Dior Rosy Glow Healthy Glow Awakening Blush

Just a little something I picked up recently. I have a slight obsession with blushers. At the moment I have Coralista, Bella Bamba, an Inglot and a Bobbi Brown cream blusher on the go, not to mention the gazillion blushers I have in my kit. I was admiring this blusher for months, it has such a beautiful vibrant pink tone to it, so I just had to have it. A first look at the neon pink colour of this blush, could possibly put a lot of people off  even wanting to swatch this product, BUT the good news is, this blush was created to interact with the natural oil content in your skin, and therefore only goes as pink as your skin will allow it too!!! Nifty or what!! Also, it smells amazing, as it's scented with roses. It gave my cheeks a really natural pink glow, perfect for a natural day time look, but this product can be built up to add more intense colour for a stronger makeup look. Love this product, it comes in a fab silver case, which has a lovely size mirror for touch up's on the go, and comes with a nice little applicator brush. It's a little bit pricey at €43, but with Dior, you get what you pay for. 

Above is a swatch of this product on my hand, please note i have put 4 layers on so that the camera would pick up the colour!! It does not come up this pink on my cheeks!!

Hope your all having a good week,

Luv,

                      Jen xxx

Getting the most out of your Liz Earle Cleanser

A quick little tip for all you Liz Earle fans on how to get the most out of your cleanser, and I don't mean reaping more benefits from it. I find it so annoying when i get to the end of my cleanser and I haven't got another one to replace it with. So, I decided to cut the top half off my cleanser (unfortunately it only works with the tubes of cleanser). I was amazed at how much cleanser was actually inside it. I am happy to say that i got a further ten days out of my tube of cleanser, in the run of a year that would probably mean an extra months worth of cleanser for me :-)...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend,

Luv,

                Jen xx

Clinique mini haul

So, in the past i have had a real love hate relationship with Clinique, but in the past year I have really come around to their skincare products, especially when it comes to trying to solve my ever problematic skin. I have gone through quite a stressful few months with massive life changes, and unfortunately, its always my skin that suffers the brunt of my stress. With breakouts appearing all around the area of my chin, and staying there for weeks on end without getting any better, I really started to panic about what I could possibly do to get my skin back on track to normality. 


So, after taking some advice from a friend who knows the absolute in's and out's of dealing with problematic skin, I decided to invest in the Clinique products recommended by her. 


                                   Clinique 7 day scrub

 

The first product was the Clinique 7 day scrub. At €24 this little gem is a BARGAIN. It's a really light creamy scrub, and I found it very effective. My skin was instantly a lot smoother, and it didn't aggravate the problem areas, like certain scrubs have done in the past. I love that this scrub can actually be used every day, and I am seeing a great improvement in my skin, but thats also thanks to my next purchase.

                                   Clinique Clarifying Toner 3

This toner is definitely hardcore, it is an astringent toner, but definitely the best toner to use on spots and breakouts. I have the number 2, but unfortunately it just wasn't doing the business for me. I found that after 3 days of using this my spots had reduced drastically. It is designed to remove excess oil from the skin, helps to block blemishes, and also refines pores, and to be used on combination-oily skin. I use this after I have cleansed and exfoliated at night, and again in the morning before I pop my usual Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizer on. Two drops on a cotton pad is definitely enough to cover the whole face and neck. Also a bargain at €36 for 400 mls.


The icing on the cake was that when I purchased my bits, Clinique was on Bonus time, so I got some fab trial sizes to try, which I am absolutely loving. 

This is a fab little bag, and the girl through in a few more little bits on top of what I was getting, really nice helpful staff!!

So, the bag contained Cleanse the day off makeup remover (removes the whole shabang), a mini Clarifying lotion 3 & 4 ( i love to have mini's of my skincare because I tend to travel home to Dublin a fair bit)

Liquid facial soap for dry combination skin ( which I am absolutely loving, I use it after I have cleansed with my Liz Earle, leaves the skin feeling so fresh and clean), a mini 7 day scrub (delighted), and a mini Dramatically different moisturizing lotion (which is what I am currently using).

