My lovely boyfriend bought this for me for Valentine’s day, and I’ve been saving it to use ever since. Hopes were high for this as a lot of people really seem to rave about Diptyque being the best candles out there – they certainly have a price tag which demands good results at £38 for a 190g candle…

To be honest though, I do actually feel a little bit mixed about this candle. On the plus side it has a good burn time of around 60 hours (about 60p per hour burning…). I also thing that scent wise this is a really great candle – it smells of real rose, not a hint of synthetic scent at all, which for me, is really the only way rose products should be. It also looks the part – the Diptyque packaging in simple but chic.

However, there are definitely a few negatives with it too. The packaging claims that as long as the wick is trimmed short prior to each burn, the candle will burn evenly and cleanly. Sadly in my case neither of these claims proved true. Before burning my candle I have been religious about trimming down the wick, however after a week or so of use, I was sad to see a nasty patch of soot developing on the rim of the glass.

I’ve also been disappointed to find that the candle has really not burned down evenly. I know this is a little odd, but this is totally a pet hate of mine. I always end up waiting for it to cool down and then prodding the uneven bits down in a bid to make it look “right” again – am I the only one who does this? I always find though that this doesn’t really help, just makes an expensive candle look cheap.

Apparently the reasons for the uneven burn and the soot are one and the same – the wax in the candle is paraffin based, rather than the more eco friendly and evenly burning soy wax.

Frankly I do feel a little bit disappointed with this candle – especially when brands like NEOM are producing such high quality soy based candles for  around the same price. I think I had super-high expectations (which are probably justified given how much they cost), which the candle failed to live up to. If you are looking for a well scented candle and things like soot don’t really bother you, then these might be right up your street, because, as I say, fragrance wise these don’t disappoint. For me though this candle failed to live up to my expectations.

Disclaimer – This was a gift.

It’s that time of year again… And as much as I love it, Autumn and Winter (is it just me or do they just merge into six months of cold, wind and rain?), the central heating and weather can leave skin feeling a bit worse for wear.

My normally dry skin seems to become more dehydrated, sleepless nights show more, and I generally look a little worse for wear when the seasons are changing, and bad weather leaves my face feeling like it’s been slapped.

Bring on this little pot of happy…

The first thing I noticed about this cream was the smell – it has a delicious herbal almost spa like scent to it – not at all artificial, the main scent is rose, but this is in no way an old-lady smelling cream. If you have ever smelled the original range from The Sanctuary and liked it, then this will probably appeal to you

The second thing I noticed was the texture – in the pot this looks like a really thick, almost balm like product – and to me this actually added to the appeal of the product – this is aimed at dry skin types, and at this time of year I like something that feels rich and comforting on the skin. At the same time though, I don’t want to feel like my skin is clogged up with a heavy mask of lotion. This impressed me though – the cream does definitely have a rich consistency but it melts into the skin and I didn’t experience any sticky residue feelings. In fact, I felt like this provided a really smooth finish, and acted as a good base for makeup. It left me feeling hydrated and comfortable all day. No feelings of dryness or parched central heating skin.

The moisturiser is water based, and also contains the following;

Ingredients - Aqua (Water), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice*, Glycerin (Veg)*, Glycerin (Veg), Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter*, Glyceryl Monostearate SE, Butyrospermum Parkii*, Simmondsia Chinensis*, Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Cetearyl Alcohol, Isopropyl Myristate, Dehydroacetic Acid, Benzyl Alcohol, Vitis Vinifera*, Vitis Vinifera, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Chamomilla Recutita Flower Extract, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Tocopherol, Pelargonium Graveolens Flower Oil*, Pelargonium Graveolens Flower Oil,Geraniol, Citronellol, Linalool. *ingredient from organic farming. Naturally occurring within essential oils.

As you can see, the cream contains Rose Geranium Oil to balance the skin and boost the circulation, Aloe Vera to soothe, and Glycerine which retains moisture in the skin.

All in all this is a little pot of win – I love it in the daytime over my Clarins Hydraquench serum (review HERE), and I also love to apply a thicker layer at night to soak in. It leaves my skin soft, comfortable and looking hydrated, which for the pricepoint is a really great result. Definitely recommended for dry skin types.

This moisturiser is also really well priced at £8.99 available online or at selected retailers including John Lewis and Waitrose.

Cruelty Free? Organic Surge state that they do not test their products on animals, and also state that they do not use products or ingredients which are tested on animals. Certain raw materials which have been tested in the past are obtained with a fixed cut off date – ie no further tests performed after this date. This is a standard widely accepted by anti-vivisection organisations.

Disclaimer – PR sample provided for review. All opinions are honest and based on my own experiences with a product.

