July Empties

I've managed to get through another bumper crop of empties this month, with some of them being more successful than others!

I've been on a bit of a body lotion rampage and managed to get through three samples in July. The Bee Kind lotion had a slightly lemony/honeyish scent to it that I really liked, but I found that it didn't really sink into my skin very well. I really loved the Naobay and Whish lotions though. The Naobay had a lemon scent which is great for this time of year, and the Whish was a lavender scented lotion which I expected to hate but actually really loved! Both of these were great for my skin and sank in really nicely.

This sample of Glamglow's Supermud Clearing Treatment lasted for 3 or 4 applications and did a really good job of cleansing my skin. Unfortunately I can't really afford the full size, but if you fancy a splurge I'd say it's worth it! I've been using the Blanc Cachemire moisturiser for a while now but I found that it really didn't work well with my make up. It made my skin quite greasy so I was really glad to finish it up! I didn't really get on well with the L'occitane Repairing shampoo and conditioner either. They irritated my scalp and made my hair greasier than normal.

I was really sad to finish up my sample tube of Lancome's Hypnose Drama mascara. It's been my favourite mascara for a really long time so I decided to bite the bullet and splash out on a full size tube. I'm really glad I did because I absolutely love it! I also finished up one of my many samples of the Porefessional. I'm using this every day at the moment so once all of my samples have run out I might end up buying a full size tube.

I've also made headway through my massive shower gel collection! This Dove shower gel was the last of the christmas smellies! It's a really nice nourishing shower gel, just what you'd expect from Dove really. The Anatomicals shower gel was from a previous Love Me Beauty box and even though rose isn't really my kind of scent, I actually really liked this shower gel. I probably wouldn't repurchase it, but it made a nice change from my usual fruity showers!

What did you use up this month? Have you tried any of my empties?

Beauty Box Buys - July 2014

This month has seen me finally make a decision about which beauty boxes I'm going to cull. I've decided to cancel Glossybox and Love Me Beauty, which means I'm left with Birchbox and You Beauty Discovery. I'm also planning on getting more Memeboxes in future!

Glossybox 

My two favourite items from this box had to be the Mary Kay mascara and the Bellapierre lipstick. Whilst I would have preferred the red lipstick, the pink suits me really well and I really like the formula! I also love that it's quite a high end product compared to what we normally receive in Glossyboxes, retailing at £20 here. The mascara was a real surprise, as I expected it to not be great quality. Having tried it though, I really like it. It really lengthens and adds definition to my lashes, and it's another high end product! You can find it here for £16.

Birchbox 

Birchbox had some great brands this month, but my two favourites were the Whish body lotion and the Balance Me Eye Cream. The Whish body lotion was another surprise for me, as I'd expected to hate it! Lavender is really not my kind of thing but it is drowned out by the other gorgeous ingredients included in this lotion. It sinks into my skin much quicker than your average body lotion, and leaves a lovely scent behind. The only UK stockist for Whish at the moment seems to be the Birchbox shop, but having a peek at their US website has me drooling over the different flavours available! I'd love to try the blueberry one! You can find it here for $24. The Wonder Eye Cream from Balance Me has done wonders for my puffy eyes! It's meant to work really well for fine lines around the eyes as well but I don't really have nay of those (yet!) so I can't comment on how well it deals with those, but it's certainly a nice refreshing eye cream to use in the morning before I put the rest of my make up on. You can find it here for £20.

You Beauty Discovery 

This month's YBD was a bit odd, what with the men's shaving cream. I went for the L'occitane shampoo and conditioner but I found that they made my hair quite greasy. My other pick for this month was the Miss Manga mascara from L'oreal. Whilst I haven't been blown away by it, I still think it's a really nice daytime mascara. You can find it here for £8.99.

Love Me Beauty 

Clearly mascara has been a theme for this month's boxes! This So Susan mascara is unlike any of the other mascaras I own. The wand has a very small brush which means that I can nab the tiny lashes at the corner of my eye, whilst also providing a decent coverage. I also really like the cute tube with the hummingbird design, it's adorable! It's here for £14.95. I also really love the Ofra eyeshadow from this month's box. It's a lovely soft pressed shadow and you should know by now how much I love a shimmery eye! I can't seem to find a UK stockist for these but they retail for $15. 

What do you think to my beauty box picks for July? Would you buy any of these products?

Birchbox - June 2014

Another month, another great box from Birchbox! Never have I been so glad to be resubscribed to a beauty box. Birchbox have been absolutely nailing it recently and even though I was apprehensive about a 'football' theme, they've carried it off with aplomb!

