December beauty: Saints & Sinners

by Annabella on December 30, 2011 · 8 comments

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?

Sky we have a problem…

by Annabella on December 29, 2011 · 2 comments

Hello my fellow beauty lovers! I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted, you’ve been eating chocolate yule log for breakfast, and you’ve enjoyed watching your cat/dog/turtle try to tear off the seasonal reindeer antlers (with annoying bells) that you’ve made them wear since Sunday. Normally I wouldn’t apologise for the lack of posts if I’ve been too busy to blog, or lost my mojo as eventually I will find time and the inspiration. I have desperately been wanting to blog but I’ve been thwarted by Sky/UPS. On Saturday 17 December our router decided to go to router heaven and just stopped working. We had two power cuts in quick succession and James believes that the power surge killed the router. He ordered another router that day and the Sky customer service lady said it would be with us no later than Friday 23 December. I won’t go into the boring details of how everyday I’ve turned more and more into the HULK over all this as guess what – our router still hasn’t arrived! We’ve been using the internet through James’ phone which is pantaloons because the bandwidth is horrible, hence me waking up earlier than I normally would on a day off to write a post in the hopes that everyone else that is using 3G mobile internet is mostly still asleep.

James spoke to Sky and supposedly our router has been dispatched now with UPS however we have no tracking number to verify this. When I spoke to a customer service chappy on Tuesday, he used that tired phrase ‘due to the busy Christmas period’ we are experiencing delays in deliveries. I’m sure a lot of people up and down the country have heard this again and again, and aside from bad weather the prevents deliveries from happening I think this is a load of codswallop. Newsflash – Christmas comes the same time every year! The day of the week it lands on changes but you know it’s coming. You know that you will need more staff/drivers/vans during December more than any other time of the year. You should also know that ordering online continues to rise year on year so it should be no surprise that your courier company has more parcels to deliver (am I the only one that reads the business section of the BBC website).

I realise there are worse things in life that no internet, I have my health, a wonderful husband and a fantastic family and loads of wonderful friends but that still doesn’t stop me being annoyed that I don’t have my beloved internet!

***Update – after speaking to Sky this afternoon we’ve come to find out that our router was never dispatched in the first place even though we were told it was with the courier. We’ve since told them to shove it and have set up a new account with BT who we have our phone with anyway. It’s still going to take a few days to sort but they’ve confirmed everything already. You’d never know it was a recession with the rubbish customer service Sky has given us as you’d think they would be falling over themselves to keep customers. Clearly the Skin Scrubs household isn’t important to them which is why I’m taking my hard earned £ elsewhere!

Betty Hula natural beauty mini review

by Annabella on December 23, 2011 · 4 comments

The lovely peeps at Betty Hula were kind enough to send me some samples of their body butters and ‘Secret’ facial oil several weeks ago and I’ve only just now had time to talk about it.

Rum & Blackcurrant and Champagne & Spice Body Butter

The body butters are gorgeous and remind me of my favourite Pacifica brand because the scents are subtle but genuine. I can’t decide which one I like best so I’ll just say that I love them both depending on my mood, but I know James really likes the Champagne and Spice one! Unlike most body butters I could use this in the Spring/Summer months because it absorbs really quickly and doesn’t leave an oily film. These retail for £14.99 for 120ml.

The Secret Facial Oil

For someone like me who has oily skin, putting more oil on it seems like an odd thing to do. I know facial oils are quite popular now for cleansing but it’s not something I’ve ever been comfortable with. It is the same reason I dislike serums too, I’m not happy putting them on my face. As a compromise I’ve been using the facial oil around my eyebrow area as it does get quite dry, probably from my constant plucking and waxing. This has made a big improvement and stopped the flaky skin and redness and has an uplifting scent that isn’t too heavy.  I will be a bit braver now and try it on the rest of my face as a replacement for a night cream. This retails for £15.99 for 50ml.

You can buy Betty Hula direct from their website, Sainsbury’s, Feelunique, and HQhair.