KIKO cosmetics Purifying Mask

If you're like me, you may never have heard of Kiko cosmetics, a makeup and skincare company from Milan that sell throughout Europe. I discovered them on my trip to Berlin last month and picked up a few treats which I have been testing out, including this face mask. I have since found out that they sell online too, and have a couple of stores in London. They have free shipping and run regular promotions. The shop itself felt very high end, a bit like a MAC store, but the products are very reasonable, this mask retails for £5.90 on their UK site. 

My skin is oily/blemished so I chose this mask which is designed to purify the skin, but you can get various masks for different skin types, all at the same price. It's an exfoliating mask, which seems to be clay based.

This is the blurb on the back, I love the idea of micro-sponges, though I have no idea what that really means!

I used this in the bath after cleansing my skin normally with a facial cleanser, and applied as per the instructions. This is what the product looks like out of the packaging:

Hopefully you can see all the nice grainy scrubby bits! Does it work? To be honest, I did notice less dry skin and some unclogged pores but it did give me a couple of spots in the days after using it. You could argue that this means it has done its job by purifying the skin. What I would say is, for the price it's a great mask, I would use this instead of one of the Body Shop or Lush masks quite happily. But if you're going on a big night out or have a date coming up, use this at least a few days in advance incase you end up with a massive unsightly blemish!

Overall 6/10, and I would try the other masks in the range also.

Color Wow Pop& Lock Crystallte Shellac

Hi guys, back with a hair product today for you all. I don't normally review hair products, as my hair is a bit of a nightmare I have to use loads of products to keep it in shape. However, now and then I try something which I love and then go tell everyone about, and this is one of those!

This product is from Color Wow (link here), who provide high end products for colored hair including an award winning root touch up kit. Now I cannot remember where I heard of this product but it must have been fate! If I straighten my hair it looks nice for about two hours then the dreaded halo of frizz and flyaways set in. This product is a glosser which sets on the hair, working almost as a hairspray and a shine spray in one. It is choc full of glitter and is gorgeous to look at in the packaging.

It's a lovely shimmery gel, not too thick and easy to apply to the hair. I do it once my hair is finished, smooth a little across my hands and smooth it over my fringe and the top of my hair, it instantly makes your hair look shinier and amplifies any tints or colour you have had done. I love it as it looks natural and light, not weighing your hair down or making it look greasy.

 

That lets you see a bit of the blurb on the back and I can tell you it really does all that it says. If you want perfectly shiny hair, and your hair won't play ball, this is the product for you. I can also say that this works well on long hair, like mine!

Overall a 9.5 out of 10, yes really! get your paws on this asap.

Soap and Glory Hot Cloth Cleanser

Happy Sunday everyone! The weather has turned horrid in the past couple of days and my skin has been playing up, so I've been trying everything I can to sort it out. Winter is the worst for dry skin, but even for oily skin like mine I get dry patches on my nose and around any pesky blemishes I might have.

Hot Cloth Cleansers are something I love, they make cleansing feel more indulgent and like you're really cleaning your face thoroughly. I treated myself to Soap and Glory's version with some of my birthday money, and have been using it for about a week now in order to give it a good go.

My verdict? I love this. It claims to have a 3 in 1 formula that purifies deep into the skin with various natural oils and vitamins. I'm no scientist, but it certainly smells divine and does what it claims. The cream itself is quite thick and smooth, it's not too oily but does start to melt when you rub it into your skin. The box says to use a grape size amount but I use a bit more than that, I think you wouldn't get as good results if you used less. 

As with all hot cloth cleansers you just massage it into the skin, then wet the cloth with hot water and use it to gently remove the cleanser whilst exfoliating the skin. It leaves your skin feeling squeaky clean and super soft.

If you are looking for an indulgent treat which is not too expensive but really sorts your skin out, I would recommend this. At the minute it is 1/3 off at Boots, so only £6.66 instead of £10. Compared to the prices of other similar products, this is a great bargain. My skin feels super soft, not greasy and my dry patches have vanished.

Overall: 9/10 I just wish the actual tube was prettier to look at as it could be a medicine of some sort!

Fine One One! Back with a bang!

Hello! After a not-so-brief hiatus I am back to blogging! I pretty much vanished off the face of the earth through my fourth year of my degree, but it's all done and dusted now and I could not be happier!

Anyway, back to beauty. For my first review this YEAR (gosh it's been a while), I have chosen Benefit's new multi-tasking product, Fine-one-one. Incase you've missed the press, this product has been four years in development! It has a highlighter, a blusher and a contour all in one handy cream stick format. The packaging is, as always, pretty slick from Benefit. Take a look-see.

