Switching to natural vs chemical

In the past few years, excuse the absence, I have made the switch to sustainably sourced, cruelty free and natural skin and hair care products... Yes, it is a mouthful...  Anyway, it has been challenging to say the least to find an affordable, in South Africa, sustainably sourced,  natural and cruelty free product range that I LIKE and works for MY skin and hair... Tall order....

All hail, coconut oil .... used on my hair and skin when in a pinch.. My other savior is the 3 for 2 Body Shop sales, to buy those yummy body butters and shower gels.

And then I met LUSH - not good for my wallet but so yummy and good for the planet! I want to support their cruelty free, non-plastic packaged items, so I splurge ever so often... You can buy online www.lush.co.za

The thing is that if you ask around, chances are someone knows of a good home remedy or a great affordable brand, so it is not impossible, but rather consider it an adventure to find the hold quadrangle of : sustainably sourced, natural, cruelty free and affordable!!

Creamy creams

In winter we all find ourselves rushing to cream our skin and exfoliate extra hard and moisturise with lots of super thick creams. However I realised last year what a crock it all is. If you buy the really good creams early in the year, and a good pair of exfoliating gloves/ loofah or even use some rough sea salt, once a week; you will not need an extra boost come June/July. Your skin will be healthy and radiant all year round! I know it seems cliché but don’t cram for the exam, do it in small pieces and it will work better.

At Pavillion is a new store called Premier skin care, from Israel and the sales assistant tried really hard to sell me a R300 tub of salt from the Dead Sea... needless to say I did not purchase it. I would rather get a bottle of essential oils, and a bag of rough salt and make my own!!! Salt is salt! 

The body butter that they have is nice but nothing uber-fab. It is the same consistency of the aqueous creams. I prefer my OHS ribbons cream and using Bio-oil once a week all over!

So I shall make my own thanks very much! It is a good idea for exfoliation to be a year round process as your skin will be better off instead of all of a sudden extra attention at the driest coldest time of the year!

With regards to face cream, my regular cream has been leaving my feeling a tad dry so I have been adding some Palmer’s cocoa butter to it to boost the moisture factor and it has been helping quite a bit. I wish Palmer’s would come out with a good daycream with a strong SPF!

My nails have also taken a beating in this weather so I have been using the Yardley ridge filler as my basecoat and it has made a world of difference to my nailpolish lifespan!

One more tip for this time of year is lips!

 To keep them plump and not flaky, I use my exfoliating gloves on them in the evening, before applying copious amounts of clear balm. Nothing too heavy or glossy. Just the lip balm from Woolies or a simple L’oreal lip conditioner will be great. I can really feel when I have forgotten to do it and it drives me nuts!

Well, be good and moisturise!!

The shine continues

Beauty Bulletin Community 

One website I can definitely recommend is www.beautybulletin.com. I found it when looking for a product review and stumbled across the site and when it said that they sent stuff to you to review I was amazed that is was a South African site! I signed up and received some amazing stuff from them so far. Rimmel products, Paul Mitchell hair products, Yardley mascara and most recently the new Johnsons Johnsons face care range. I am very happy to be a part of their VIP member community. 

The other fantastic thing about the site is that all the other members  are all so friendly and cool. They are so forthcoming with advice and specials happening.  I love sharing sale purchases with them as it actually makes me feel good when other people also get a great deal! For instance the Body Shop sales are great to share as well as the Clicks sales and specials. 

It has been a great way for me to try new products and they pay attention to the reviews you give so they know what you have tried already. A group of very dedicated women who are so fantastic at what they do!

Nails for winter:

 The recent surge in nail art has left me feeling rather underwhelmed. 

It seems the stick on falsie craze is back to compensate for going to the salon for a full mani with nail art/ simple French manicure. My solution has been to try going neutral for winter so that my nails stand out in their neutrality! But come November they shall be glittered out and long. I struggled this winter to stop my nails from splitting, so I cut them all down, gave them a nice oil massage and ensured that the base coat was applied first. It has made a difference to the staying power of my polish.

In terms of products I love , the Body Shop new Raspberry shower and bath gel is quite yummy as it the raspberry body butter. I still wish I could get another tub of the scrub but the body butter will have to do!

July brings dry

I am in experimentation of finding ways of not having my skin turn to dust by the time September rolls around. As a result I have conflicting scents of lotions and body oils on me..... First off Lux body cream does  a pretty decent job. The scent fades quite quick but my skin does not feel dry. It does not feel super moist and supple either.... 

Second up Bio Oil- I use this in the evening mostly instead of cream. It just feels nourishing and my skin kind of laps it up! I like it but not the oily factor. I had found a good  product. 

The Oh So Heavenly ribbons cream from Clicks. The scent is good, lasts a lot longer than most and my skin feels smooth and soft until 3 pm ish. I like it quite a bit!

Another good product is Palmers cocoa butter which is so damn good at keeping my skin look touchable! I love it. I have not tried the olive oil one as a I am a cocoa butter addict!

