Mavala nail polish review

I feel everyone seems to forget about Mavala with bigger brands like O.P.I, Essie and Nails inc. Mavala however do amazing polishes, better than average chip resistant, strong glossy colour in one coat, no streaks, lovely. 

They also come in more convenient sizes (5mls) so remember all the hype about the new L'oreal polishes? Well Mavala did it first. 

Their polishes are described as nail cremes, which is the perfect description. They are nice and thick, so won't run down the sides if you're too heavy handed like Essie polishes. I think they retail about £5 each in Debenhams or if you buy a pack you save x amount as always. The colour pictured below is called 'Freshy'. 

GLOSSYBOX JUNE UK 2012 REVIEW

Sorry for the late post, it got delivered at 12 (my Hermes guy is super reliable) but I've been moving out of my uni house hence posting just now.

Firstly, you get a Glossybox blush brush (said rrp £15 but it obviously only took £2 to manufacture). Dermalogica clean start kit (Toner, cleanser and matte spf moisturiser) rrp £12. A bare minerals sample of bronzer value is £1 ish. An Yves Rocher mascara sample. Vichy dermablend sample kit.

What do I look think?

Glossybox has definitely taken on board that people want to sample make up. However, I'm a little disappointed with what I got. I don't really like anything in the box. The skin care kit looks like its for oily young skin type, it definitely smells like it has some strong astringents in! The bare minerals bronzer has already stained my carpet with my first attempt to just swatch it. The Glossy blush brush is scratchy. The Yves Rocher mascara although is lovely and does as it says on the tin, unfortunately, isn't waterproof, so won't hold a curl. Lastly, I can only use one colour with the Vichy sample but will be cutting out and handing the tiny sample to my friends with x skin tone.

Yes, complain, complain, complain!!

L'oreal and Revlon eyeliners review

Click here to enter my Asian skincare giveaway

Currently I have three eyeliners in my collection. The old L'oreal superliner carbon gloss (discontinued), its new replacement L'oreal super liner black lacquer and Revlon's colorstay liquid eye pen. Here are the snaps.  

Drawn on the hand from top to bottom are carbon gloss, black lacquer and Revlon. I tried to press down using the same strength for each. Revlon is very poor even when layering. I'm not sure if you can see in the picture but the L'oreal eyeliners are very glossy and the pigment is truly dense and wonderful. 

The smudge test with a wet finger! As you can see Revlon is none existent and the new super liner, black lacquer is super resilient. I can confirm that teamed with Urban Decay eye primer, even oil based eye make up remover has a hard job! 

In Boots, L'oreal carbon gloss retails at £6.49 and Revlon's doesn't appear on the website any more but again retailed at around £6.

Sensitive skin products (Roaccutane)

When I was taking Roaccutane, I experienced the usual side effects of extremely sensitive dry skin; So, I thought I would blog about the products that I used and were to become my saviours. These products would also be great for hyper sensitive skin types too.

Lets start with Carmex. This medicated lip balm was my hero, it didn't get rid of the dryness or the cracks or the bleeding... but it did take away the pain and a hella lot better than other lip products on the market. Post Roaccutane side effects, it makes my lips plump, shiny and no cracks. (p.s. when I was on the medication, it was five whole months of extreme dry lip hell!)

And to moisturisers. I was prescribed a lot of eczema type creams to relieve the dryness, not only for my face but the rest of the body too, things like dermal and other super yucky lard creams. The only one that benefited me, was Doublebase. It's a gel cream type consistency and although sat on the skin, when used overnight, in the morning my skin would absorb it and would feel more comfortable. I remember it occasionally stung but not as bad as the other creams I was given. I recommended my dad who has eczema to give it ago, he too said this cream was a lot better than the other prescriptions. Although I was prescribed this product, you can also buy it over the counter in pharmacies. Neutrogena deep comfort balm was the body moisturiser I used on my skin during the day because it absorbed well. Doublebase was too gloopy to use under clothes, so I opted for this one instead. It soaked in quite well however because it's scented it did have a slight burning feel initially.

The creams that were prescribed to me, were also recommended as face and body washes - yuck! For me, I used Avene cream soap, this soap was great, gentle, no stinging, creamy and moisturising. It's not cheap about £6 for a small bar, which goes very quickly!

