oil in there to leave your skin feeling soft and loved. To top it all off, the texture of the cleanser gives you a lovely gentle exfoliation as well! My skin is like new having been using it for almost a week!

Nothing with this many miracle properties in it comes without a price. No, your bank balance will be completely in tact being only pennies over a fiver, it's your bathroom that's going to take a little wear and tear! It's not the tidiest of products to use but the benefits totally outweigh the negatives! Simply get a penny sized amount in your hand and put some warm water on the other hand. Rub Your hands together to form a paste and then gently massage it into your skin. Rinse with warm water and adore your new complexion. It sounds so simple, but it's inevitable that your basin and mirror will now be covered in lovely little black specks. I've started a new system that has me putting the paste on and rinsing it off in the shower. Then I just grab the hand held nozzle and rinse off the tiles where I've made a mess! Its totally worth the effort though! I feel like a totally new woman.

I hope you manage to pick some up and love it as much as I do. I've been using the Vitamin E toner tabs and the Vanishing Cream moisturiser with it and cant recommend it enough!

https://www.lush.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

Kisses,

Rebecca xxx

Love Your Body

Oooh, I seem to be rediscovering loads of goodies I haven't tried out for years! Last weekend I hit Lush and got some fabulous goodies I'm DYING to tell you all about! Today I had nearly half an hour to wait for my train to come home so took a look in The Body Shop. I haven't shopped there in such a long time! I've seen their new cherry flavoured products in some magazines and I'm a sucker for anything cherry flavoured. Yum yum. They had a really cute bag with mini sizes of all the different things in cherry so I picked that up for a bargain. Then I saw a really sweet sea grass basket with a bunch of mini sized shower gels for £8. There was a coconut flavoured one calling out my name so that went in the basket as well. Clearly as soon as Ive given them a good try out I'll let you know what I think.

The big news from my trip there was the Love Your Body club that you can join there. Ooh la la! It's usually £5 to join but I got it for £2.50 tonight. It's a yearly membership with loads of fab benefits! Each time you spend £10 or over you get a stamp and every time you get a stamp you get a £10 freebie! Fun! You also get a birthday gift if you visit a store in your birthday month. Did I also mention that you get 10% off everything including sale items for the whole year as well??? There are loads of other benefits but they were my faves. I think it's going to be great fun!

Watch this space for what I think of the yummy things I picked up tonight!

http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/_en/_gb/index.aspx

Kisses,

Rebecca xxx

Fab Product from Fab Website! Hooray!

I have discovered a fab new website that is now my fave! I'm so so so excited about it! They call themselves the Net-A-Porter of the beauty world and they couldn't be more right! I was looking for a Beauty Blender and saw that they supplied the UK. It was perfect seeing as I do most of my shopping online these days with little time to make it to the shops. I made the order in the afternoon and it was delivered the next day!!!! Can you believe it? I was soooooo thrilled! It was in fantastic cardboard boxing on the outside and then wrapped in lovely black tissue with a pretty Cult Beauty sticker on it. Then inside the precious packaging was my lovely Beauty Blender with cleanser!!! The people sitting near me at work were somewhat weirded out by my enthusiasm over a bright pink, egg shaped sponge.

So check out the Beauty Blender! http://www.beautyblender.net/index2.html It's the greatest way to put your make up on! Make it a little damp, squeeze out the excess water, get some foundation on it and get "bouncing". It's like putting on your make up with a mini space hopper. It's so much fun. The sponge doesn't have any flat edges at all so you can just bounce the sponge up and down on your face to get a perfectly airbrushed finish. You can even use it for concealer, highlighting, shading and creme blush colours! It gives the most perfect finish!

Then there is the Beauty Blender cleanser. OMG! It makes cleaning your make up tools so quick, easy and hygienic. It has a fabulous dispensing method where you push down on the top and it puts a portion of cleanser up into the well. So much better than the mess of trying to use regular shampoo or cleanser! I used it on my brushes and they smelt and felt so brilliantly clean. Keep the little plastic container the sponge comes in and use it to put the sponge in while it dries. Perfection!

So, the website. Click on the link and have a look around. I'm so so so looking forward to putting in another order but am just thinking about what to get as there are so many fab looking items on there. They have the greatest power plate style machine on there that is really not that expensive and is storage friendly! I'm a huge power plate fan so am dying to try this little fella out!!! http://www.cultbeauty.co.uk/

Happy online shopping!

Kisses,

Rebecca xxx

Sleep Deprived Shopping and Pearls of Wisdom

Hiya,

I've just come home after taking my Dad to the airport this morning. It's almost 2 in the afternoon and we had to be up at 5 this morning! I look quite the pretty picture. Yikes! Anyhoo, I thought that rather than come straight home to an empty house I might hit Central London to see what treats I could find to cheer myself up a little. OMG! I have sooooooo many reviews to do for you now! ha ha! I did a hit on Lush, then picked up some Soap and Glory, some Avene, some James Brown and a few MAC bits and pieces. Watch this space! I also have to catch you up on my fave new website and the products I've tried out from there! I'd love to do a mega blog on it all for you now but I have to catch a nap and groom for my hot date this evening! I promise not to keep you in suspense for too long though!

Back to the matter at hand... While I was at Lush I got talking to a fellow sleep deprived product addict. The lovely girl helping try new products at Lush had spent the whole night up finishing an essay that was part of her final dissertation for her degree. She was asking me about what products I'd recommend for her as a make up artist and I found that they were pretty common questions so I thought I'd share them with you.

