Review: Liz Earle Botanical Shine Shampoo and Conditioner

L-R Liz Earle Botanical Shine Shampoo and Botanical Shine Conditioner
£7.65 for 200ml each

I bought these a little while ago when Liz Earle had their haircare offer and I've now emptied both and am onto the third bottle/tube which was the shampoo again. Using both the shampoo and conditioner about twice a week has lasted about 6 weeks, which I think is great for 200ml.

So onto the shampoo first, it contains West African Shea Butter, vitamin E, orange and apple extracts, naturally derived cleansers and no sodium laureth sulphate. I was surprised at how much I liked this shampoo and how clean it made my hair feel considering it doesn't have anything other than natural ingredients. It has a strong smell, presumably of all the ingredients combined which lingers for a few days after washing your hair. A small amount is needed to lather up your hair depending on the length, but a minimal amount lathers really well. In terms of pricing, if I was to buy these seperately I would think twice, but in the haircare offer it was a justifiable purchase. I understand that this a shampoo with natural ingredients so this may allow the price to hike up a little, it is worth it, but I think personally I'm ok using a cheaper brand because I don't wash my hair everyday.

The conditioner is fantastic, it has a very similar smell as the shampoo - if not the same, and detangles the hair as well. I got the one for normal hair because I'm not too sure which type of hair I have, there are 2 other options available, fine or oily hair and dry or damaged hair. This conditioner contains meadowfoam and yangu oils, blue seakale, apple and orange extracts and claims to leave hair glossy and ready to style. My hair was very shiny, soft and fragranced after using both shampoo and conditioner together and easy to work with.

Overall I do think that this haircare pair is great for hair but I'm still a tiny bit cautious of the price, probably because I'm still quite young, my rating is 8/10.

Thank you for reading! :)

Product Finishing Project

As regular readers of my blog will already know I am on a product finishing project, this initially started off as a Makeup Ban, which was so difficult to keep in line with so I came up with a better idea. For x-amount of products I finish I'm allowed x-number of products, (this was originally outlined in the Makeup Ban but I've now increased the number to finish.)

I have finished a few more products since my last post on this:

- Lush Twilight
- The Body Shop's Tea Tree Mask Sample
- Impulse True Love Shower Gel (250ml)
- Lush It's Raining Men Shower Gel (100g)
- Korres Body Butter Sample in Fig
- Superdrug's Tea Tree Facial Wipes (30)

I don't feel I've emptied enough containers but we'll see until the next post! :)

Review: Boots Natural Collection Face Masks

These are 2 face masks I picked up from Boots on my regular visits for 99p each, although I'm pretty sure they're £1.01 now thanks to the VAT increase! Also, apologies for the labeling as Beauty Blogging Away, as I'm sure everyone knows I've decided to change the name and layout to The Beauty Chat.

So back to the masks, the one on the left is a Wild Strawberry Face Mask, it smells amazing and exactly like strawberries have been plonked generously onto you face. It's not as thick as I expect the average mask to be, and is very soothing to the skin. You receive 10ml in each sachet which is plenty for 2-3 applications, I tried to make 10ml work for 1 application and it was far too much! This mask smells great, feels great on the skin and makes my skin feel softer once taken off. It's easy to apply and to remove you just wash your face in warm water - job done.

The mask on the right is the Rosemary and Witch Hazel mask, more so for blemish prone, oily, combination, problem skin. I really liked this mask, it has a thicker consistency than the Wild Strawberry mask and smells a bit like Witch Hazel I think. After using this mask my pores seemed a little more reduced and my skin smoother and a lot happier in general. This also has enough for 2-3 applications and you can generally squeeze out 3! Application and removal is easy and the effect is what I'd expect from a mask.

At £1.01 each I think these are great, easy masks to use and a little treat a few times a week. I enjoyed using these and would recommend them for all skin types, but maybe not the Witch Hazel one for extremely sensitive skin types. Overall I'd give these masks a 7/10 because they're not magical or extremely amazing, just your standard face mask that smells lovely!

Thank you for reading! :)

Changes!

Hello!

This is just a quick post to let you all know that I've changed the name of this blog from Beauty Blogging Away to The Beauty Chat - at least for now. I've also made changes to the look and will continue making changes for sometime yet. All posts are still available to read and it's just the cosmetics and links that need to be worked on.