This is a polish which seems to attract a lot of attention – I wore this at work on Friday, and basically had about five people commenting that it was a lovely shade and asking what it was. In the bottle this doesn’t look like the most amazing shade ever, but on the nails this is a really nice bright almost-but-not-quite Royal blue…

Excuse the sloppy application – polish on the cuticles etc which will, I’m sure have many a nail blogger vomiting with disgust. I’m never great at perfect polish application, and I frankly don’t have the patience for wrapping cotton wool around a cocktail stick to tidy up the cuticle area. I have a never ending admiration for those that do – I did try once in the past, but it didn’t really work, so I abandoned it.

Anyway, this is a two-coater polish – I applied a top coat in the picture above, to try to make it last longer, but this wasn’t really needed as it had a nice shiny finish. The polish wore reasonably – some tip-wear after a couple of days and noticed minor chipping on day three.

Cruelty Free? The Bourjois website previously stated that the brand did not test on animals, however I was unable to find this when writing up this review – I also noticed that the company now have websites for Korea, Vietnam and Hong-Kong, so it is likely that they participate in mandatory tests for that market.

Yep, it’s that time of the month again – Glossybox has landed. Well actually in my case it was shoved under the back gate on a rainy day and left there for a few hours while I was at work – My postie wins at life.

Want to know what the heck a Glossybox is? Click HERE, to read my rundown of the service.

This month’s box seems to have a couple of themes – DIY beauty, ie pampering you can do at home, and also supports Breast Cancer Care – 10p from each box is being donated, and Glossybox are holding their own “Pink Friday” event to raise more cash for the charity.

So, what’s in this month’s box (Does anyone else get flashbacks to the film Se7en? “What’s in the Booooooxxxx”?) then?

First of all, we have a nail polish – This is a lovely pink shade from the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Range – I have reviewed a polish from this line before (HERE), and the colours I have tried so far have impressed me…

The shade I received is called “Shrimply Divine”, and its a pretty, bright summery shade, probably more suited to toes at this time of year, but I like that it fits in with the Breast Cancer Care theme. This is a full sized product and retails at £6.99.

I was really pleased to see a Dr Jart BB cream sample in the box – this is a fairly new range to the UK,and one which I was pleasantly surprised to discover is cruelty free (although not vegan – some of the line contains snail extracts, an ingredient which seems to ping in and out of fashion in beauty products on a regular basis unfortunately)

This is a decent sized sample at 15ml – full size is 40mls and retails at £24, although other formulations are available such as “Water Fuse” which I am planning to give a whirl at some point in the future…

Another pink product next, this time from Anatomicals in the form of their “Don’t Just Clean it Woman, Scrub it!” body scrub.

Some might not feel like this is a particularly luxe product, but I am always really drawn to this range, which has just started to sell in Tesco. I think the packaging is fun, the products smell great (this is no exception, and has a lovely zesty pink grapefruit scent), and generally live up to their promises. They also look a lot more expensive than they actually are. This is a 75ml sample, perfect for travel – the full size is 200mls and retails at £3.49.

Next up is another full sized product from Yves Rocher – “Hydra Vegetal, Instant Anti-Wrinkle Moisturiser”

This moisturiser is apparently rich in hyaluronic acid, a known skin plumper which is proven to work, so this could be a great product. As mentioned this is full size at 30mls and retails at £18.

Finally, a small sample of a product I’m completely unfamiliar with – Skinetica’s Anti-Blemish Solution;

 This is a product I’m unlikely to use to be honest, as I don’t suffer many blemishes, and when I do I prefer to leave them be. This is about a 5-10 ml sample at a guess (the size is not on the bottle), and a full, 100ml size retails at £6.99.

Overall I’m more impressed with this months box than I have been with a few of the recent ones, and I think it’s a good “value for money” box.

Cruelty Free? The BB Cream and Shower Scrub are cruelty free, although Dr Jart is not a vegan line. Sally Hansen state on their website that they do not test products or ingredients on animals, and nor do they commission a third party to do so, however are owned by Coty, who do use animal testing. Yves Rocher have began to sell in China, and so are no longer cruelty free. I am unable to find any information on Skinetica’s website regarding their testing policies.

Disclaimer – PR Sample.

PPQ have teamed up with Sleek to create a new limited edition “Shangri-La” collection, inspired by Motown and 60′s style. I was sent a couple of pieces from the collection, which consists of two palettes, and two new matte lip products to review.

The “Supreme” palette is “a melody of rich and earthy matte shades”, and the lip matte in the shade “Soul” is a “cool-toned pink ideal for creating pale lips to offset dramatic eyes”, according to the press release.