Tinted Moisturiser: The fabulous London look is to have really natural looking skin and keep it as free from base and foundation products as possible. I wasn't born with a porcelain complexion like most English Roses so have a thing for covering all my freckles up in all over foundation. However, like most London girls, the Lush-girl wanted to know about tinted moisturiser. It's the perfect way to even out your complexion without a heavy foundation. For anyone with drier skin I'd recommend the Stila tinted moisturiser. It really does moisturise, gives some coverage and leaves a very pretty glow on the skin. For pretty much anyone else I'd recommend the Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturiser. I have a serious passion for all Laura Mercier products. They're so sophisticated and reliable and wonderful. If you ever need extra coverage for a special occasion, simply apply her tinted moisturiser over some Laura Mercier Primer and you'll look terrific!

Next, Lush-girl wondered how she could keep her eyeliner from transferring onto her eyelid and how to get eyeshadow to really stick. As someone that has greasy, hooded eyelids I could totally relate to her quandary. All I could say to that was URBAN DECAY PRIMER POTION!!!!!! I don't think I can be more enthusiastic about a product. Make sure you get even coverage of it otherwise your eyeshadow will look patchy. But once it's on nothing is budging! The other great thing to do to keep gel or liquid or pencil eyeliner on is to go over it with a fine angled brush with a matching colour of eyeshadow. This will "set" the liner into place and stop it from travelling or transferring. For everyone that likes to use black liner I'd say to use Carbon from MAC over the top. It's a fantastic true black.

Finally, Lush-girl also wanted to know a little about the gel eyeliner selection available. I mentioned Bobbi Brown as being a terrific and totally smudge proof liner as well as MAC's Fluid Line. However, having been watching one of my fave Youtubers, TiffanyD, demonstrate a few different liners and how they perform, I had to recommend the Coastal Scents website. Unfortunately for those of us in sunny England we have to order the product from the USA and try not to feel so bad when we see the shipping fee. But if you order a few products at a time it won't hurt so much and the cost savings will be dumbfounding. PLEASE come to the UK and stop charging us scary shipping fees, Coastal Scents!!!

OK, I really need to love you and leave you as I have A LOT of grooming to do if I'm going to look at all pretty on my date tonight!

Big kisses,

Rebecca xxx

Guard Your Glossy Locks

As someone that has very fine and easily damaged hair but an obsession with big hair, I need to make sure my hair doesn't suffer from all the heat I throw at it. For that very reason I'm religious about using a heat protectant. I've used plenty different brands in my time at all spectrums of the price range. So far, this one is my fave!
I've never used Tresemme products before despite seeing the bottles in the bathroom of many a friend. I've got some sort of weird phobia of supermarket branded hair care. I decided it was time to put that behind me and face my fears! My last protectant had run out and while I was picking up some cat food I decided to see what my local supermarket had to offer. This one seemed like the best option.
I have to say, I've never been totally in love with the feeling a heat protectant leaves my hair with but have put up with it for the sake of keeping my locks in tact. I've had ex boyfriends complain about the smell or I've felt that it wasn't really performing or it's left a weird coating on my hair that I've not liked.
This heat protectant is making me so happy! I generally have wet hair and hands from the pre styling products I use so it's tricky to hold onto the bottle to spray it in but that's the only negative I have on this one. I love the smell, it's a really light weight formula and my hair has been extra shiny since I started using it. I've also been getting loads of compliments on my hair! I can't say for sure if it's the Heat Defence, but it's a mighty big coincidence!!! For under £5 I couldn't be happier! And the fact that I can pick it up pretty much anywhere makes it super convenient as well!
So stop being a scaredy cat and whip out the hot blow dryer, the flat iron, the curling wand and the hot rollers!!! Big hair is back and it's never felt better!
Kisses,
Rebecca xxx

Surfing the Wave

This review is amazingly overdue. I got my Wave as soon as they hit the shelves and diligently used it morning and night for the better part of three weeks. I decided to wait another three weeks using my regular Liz Earle cleanser before I put this review up.

I should say here that I have really sensitive skin that is prone to being dry and scaly as well as suffering from breakouts if I'm stressed, tired, hormonal or using a product that doesn't agree with me.

I was so so so excited about trying out the Wave because I figured all that massage action would encourage some serious collagen production and help me out on the anti ageing front. I love that it was battery powered and could be easily used in the shower. The draw back was that I was suffering from a bit of a breakout when I started using the Wave. I figured ten days to two weeks would sort that out using the Wave though. It promised such a deep clean. I think it just spread the bacteria from the breakout though. It left me feeling really dry and tight and my breakout got worse and worse and was throbbing and sore throughout the day.

After three weeks of perseverance I decided to go back to my Liz Earle cleanser. Within a few days things were clearing up and three weeks later my skin is looking terrific again! Don't get me wrong, the Wave isn't all bad. I'm certain the skin between my spots was looking a lot plumper and prettier. I just don't think it's a good idea to try it if you have any broken skin at all or have skin that tends to be dry.

Meanwhile, it's super easy to use. It looks really cute in the shower. The pads just stick on and peel off really easily. I did feel a little bit like a man with an electric razor that I was using all over my face but it was quite entertaining. The pads really foam up so watch out not to get it in your eyes or mouth! It really doesn't taste good! I hope Neutrogena bring out pads for dry or sensitive skin soon! That would be so perfect!

xxx