January Empties

I finally have some empties for you! I will be the first to admit that I am terrible for finishing products. I get bored of the scent and move on really quickly. Particularly with shower gels and moisturisers. However, since Kat from Tales of a Pale Face talked about her savings idea of putting away money for every product she finishes, I've been feeling inspired! No more will half used products sit in my bathroom! 

From L-R: Soap and Glory Hand Food, Soap and Glory Clean on Me Shower Gel, The Body Shop Satsuma Body Butter 50ml, VO5 Treat Me Right Hair Mask, VO5 Gloss Me Smoothly Conditioner, The Body Shop Dragon Fruit Lip Butter, Boots Conditioning Nail Polish Remover

Soap and Glory Hand Food and Clean on Me Shower Gel
Okay, confession time. I've actually had these since December 2011. I got them in the big S&G case. I'm not normally this bad when it comes to using up products but I actually got so sick of the smell of these that I couldn't bare to use them! They just reminded me so much of working at Boots (as a very miserable Christmas temp) and they gave me a queasy feeling of dread every time I smelt them. A few months ago I decided that I was going to try to reacclimatise myself to them so they didn't make me feel sick. I didn't do too badly! They're still excruciatingly sweet but meh, I finished them. I know that for a lot of people these are like Holy Grail products, particularly the Hand Food. But I wasn't wowed. I personally much prefer the smell of the Sugar Crush range. The quality is excellent though. They last forever and you don't need much. The Hand Food is very moisturising but it doesn't sink in quite as quickly as I'd like. Still very fast, but not by any means perfect. (P.S. the shower gel has lost it's colour because it was shoved on the window sill for months, it's supposed to be a happy pink!)
Repurchase? No way. I gave away my last Hand Food and Righteous Butter to my giveaway winner. I would have given her the shower gel too but it was too darn heavy!

The Body Shop Satsuma Body Butter 50ml
Ahh, let me count the ways I love thee... One of my all time favourite products are the body butters that The Body Shop make and this is possibly my favourite scent. It's very true to a Satsuma smell and it sinks in insanely fast. It's a bit lighter and creamier than the other butters that I have tried so I would prefer to use this in the Spring/Summer. I actually finished this around Christmas time and it's my oldest empty out of the lot! I like to layer the satsuma mist over this for an extra long lasting scent. Smelling like a satsuma isn't for every one, but I love it.
Repurchase? Already have. The 200ml version sits proudly on my drawers.

VO5 Treat Me Right Hair Mask and VO5 Gloss Me Smoothly Conditioner
I'm very fickle when it comes to my hair. I'd like to say I'm loyal to a certain shampoo and conditioner but I'd be lying. I'm actually the type that buys whatever is on offer a the time! *bad beauty blogger* Regardless of my bizarre swapping and changing, I have noticed a slight improvement in my hair recently. I think it's a combination of these and my Tresemme heat defence spray. It looks much shinier than it usually does! I've always been quite lucky with the condition of my hair and I've never suffered with particularly bad dryness or split ends but shine and volume is something I'm always looking for. Here's my hair a couple of days ago (sorry for the long image):

This is after using Colour B4 (which didn't work, but that's a story for another day,) applying the VO5 mask and Tresemme heat defence. Very shiny and healthy looking! I do recommend these products if you're looking for cheap glossy conditioners.

Repurchase? Yes, so long as they're on offer ;)

The Body Shop Dragon Fruit Lip Butter

All hail the holy grail! I love this product. I rave about it whenever I get a chance. Being of dry skin variety I also suffered with dry and chapped lips which would split and bleed (gross but true.) Well no longer. This product is an intensely moisturising, thick, pale cream. I slather it on at night and wake up to fabulous soft lips. Can't recommend it enough. Particularly in Winter.

Repurchase? YES! Already have. I'm trying a new scent though, hello Mango!

Boots Conditioning Nail Polish Remover

Always an essential. I picked this one up months and months ago and it's lasted forever (despite me tipping it over and losing some!) Would I say it was conditioning? Hmm. It certainly wasn't drying and cuticles always felt soft after using so to an extent I'd say yes. Also worth noting is that this is the nicest smelling nail varnish remover I have ever smelt. It doesn't make me wince with the acrid fumes. And on top of all that it even removed my nail varnish with a small amount of effort! Win.

Repurchase? I probably would. I recently bought a strengthening one from Sainsbury's so I'll see how that compares first.