I have to say, when I realised that this was a matte palette, my heart did sink a little as in the past I have been disappointed with the matte shades Sleek have offered, finding them chalky and quite poor in terms of pigmentation and payoff. These were a pleasant surprise however – decent pigmentation, good payoff, and a creamier texture than I have seen before from Sleek.

Quality aside, on a personal level, I do prefer the look of the “Respect” palette, which contains warmer shades including some coral’s and pinks, but there are definitely some interesting shades in the Supreme palette – I’m especially impressed with the payoff from the green and yellow based shades, and matte brown shades are always useful to have for blending, or creating smoky looks.

At £7.99 each, the palettes in this collection are the usual great value for money – I’d definitely struggle to find matte shades of this quality on the highstreet in other lines.

The matte lip product in the shade “Soul”, is a really interesting product – it’s not really a lip gloss, more a liquid lip shade, which dries down to a matte and very long lasting finish.

While I’m not sure I can personally carry off this shade, which reminds me a lot of MAC’s “St Germain”, I am definitely going to try to get my hands on “Jazz”, the other shade in the collection, which is a rich red shade – these retail at £4.99.

At the moment, you can also pick up sets for £11.99 on the Sleek Website containing one palette with it’s corresponding lip matte.

Cruelty Free? At the moment Sleek do not have any information on their testing policy on the website. I know in the past that they did have an FAQ section, which stated that they did not test on animals, however did state that some products were not suitable for vegetarians/vegans, due to containing products suck as beeswax. I am not sure if they have made changes to their policy, or this still stands.

Disclaimer – PR sample. 

I’ve long been a fan of the “double cleansing” method, especially on “makeup days” – cleansing once to remove makeup, and a second time to actually cleanse the skin. So I was pretty intrigued to see this range in Boots, which advocates an oil or “pre-cleansing” step.

Una Brennan is a pretty big deal in facialist circles in London, having built up an amazing reputation for herself over the past 17 years, so it’s great to see a diffusion range from her available in Boots. The range carries three lines – Rose to cleanse, hydrate and calm, Tea Flower to deep cleanse, balance and mattify, and Neroli for anti-ageing, firming and plumping, and is all meant to be suitable for sensitive skin, and all skin-types.

I picked up the “Rose Hydrate Miracle Makeover Facial Oil” in my local Boots for £14.99 (the range is currently exclusive to Boots and Boots.com) – Boots currently have a 3 for 2 offer on all skincare so this is a good time to go and pick this up if you do want it. The range includes face masks, cleansers, scrubs and moisturisers and is priced between £7.99 for the cleansers and £16.99 for the Neroli night cream.

The rose oil is recommended to use as a “pre-cleanse”, AKA, step one of a double cleanse – it recommends warming between the hands, applying and massaging, before removing with a muslin cloth or flannel, and then following with a cream cleanser from the range. I’ve been following these instructions but following up with my Trilogy Rose cleanser (review HERE) because I still have half a bottle to get through of that, and didn’t see the point of buying another rose cream cleanser yet. The oil can also be used in smaller quantities as a hydrating treatment, massaged in before applying moisturiser, but I haven’t used it in this way.

Now, as you might have spotted from the pictures, this is quite a small bottle of oil (30mls) when you compare it with other oil cleansers. However, unlike many oil cleansers, this appears to contain no mineral oil,and is a blend of pure oils including rose, avocado, raspberry and petchouli in a carrier or sunflower seed oil, so is much less pore clogging, and is made from quality ingredients. I was however worried that given the size of the bottle, I would go through this in about a week, which would make it a bit of an expensive cleanser…

This is however a bit different than other oil cleansers I have used – initially when you pump it out of the bottle it feels like it has quite a thick consistency, however, as you warm it up by rubbing it between the palms, it gains a thinner consistency when it hits body temp, which means it spreads quite well – I’ve found that one to two pumps, depending on how much makeup I have on is adequate, so this little bottle is lasting well – I don’t wear makeup every single day though, so obviously take that into account when weighing up a purchase.

The other difference is that this doesn’t emulsify like other oil cleansers I have tried when you add water to it – you really do need a cloth to remove it. On the plus side, this means that the oil can be used to massage whilst cleansing, which is never a bad thing – if you need a few pointers as to how to do a facial massage, check out this post by Caroline Hirons. The downside is of course, that you do need to be a little more thorough when removing it, as this doesn’t just rinse off.

As a cleanser though, this does a really good job, and dissolves all the makeup I use on a regular basis including waterproof mascara. And although I’ve harped on about this needing to be removed with a cloth, that’s no big deal as I use a muslin cloth anyway. This also a very hydrating and conditioning cleanser – it leaves my skin feeling soft, and comfortable, with no dryness at all, and I haven’t noticed any issues with congestion/breakouts other than those my skin already had before

This is my first foray into this range, and it’s definitely got my interest – I’m extremely likely to also try the Neroli oil, as well as the Rose Mask in the future.

