Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Ren Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash

Today's post is a little different, I recently won a prize over on the lovely Fluff and Fipperies (if you haven't checked out this amazing blog yet, do as soon as you are finished reading this post) from beautyboutique.ie. The giveaway was to advertise that for every purchase of Ren Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash, you got a free Essie Chocolate Kisses. So I won one of each! The offer is still on, as is an offer of 3 free samples with each Ren purchase.  

So I don't normally blog about things related to skin care because I have stupidly sensitive skin and it takes a bit of a push for me, to try new things because of the fear of a reaction. One of my favourite treats is a nice shower gel, well you use it everyday so I usually have 3 or 4 on the go. I'm the same with shampoo and conditioner as well and even toothpaste, I get bored of using the same things all the time and need to rotate.  There's usually one or two original source ones in there ( I'm liking the shea butter and honey one at the minute), a J&J baby one and one that's a bit of treat. My usual treat one is L'Occitane Verbana, which I love, or the Elemis frangipani one but I mix it up a bit, particularly now I'm bathless and can't enjoy my Aromatherapy Associates bath oils :(  




Anyway, on to the Ren product., I don't loads about Ren but they don't contain parabens, sulphates, mineral oil and assorted other nasties, so that's always a plus.  I have no pictures of it before it was used, as my mother held it hostage!  I get my post sent to my parents house because there's usually someone there during the day and Rose is her favourite 'flavour' of body products, so there was no way it was coming home with me, once she knew what was in the package -which, incidentally arrived very quickly.  I bartered with her by giving her a L'Occitane shower gel, that someone bought me as a present and I can't use because the smell is so overpowering it gives me a migraine. 








I really like that it has a pump, it means you're not using more than you want, you really don't want all your €20 shower gel spilling and going down the drain. Although, I don't know if the pump will mean the last bit is harder to get out, we'll have to wait and see.  The smell of this is really delicate and in no way overpowering, it reminds me of turkish delight. I think that's because it's Rose Otto and not Rose Absolute, which I should really ask the da mammy since she is qualified in all things like this. 




I tend to use 1-2 pumps on a shower puff or exfoliating gloves in the shower and we're good to go. It's not drying and slightly moisturising. I don't usually use body lotion after using this beause it smells so nice and get away with it. It doesn't bother my dry sensitive skin, so I'd rebuy this and I'm looking forward to trying some more Ren products. 


Have you tried this or any other Ren products? Any suggestions of what I should try next? Do you splash out on shower gel as a treat or just use whatever is on special offer, or a little of both like me?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Max Factor Fantasy Fire





Max factor fantasy fire, what to say? Firstly it's amazeballs! Secondly it's dupeish to the most beloved discontinued polish ever Clairins 230 (aka Unicorn Pee ). The third thing to add is, that this is most definitely a top coat, I've seen some people bemoaning that 6 coats later it's still not opaque. Stop, put it atop of what you are already wearing particularly if it's a blue, green or purple and prepare to be amazed! 


The sun didn't play nice the first couple of times I wore this, so I decided to show you some bottle and nail wheel pictures today and since I took these eleventy-billion pictures (this post has been a long time in the making), I managed to get some natural light photos of it on my nails so these will follow, shortly.




Some bottle pictures to start. Here and elsewhere, you can click the pictures to make them bigger, so do it!





So I said it was dupeish to Clairins 230, I don't own the Clairins polish so can't do a full comparision but in the bottle they look similar, layered over another polish they look similar, but on their lonesome on the nail they look different. The Clairins is a red base and the Max Factor is a purple base but because there are both so sheer it's seems to not matter one jot. Fantasy fire definitely has the green flash, just like Clarins 230.  The green flash was hard to pick up but I think you can see hints of it in the second bottle picture and the last nail wheel picture. 


In retrospect, I should have rotated this photos  The four polishes use are Green : OPI Jade is the New Black, Blue: OPI Dating a Royal, Navy :  Essence Midnight Rocker , Purple Revlon Rock.





The last thing to say is the bottle is tiny (6 ml) and costs €5.49 ( around £3.99, I think) and only seems to be available in the UK and Ireland. In Ireland, I've only found this in Boots, other chemists which do Max Factor don't seem to have this, so if you want this you'll have to get to your nearest Boots. 

Have you tried Fantasy Fire? What do you think of it?

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Essence Nail Art Kit - Marble Mania

The current essence collection on stand is the marble mania collection, I picked up the nail art kit yesterday and none of the polishes, they weren't really floating my boat. The full details of the collection are available here.  I thought I'd do a quick post as the collections can move quite fast. 

Essence Marble Mania
The kit contains 2 orange sticks, 2 pieces of sponge and a stripper brush.  The pink card also contains instructions for use of the stripper brush, the sponges and a how to marble.

marble mania

The stripper brush. 


Essence stripper brush


And a close up. 

Essence stripper brush

The bristles are extremely long and fine, and I'm not sure they are stiff enough to accurately control the brush. I've only had a very quick play with the brush but found it hard to control and a little bit floppy. Perhaps, with a bit of practice I'll get better.  However, I caveat the last statement with the fact that I'm extremely challenged when it comes to nail art, so it is probably me that is rubbish and not the brush!

I've added a picture to show the brush in comparison to a regular nail varnish brush (Cult Nails top coat), so you can see the difference in size.


 The nail art kit retails for €2.79, so it's as cheap pick me up. I need a bit more time to play with it to decide if it's worth it, but for €2.79, I won't be crying if I don't get too much use out of it!