Woodsy Heaven

I was in a really bad mood earlier today, so I felt like I needed a bath or something to relax me and just lift my mood.  I still hadn't used my LUSH Geo Phyzz bath bomb, so I decided to try that today. Since I have dry skin and using bath bombs usually dries out my skin even more, I decided to add a bath melt to it. I ended up using 1 Geo Phyzz bath bomb and 1/2 of a Floating Island Bath Melt. I didn't want to use the whole melt because, to me, Floating Island has a bit of a playdough-y after-scent to it, which I don't like.

Floating Island

Geo Phyzz

I dropped the bath bomb in first and as it was fizzing away, the water started turning this really pretty clear green colour, and the salts in the bomb were visible at the bottom. Immediately the woodsy scent of pine and cypress filled the bathroom. I dropped the bath melt in after that, and it turned the water a little opaque, and made a light creamy foam on top, and the water smelled amazing. On the LUSH site is says that Floating Island has a vanilla scent with a hint of lemon, and it also has sandalwood int it. I didn't smell any of the vanilla, just the sandalwood and lemon. The resulting smell was an earthy, woodsy scent with just a touch of lemon. I love it. This has got to be the best smelling bath I have ever taken, and it was relaxing, and put me in a much better mood.

 The only complaint I have is that the scent doesn't linger all that long on the skin after. But I love this combination and will definitely have to buy more of both products.

EOS and Drugstore Makeup

My eos order came today. All of the lip balms smell so good. I can't even pick a favourite.

I got the Smooth Spheres in Lemon Drop, Honeysuckle Honeydew, Summer Fruit and Sweet Mint. They all smell amazing. The Lemon Drop reminds me of lemon meringue pie, or lemon bars, but without that little egg-y scent. I think I'm going to keep the Lemon Drop in my purse daily because it has SPF in it, and rotate through the other one's depending on my mood.

I love the feel of these when you put them on. They aren't thick or waxy feeling, the just glide smoothly onto the lips. A lot of lip balms dry out on my within like 30-45 min, I've been wearing this for over an hour, and my lips still feel moisturized.

Also today I picked up Marcelle Wet & Dry Eyeshadow in Naked Truth. This is the perfect skin tone colour for me, and it's a little luminous, but not shimmery, so it gives that 'my skin but better' look for my eyelids.

I also got Rimmel Match Perfection Skin Tone Adapting Concealer in 010 Ivory. I'm not sure about this, it seems a little off for my skin tone, but the 2 other shades were both too dark.

Another item I got was the Wet n Wild Mega Glo Illuminating Powder in 347 Spotlight Peach. It has 4 different strips of colour in it. There's a light peach, a dark rosy peach, a peachy-bronze, and a light shimmery rosy peach. I tried this today, and I like mixing the light peach and the light rosy-peach to give a natural glow to my cheeks.

The final item I bought today was the EcoTools 5 pc brush set. They're travel size brushes and it comes with a mineral powder brush, a concealer brush, eye shading brush, a baby kabuki and a cosmetic bag. I've only ever tried the kabuki brush before, and I loved it. My sister has this set and she uses it all the time, so I decided to get my own.

Now, back to my previous post about the bareMinerals foundation. I took the Medium Beige back to the store, it was too dark and too pink for my skin tone. I got re-matched and my colour is now Golden Fair. This blends perfectly on me, and I love it. My skintone is very tricky to match because I look more medium than light/fair at first glance, but when I try to match foundations, I usually end up in the light end of the spectrum. I will probably need a different colour once summer comes and I start getting some colour to my skin. I hate tanning. Absolutely hate it. The only tan I get is whatever I get while walking outside. I do not like to bake in the sun, and I don't fake tan. Unfortunately, I can get quite a tan just walking to work and around town. Like several shades darker than my untanned skin. Back on topic, I also returned the handy buki brush, because it was shedding on my face, and got a refund for that.

Anyways, that's all for today.

Bare Minerals and Shopper's 'Beauty Boutique'

I started using the Imperialis moisturizer from LUSH yesterday, and previously, my moisturizers all contained SPF. Imperialis does not, so I was looking for something to use with SPF in it. I get sunburned without using at least SPF 15, even in the winter.

