Finished! October Edition

Over the last month or so I’ve gotten to the bottom of a whole load of products. So many they wouldn’t all fit in the one photo. Is it sad that it fills me with a real sense of pride? Even sadder is the fact that there is a little basket under my desk that I put finished items in till  I’ve taken a photo of them for this blog... and occasionally wave it under hubbies nose to say ‘look I do use all this stuff!’ Anyhoo...

Treseme: Heat Defence Spray: Love this. Leaves my hair super soft and really reduces frizz. I have already repurchased. In fact I believe this was one of the first reviews I ever did!

Garnier Night Cream: I did like this however there is a scent and I think it’s the perfume that stung a little if my skin was feeling particularly sensitive. Most days it was fine though. I won’t be repurchasing simply because I prefer the Simple night cream. 

Carmex: (original): Love this stuff. Have gone through hundreds of these little tubes and no doubt will go through hundreds more. Most of the flavours have SPF but the original doesn’t so this is the one I keep on my bedside table. 

Simple Eye Cream: It was nice and cooling to apply. Again this lacks SPF so because the eye cream that I used at night. I have a few others to try first but I’d be happy to buy this again in future. It probably wouldn’t cut it if you were looking for some heavy duty anti ageing but for my 23 year old skin it was fab. 

Smashbox Lash DNA in Burgundy: Loved the colour but hated the giant wand. Seriously it was bigger than my eyes... IT stank of play dough when I got it and progressively got smellier throughout its life. Needless to say I won’t be repurchasing. 

Blistex: Smells, tastes and feels foul but for severely cracked lips there is no better product. I hate it but I’ll never be without it. It sinks in quickly leaving your lips feeling so much better. This is usually the lip balm I have on my dressing table. I apply it first thing in the morning and by the time I go to apply my lipstick it has totally sunken in. Fab/ horrid. 

No7 Cleanse and Care Eye makeup remover:  Got this as a freebie thankfully. I really didn’t like this. It took loads to remove any makeup and I always still woke up with panda eyes the next day. Would not purchase personally. 

ELF Clarifying Pressed Powder: Honestly for £1.50 I wasn’t expecting greatness and I certainly didn’t get it. Mattified ok but quickly started to look cakey and unnatural. Euch. 

Lancôme Day Cream SPF15: Another gift with purchase. I expected this to be too heavy for my skin but I experienced zero breakouts or irritation. Whilst it is a little heavy for summer for me I may well repurchase during the winter. 

Rimmel Stay Matte Mouse (foundation of Dooooooom): Thankfully I dropped this (by accident I swear) and over half of it fell out. Their lightest shade is, on me, the colour of a Wotsit. I managed to use it up by mixing it with a lot of sunscreen to lighten it. I am not sorry to see the back of this!

L’Oréal Absolute Eye and Lip Makeup Remover: This was ok actually but I’ve used better, cheaper products since so I won’t be repurchasing. Everyday makeup wasn’t a problem but it really struggled with anything waterproof. 

Not a bad month really! X

*I bought the above products myself*

Sample Sunday – TRESemme Naturals Nourishing Moisture Shampoo & Conditioner

I’ve actually used up and entire bottle of the shampoo so I feel pretty confident about giving a review on that at least although I only got one use out of the conditioner. I’ll start with a brief comment on the conditioner. They say:

“Tresemme Naturals Professional Quality conditioner contains organic aloe vera and avocado extracts that moisturises your hair for protection against damage and breaking.
Our silicone free formula for lightweight conditioning infuses hair with moisture for hair that’s noticeably more manageable and moisturised. Discover 10 x stronger hair after just one use. Formulated without parabens and also hypoallergenic.
It is suitable for sensitive skin and gentle enough for use on colour treated hair.”

It’s a fairly thick consistency, smells nice and fresh but not too strong and did an ok job on my hair. It wasn’t BLOW YOUR MIND amazing but it was ok. A mahoosive 500ml bottle is a mere £3.99 so I wouldn’t mind purchasing the full size.