I've realised this is a task too big for me to handle now, (shouldn't have started yet - I know) so I will be continuing with changes (and new blog(s)!) after my last exam - 24th June.

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused and feel free to leave me a comment about what you think of the change!

Nav xx

Away...

Hello lovely followers!

This is just a quick post to let you know that unfortunately due to way too many exams I won't be on the blogosphere until the end of June. I think that's best because I've been procrastinating far too much and the blogosphere is a great big distraction from revision! Thereafter I will be posting everyday, 1-many posts depending on how I feel and I'll also be starting up my other blog, after deciding what to post on there, layout etc.

If you'd like to stay updated you can follow me on twitter, http://www.twitter.com/nav_t where you'll know what's going on and of course about different beauty products I try out/buy.

Before I go I'd like to ask for your feedback, on my blog, on the posts, what you think could be improved, what you'd like to see more of, what you'd like to see on here if I haven't done it already! Anything! Please leave a comment below to let me know and I'll try to implement those changes as best as I can when I'm back.

Thank you so much for reading and for following me on here, it honestly means so much! I'll be holding a giveaway when I hit 50 followers to say a bigger thank you!

Bye for now! :) xx

Superdrug's NEW Beauty Card

OK...so this isn't that new anymore but it's only been a week and a bit or 2 weeks since Superdrug's Beauty Card release. Named the Beauty Card, it actually applies to all of your purchases in Superdrug (aside from the few exceptions I believe.)

I threw out my leaflet that came with it so I don't want to provide false information, however here are the few bits I'm sure of.

- You gain 1 point per £1 that is spent

- There are offers around the store giving you more points if you spend a certain amount on a brand/product

- Points can be used partially but only in £1s

- 100 points = £1 worth to spend

- You need to register your card before you can use it

I'm sure a lot of you have already picked this up, what are your thoughts on this?

I think Superdrug are being a little stingy with the points and are in fact trying to entice you to purchase more than you need with the points offers in store. I ended up spending over £6 and buying 2 Barry M nail polishes for £4.99, totalling to 4 nail polishes for £12.97 - 2 of which were crackle but still! All for the 50 extra points I was going to get...

Boots' Advantage Card offers 4 points per £1 spent and plenty of points offers all year round too, Debenhams' Beauty Card offers 3 points per £1 instore and 5 points per £1 online...and they're always providing lots of extra points too!

I do think it's about time Superdrug came out with a loyalty card but I don't think this is the best that they could have done...what do you think?

Thank you for reading! :)

Features on BBA

Hello all! :)

This is a quick post briefly outlining all the features on BBA/Twitter

Monday Twitter Giveaway: This is a very recent feature that I thought would be cool to do especially as I buy lots of backups and it turns out that I don't like the product or won't finish one for the next 5billion years so I can give it away feeling good about myself! Every Monday I will post a new giveaway, please don't expect huge packages or palettes and so on, it'll be one product only and some Mondays I may be too busy, etc but will let you know! Follow me on http://www.twitter.com/nav_t for your chance to be entered and win! (Giveaways will run until the Wednesday until 10pm.)

Monthly Favourites: This is a monthly post outlining my favourite products of the previous month, I haven't been doing these religiously because I don't wear makeup very often because I sleep late, wake up late, no time, etc. I am trying to improve this though so hopefully you'll see more of these in future!

Beauty to Watch: This was a feature early on when I started blogging about what was to be released next month and what to watch out for. As I don't recieve much information on this from brands themselves or anywhere, these posts are the most difficult to do, so until I do receive a regular schedule or any type of information, these posts will be sparse and few but there.

The Beauty Rant: This is where I let out my frustration about something in the beauty world that has offended me or I find silly - e.g advertisements promoting mascara with false lashes...

Beauty on a Budget: This label will be added to everything that is considered cheap and cheerful that I blog about, click on the label so you can see all the purse-friendly posts/products.

The Makeup Ban: This has now become more of a product finishing project more so than a ban, but to save money I'm trying to stop spending so much on beauty products because I honestly have enough to last me at least 10 years! I also post whenever I finish a good amount of products (makes me feel better haha!)

Questions/Requests: If there are any questions or requests for me please leave them on these posts.

Question: I ask you beauty related questions and give my own answer too! Please feel free to submit any you may have to beautybloggingaway@yahoo.com.