Deep Comfort Body Butter ( always handy to have a mini body cream), All About Eyes eye cream ( reduces puffiness, dark circles and fine lines), Repairwear Laser Focus Wrinkle & UV Damage Protector ( probably will give this to my mam to try, fortunately I don't need this yet)

Airbrush Concealer ( delighted with this as I just ran out of my Dior Skinflash, and funds are low), and a 2in1 Lipstick and Lipgloss ( handy for the handbag)

This fab little eyeshadow palette, gorgeous cream base, light olivey green contour and a deep brown definer. Really cute compact, and a great idea to have little visual instructions on the mirror.

All in all my purchases on Clinique cost me €60, and I got great value for money. Happy days :-)

Love,

            Jen xx 

Lately I have been.....

LOVING... MAC lashes in no.34. I love love love MAC lashes for simple reasons like, they are fab, they have such a wide range of different types of lashes, and I always get at least 3 wears out of a set! So last Saturday night I was heading out with the girls, and because I was working Saturday, I thought it would be a lot easier to head to MAC on my lunch and get my lashes done! I usually go for 6's or 3's, but I decided to go with something a little more dramatic and so I chose the 34's. I love the length in them and the way they flare out towards the edges, these lashes are actually brown but you would never know it once you have popped some black mascara over them!

NOT LOVING....Estée Lauder Double Wear. Recently I was heading out for a few drinks after work with some friends. So when it came to re-doing my make up, to much annoyance I realised I had left my beloved MAC Studio Fix at home. So, I had to use my friends Double Wear. Now I have not used double wear since I was about 15, and at the end of the night, I remembered exactly why I stopped wearing it. It looks so caked and it is way way way too heavy, I didn't know it was actually possible that a foundation could give too much coverage, it shows up every single pore (even ones I had never noticed before) and makes them look 5 times bigger than they are, and the worst part is when it comes to taking it off. I had to cleanse three separate times, and even when I toned my skin I could see there was still traces left. So it made me wonder about the damage it would be doing to my skin if I was to wear it every day! I love full coverage make-up, but not one that I would actually need to use white spirits to remove.

LOVING.... Hair Donuts from Penneys (Primark). Obviously I have been living under a rock lately, because I only just discovered Hair Donuts. For ages, I have been admiring High Buns that so many girls have been wearing their hair in. I was always thinking, Oh I wish that I could do that, but my hair isn't thick enough, and it always ends up looking like this ridiculous tiny drawer knob on the top of my head. So one day after complaining to a friend about my Bun woes, she informed me of this little miracle worker in Penneys. For €1.50, it's actually the cheapest miracle worker I have ever found. Instantly my hair was transformed into a fabulous Audrey Hepburn style bun, and I have got so many compliments on my fabulous upstyle. I have stocked up on a few of them, God forbid they ever go off the market. So easy to use and I cannot recommend them enough. Every girl should own one!

NOT LOVING: Garnier Gentle Eye Makeup Remover. To clarify, this is not gentle, and removes very little eye makeup! I purchased this on a whim a few weeks ago, because my usual eye makeup remover was out of stock. Now I do wear the full shabang on my eyes, on nearly a daily basis, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, pencil. So, in my opinion, an eye makeup remover should be able to remove all of the above, without having to viciously rub until lashes actually start to appear on the cotton pad. When it comes to the Garnier Gentle Eye Makeup Remover, this is not the case. The first night I used it, I was 10 minutes rubbing my eyes to get everything off, and I was still left with panda eyes the following morning. My eyes felt sensitive and sore after all the work that had to be done on them, and I had lost about 6 lashes in the process. All in all, not a good product. It went straight in the bin, as I would not inflict it onto any other poor soul! I will say however that my No.1 Eye Makeup remover, is the Boots botanics one, gentle and soft, and removes absolutely everything!! So last week I made sure I picked up 3 of them. Never want to run out of it again!!

