I don’t know about you but I’ll be happy to see the back of winter – it feels like it’s been going on forever. Having said that, the snow here in Nottingham coupled with sunshine has made it a great day to take photos.

So I was going through my stash the other day and I remembered that I bought some KIKO shades in Paris and it occurred to me that 346 looks similar to Model’s Own Grace Green. And you know there is only one scientific way to see if they are dupes – paint your nails and take bazillion photos!

This is two coats of each and it’s clear that Grace Green is a notch or two lighter than 346. These would also be good for a leopard, ombre, or camouflage mani. I know there is a real buzz about KIKO especially now that we can get the goods here in UK shops and online. I think they are going to give other brands a run for the their money, they’ve got some great shades of nail polish and makeup along with being very affordable.

Tell me what KIKO shades have you fallen in love with!

Well there hasn’t been a whole lotta bloggin’ going on this month due to time constraints but I have been plowing through my stash like a good Skin Scrubber! This blue basket that you see in the picture is my official ‘empties’ holder that I use to keep them all in till the end of the month. Does anyone else have a designated container for their empties or is it just me?

Studs

I really thought I was doing well on the shower gel and body lotion front but after examining the evidence I’ve used up more hair products than anything else. I’ve now made it my mission for February to get grips with all the half used body lotions and creams that have taken up residence in my bedroom. My shower gels are getting used, I rotate them every week.

So moving from left to right top to bottom:

Cutex Nail Polish Remover – I’ve always used Cutex because that is the brand my mom uses.

Le Petit Marseillais Shower Gel in Apple & Rhubarb and Cherry Tomato - Yes, them again. They rock – we all know this by now.

Molton Brown – These bottles were just begging to be used, they’ve been half empty for ages. Two of my favourites Warming Eucalyptus and Vitamin A, B, & C.

Bath & Body Works – Pumpkin Spice Body Lotion and Shower Gel, the scent is one of my long time favourites. Bali Mango Creamy Body Scrub this lasted forever and I cut the packaging apart to get the last bits out.

Sephora Face Scrub – James and I both loved this, I think he used it more than me!

Haus of Gloi Samhain Body Scrub – again we all know this is great stuff.

Le Petit Marseillais Shea Butter Hair Masque – reviewed last week on the post below this one.

Naked Curl Defining Shampoo and Weightless Conditioner - I love Naked hair products as does my hair.

Molton Brown Jackberry Hairwash - James uses this, he has expensive taste!

The Body Shop Rainforest Balance Shampoo - love the scent and great for oily mops like mine. I would buy the full size one.

Aussie Miracle Moist Conditioner - this saved my life as I ran out of conditioner and only realised it while I was already in the shower with a wet head.

Duds

Not many disappointments this month which can only be a good thing right?

Fresh Brown Sugar Body Cream and Sugar Lip Polish - both overpriced and over-hyped. I used the lip polish on my elbows in the end.

Molton Brown Toko Yuzu Shower Gel – Do not adjust your screens, yes that is an MB shower gel you see before you in the ‘duds’ pile. As you know I love my MB shower gels but this one totally Meh. It doesn’t really smell of anything and I just can’t get excited about it. There I said it.

100% Pure Blood Orange Hydrating Body Wash – Now this should have been fabulous but stupid here didn’t realise that it was just going to be foam. I like thick gels for showering not fluff. I used this as a hand wash in the end as I wasn’t going to waste it but never again!

So there you have it, and I still haven’t bought anything this month so spending ban has gone v. well I must say. I wasn’t even tempted by the umpteen discount vouchers that landed in my inbox from Beauty Expert, Mankind, Lookfantastic, and HQhair begging me to come back.

So it’s off the recycling bin with this lot – what have you used up this month? Anything you’re glad to see the back of?

Are you bored yet of me banging on about French brand Le Petit Marseillais yet? No – good because I still have more products to talk about from my November Paris shopping trip. I bought some bits from their ‘Karite’ range which is translated as Shea Butter in English. I got a repairing hair masque, hand cream, and…body scrub surprise surprise!

Masque Nourrissant – As you can see from the picture above, this is a lovely thick creamy hair mask and it smells a bit nutty and creamy like a desert. I used this at least 3 times a week and it kept my frizzy/flyaway hair in line. I would definitely re-buy this.

Creme mains Nourrissante – This is a fast absorbing hand cream that I keep in my drawer at work. It’s a must for this time of year, the air in our office makes me feel like a dried out husk!

Soins Gommant Corps – This is a good basic body scrub if you didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I prefer to use on dry skin then rinse it off for more friction. It leaves a slightly oily residue so you don’t have to use a moisturiser afterwards if you didn’t want to. This is also has that unusual creamy nutty scent.