It's a classy metallic rose-colour, not too big, nice and portable, and feels quite sturdy, a must for me as I drop things all the time! All in all another pretty product from Benefit. So, on to the product itself.

As you can hopefully see there are three products in one, alongside each other. This is designed to be fool-proof so you just swipe across your cheek and blend lightly. Swatch please!



The highligher aspect of this is not that obvious unless you go over it a couple of times, but it is similar in colour to High Beam from Benefit. The blush is a corally pink matte shade and the contour is orangy peach in colour. This was from swiping it twice lightly. You do need to blend a fair amount to get rid of the obvious lines.

To be honest, it took me as much time using this as it normally does using blusher and highlighter individually and blending so I wouldn't use it as an "express" product but it would be really handy for travelling. Also, this will not suit all skin tones. For the price of £23.50, you do get three products, and this can be used on lips too, though I wouldn't personally choose to do so.

Overall: it looks pretty and does what is says on the tin. Useful for travelling but perhaps more of a gimmicky product than a makeup bag staple. 6/10

I did however LOVE the Benefit van:

Maybelline "FIT ME" Range

Hello all, new drugstore makeup review for you today! I was watching telly last night and an advert came on for the new Maybelline Range "FIT Me", a new oil-free range that is meant to take the hassle out of colour matching and provide all the complementary products for your foundation. Today I was in Tesco and the range was on 3 for 2 so I thought I would give it a shot! Here are the three products I chose:

For my three products, I chose the liquid foundation, the pressed powder and the concealer. I was partly intrigued to see how a full 3 part system would work together and also it was a great deal! Of the shades in store, they did not have the very lightest two shades, which I might have originally considered. Thankfully I didn't as the 125 is perfect on my skin once blended in. This shade is the second one in the pink based tones, so probably I would have looked a bit ghost-like with the first one on! What I'm a bit bemused by is that the above three shades are meant to be perfectly matched with each other, but you can clearly see that the foundation is darker than the other two products. Here are the foundation and concealer next to each other on my skin:

foundation on the left, concealer on the right

To tell the truth, once the products are on together you can barely see any difference at all, but it somehow annoys me that "matching" products dont, well, match! Here is the powder:

The packaging for these items is hardly ground breaking but you can see they are trying to look a little more upmarket with the sleek black design. They look nicer than a lot of other affordable products, I was quite impressed with the overall look and feel of them. They're obviously copying Mac and Bobbi Brown a bit but I'm not bothered about that!

As for the performance of the products, the liquid feels light and is easy to manipulate but gives medium to high coverage (great for blemishes but can settle in fine lines a little). It lasts all day and when set with the powder offers a flawless, matte finish. The concealer has a slightly thicker consistency but blends well. It doesn't cling to dry bits and covers my dark circles without irritating my sensitive eyes (WIN).

Overall I am a fan of this system. I can put it on for work and I know I won't be more oily than usual, any blemishes are covered, and it lasts well all day. Re-application of the powder at lunchtime and I'm good to go! For the price these products are very good value, though a word of warning: the powder is quite messy for a pressed powder. The range also offers blushers, so I might check these out in future. Have any of you tried this range? What do you think?

Foundation: 8/10

Concealer 8.5/10

Powder 7/10



What my lips are loving: pearls and pink champagne!

Who can resist pearls and bubbles? If you can, you're a stronger woman than me. With the changing seasons and the winter chill setting in, I've started thinking about looking after my poor lips, which like to get all yucky and dry in winter. In order to keep them soft and pretty, I've been stockpiling goodies! Two of my latest favourites are my new lippie from the MAC cremesheen and pearl collection, and a limited edition Vaseline. Vaseline you say? Yes but not just any Vaseline :)

First up, Shanghai Spice from MAC.

 

I've blown this up so you can see how pretty the sheen is on this. The pearl in the lipstick is very delicate, not as obvious as I would have expected, but feminine and lovely. The shade itself is a delicate rose nude shade, it's a very grown up shade for me! 

This lipstick feels gorgeous on, very classy and Kate Middleton. I'm thinking nude heels and a navy dress (preferably with champers in hand). Talking of champers...

Look at that! Sorry I just had to put it in a glass, for the record I did polish it beforehand but it seems to have my grubby pawprints all over it lol. I saw this in the supermarket the other day and let out a little squeal of delight!

At the end of the day, it's just another Vaseline but it's so much more luxurious to carry about with you than plain old Vaseline. On reading the back, it actually does have alcohol and wine extract in it, and you can smell it in the balm.

The scent is rose based I'd say, but with a tingly sweet scent that definitely smells like champagne, it's lovely and lasts when you have it on. The tin claims that it tints your lips slightly, as you can see above the product is very light in colour, it makes no difference whatsoever lookswise once on. It does however feel lovely, smell delicious and the tin is super girly and decadent. On an aside, this looks great over Benefit's Cha Cha tint on your lips!