The shampoo is a different story. This is advertised as being “Lower sulphates” which is a bit of a con really. For those who don’t know SLS (sodium laurel sulphate) is often the foaming ingredient used in soaps, shampoos etc. I do suffer from irritant dermatitis and have found that SLS is one of the ingredients that doesn’t do my skin any favours. What TRESemme have done is take out the nasty SLS and replaced it with the different but still irritating ammonium laurel sulphate. Sneaky... They say:

“Tresemme Naturals Professional Quality shampoo contains organic aloe vera and avocado extracts that moisturises your hair for protection against damage and breaking.
Our silicone free formula for lightweight conditioning infuses hair with moisture for hair that’s noticeably more manageable and moisturised.
Discover 10 x stronger hair after just one use. Formulated without parabens and also hypoallergenic.
It is suitable for sensitive skin and gentle enough for use on colour treated hair.”

Again it’s lightly fragranced with a nice ‘clean’ hairdressers style scent. It was fine for my hair, it didn’t strip the colour though I can’t say I noticed any huge change in condition. My issue is that ALS appears to be even worse for my skin than SLS. Now everyone is different and maybe ALS is better for most peoples skin but I found my scalp dry, flaky and the skin around my hairline was extremely irritated. For this reason I won’t be repurchasing this (though if you want to a 500ml bottle is £4.07).

If you don’t have sensitive skin but like the idea of shampoo/ conditioner that’s free of nasties like parabens this is one of the few budget options out there and you might love this. It’s not for me though x

*I love magazine freebies I do, that’s where I got this from*

More empties?

I’m having to do another empties post earlier than scheduled as the little box I keep them in was full! It’s amazing how quickly things get used up when you stop faffing about with new goodies and actually crack on with the half empty bottles in your bath room. This month’s no buy went disastrously wrong so I’m starting afresh. 

Botanics Daily Hand Therapy SPF 10 – I like this hand cream and have several tubes of it. It sinks in quickly, doesn’t have an overpowering scent and the SPF is an added bonus. The only down side is my hands start to feel dry again quite quickly so I have to reapply often. £4.07 but often on offer in Boots. 

ELF Shine Eraser Blot Sheets – These are an absolute staple in my hand bag and now I’ve run out I’m panicking. My local Boots doesn’t have any brand of blot sheets in and I don’t want to put an ELF order in just now because I know I’ll go nuts. These do the job very nicely for only £1.50! 

Boots Vitamin E Moisture Lotion SPF15 – This 100ml tube lasted me forever! And at £2.85 it’s fantastic value for money. It didn’t irritate my skin and was certainly moisturising enough on my dry bits although it was a tad greasy and took a while o sink in properly. For that reason I won’t repurchase as I just don’t have time to hang around in the morning waiting for my moisturiser to sink in. 

Superdrug own brand eyelash curler – Meh it was ok. Cheap (less than a fiver I think) and didn’t pinch but not so amazing I’d go out of my way to repurchase it again. 

Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara – I really did like this and if it weren’t for the fact that I have about 10 unopened mascaras sitting around I would repurchase. It’s not often I properly empty a tube of mascara before the formula goes off but there is nothing left in this one! Current Boots price (on offer) £6.19.

Bare Minerals original foundation sample – it’s not for me. 

Blistex Intensive Moisturiser Lip Cream – I’ve gone through a thousand of these and I’ll buy a thousand more. Smells, tastes and feels disgusting but works like magic. £2.54

Nivea Rich Nourishing Body Moisturiser – didn’t like the smell or the texture. It was so thick it was difficult to spread on the skin and just seemed to sit on top of it rather than sinking in. Would not repurchase. £3.56

Umberto Giannini Dry Shampoo – The bottle was faulty which has put me off buying another one. £5.61

Spa Lavender and Peppermint SOS Foot Treatment Scrub – Bought from Aldi of all places for a couple of quid (I forget exactly how much). This is very thick, very abrasive and smells gorgeous. Just the thing for perking up iffy feet in between attacks with the ped egg. 