I have no idea how much these things were individually, but I know they weren’t expensive. I like that they have a full range of products in ‘Karite’. I know why but bath and body products that match always make me happy. If you are headed to France anytime soon make sure you head to a Monoprix store to check out the goodies!

It’s been a busy week at the Skin Scrubs household. I’m a trustee for a local women’s charity and involved with other charities with the business James and I have started. Work has also been crazy too – it seems like everyone is now back from their Christmas hols and my inbox exploded with emails this week. What does all this mean? Yep – no time to blog!

Today I just wanted to share with you some lovely things that were made for me at Christmas by some fabulous friends of mine.

I received this lovely handmade bracelet from Ms. Red aka Red’s Beauty Blog just before Christmas and I loved it so much I had her make one for my friend Lauren too! I think the T-bar clasp and angel are such nice little details.

Cherry, my work colleague made this for me. She’s a super crafty creative kinda gal and knows how much I love the colour green! I’ve got this hanging on my chest of drawers and it looks really sweet.

This amazing thing is a handmade knitted scarf-let made by the lovely friend who also made my wedding dress. I love the little ‘poison’ apples as I like to call them. You can see some of her other handy work on her website Pinky & Boo.

Well 2012 is officially 13 days old and I though I’d better get my resolutions in quick before I forget about them. I don’t know about you but I always like to look back at what I’ve said previously as a benchmark to see what I’ve achieved (or haven’t as the case may be).

Last year I said I would do the following things:

1. Sort my eyebrows – I’ve done this with the help of Debbie and her suggestion to use Clinique Superfine Liner for Brows. I’ve also stopped plucking my eyebrows on a daily basis so they look a lot better. My left eyebrow is pretty much perfect and my right is slowly catching up.

2. Purge my makeup bag and start over – Well I did ditch a few things but I’ve added more to my collection. I still don’t wear makeup on a regular basis like I wanted to but it’s hard to change habits easily. I have a acquired about 40 nail polishes over the last year and more green eyeliners so that can only be a good thing right?

3. Lose 3 stone before my wedding(s) – Unfortunately this did not happen. James and I were doing really well and the closer it got to the weddings the more stressed out we became and our low-carb eating plan went out the window.

So with that in mind here are my resolutions for this year:

1. Losing weight – I’ve set myself a goal of 4 stone this year. We are low-carbing it again as I need to overcome this addiction I have to pasta. I can eat plates of it and I don’t stop even if I’m full. Not good!

2. Get our business off the ground – I’ve not talked about it here and I’m keeping quiet for the moment but James have been working hard so at some point we can work from home.

3. Curb the beauty spending – No, I’m not going cold turkey. I just won’t be hauling anything this year. After my spending ban is over I will be sticking to a budget.

So what resolutions/changes do you want to make this year?

Fresh is one of those brands I’ve been lusting after for like forever, so I knew I was going to get my hands on something from them when I was at Sephora in the US. By the time I got to Sephora my cash was running low so I was just going to get the Sugar Lip Polish as I’m always looking for a different lip scrubbing experience. My cousin Lela was shopping with me and she pointed out that the Fresh Sugar Lust Set was better value as it was only a few dollars more at $28 and that you get three products rather than one lip scrub for $22.50. I’m glad I listened to her as you’ll see below:

Brown Sugar Body Cream – This is a very nice thick body cream and absorbs quickly so you can get dressed straight away. It definitely keeps my skin moisturised throughout the day and you can tell it’s high quality. However there are two issues I have with it; the scent and the price.

The fragrance is ‘an addictive iconic scent’ apparently but all I smell is Lemon Cif bathroom cleaner. I guess one would expect a sweet sugary vanilla scent because of the name but it is nowhere near. It has stopped me from using it on my upper body as I don’t want to really smell it all day, so it’s been used mostly on my legs. The price for a full size tube is $35 which is too expensive in my book for a daily moisturiser.

Sugar Lip Polish – So the original reason I headed to Sephora was also a disappointment. Now I know this doesn’t say ‘lip scrub’ rather ‘lip polish’ which would indicate to me that it will be less harsh than other lip exfoliators I’ve tried. But this actually does nothing to my lips as far as I can tell. They don’t feel buffed, exfoliated, or polished just oily. The only thing I actually like about this is the scent which reminds me of Coca Cola. This has brown sugar crystals, Shea butter, and grapeseed oil but all I could feel was the butter and oil. As I said above the price for a full size pot is $22.50.