Cruelty Free? As far as I can tell the range is cruelty free, although there is no information on the superfacialist site regarding this.

Ahhh, I do feel sorry for some of the people that most arrive at these occasional “Cheap Thrill” posts for reasons other than beauty reviews…

Anyway. I have recently decided that I need to make face-masks a more regular part of my routine because my skin often looks dehydrated, stressed and even a wee bit congested. Like most beauty bloggers though, I am a fickle type (you know it’s true. Otherwise why do we have a drawer full of taupe eyeshadows?) so I like trying lots of different ones. Sure, I have my staples, but, it’s always nice to try new things.

Cue the Montagne Jeunesse range – I found these in my local Home and Bargain shop on a 3 for £2 offer, but you can also pick them up in Boots or Superdrug for £1 each.

One of the three I picked up was this Strawberry Souffle Moisturising and Purifying mask, as I thought it might deal with both the congestion and dehydration issues I have with my skin at the moment.

I like the fact that these masks come in handy pouches – that makes them great for a one-off try, so if your skin is acting out of character a bit, you can pick one up which fits your needs at the time, and they are also great for travel. Also happy to see that the range is BUAV approved, and suitable for vegetarians.

The ingredients list is a mixture of natural and chemical sounding concoctions – I am no good at interpreting these, but if that’s your thing then;

The mask itself is a very pale pink concoction and has strawberry seeds in it, and it has a good consistency – spreadable, not too thick, not too thin, and one pouch is just the right amount for one application in each pouch.

The mask is designed to be left on for around 15 -20 minutes before you remove. I personally didn’t keep a check on the time, but just left it on while I read a couple of magazines, and started feeling like it was hardening up a little bit, like clay masks do. After this time, added a bit of water to loosen it a little, then removed with a muslin cloth.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by this mask – after removal my skin felt really smooth and nicely hydrated. I applied a layer of moisturiser and it sank in really well.  few hours later and I still felt like my skin was lovely and smooth. As far as dealing with congestion, my skin looked a bit less blotchy, but obviously one mask isn’t going to pull out every blemish in one go (indeed, you wouldn’t actually want it to!).

So, overall, a very impressive first run with this brand (can you believe, I’ve never tried this range before?!), and one I’d definitely pick up again.

Cruelty Free? Yep – BUAV approved, suitable for vegetarians.

What other mask for dehydrated or dry but congested skin types would you recommend?

When word first reached me a few weeks ago that A-England were bringing out a new collection called “Gothic Beauties”, featuring a polish called “Jane Eyre”, I simply had to have it. Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books of all time, for me, the literary equivalent of curling up with a good brew and a slab of chocolate cake. It also has mushy connotations for me and my boyfriend, but I’ll save that story for another time… This is all about the polish baby!

My boyfriend seems to have developed something of a nail polish obsession due to my influence (I may be politely requested to edit this information out at a later date!), and when I mentioned this collection he said the magic words “It shall be thine” (I may be paraphrasing), and I was duly presented with two Gothic Beauties – Jane Eyre, and Tess D’Urbervilles (swatches to come!). Yep, I know I’m a lucky girl.

On the A-England website Gothic Beauties looks like a dark jewel hued collection, and while this may be true of some shades, the two I have so far are definitely at the dark end of the spectrum, consisting of a black creme base, suffused with shimmer. In the case of Jane Eyre, this is a garnet shimmer with a duochrome quality lending the polish flashes of purple, gold and chartreuse. It’s a bitch to photograph, so apologies in advance for the photo’s but I do feel that they show the qualities of the polish I have described…

From its appearance in the bottle, I expected this to look like a darker version of Models Own “Pinky-Brown” from the Beetlejuice collection, but in actual fact this is an extremely darkened garnet shade with a fine shimmer which is really only visable under bright light. Both myself and my boyfriend noticed how dark it was. Initially I had a very slight pang of disappointment, because the garnet is only noticeable when you really study it.

As time has passed though, I have got over that feeling and I’m beginning to appreciate this as a more sophisticated version of a black polish…

The polish itself is the usual high quality I have come to expect and adore about A-England – I applied two coats with base and top coat in the picture above. This is the second time I have worn this polish, and as usual with A-England, I experienced no chipping after a good four days wear. Basically I only remove these polishes if I fancy a change, they wear so well.

Overall, as with all A-England polishes I have tried before, this is an impressively high quality polish with good pigmentation and amazing lasting power. The shade is darker than expected, and so this is worth considering. This is a sophisticated blackened garnet, which makes a nice change from plain black creme varnishes…

Will you be picking up any of the Gothic Beauties? Have you tried A-England?