August Monthly Favourites - B.

I have quite a few things to talk about this monthly favourite’s post. In fact, August has been such a good month for new discoveries that I had to be quite brutal with what made the cut for my favourites! There are of course some months where you stick to your old faithful products, or just don’t find anything new that you like. This month I’ve been a bit more adventurous (and naughty with my pennies) than normal, and it has definitely paid off.

The first thing I need to talk about is of course, Liz Earle skin products. I know, I know, we’re a bit late to the party on this one. All of our favourite youtubers/bloggers have spoken about this at one time or another, and I’ve been wanting to try it for a long time. After using up what was left of my Dermalogica skin care bits, I decided to take the plunge into the world of Liz Earle. So during a shopping trip to Liverpool, I popped into Debenhams to speak to a lady at the counter about it. I could have just ordered online, but I wanted to have a chat to the SA and see if she had any advice/general product information. I must say that the lady was lovely. I find that some assistants at beauty counters have no interest in matching you to the right product, they just want a sale. This experience was the complete opposite, and I came away feeling that I had the perfect product for me. I bought the cleanse and polish starter kit. This is basically a travel bag of sample sized products to try out and see whether they suit your skin, before you invest in full size versions. It contains cleanse and polish hot cloth cleanser, instant boost skin tonic, skin repair moisturiser for normal to combination skin, and two muslin clothes. I think I paid £21 for this, which I thought was reasonable. The lady at the counter told me that these should last me around 2 weeks and by then I would know for sure whether I liked the products, if my skin liked them, and if the type of moisturiser was right for me.

I admit, I was a little sceptical. I had literally not heard a bad word said about cleanse and polish and I thought, surely this product cannot be THAT good. I was completely wrong. This product really is THAT good. In fact, it’s not good. It’s amazing. I have tried pretty much every kind of makeup remover/facewash type product you can possibly imagine and I have never known anything to be as lovely as this. I wear quite a lot of eye makeup on a daily basis, and I have quite sensitive eyes. So I thought, there is just no way that this is going to get all of my makeup off and not sting my eyes or take a mammoth amount of scrubbing. The instructions say to take a small amount (the full sized version says one pump) of cleanse and polish and rub it into your skin, makeup still on. You then take your dry muslin cloth, wet it in warm water, and wipe off. The muslin cloth acts as a gentle exfoliator for your skin. This really works. It removes all of my makeup, every last scrap. Even my waterproof mascara. It also leaves my skin feeling gorgeous. I’ve noticed such a difference in a very short space of time. It’s so quick and easy that I have no excuse not to do it. I’ve also been following up my cleanse and polish routine with the skin tonic and the moisturiser and my skin feels amazing. I really cannot recommend this product enough – I sent Sam a mini to try as I wanted to share the discovery! She has done her own mini review in her monthly favourites video, go and check it out on our youtube channel! 

My second favourite of the month is something I picked up whilst shopping with Sam a few weeks ago. We popped into boots and they had a 3 for the price of 2 offer on Soap and Glory. I know this is a brand that a lot of you out there love, but I had never really tried before. Sam herself uses some of their products so we chose a few for me to try out. I bought the butter yourself body cream, sugar crush body scrub, and the smoothie star deep moisturising body milk. Whilst I have been enjoying all of these products, one of them stands out miles ahead of the others. I absolutely adore the body milk, it is seriously one of the best moisturisers I have ever used. The smell of oats, yoghurt, honey and cocoa butter will not be for everybody but I think it is utterly devine. It sinks into the skin so beautifully and the smell lasts really well. The consistency is lovely, not too thick, and it doesn’t take too long to dry in. I get some patches of eczema and this has cleared them right up. I used to be quite lazy with moisturising, but since this product came into my life I’ve been using it religiously, night and day. This product is a little bit more expensive than the kind of moisturiser I used to buy, but not so much that it would be classed as high end. And yet, it feels like a luxury when you apply it, and throughout the day. My skin feels soft and smells so lovely, it’s so pampering. Well worth the £10 price tag – I love it!

YSL touché éclat. If you know me at all you will know that this has been on my wish list for a looooong time. I had my birthday last week and was lucky enough to be bought the highlighter – I was so excited! I have used this product every day since I was given it; it is amazing. Seriously the best highlighter I have ever used. It’s so subtle, but the glow that it gives your skin is really beautiful. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if I’m using it right, I’m still getting to grips with it. I apply it under my eyes, down my nose and just above the top of my lip line. It really does make my skin look so healthy and…well, glowing. The packaging is really lovely as well and although this is definitely a luxury purchase I feel that it is worth the money and I will be buying again when mine is all gone.

<My last but certainly not least favourite of this month is a bit of a sentimental one. Now obviously this isn’t a monthly thing, Sam is one of my favourite things all year round but I feel like I should mention her now. As some of you may know if you’ve watched our first vlog, we didn’t meet in the most conventional circumstances. But since then, we have become so close, she’s my best friend. That title isn’t really enough for her; she is an amazing girl. We’re so alike it’s scary. We get on so well, and she knows me better than anybody. She’s always been there for me, even when I’ve been a cow or I’ve made stupid decisions or whatever, she’s never given up on me. Similarly, she knows that she’s pretty much stuck with me for life and there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for her. Sam is one of my favourite ever human beings and that is why she is here, in my monthly favourites. Love you, S. xxo

B x

A little update !