Sugar Lip Treatment SPF 15 – This is definitely the best product of the bunch. I’ve been using it as an intensive lip treatment at night and it’s really helped to keep my lips from cracking with all the dry winter air. I like it because it isn’t waxy/heavy but stays on the lips so I don’t have to re-apply it every five minutes. This also has a lemon type of scent but not like the body cream above. I probably would re-buy this but as I have so many lip balms/salves I won’t need to any time soon. This retails for $22.50 and also comes in tinted versions for those who like a bit of colour with their lip treatments.

So I guess 1 out of 3 isn’t bad? I think Fresh stuff is beautifully packaged but very expensive for what it is. I wanted to buy the Umbrian Clay Treatment Bar too but it was $38 and as beauty crazy as I am, I can’t justify that much for what is essentially a bar of soap! Maybe I’ll put it on my birthday wish list for later on in the year. I also purchased Sugar Face Polish and I will be reviewing that in a few weeks.

You can buy Fresh products in the UK but they only have one store in the Marylebone area of London. There isn’t a UK version of the Fresh website however the Marylebone store will do mail order.

Now that I’ve been married for over three months, I thought I would impart to you some sage advice about weddings. I know some of you are getting hitched soonish, or want to get hitched or are just thinking about it for the future. What makes me qualified to give out advice, well I’ve been married three times. For those of you who don’t know, I was married before many years ago and I had two wedding ceremonies with James in September last year. Yes technically that’s 3 weddings and 2 different men but I think you know what I mean!

Food

When it comes to choosing the food make sure it’s something you would eat normally. It’s all well and good having duck confit with cranberry cous cous and rocket but you will be hungry and so will your guests. The last thing you want to see is people pushing food around their plates and hearing them mumble about being hungry later on. I’ve been to several weddings over the years and everyone always looks uptight with formal sit down food, we had a BBQ and it went down a treat. If your invitations have extended to your guests children, any kind of finger food is a good idea.

Guests

This is always a bone of contention with any family no matter how well you all get along. There will be members of your clan who would rather eat broken glass than speak to each other – so what do you do? Well it’s your wedding and you should invite who you want. If Uncle Billy Bob doesn’t get along with your cousin Charlene then tough, he’ll get over it or he just won’t attend and that’s his problem not yours. This is the part of the wedding where the focus manages to turn away from the bride and groom and onto other people’s issues. If it gets to that stage, remember to re-focus and think about what the day is for – you and your partner!

Wedding dress/Flowers/Table Decorations

These are the things that start hemorrhaging money from your purse at an alarming rate. As beauty bloggers/addicts we all know that the more expensive something is doesn’t mean it’s better. So try applying this when you are looking for your dress, flowers, shoes, and all the other little bits and bobs. When planning my American wedding, I think my mom got sucked into listening to a lot of wedding planners who came out with loads of crazy ideas. My reaction was this – ‘Is having (insert frippery here) at the wedding going to enhance it or make it better’. If the answer is no you don’t need it. Celebrities or people who think they are celebrities have the money to spend waste, you don’t.

Honeymoon

This should be the most important part of your planning! As much as I loved having my two weddings and seeing everyone have a good time, the best part was flying off to Aruba for a week with James. It was just me, him and a few flamingoes walking along the beach and it was pure bliss. I would suggest you try to have the best honeymoon you can afford, and if you are struggling see if you can cut back on some wedding costs to get the honeymoon you want. If deleting Uncle Billy Bob and cousin Charlene from the wedding list means you can go to go Fiji, then do it!

Any other advice out there for brides to be?

Scrubs and coffee – two of my favourite things and when combined together I’m deliriously happy. My first experience with a coffee body scrub was from Bath & Body Works and when they decided (without consulting me first) to discontinue it I was very annoyed. My lovely mom even rounded up about 30 tubs of the stuff in the sale but they have long since finished. So having moved on from the ‘Kona Coffee Scrub Incident’ as I like to call it, I’ve happened upon two others that have brought me much joy.

First up we’ve got Kit + Sensory Lab Coffee Body Scrub. I was kindly sent this by Madam M of the The Beauty Dispensary for an international beauty exchange. I’ve had my eye on this limited edition Australian scrub for a long time and I’ve been wondering how the heck I was going to get a hold of it so I was thrilled when Madam M offered her help!