Having recently discovered OPI through my duty free bargains, I was pretty excited to see a mini bottle in the box! This is from the OPI Brazil collection and even though this isn't a shade I would have picked for myself, I actually really like it. It has a sort of carnival feel to it that fits with the theme really well.

Yves Rocher is a brand I've tried before, but I haven't tried out their make up. Initially, I thought this peachy lipstick was really not my kind of shade but once I swatched it, I immediately changed my mind. It doesn't add a full on peach colour, but it is pretty unforgiving on dry lips. It does say that it contains cherry oil to moisturise though so leaving it on for a while might do me some good!

This hair mask from Silk + Honey is pretty intriguing. It's a really decent sized sample so I should be able to get a couple of uses out of it, and it smells really nice too. I've not tried hair masks before so this is definitely something I'll be giving a go soon!

I also received a diddy sample of the Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre, which is an ultra soothing moisturiser, and can also be used as a make up remover and all over body moisturiser. I might give this a try on some of my dry patches to see how it handles them, French products are always pretty spot on though.

Finally, I received the Naobay body lotion. This smells really nice and I was pretty happy to see soemthing like this in my box as I 'm actually starting to run pretty low on body lotion! It's got a lovely lemony scent and contains shea butter, olive and avocado oils. 

For this months lifestyle extra we received this cute little flip flop keyring! I've already put this on my 

work keys, I think its a really nice little addition to the box.

Overall, such a good box! I feel like the samples are mainly really well sized, and everything fits the theme really well. I think this must be the third box in a row now that Birchbox have done really well in my opinion, I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

Do you subscribe to Birchbox? What did you think to this month's box?

February Empties

This is my first empties post! I always enjoy reading what other people have finished using during the month and what they think of the products, so I've decided to start doing my own!

Obviously I don't have an awful lot of things to talk about, because I only decided to start doing this at the start of the month! Hopefully at the end of March I'll have a few more things to talk about. The first product on my list of empties is this Moisture Balancing Conditioner from Philip Kingsley. This sample came with the January Birchbox and I managed to get about 3 uses from it. It left my hair super smooth, but at £18 for the full-size, this is out of my price range. 

Repurchase: No, unless I could find it somewhere for cheaps!

This Dove Deodorant is a regular repurchase. I love the scents in this range, and I've always found the Dove formula works really well for me! 

Repurchase: Already have.


 This hand and body cream from Marks and Spencer was a Christmas present. I've mainly been using it as a hand cream. I didn't find that it moisturised my hands too well and I would have to reapply a hand cream at work occasionally. It also had quite a strong floral scent seeing as it is Magnolia, which I wasn't particularly keen on. I've also got loads of other hand creams to use up at the moment!

Repurchase: No.

 I love a bubble bath, and Radox is the usual brand I go for! This Eastern Spirit formula is a limited edition but it smells fantastic, I hope Radox will keep it going! I've also bought the hand wash in this scent because I like it so much. 


Repurchase: Yes.


So that's my first empties post! I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I've used up this month, and hopefully next month I'll have some more lovely products to share with you all.

Birchbox-January 2014

It's finally here! After two emails and almost a month of waiting, my January Birchbox has finally arrived. Unfortunately, this has probably been my worst experience with a beauty box to date.

 

I had already decided that I was going to subscribe to Birchbox in January, but seeing that they were going to be including a Benefit product really spurred me on! I waited a couple of weeks and began seeing other people receive their boxes, but mine still hadn't arrived. I complained to Birchbox and they said they would send a replacement, which arrived over a week later.

The items in the box do not correspond to the surveys I have been given to fill out. I was meant to receive: Philip Kingsley Elasticizer, Laura Mercier body butter, Delarom Aquaconfort Mask, Benefit's Porefessional (which I did actually receive) and Premae Instant Renewal Body Oil. I'm not too bothered about this (apart from I will obviously be filling out surveys for things I haven't received) as the only thing I would have been really interested to try would be the Laura Mercier body butter. I'm just kind of irritated that I've obviously been sent a reserve box because Birchbox didn't plan ahead and think about how many extra subscribers they would have, after advertising that January would feature a Benefit product. Extremely poor planning on their part. I did eventually receive compensation for all the hanging around in the form of some extra points for my account, which I'm very grateful for!

Anyway, onto the contents of the box! The box comes with a super cute drawstring bag inside, and an adorable little booklet with ideas for tiny tweaks for the new year. Obviously this is kind of redundant, as it's now February. But still a nice touch.  
 