So some of you may have heard that tomorrow me and Bek plan on recording our first ever vlog (I don't know whether the nausea is due to excitement or nerves...) so that's the first exciting piece of news for this weekend.

Some more (perhaps slightly less exciting news) is that this week we will have a fair few reviews going up about everything from Nars (blusher, powder and foundation) to Soap and Glory (have any of you ever tried Sit Tight? SO WEIRD.)

Last but not least, I know normally this would be the weekend that I posted my monthly favourites but granted everything goes well with our vlog tomorrow, I'm actually hoping to do my monthly favourites as a video later on in the week, eek.

Just a few little things so keep your eyes peeled :)

Sammy xo

Catching Up.

Hola bloggies!

In contrast with recent post, this isn’t actually a review, more of a catchy uppy kind of post. There is a lot going on currently, life and product wise, that I really need to get round to telling you about in detail. If you follow us on twitter you may know that me and S took a trip to the Trafford center a few weekends ago, where we each purchased a few looooovely bits. I am currently getting to grips with real techniques stippling and blusher brushes that I bought, as well as some more Aussie Miracle products, a Nars blusher and some soap and glory goodies. As well as this, I had my birthday on Monday. This meant that I was treated to some lovely bits, and I also treated myself (naughty, I know!). I was lucky enough to receive YSL touché éclat (highlighter, not foundation), something I have been lusting after for a loooong time now. As well as this, I bought myself a Liz Earle cleanse and polish starter kit as I have heard so many people raving about this. A little sneak preview of a review I will be writing on these shortly – I LOVE THEM. So once I’ve had chance to get a real feel of all of these products, there will be a haul style review post going up, I promise!

As well as this, me and S are planning our very first ever vlog, so that will be coming at you soon – exciting!

If you’ve taken the time to read this, if you follow us here, or anywhere else – thank you. We really appreciate it and we seeing that you guys are interested in what we have to say. 

 B xxo

Soap and Glory Archery

Behold; I'm about to talk about a skincare brand who have done beauty, and done it well. That's right, I'm about to delve into the make-up range presented to us by Soap and Glory.

Although I own a couple of different pieces of make-up from their brand, today I'm going to talk about their Archery brow tint and precision pencil. Before this I used Rimmel Professional Eyebrow Pencil which I liked but was far too dark for my newly lightened hair. Colour choice is one of the reasons that I picked Archery, they do a colour really close to my (artificially) light blonde hair called "Love is Blonde". This is a product that isn't actually similar to any other on the market that I'm aware of, one end is an almost paintbrush looking eyebrow tint and the other is a slightly darker pencil tip.

The tint is to be used first. I draw around the shape of my eyebrows using the precision tip that it offers, then fill them in as a base. This gives precise shape and an all over colour, so far so good.

Then step two is the pencil. This is to fill in spaces and build up the colour to the level that you need it at. After both steps my eyebrows are neat, fairly precisely shaped and still a natural colour that is fairly close to my own.

I do think that for an eyebrow pencil this is quite expensive (£10 just seems a little steep for what it is) and I have to say, if I still had my dark hair I think I'd still favour my rimmel pencil over archery, but for those of you out there with lighter hair using pencils too dark because that's the lightest pencil you can find, I highly recommend swapping over to Archery for a much neater, much more natural look.

Have you ever tried Archery? What eyebrow pencils have worked for you in the past?

Sammy xo

Homemade Sugar Scrub

In the spirit of blogging , I've found myself following the crowd and spent one afternoon early in the week making ... This .

Looks so gross, right? I know. But hear me out on this one. This is my very own homemade sugar scrub, and I was shocked by how easy it was to make . I'm not normally very thrifty, so homemade sugar scrub is probably something I would have just scrolled past if I was at home, but instead I'm in the middle of rural Spain, and exfoliator (or a decent exfoliator in any case) is nigh on impossible to find. So, in the spirit of getting a non streaky fake tan, I set about finding a recipe that used components I'd be able to find in a village that doesn't even sell make-up. After reading through a couple of online recipes, I found out the basic components were just olive oil and brown sugar. Ok, that I could do. So, I set about making it, with the help of some diluted lemon juice (to help counteract the smell of the brown sugar which is, well... Rank.)

I won't lie it wasn't successful , I mean sure it worked , but the smell made me want to retch, and I'd added way too much oil, I found myself having to drain it every time I went to use it.

Ok, time for round two. This time I used about equal parts of white and brown sugar (probably more white , I ran out of brown not so far in, but it was pretty close to half and half), the addition of the white sugar took the edge off the horrible smell. To this I added enough lemon juice  to cover the sugar and about 5 capfuls of olive oil. When this soaked in, about a quarter of the sugar had dissolved away so I mixed in more sugar and added a tiny bit of water and a few more capfuls of oil (if you feel like you've added too much water it's pretty easy to drain off) and I ended up with the picture above.

Ok it looked gross but so does a streaky tan, so I gave it a fair go. I have to say , it works. I'm keen on quite a rough exfoliator and this is one, more so than a shop bought one. It really works, so much so I'm considering swapping it out for my regular soap and glory flake away when I get home.

If I made it at home in England, I'd probably use all white sugar, add some food colouring and maybe a mint or vanilla essence to achieve a nice smell, but even my gross looking, dubious smelling one does the job so well, it's worth putting up with .

Have you ever made any DIY cosmetics or skincare? If not , why not give it a try?

Sammy xo