Hope you have a good routine to keep you dermis happy! Also the scrubbing gloves from Body Shop are really great for exfoliation and ensure that your skin absorbs as much moisture as possible! 

Wakeup Makeup

Since the beginning of the year I have toned down the makeup I have been wearing. I am not sure why but have now in wintertime realised that I do need something extra to make me feel good during the day. I usually carry a small case with essentials in my hand bag and I thought I would share the contents of my little bag.

The bag itself was one of the free gifts in a glamour magazine a few years ago and it has really done well and not fallen apart or grown holes everywhere.

SO I usually have 2 glosses in the bag- one natural and one kind of pink/ coppery; in case I have a meeting or something. I also have a mascara tube( it is the cheaper brand that I won’t mind leaving my bag in the car in the sun. 

 Then I have a nail file… no need to explain that one; as well a cute Nivea compact which was a gift with purchase 2 years ago. 

Black eyeliner is kind of my essential makeup piece and so I have one stick in there which is very soft and quick to apply and also easy to remove in case I go overboard and end up looking raccoon-ish.

At the end of the day I think I am having an makeup crisis as I do like using it but I feel that because my office work is very casual it is a waste of product. I need a daily set of stuff which will be my stuff I don’t mind wasting stuff. 

In any case I just realised I have a drawer of such products but I don’t want to use them! I think I have a nesting issue with makeup…. Well I hope I can figure it out now that I have recognised it!!

Xoxo

Makeup and the shiny parts of life

2012 has been a year of reflection and bargain hunting. My favourite spot for makeup Face Value has moved away from Umgeni road L they are now in Pinetown so I will have to make a trip there. Luckily last time I was there I stocked up on Maybelline lipgloss and eyeshadows. I now realise , after creating my makeup database on Excel that I have quite a lot of makeup and because I store it really well and not in any level of sunlight that my makeup will be fine for a while.

In the rest of makeup news I am loving the lip balm range from Woolies, especially the lime one. I only like citrus fruit flavoured stuff so lime was my only option but it was a good one.  The Chocolate lip butter from Body Shop is also cool but gives a slightly white sheen to the lips; so best if covered with gloss to cover that up. 

I have been using the Oh So Heavenly Ribbons cream since May , when the air starting getting a little drier and it was somehow on special for R10! I feel so silly now for not buying an extra bottle. It is a lovely smelling cream and very luxurious on the skin. 

In showering news, I received a tester box from Hometester Club of 10 travel sized Dove shower gel and 10 shower gel for men; plus coupons for purchases of the full sized bottles. I will keep my eye out for when they are on special and then use the coupon ( Thanks to Extreme Couponing on TLC). It is a lovely shower gel, the mens and womens, and I felt my skin was quite soft straight out of the shower. So I think it is pretty cool that Dove went into the market with Shampoo, Conditioner, Body cream and Showergel within a year. The products are great and I will be giving the body cream a go next week.

I have been working infrequent hours which has led to me being at home and working odd hours, so therefore my daily makeup regime has slowed down. When I go out now I tend not to overdo my makeup and keep it all quite simple for lunches on a Saturday , such as simple highlighter and eyeliner for my face and lipgloss. I have been finding the most amazing lipglosses such as The Body Shop new range which has an awesome scent and not overpowering colour. I was really impressed with it.

That is it for now. I hope to blog more often about other products I have been using and my sincere apologies for being absent… I now have a reminder on my phone for a once a week blogging session!! xx

Brand Spotlight: Essence

I have decided to once a month/ twice a month if inspired, spotlight on brands which are in my beauty boxes:) To start off I will spotlight Essence. I was introduced to it by the ladies of the www.beautybulletin.com  community. A lot of them had spoke about this brand and tempted me into trying its many sparkly and affordable products.

I first tried the 2in1 kajal eyeliner , in grey and baby pink. The quality of these products is what stands out for me. I love the selection of colours and fantastic pricing! I also have the kajal in plain black and purple.

Then the nail polishes... dream polishes! The colours are fun and funky without being juvenile.  I adore the top matte coat which creates this filed down finish to nails as well as their very cool multi-dimension polishes which are completely addictive but unfortunately being discontinued. I do look forward to seeing their new range of polishes though!

Here are a few I bought: Found my love, Sundancer, Fall for me, and top matte coat.. See also the gorgeous lipliner in a natural pink colour that matches my lipcolour.

I also bought one of their very cool brushes and mascaras.. The mascara is called ' All eyes on me' and I got it in brown.. It is truly a very good quality mascara, compared to the other brands such as Rimmel and Maybelline; this one is in a cool packacging, lengthened my lashes and added beautiful natural volume to them!

I think that Essence is an amazing brand with a very wide fan base. They cater for the tweens, teens, university and working woman. They are on trend and not too 'crazy' but they allow many options in their ranges for those that want to experiment. I love that they are cruelty free and that Clicks is the stockist here in South Africa so that I can use my Clicks money back vouchers to buy more stuff!!

Essence has truly enhanced my makeup boxes!