I browsed online for a while and I saw that Bare Escentuals has a SPF 30 Natural Sunscreen powder. So I called up Shopper's Drug Mart in my town, and they didn't have anything. I called the one the next town over, and they said that they didn't have the sunscreen powder, but the foundations also have a natural SPF in them. I went down there, and this Shopper's doesn't just have a makeup section with one counter, they have a 'Beauty Boutique'. All of the makeup is organized by brand in nice displays in a separate section of the store, and they will even colour match foundations for you and allow you to test pretty much any product you want, which is not how the Shopper's in my town is.

There were two women working there, and they were both really helpful and nice. She started by matching me to one of the darker medium colours, but quickly went into the lighter mediums. My skin has a very golden tone to it, and is really hard to match foundations to. Anyways so I got matched with 2N Medium Beige. She also told me if the colour didn't seem right, I could bring it back, and get matched with another colour. I think I may end up having to do this, since I think I need a warmer colour, perhaps Golden Medium. I noticed that this looks a little pink on me (it's a neutral tone), and my sister said the same thing. So I'll wear it for another day or so, and see if I still think it's too pink.

So, I came home today with bareMinerals  Matte SPF 15 foundation in 2N Medium beige, the bareMinerals Mineral Veil and the handy buki brush. Also, I'm scheduled in for their Bare Escentuals event next weekend.

I'll do a review on these after I use them for a while, and update if I switch to a different shade.

Quick Update: LUSH order

My latest LUSH order came in today. This is my first impressions of the products I ordered.

1. Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar:
I don't like the smell of this. The smell somehow reminds me of herring. It has cinnamon leaf oil and peppermint oil in it, but I'm getting very strong scents of clove. I don't like cloves in large quantities, the smell bothers me. The site doesn't list cloves, but they list 'perfume'. I'll see how this works for relieving sore muscles, but first impression is an intense clove-y, herring-like smell.

2.Geo Phyzz bath bomb:
When the package arrived, this bomb was a little battered. It wasn't cracked or anything, but had some crushed bath bomb powder coming off it and collecting in the bottom of the little bag it's in. It smells like evergreens, it's a little strong, but it will probably be less strong in the bath. It's a pretty green colour with little specks of red Hawaiian sea salt in it. I'm looking forward to using this.

3. Gentle Lentil solid shampoo bar:
This has a strong sweet, creamy smell to it, with a bit of a floral scent as well. I was trying to place the floral scent and I think it may be jasmine, but I could be wrong. I like the smell, but it's a little too strong, especially the floral bit. But I think it will be nice after a shower when it's not as strong in the hair. The bar is a pale cream colour with specks of lentils in it. I'm excited to use this to see how it works on my very dry curly hair.

4. Okra conditioner:
This is a Retro product. The first four ingredients are okra infusion, corn silk infusion, nettle infusion and mountain grape decoction. Also in the product is lavender oil and rosemary oil. When I first took off the lid to remove the tab closing it and sniffed I got a very strong whiff of herbs. Sniffing it through the flip cap, it's not quite as strong. I do like the scent, it's very herbal, which I'm used to from the conditioner I have been using for a while now. The colour is sort of a dark cream colour. The one thing I don't like is that it lists sodium lauryl sulfate in it. That's usually used in shampoos to make them lather, I don't see the necessity in a conditioner. Also the sodium and sulfates are not good for your hair. I'll see how this works. My previous shampoo and conditioner were sulfate free.

5.Token to the Forest Gods toner/sauna tab:
This is a cute green little tab, mine has a star shape on the top of it. It smells kinda like citrus and Fruit Loops, and the colour is reminiscent of the lime Fruit Loops. I do like the smell, and I'm excited to use this.

6. Aqua Marina cleanser:
My piece doesn't look as neat as the pictures on the lush website, but I didn't by this for the looks. I bought it because it contains calamine, aloe vera, and seaweed. I get redness around my nose and sometimes my cheeks, and calamine and aloe vera are soothing. The scent is a little strong, the cleanser has sweet orange oil as well as patchouli oil in it, but I do like it, and I normally hate strong scents. I'm scent sensitive since using Yasmin, and I tend to get migraines with strong scents. The cleanser is very creamy, and has a mousse-like texture and it's wrapped in seaweed. It also contains kaolin for it's skin-tightening properties. I really hope this works for me, because I hate the redness I get on my face.