Well there you go, lovelies. Pearls and champagne for the weekend. It's Friday so pouts at the ready, if you want to give your lips a VIP upgrade, I'd recommend these products.

8/10 for the MAC as it could be more pigmented and 10/10 for the Vaseline as a favourite staple

Illamasqua Lipsticks- let's get bold

Hey guys, I've been horribly busy at uni, fourth year now so lots on my plate! But I'm back with some more lovely product reviews for you. What better to start off with than lipstick, everyone loves a good lippie!

I had wanted an Illamasqua lipstick for ages, I'm still in love with their packaging and entire ethos, and their bold colours really appeal to me. So I went for two of their brightest colours, Fetish and Encounter.

 Encounter (R) and Fetish (L)

I'll firstly start with Fetish as I was a little disappointed with the colour payoff with this shade as it's so bright in the bullet.

It's a gorgeous grape shade, vampy and dark, I had no idea where I would actually wear this but just wanted it regardless.

As you can see from the swatched, the colour comes off a little cooler on the skin, there is a warmth to the purple in the bullet, almost a magenta tone which is totally lost on the skin, it falls a little flat and one-dimensional, which is really gutting. It looks a little Morticia Addams to me sadly.

 I am particularly pale, but even so I cannot see this shade being particularly flattering on many skin tones. I'll play about with is and different looks so we'll see, but I'm skeptical!

On the other hand, Encounter is the most amazing 50's red. It's sexy, luscious and my new favourite red lipstick.

I am besotted with this shade, it makes me feel like a film star! The purple shade just shows every line on your lips and doesn't give the colour you want, but this one plumps and fills out your lips. My favourite thing about this is a lot of red lipsticks fade badly or stain your lips, but this one doesn't. It wears evenly and doesn't budge.

If you're looking for a new red lipstick for winter, I urge you to give Illamasqua a try, their website is here, check it out! If you have any questions about their products just let me know :)

MWAH!

Magnesium Bath Flakes: Fad or Miracle Fix?

Hey you lot! As the nights draw in and the rain beats down, winter is definately on it's way here in Edinburgh. I saw my first robin red-breast of the year, so have fished out all my wooly jumpers and fleece lined boots ready for the onslaught of snow and rain that is winter in Scotland! During such chilly times, I love nothing more than warm porridge in the morning, and an even warmer bath at night. When I'm not relying on my old faithful Lush products, I'm always on the lookout for new soaks to try. When in Whole foods the other week I saw these Magnesium Flakes for the bath:

I know a bath is good for the mind, relaxes you and can ease tired muscles, but I was intrigued by the "remineralisation" claim. Can a bath really provide your body with missing minerals and cure all manner of ailments? This sounds a little middle ages to me. This is what they say:

I may be the only one in this position, but I wasn't aware my magnesium levels were so dangerously low that they needed replenishing in any way, let alone through a bath! So, as I tend to do, I did a little research. If you type "magnesium" into Google, you will be met with a plethora of websites offering supplements and advice. It turns out magnesium is a vital mineral for our health, and our diet nowadays is containing less and less magnesium due to our foods being processed differently. There have been plenty of studies showing that magnesium supplements can relieve the symptoms of diseases such as depression, and lower the risk of coronary heart diseases and diabetes. Worth a try, no?

This whole packet is meant to be for one bath, which seems a little excessive, so I have spread it out over a couple of baths so far and may buy some more to add in with other bath products. The flakes are brittle and don't seem to have any sort of scent, and dissolve immediately. It could be a placebo effect, but I do feel a little more nourished as a result. Then again, I always feel better after a bath so it's hard to tell if it's a result of the magnesium or not.

There certainly seems to be some scientific evidence to support the beneficial effects of these supplements, and you apparently cannot overdose on magnesium. However the cynic in me will always ask is this just scare-mongering or do we really need all these so called "necessary" nutrients? I'm not sure but it makes me feel a bit safer, and it certainly can't hurt.

For a bag this size it was £2.75 and you can get these on Amazon and Ebay as well as through various supplement and health stores

Decleor Aroma Night Purifying Balm

By now, you would be forgiven for thinking that I'm a sucker for anything with essential oils in, and to an extent you're right! When I was a little girl my grandmother was an aromatherapist, and she worked from a room in her home, which also doubled up as my room when I went to stay. If I was ever tired, sore or stressed, she would give me a massage in the room (I had very tickly legs so tended to giggle alot), then I'd go to sleep on an old fold-down bed with springs that creaked. Despite the noisy bed and the anatomical pictures on the wall, I always got the best nights sleep in that room, soothed by the scents of lavender and ylang ylang.

