I feel a new obsession coming on……

I’ve never been a massive fan of The Body Shop. I’ve always respected their stance against cruelty to animals, for looking after the environment, and using natural ingredients. It goes without saying that they deserve a big hi 5 for being ahead of the pack in the fair trade game. But I've always found them to be a little over priced for my meagre budget.

I seem to, however, have stumbled across a little Body Shop obsession in the form of their spiced vanilla range. I am now the proud owner of the body butter, hand moisturiser and lip balm

Body Butter

This was the thing that started it all off, I was walking past The Body Shop on my lunch break and the sales assistant outside began seductively wafting it in front of me. Mmmm it smelled good. And as it was pay day AND it was half price, I thought – why not!

Functionality wise, it works as well as all Body Shop Body Butter’s. It's thick and luscious and I don't get dry elbows half way through the day. Perfect.
£12.50

Hand cream

This is a decent hand cream, it's quite light so when my hands are suffering from a case of winter dryness I need something much thicker. However it's all about that spicy sugary vanilla scent. It's just nice to just slap a bit on when I'm sitting at my desk and breath in the aroma.

£4.00 currently on sale for £1.50

The Lip Balm

Now this is pretty special. The packaging calls it a balm but I would certainly call it a butter as it's so thick and creamy. I shunned my favourite free lip balm and used this badboy and nothing else for a full week. 7 days later my lips feel great, no peeling no dryness.  It has the bonus of the lush vanilla scent, but loses points for not tasting very nice. But I suppose, when all's said and done, that's not what it's for. Total thumbs up.
£4.00 currently on sale for £1.50

PS. My love of spiced vanilla goodies does not extend to the new Starbucks spiced vanilla latte. That is not a good drink. 

The Best Things In Life Are Free

I’m a sucker for a freebie, it’s become a rather embarrasing running joke in my office that I’m the first one in line to get free stuff at any event or corporate gig we go to.

But I don’t care, I take it in my stride because in between the dodgy pens, unwanted mugs and random keyrings you always find a diamond in the rough. That 'something special' that makes lugging around a bag of plastic tat worth it.

At one of the last events I attended I came across this little beauty. A company selling keyboards were using it to promote their brand. Random.

This is hands down the best lip balm I have ever used. It has a beautiful smell as it contains coco butter and vanilla It’s the only thing I’ve used that doesn’t leave my lips dry and peeling after a momentary burst of moisture like many others do.

I’m not really in the business of spending 10s of pounds on something as simple as a lip balm so this is right up my street.

So take that you  Doubting Thomases – also I didn’t see anyone complaing when I was sourcing out the free champagne!

Only problem is – I have no idea what to do when it finishes L

How Now, New Brow?!

My eyebrows have been a subject of disdain for many, manyyears. The actual shape of them doesn’t trouble me; I much prefer a fuller,bolder brow to skinny non existent ones. The issue is that the hair of my eyebrows is as curly as the hair on my head, so they never lie flat. I’ve triedeverything in an attempt to make them stay put. I’m talking Vaseline, cocobutter, hair gel and hair spray, but nothing works. So I’ve spent the last 25 years walking around like this.

Before

And the last 4 years with Mr Brown Beauty trying to smooth my eyebrows down every half an hour. Not so good for the self esteem is that.

Sleek Eyebrow Kit - Dark

So, when I was browsing the Sleek website in search of my product lust, I came across their relatively new eyebrow kit. I got to Googling and found some positive blogger reviews so I decided to give it a go. The kit is designed to be kept in your handbag at all times.It comes with a pair of mini tweezers, a wax, a powder and a brush to use with each of them. The kit also comes in light and dark – I used the dark one.

After

I did have my reservations; a very good friend of mine regularly leaves her eyebrow on your cheek if you hug her too hard. Not a good look. Thankfully that didn't happen and the wax kept my eyebrows in place all day. Occasionally a bit of powder came off if I rubbed my eyebrow but it wasn’tnoticeable. I guess I’ll just have to learn not to do that from now on if I am to permanently pursue perfect eyebrows – which I think I am.

My Saving Grace

I may be relatively naive when it comes to make up, however there are a few products that I know and love and will probably use them forever more. When it comes to skin care, my saving grace is St Ives Invigorating Apricot Scrub. The packaging says that it should be used 3-4 times a week, however I use it most days as I have a tendency to have quite dry skin and it benefits from regular exfoliation.

I’ve tried other exfoliating face washes over the years– mainly when I was a poor student and didn’t want to stretch to £4.50 for a bottle of the good stuff– however nothing works as well. In times of hardship I’ve even been known to purchase a travel bottle the stuff and make it stretch until payday.

St Ives is the only one that’s got particles big enough to make it feel as though it’s actually doing something. I’ve used some seriously poor ones over time – I won’t name and shame – that feel as though they’ve barely scratched the surface.

Superdrug are currently doing buy one get one free on a range of St Ives goodies. You can get this offer in-store and online, so if you're a St Ives fan go stock up. I did yesterday!

Cheers to St Ives!