Molton Brown New Skincare and Anti-Ageing Bodycare Selection

Ok, really quick post guys. I received this on Friday and with the weekend that was in it, I had not got the time to write a proper post yet, so this is just an overview and I will have a more detailed post later. So, at long last Molton Brown, will FINALLY be launching a fabulous new skincare range today, March 20th 2012. This has been an eagerly awaited line, from the much loved London based company, whose beautiful body products can be found in practically every girls bathroom. I myself am a HUGE fan of Molton Brown, I love everything from handwashes to body lotions, shower gels, hair care and their fancy candles, and believe me if I could afford it, it would be the ONLY hand wash to be used in my house. Kept under great wraps, there was very little details given about this range over the past few months. Which is probably what kept the excitement and suspense about it. If you pop into your local Brown Thomas today, you can receive a mini facial from the lovely Molton Brown girls, who will also give you a detailed skincare analysis, and a fabulous range of samples for you to take home and try. These are pictures of the Molton Brown counter, and the bits of info i received, as I said i will go into more detail later, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up, that if you are around town today to pop in and have a look.

Love, Jen xx

An Unexpected Surprise

     Dior Eyes Essential

What A nice start to the New Year this was. Well, it arrived the day before New Years Eve, but still it was a really nice surprise.  I wasn't expecting anything in the post, so I was so excited when I opened the box to see the fabulous Dior packaging, I knew it had to be something fab. 


Right I was! This is the newest skincare product from Dior, Dior Capture Totale Eyes Essential. Already, I am a dedicated user of Dior Capture Totale One Essential. It is, in my eyes, the best serum you can possibly use on your skin. It really is like a miracle in a bottle. I have a more detailed post about One Essential to follow, but to give you the jest of exactly what it does, it basically is a super serum that works on DNA, Stem cells and Genes. It detoxifies your skin (which has a build up of a couple of million toxins a day), and allows your skincare to work 100% more effectively, making it double age defying. One Essential is a serum to be used on the face solely. So, Eye Essential is basically the first Super Serum for the eye area. It really does make sense to have a separate serum for the eye area, given the benefits of using one on your face. The eye area is unfortunately always the first area on the face to show the first signs of ageing, due to the effects of the sun working with those nasty little free radicals, and in my case being too vain to wear my glasses, and so much to my horror, I now have those first little crows feet making an appearance *cries a little inside*. With the eye area having skin ten times thinner than the skin on your face, It is so important to only use products on the eye area, that are specifically for the eye area. 

I have not put this product into proper use yet, I basically have not had the time to get back into my proper skincare routine since New Years, as every day so far has been hectic for me. I am going to do a 6 week trial with this product, and give you weekly updates with pictures. Here's the information Dior have sent me about Eye Essential.


 "With Eyes Essential, enter a new eye dimension; enter the avant-garde vision of Dior.

Eyes Essential: The 1st cellular regenerator for the eye zone, from Dior.
One Essential's extraordinary power of cellular regeneration has been adapted to the delicate eye zone to create the most beautiful eyes possible.
A youthful asset to the face, the eye zone is, however, the most fragile area, for it lacks cutaneous cells. Cellular regeneration is thus fundamental in preserving its youth.
By deeply detoxifying the skin in the eye area, EYES ESSENTIAL stimulates exceptional regeneration** at the stem cell level. Bursting with new cell matter, the eye zone is no longer subject to the passage of time and signs of fatigue (shadows, bags).

Day after day, freed of toxins, the eye zone is reinforced. Smoother and more luminous, eyes appear visibly rested. More than ever before, your eyes are the hallmark of youth."

** Epidermal / Tested In vitro on ingredients: protection of the basal layer cells of the epidermis containing stem cells.

So keep your eyes open for my next post on Eyes Essential, hopefully it lives up to the brilliant results of One Essential. 


                                        Jen Xx