Lots of positivity in this months empties! What do you think to these products?

Lauren

Boxing Day Sales Haul

I was feeling very brave on Boxing Day and decided to battle my way through the sea of people in such of some bargains! Sadly the only thing that I desperately wanted was the only thing I couldn't get - The Clinique Whole Lotta Colour set. Literally sold out EVERYWHERE. If you chat to me on Twitter you will have seen my pitiful moans about finding one. No success yet. Maybe there'll be a few about in January? Here's hoping. Here's what I did manage to find:

I picked up these ten W7 polishes from my new favourite nail varnish store - TKMaxx. I've had some fantastic luck in there recently, as you can see from this recent haul. I've never used W7 before but I just couldn't pass up this fantastic set of pastels for just £10! They are screaming SPRING at me and I can't wait for the daffodils that will be the backdrop to these ice cream shades. I can only hope that the formula will be up to scratch for me! Let me know if you've tried this brand before. Also, there's a massive amount of product in them, I've never seen 15ml nail polishes before! The only negative is that they don't come with names, only numbers. I love pretty names for products and I won't lie, I've spent some time fantasising about what I would name these. I won't tell you what I've named them because it's sad and embarrassing... how about Pina Colada for the yellow though?!

I also took a trip into one of my favourite shops - The Body Shop. They have an amazing selection of body butters in there for half price at the moment. I spent a while holding Cherry, Blueberry, Raspberry and Passion Fruit before I finally reasoned with myself that I should only take one. As you can see, I walked away with Passion Fruit but my heart is telling me that I'll have Raspberry by the end of the week. Oops. I adore the Green Apple shower gel and this is my second bottle. I recently drained my last one and it's going to be in my 2012 favourites. It's so fresh and not too sickly sweet. I'm gutted that it's been discontinued and I urge you to pick one up if you can find it, particularly for only £2 (or £1.80 with the loyalty card)! I'm in love with the Ginger Sparkle Christmas Range and recently reviewed quite a few pieces of it here. It was a no-brainer for me to grab this adorable little half price hand cream since my Soap and Glory Hand Food is on the way out. The three cosmetic bits were all in the sale AND on 3 for 2! I paid £4.05 (including my 10% discount) for two eye shadows in pretty green colours and a Delipscious Sheer Lip Colour in Pomegranate. I'd never heard of the Delipscious range before and I'm excited to try this one!

This Soap and Glory lip palette was £6 in the Boots sale and contains 6 pretty colours. I haven't tried any yet but I like the slightly brown/pink tones in some of these colours and I haven't got anything like them in my current collection. It also comes with a double ended applicator - I'm not sure about the quality of it yet but I'll let you know!

I've never shopped in Internacionale before but I decided to have a quick look on a whim and fell in love with these little pieces from the jewellery section. They were buy one get one half price (including sale stuff, yay!) so I picked these up for £3.49. Serious bargain. The cross is a lovely rose gold colour but I'm afraid the lighting was so bad it's impossible to tell from the picture. I wore the earrings yesterday and got a lot of compliments! People couldn't believe I'd got them for less than £2. They're not too heavy but look much more expensive than they are and I know I'm going to be wearing them a lot in the months to come.

So that's my little sales haul! Did you brave the shops on Boxing Day? Leave some links to show me what you picked up!

Lauren

Yet Another Mini Haul: Bargains Galore!

I got paid on Monday which meant that it was time to stock up on essentials (and a few non-essentials.)
Heres what I managed to grab:

My first stop was Boots to check out the haircare. I was actually looking for Tresemme dry shampoo since I had seen it reviewed and recommended recently by Harriet here. But it just so happened that all the VO5 products were a 3rd off there. I ended up picking VO5 dry shampoo (usually £3.49) simply because I love a bargain! There was a volumising version but it claimed to be for fine hair so I'm not sure it would have done anything for me. Best to keep it simple.

 I also picked up the "treat me right" intensive conditioning mask. (usually £4.39)

This looks like just the thing to treat my Winter hair. Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner (£3.79 each) was also on buy one get one free, and I'm nearing the end of my current Tresemme bottles. I picked up the "Hello Hydration" set which smells absolutely beautiful. I love coconut scents as they always remind me of being on holiday!