First up, Benefit's Porefessional. I already knew I'd be happy to get this in the box, as I've got a sample in my 'How to Look the Best at Everything' set. It is a small sample at 7.5ml, but if I like using this enough as an every day product, I can see myself purchasing the full size.

I also received yet another hand cream. This is the Lavera Basis Senstive cream, which features shea butter and almond oil. It smells and feels quite similar to sun cream, and it doesn't seem to absorb into my skin very well, leaving quite a greasy feeling. I'm not really a fan.

I did receive a Philip Kingsley product, in the form of this moisture balancing conditioner. I'm quite interested to try this out, certain conditioners can make my hair quite greasy though, so I'm hoping this will be a good one!

One of my favourite items from this box is this cute Beekind body lotion. A portion of the proceeds from this product goes toward supporting Honey Bee and sustainable pollination research which is super important. This smells fantastic, very lemony! Just testing it on the back of my hand, it sinks in very quickly and leaves behind that gorgeous scent. Very nice.

I also received a sample of Blanc Cachemire's Crème de Jour Protectrice. This came with a little card explaining in English how to use it and the ingredients as the packaging is entirely in French. This is a moisturiser, and I can't seem to spot any explanations as to why it's so popular, but apparently it's really big over in Paris at the moment!

Finally as a little extra, we received a little sachet of miso soup.This isn't really my sort of thing, so I gave it to a friend to try and she really enjoyed it. I like the idea of receiving mini food samples in boxes, I think it adds something a bit different and more lifestyle oriented, but hopefully next time it'll be something that I'll like!

The January Birchbox isn't a terrible box. These are all samples I can use or give away, but I have just been left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth over having to complain and how long my box took to arrive. I think I'll stick around to see what February's box has in store, but if there's no improvement I may very well end up just subscribing to Love Me Beauty!

Glossybox January 2014

I have to say, my review of this months Glossybox is probably going to be a minority opinion! I've seen a lot of bad or slightly disappointed blog posts floating around, but I actually quite like the box we've received this month. Here's what I got in my box.

First up, Yu-Be moisturising skin cream. We received two small tubes of this. Having just rubbed some onto my hand, it's got quite a strong scent, which I'm not sure many people will like, and the texture is almost waxy. Apparently this can be used as a lip balm, a remedy for dry skin, and a moisturiser. The product is Japanese, and I'm quite intrigued to see what it would be like as a lip balm. Judging by the smell it might taste a bit odd. As I was taking these photos, I realised that one of the tubes had split open, so that's had to be thrown away.

We also received a Balance Me body wash. This is apparently 'super-toning' and contains Juniper, Bergamot, Geranium and Lavender. It smells quite nice, slightly too floral for me, but for a sample sized bottle I can live with it. I've been pretty impressed by Balance Me products before, so hopefully this one will live up to my expectations.

I was pretty happy to see the tweezers from the Vintage Cosmetic Company in this months box. A pair of tweezers always comes in handy, but I know quite a few people out there have been unimpressed by products from this company before. I'm going to see how I get on with them before I pass judgement!



Next up, we have Puffy the Eye Bag Slayer Under Eye Patches from Anatomicals. I'm really interested in these, I'm definitely going to be doing a follow up post to let you know whether they're any good! Having had a look at the packaging to find out how to use them, they're not a quick fix. You've got to wear these bad boys for 30 minutes! Definitely an interesting product to try out though, and perfect for recovering from too much partying in December.

Finally, the other product that's caused some controversy this month. This is is the Vaseline Essential Moisture Lotion, and at £4.99 for a full size bottle weighing in at 400ml, we've been sent a small 50ml bottle which some people have seen as a bit of a swizz. I'm not massively bothered about this as I've got loads of body lotion to use up already from Christmas, but it's a bit of a poor showing from Glossybox when you look at the full-size products I received from Love Me Beauty this month. There's not really a lot more I can say about this product, other than it smells really nice!

Overall, I think Glossybox have done really well to stick to their theme of 'Back to Basics' for January. I think all of these items tie in really well, and while they may not blow you away due to the sizes of the samples, they're still handy things to have. I'll probably keep the shower gel and body lotion aside for my holiday in May.

I am pleased that I got this months box with Glossydots, and I have cancelled my subscription. I've had a few too many boxes that just didn't impress me, and since signing up to Love Me Beauty, it's been a bit of an eye-opener to see how well other boxes are doing in comparison.
I will still be keeping my eye on Glossybox's future efforts, in case they start to improve, but for now I think I'm going to see how I get on with Birchbox and Love Me Beauty.