I was surprised when I cracked it open as I expected a brown ‘coffee’ coloured sugar scrub but found a thick white salt scrub instead. This smells just like a pot of freshly brewed coffee – like the kind you get at American diners. The scrub is extremely thick and doesn’t contain any obvious oils so will appeal to those who like scrubs that rinse off but leave your skin soft with no residue. To use it, I palm some of it in my hand and apply to wet skin to get my much desired friction. It makes that beautiful crunching sound as it glides across the body and doesn’t foam so it can be the last thing that you do in the shower. This also makes the least amount of mess that I’ve ever had with a scrub so you don’t have to worry about tub grub. I love using this on my arms, elbows, neck and chest and I believe you can still purchase this from Kit and retails for $AUS 32.95.

Next up is the Cocoa Kona Coffee Body Scrub from 100% Pure. Now this is an entirely different animal to the Kit scrub; it’s runnier, nearly black in colour, and more grainy. This scrub is also 100% natural and suitable for Vegans.

The scent of the 100% Pure has a darker, rich aroma due to the cocoa/coffee combo. I should warn you now, this will make a huge mess in the shower. It will look like you’ve had a passionate love affair with an espresso machine so this isn’t for you if you hate messy scrubs. That aside, this takes away all the flakes, lump and bumps you have, and leaves you smelling like a Mocha from Costa. I use this on dry skin to minimise the mess and maximise the friction. It works best for me on the lower part of my body like my tum, bum, and legs. This is available from 100% Pure and retails for £16.50.

So tell me what other coffee body scrubs should be on Skin Scrubs radar!

We aren’t venturing out this evening as it’s James’ birthday and we celebrated last night with our lovely neighbours. Being born on 31 December guarantees two things; not many people will be around to celebrate a birthday and everywhere you go with be expensive. We may visit our neighbour again this evening as he’s dog sitting the cutest Jack Russell Terrier puppy ever! I was having a play earlier with my vast collection of nail polish so if I was going out I’d be wearing one of these…

Barry M Bright Purple (two coats) and Kiko 278

Sonia Kashuk Smoke and Mirrors (1 coat) and Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters

Sinful Colors Mint Apple (1 coat) and Nail Junkie

Barry M Lemon Ice Cream (3 coats) and Sinful Colors All About You

I think my fav is the Sinful Colors turquoise green combo probably because it matches my blog colours. Which is your fave and what will you be wearing tonite?

I wonder if I should puppy proof my nails…

I started a 4 month beauty spending ban at the beginning of this month and so far so good as I’ve bought nothing, zip, zero, nada! Aside from almost getting derailed by new Sara Happ lip scrubs, I’ve not been tempted because I’ve been quite busy with other things. Also around Christmas I find it difficult to justify buying anything for myself.

I’ve also been inspired by The Bristol Beauty Blog to get through as much stuff as possible in this 4 month period so let’s see how I’ve done this month and I apologise for the overexposed pics, there has been no light here in Nottingham for days!

Saints

Haus of Gloi – Saft Ernte and Pumpkin Queen Bubbling Scrub along with Ghost Puffs Pumpkin Butter from the Halloween collection. All gorgeous as you’d expect and it goes without saying but I will definitely be buying from them again.

Lush – Glogg shower gel, tried this last year and loved it so I thought we needed it again as James loves it too. You won’t find any Snow Fairy at our house we are Gloggers all the way!

Le Petit Marseillais – Apricot and Basil shower gel and Apricot shower cream. LPM is my new found love of 2011, so expect more reviews.

Clinique – Even Better Moisturiser works really well with my skin type and lasts for ages. I’ve got some other moisturisers to use before I would re-buy this again.

Philosophy – Microdelivery Exfoliating Face Wash was introduced to me by my cousin Lela after forgetting my face wash while I was in the US. It’s fab stuff.

Bath & Body Works – Fiji Passionfruit and Hawaii Coconut body lotions were from their Island Escape collection earlier this year. I still have a few more of these to get through but I don’t mind as they smell gorgeous especially for Spring which is coming soon right?

Sinners

Pureology – The Hydrate Shampoo and Conditioner started off really promising and I had bought the full size products after being impressed with some samples. I’m sure I got wrapped up in that ‘new shampoo/conditioner’ excitement and overestimated what it was doing for my hair because after a few weeks my hair didn’t feel less dry.

The other annoying thing is the bottle design – because it narrows at the top it makes it difficult to get out every last bit. I stood the bottle upside down but they took ages to drain. Considering how much I paid for them (shampoo £15.85/conditioner £18.50) there was no way I wasn’t going to get my money’s worth. I think this is overpriced so I’ve gone back to using my Naked stuff.

100% Pure – Raspberry Body Scrub is super oily and smells like vinegar! I’ve noticed that 100% Pure’s body scrubs can be hit and miss depending the on the scent you order. Some are really oily and some are dry. I will be reviewing their Kona Coffee scrub next week so look out for it.

What beauty things have made you happy or sad this month?