Perhaps it isn't so surprising that these are the scents I'm drawn to and that make me happy, and why brands like Decleor, ESPA, Lush, Tropic Skincare are so good because their products ACTUALLY SMELL LIKE WHAT THEY ARE MADE OF! Not synthetic crappy perfumes thrown together to create a cheap replica of the real deal. You can't beat a good strong essential oil. Rant over, sorry got a bit excited there!

I love Decleor's products, but don't tend to review them as they are fairly expensive and most people already suppose they are effective. I have been talking to various people recently, however who have never even tried anything by the brand because it is fairly high end and they don't want to chance it not working, so I've decided to do a couple of reviews of my favourite products starting with this: one of their Aroma Night Balms.

 

 Basically you use this instead of a night cream, just before you go to bed you scoop out a tiny amount, warm it in the palms of your hands then smooth it onto your skin, working in circular movements. It helps to regenerate the skin overnight, moisturise and even out skin tone. Depending on which balm you buy, it will also combat specific skin concerns, this one helps regulate sebum for oily skin but there are also versions for mature skin, dry skin and other issues. 

The great thing about this balm is it is dry touch, so you don't feel as though you're slathering oil all over your face. It smells divine, and it really does make a visible difference to your skin when you wake up the next morning. I wouldn't say it completely solves my oiliness, but my skin feels very smooth, plumped and nourished. I would highly recommend this product for anyone who doesn't like thick creams before bed.

If you're unsure which of the products to go for, their bestselling is the Iris range, you can get the balm for night time and a serum which you apply in the morning. Neither are cheap, but they last for such a long time they work out fairly well over the long run. If you don't want to shell out without trying these first, your local Decleor counter will usually give you generously-sized samples to try (which is how I ended up getting obsessed with this product). Most John Lewis stores have a counter, so pop along and sweet-talk the staff for some freebies!

10/10 :)

Tropic Skincare Body Polish

Hi guys hope you're all well! I'm nearly back at uni for my fourth year so have been working loads and blogging when I can, sorry for being a rubbish blogger! Anyway I have a review today of a new HG of mine, a beautiful Body Polish from Tropic Skincare. I was contacted on Twitter to ask if I wanted a free facial from a Tropic Skincare representative near to me. Unsurprisingly I said yes! I had heard of the brand before but didn't know too much about it. Their range is derived only from plants and has a very natural ethos. Check out their website here. Their products are vegan also, which is great.

At the moment the range is on the small side but each product has been carefully tested and I'd rather it was that way than having a large range which was ineffective. Various facial products were used on me during my facial and I have to say they all smelled amazing and my skin was left feeling very soft. But the thing that really struck me when I tried it was their Body Polish, and I just had to buy some before I left!

You can buy this product in two sizes, 100ml and 200ml. I have to say up front that for a body polish/scrub, there are cheaper ones out there, but I don't think you will find any that are nearly as good as this one. The 100ml is £14.95 and the 200ml is £19.95 so I went for the larger tub. Two months on and I'm still working my way through it!

These images were taken on a cloudy day and don't do the packaging justice so here is one from the Tropic Skincare site (I did NOT take this picture haha)

Ah much better! Anyway. When you open up the pot, all the sea salt has sunk to the bottom, with all the natural oils sitting on the top. I was given a spatula with this to mix it all up before using it. Once mixed, it becomes a moist yellow scrub with a fairly thick consistency. The oils are great as it means the scrub holds together well, and because they are plant oils they don't feel too, well, oily!

Pre-mixing

After mixing

You take a small amount of the mixed polish into your hand and smooth onto DRY skin, rub in circular motions then wash off. All of the salt but not all of the oils are washed off, leaving you with a very light layer of the smoothest, most stunningly scented oil on your skin. I used this just on my hands to try it out when I was there for my facial and could not stop running my hands over each other throughout my facial, that's how I knew I had to have it! The representative also told me that you can use this before shaving your legs and you don't have to use shaving foam/cream. I've tried this once and it works like a dream but you need to clean your razor after as the oil clogged it up a little.

all you need for silky soft hands!

They also do a face polish using rice instead of sea salt, it smelled just as divine so might get that next time as I'm so blown away by this product. The scent is luxurious, as though you are on an exotic island in a five star spa. It smells mostly of citrus fruits, patchouli, bergamot and a little bit of mint. That might not sound too appetizing but the effect is glorious.

I've ranted on enough now I reckon. You get the gist, I love love love this product. I wish it was a tad cheaper as I know I will end up buying multiple pots of this, but it is worth every penny and I'd still buy it if it was double the price. Sigh.

10/10 and a gold star :)