I used Garnier sensitive toner to cleanse my face in the morning, as I usually don't shower or use water to wash my face then. This had no stinging! Pro points! and it continues to give relief to my skin when it's dry, I love this stuff. I didn't however, use the moisturiser during my course of Roaccutane but it's a product I recently discovered and it always sits on my shelf. I travel to Durham/Newcastle quite frequently, where the wind whips your face and I find this product soothes my skin, no stinging unlike L'oreal Hydrafesh.

During my course of Roaccutane, I tried many other products, Jergens (stings), Aveeno (Too sticky), Bio oil (did nothing) that wasn't right for me.  Oh and also, the medication dried out my skin so much, I didn't really need to wash my hair unless it started to smell. I didn't have any problems with my usual shampoo and conditioner (L'oreal Elvive) but I did have a bottle of sensitive Head and Shoulders to hand, in case when things got really bad. Another point ABSOLUTELY NO HAIR COLOURING.

Perfume samples

I think I have an addiction to drama and there has been loads of it on the GB Fb page. Most regarding Collection 2000, HD brows and perfume samples - Can we get them from department stores?

I agree these 0.8ml samples are rather stingy and ideally shouldn't be in a luxury sized sample beauty box.

I have received about 4 samples in the past 12 months. Pictured above is Lancome Hypnose Senses 1.5ml and Miss Dior Cherie 2ml. The other samples have been another Hypnose and Givenchy one, similar sizes, which I have lost :/

How do you get them? Normally, you should buy your perfume from one place, mine being Boots and build a good rapport with the perfume sales assistant and plus spend lots of money. I have worked on perfume and we did not give samples to anyone unless they were a frequent customer or had bought a perfume.

So what do I think about the perfume debate? 0.8ml is rather stingy and if GB did negotiate with Lolita Lempicka they should have obtained a better one. And if LL perfume samples are not given away for free, it's a much smaller size than those that do, such as the much higher end Dior. These are all average samples non the less and nothing special for example I received a 3ml rollerball samples from SSB, yes I know its Kim K but it was more appreciated than LL.

It's not that much of a stretch considering some received HD brows retailing around £20! How about offering those that didn't a better substitute? Spehora do travel sized 10 ml rollerballs of Stella McCartney and Marc Jacobs for $20 UK exchange for £12. Now that's what I call a luxury sample :p

GLOSSYBOX UK MAY 2012 ANNIVERSARY BOX REVIEW

So everyone or nearly everyone is complaining about Glossybox's anniversary sample box on Facebook. I've been hearing things like people receiving Collection 2000. Full size fair enough but not high end as promised. I can see where people are coming from with this. I remember seeing a sample of Baptise dry shampoo last year!! How awful and what a way to bring down brand image.

This is the box I received this morning. No Collection 2000 thank God.

I've lost the card it comes with already :/

But the things are

2 sachets of Apvita honey mask

10ml of Berber (argon) hair oil

Noble Isle shower gel 75ml

Eldora eyelashes

2 0.8ml samples of Lolita Lempicka perfume

A mirror and a balloon (Birthday gifts)

This is overall an ok box, not amazing but I don't have much to complain about, seeing as I didn't receive the Collection 2000 pencil. It's not an expensive box but still worth more than £10. Very disappointed with the eyelashes, I remember the status price was £3.80 and seeing as my standard Ardell ones retail over £5, it's not great, is it?

Here is a close up

The 30p sheet mask

What do you do with all the serum left behind in the packet of your sheet mask?

The brands I have chosen to buy, SaSa, My beauty diary etc are very generous with the super tonic serum and often there are loads left behind even after the mask is saturated. I've been wasting it until not very often when an idea struck me. I decided to empty the contents in a free toner bottle and planned to pat the serum on my face when I wanted a treat. After visiting Muji, I came up with a much more ingenious plan.

These paper face masks come 5 for £1.50. I simply pop the mask in a vaseline line, squirt the mask with the serum until it's saturated and unfolds. AND VOILA a mask for 30 pence. These Muji masks are not as thick and as soft as the ones from korea but hey ho, my skin still gets the whitening moisturising treat it craves.