Also on offer was cotton wool, cotton pads and buds at buy one get one half price. I use the pads all the time for cleansing, toning and nail varnish removal, so I may as well stock up whilst they're cheap! (£1.39 for pads)

At Superdrug the first thing I saw was my all time favourite deodorant, Dove Cucumber and Green Tea, on better than half price so I immediately put one in my basket. I've recently tried two different Sure deodorants (thinking that a different scent would be better than the first one) and I was so disappointed. I'll never cheat on Dove again, it wasn't worth it.

With the 3 for 2's still on at Superdrug I picked up two new Barry M varnishes. (£2.99 each)

I picked "Black" because I wanted to try out a galaxy manicure and I'm hoping this will make the ideal base. "Nude" was chosen because I wanted a pale neutral base to try out Jasmine's marble nail art tutorial that you can view here. My third item was the much talked about Undressed palette from MUA (£4):

I was a bit torn between this and Heaven and Earth, but the matte shades won me over. I have no matte eyeshadows! Really excited to start using this. Just as I was trying to leave the store an eyelash curler caught my eye. I've actually never used one before and since I've started blogging I've seen no end of talk about the Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler and thought that maybe a curler was something worth investing in.

This beauty from classic, cosmetic power-house Revlon was £2 off and I really couldn't say no to £3.99!

Have you taken advantage of any of these offers? Have you tried any of the products I picked up? Let me know your opinion in the comments.

Lauren

How I Stopped Biting My Nails

I had been biting my nails for as a long as I can remember. I can never recall having lovely white tips and shiny nails as a child or teen. It's actually a really irritating habit and can be quite painful; no end of times I had been ripping away at my nails or skin and suddenly they had begun to bleed and sting. I was constantly berated by my Grandmother for it and she would smack my hand away whenever she saw me do it! Plus, I was always very aware that people could see my nails and I became paranoid that they were judging me because of it. "Was she nervous and liable to make mistakes?" "Did she have no self control?" "Did she just not care about her appearance?" None of these things were true about me. I simply found myself doing it every time I wasn't fully occupied. I would do it when I watched films or sat on the internet or when I was waiting for anything! It was unsanitary and unattractive.

So this year, I decided that being 19 was a ridiculous age to still be nibbling at my fingers, and more than anything I wanted to be able to have lovely long nails that I could file and paint.

1. I made sure to think about the bad things associated with nail biting (is there anything good?!?) and kept them in my mind whilst I went cold turkey.

2. I bought a great hand cream so that I could nourish my dry fingers and cuticles. 

Hand Food by Soap and Glory (Buy at Boots) was my choice. At £5.00 it was affordable but not so cheap that I could think about wasting it by not keeping up with moisturising.

But no matter how soft and lovely my hands were I just could not stop focussing on my nails. As soon as the tips started sprouting I kept unconsciously bringing them to my mouth and stopping myself as I noticed. (Disgusting I know...) So,

3. I bought a multi use nail block.

This six-sided battered-beauty came from Boots at a mere £2.50. 

For about a month I was not seen sitting still without this with me. Every time I got the urge to bite I would file, buff and shine my way to satisfaction. My nails gleamed. People would ask me if I had a clear varnish on. It was a great feeling. Seeing my nails growing and gleaming was so encouraging and I couldn't wait for when they had enough growth so that I could paint them!

4. Finally! I bought my very first nail polish, aged 19. It was Barry M's Coral and a Top and Bottom coat to go with it. 

 I spent the entire length of The Little Mermaid (very appropriate for the colour I thought) carefully applying my varnishes. I was thrilled with the result but it felt so strange having these bright orange/pink nails and I would keep noticing them when I was walking or reading etc. 

Once I could paint them it was so much easier to keep up with my new lifestyle choice. No longer being able to see the white tips stopped me thinking about biting them all together. At that point I was changing the colour every two or three days because as soon as it started to chip I would get the urge to bite again. Humans are so weird. 

This is not to say that I didn't ever slip up. I absolutely did and I felt so awful that it completely strengthened my resolve. 5 months later, I can happily go varnish free and it no longer bothers me. I officially destroyed a life long habit, and it feels great! 

Have you beaten this habit or are you still suffering with it? How did you stop?

To sign off I'll leave this list of celebrity nail biters for you to chew over. (Puntastic! I'm so ashamed haha)

David Beckham

Phil Collins

Uma Thurman

Britney Spears

Elijah Wood

Lindsay Lohan

Kylie Minogue

Bruce Springsteen

Lisa Marie Presley

Prince Harry

Eva Mendes

Tony Robbins

And many more!

Lauren