Rambles: These are random posts about anything, maybe beauty, maybe shopping, anything :)

And that is all...so all the features are there so that you know what I'm talking about and can relate the title to content of the post!

Thank you so much for reading :)

GlossyBox - The UK's Birchbox

Hi!
Just before the weekend I heard about this subscription service for the UK. It is the equivalent of America's Birchbox, which sends out luxury samples every month.

The GlossyBox is a service which sends you 5 luxury beauty product samples for £10 per month including postage and packaging. I unfortunately just missed getting a "May box" and will have to wait until June for my boxes to start arriving. It's a rolling subscription and you can cancel it whenever you want.

I'm hoping this will result in me spending less money on beauty-related items each month but I have a feeling that won't be the case! I'll do a post every month on what I receive in the GlossyBox too.

You can order yours here!

What are your opinions on this? Worth it?

Thank you for reading! :)

Graze - nature delivered

This is a very interesting company I came across recently from a few blogs but unfortunately I don't remember which... *ashamed face*

Anyway...they sounded amazing so I ordered! Graze are basically a company which provide "healthy eating by post" sending you 4 different nutritionally balanced treats every week or however often or less often you desire and I asked for mine to be delivered every Tuesday and got mine today!

For £3.49 per box I think this is a really good idea, there are also tailored boxes allowing you to intake more high energy foods or to help you lose weight. You can also pick what you would like delivered and what you like/love/never want to receive (bin).

I really like the service and brilliant idea, however I think it'll take me some time to decide if I want to continue spending roughly £200 on a box per week or if I can do without and save the money, as the boxes are quite small, between 20-35g is the amount I've got so far.

To get your first Graze box for FREE and the second for ONLY £1.74 click on the code below to go the website with the code already entered for you!

JF1MR6R

Thank you for reading! :)

Review: Witch Blemish Pen

This is one of many very recent releases from Witch (naturally clear) Skincare (and now Cosmetics too!). It is a product in their skincare line and is to help reduce blemishes/spots.

Witch says:  Witch Blemish Pen visibly reduces spot size and redness, perfect for fighting breakouts on the go.

Other claims as visible on the packaging claim to reduce spot size in 2hours and that it is easy and convenient to use.

I couldn't agree more with Witch, this is a pen which I've now owned for a good few months, I think about 4-5, although I'd be terribly wrong if it hadn't even been released then! Fortunately my skin has been behaving very well in these past few months hence I haven't needed to use the pen alot. I keep it in my makeup bag with me all the time just in case a horrible red monster pops up and it really does work.

It reduces spot size very quickly, (I didn't count the 2 hours exactly, but was fast enough for me!) and it is very easy and convenient to use. At first I was skeptical of the brush applicator, as I thought it's going to be so unhygienic and difficult to apply directly to the blemish, I was wrong, as much as I hate to admit it! It applies exactly how much you need depending on how much you squeeze the tube and directly on the blemish, allowing you to brush around it if you require too!

8ml is enough for a very long time if like me you have combination skin and have those breakouts occasionally, for oily skin prone to terrible breakouts I suspect this will be a saviour, but obviously may run out slightly sooner. It contains witch hazel, which I suspect to be the active and very helpful ingredient in this blemish pen.

At £5.10 from Boots I think it's reasonably priced for a product that actually works! I've also given one to my boyfriend and he says it works too! Suitable for both men and women - yay!

Overall I give this product an 8/10, slight downfalls because it's not always perfect for tiny spots but that could be down to anything, even the way I apply it.

ELF Cosmetics Launch NEW Studio Conditioning Lip Balm

I just got this email today yesterday (my silly internet wouldn't allow me to post this) with this image! I naturally got very excited until I remembered I'm still on the ban/finishing products thing...

Disclaimer: All links/information provided are not sponsored and I won't be paid by anyone for this post!

However all ELF releases go straight onto my wishlist anyway! So here is the image:

You can click on the picture to go directly to the page with all 6 shades on them for £3.50 each. I personally would prefer ELF's prices to match those of the US as all makeup is so expensive! One of these is my lunch for the day, but I can't complain because ELF is one of the few cheaper cosmetics brands.

I really can't wait to try these (and for exams to be over but I won't go into that!),

Thank you for reading! :)