Radox Shower Smoothies Shower gel – LOVE THESE. They smell divine and don’t dry my skin out. Only down side is the bottles don’t last very long. £2.54

MAC Brush Cleanser – Already had a back up. Love this for spot cleaning my brushes (I use baby shampoo to deep clean them). Make sure you put it in a spray bottle. It’s easier to use that way and lasts longer! £8.50

L’Oréal Perfect Clean Gentle Foaming Exfoliating Scrub – I really just buy these face washes for the little scrublets that come with them. This one was fine in the summer but over the winter it became too drying for me. I’m currently using the pink (gentle) one but it’s still a tad drying. £5.10 

TREsemme Colour Protecting Shampoo – Nothing special really but you get a huge bottle for £3.26 which makes it good value. Doesn’t strip the dye out of hair. I’m trying to move to SLS free products though so I probably won’t repurchase. 

Batiste Original Dry Shampoo – I prefer the smell and the colour of the brunette version so I won’t buy this one again. £2.35

Pantene Colour Care Conditioner – Didn’t really do much for my hair at all. Will not repurchase £4.07.

Sadly not much in the way of makeup in this round. Hopefully that will have changed next month! On the plus side this means I’ve used up roughly £58 worth of products so at least I know that money wasn’t wasted! X

*All of the above products were purchased by yours truly apart from the Bare Minerals sample which was free with a mag... which I also bought myself*

Battle of the dry shampoos (a comparison)

Dry shampoo is my new bestie. I’ve been road testing a selection over the last few weeks and want to share my thoughts. The contenders are; Boots Expert Dry Shampoo, Batiste Coloured Dry Shampoo ( Brunette), Batiste original, TRESemmé Instant Refresh dry shampoo and Umberto Giannini Morning After dry shampoo.

Here are a few basics:

Brand	Cost	Amount	Scary white roots?	Scent?
TRESemmé	£4.38	200ml	Yes but they brush out easily	Quite fresh, like the shampoo hairdressers always use. Not too overpowering.
Umberto Giannini	£5.61	200ml	Not unless you spray too much	Quite faint and fades quickly.
Batiste Original	£2.35	150ml	Worst white roots of the bunch.	Really quite strong. DO NOT LIKE (personal opinion)
Batiste Brunette	£3.05	150ml	Not unless you spray a lot and brushes out easily.	Much less strong than the original.
Boots own brand	£2.03	200ml	Not really.	Quite faint and fades relatively quickly.

Umberto Giannini – Where to begin? This was the biggest let down of the bunch, not least because it is the most expensive! It did a fab job of dealing with greasy roots. The smell didn’t bother me and I wasn’t left looking like I needed any greys covering. Unfortunately I got to use this 3 times before it died. Now I don’t use a lot per use, I think the can leaked (in fact I’m sure it did because it was all sticky... ew). The others have lasted me many more uses and show no signs of running out yet. What a waste! 

TRESemmé – Even though I don’t think this keeps the grease at bay for as long as the Batiste does I still prefer it due to the subtler scent. This gives me less build up of product in my hair too. The key with this really is to spray it in (shaking between sprays) and leave it for a few minutes. It really does need time to dry as it goes on quite wet. Then massage it in and brush out. 

Batiste original – If I’m honest I think this does to the best job at removing grease however the big old white patches (the toughest to brush out of the lot) and the overpowering scent mean I probably won’t repurchase this. 

Batiste Brunette – All of the effectiveness of the original but none of the drawbacks. I like to alternate between this and the TRESemmé as this does leave more of a build up. 

Boots own brand – Somewhat similar in consistency to the TRESemmé but less effective. For slightly greasey hair it’s fine but if your hair is starting to get quite bad this doesn’t cut it. To be honest none of these are exactly breaking the bank so I don’t think it’s worth saving a few pennies on this for a product that doesn’t cut it when the going gets tough. 

Now of course people may not agree with me as every ones hair is different (just like skin care works well for some people and not for others). These are just my opinions on how the products worked on my hair. Have you tried any of these? Which do you prefer? Or do you have another brand that you swear by? Enquiring minds want to know! 

*I bought all of these myself... judge me at will*