7. Imperalis moisturizer:
This is very small, smaller than I thought it would be, and at nearly $23 a pot, it better work well. It's "made with lavender, orange flowers and tiger lilies to create well balanced skin." It's good for combination skin. The colour of this moisturizer is a pale creamy pink similar to the colour of Aqua Marina. The floral scents are not overpowering, but definitely there. I do like the smell of this.

So those are all the LUSH products I ordered for myself. I will say that I do like the scent of The Smell of Freedom perfume my sister got. It's strong, but nice and I may purchase the solid, but I'd like to smell the solid in a LUSH store first, since the solid is $12.95(CAD). I will write a review after using these products for a while, and seeing how well they agree with my skin and hair. I'll probably do a separate mini-review for Geo Phyzz since that's a one time use thing, and not a skincare product.

Oh and before I forget, they included 2 samples with the order again. Porridge soap, and Banana Moon soap. Porridge smells AMAZING. It's got a sweet, creamy, sugar and molasses type smell. I cannot stop smelling this soap. I am definitely buying some of this. The Banana Moon soap smells like, well, bananas. The little sticker on it says 'guaranteed monkey business with moisturizing bananas and yoghurt'. It's an ok smell, but it kind of reminds me of little kids and banana lollipops, and mashed banana and things like that. Not a smell I want all over my body, but it might be great for people with kids. I could definitely see kids liking the scent.

So that's all for now.

LUSH Review, 1st LUSH purchase

So, as stated in the title,this blog is kind of a review of the LUSH products I ordered in February. It was my first time purchasing anything from the company, and I ordered online because the nearest store is over 1 1/2 hours away. Any pictures in this blog are from the lush.ca site, as my computer refuses to upload anything, so I don't have any of my own pics to put up. I do not own the pictures.

I ordered the Enchanted Eye Cream, Vanillary Solid Perfume, Vitamin E Toner Tab, and Vanilla in the Mist soap. Also on this order, for my sister, was Karma Fragrance (sample size), Ambrosia shaving cream, Lovely Jubblies (yes that's a lotion for the girls), and Floating Island Bath Melt.

So, the first item, the main reason I wanted to order from LUSH, is the Enchanted Eye Cream.

It comes in a small bottle with a pump, the size is 45 g. The featured ingredients are almond oil, and lavender honey water. It claims to be a "gentle, soothing cream to minimize fine lines around the eyes" I have been using this both morning and night since I received it mid-February. It has a very light texture, and smooths easily over the skin, without any greasy feeling. I previously had been using an Olay eye cream which was doing absolutely nothing for my dark circles. Enchanted has helped with dark circles, and the skin around my eyes just feels much more moisturized than with any other product I have used before. Since it's only been about 2-3 weeks since I received it, I will update if my opinion on it changes.

Next is Vanillary Solid Perfume. The solid is the 2nd from the right. It's contains 12g.

It's got a solid lotion type of appearance, and it is pale yellow with little black flecks in it, sort of like french vanilla or vanilla bean ice cream. You just dab the solid on your pulse points and let it melt a little bit, it melts at body temperature. I normally can't wear perfumes, the alcohol and artificial scents give me migraines, but I decided to try to solid perfume to see if maybe there was something out there I could use. The perfume has a very heavy vanilla and jasmine scent with a touch of a caramel type scent. By heavy, I don't mean overpoweringly strong, but sort of like a rich dessert. The site says "Vanillary is a grown-up gourmand. Its character really warms and develops on the skin..." The main ingredients in this scent are vanilla absolute, jasmine absolute, and tonka absolute, and those are definitely the main scents of the perfume. I don't usually like jasmine anything, but I do really like this perfume as an occasional scent. I feel the scent is too rich to wear all the time though.

The 3rd item I bought was a Vitamin E Toner Tab. I bought this to try because it was just $1.95.

The toner tab is meant to balance skin and keep it from being too oily or too dry. The two main ingredients are Vitamin E oil and lavender oil. Lavender is supposed to help calm to skin, and keep it clear. The way to use this is to fill a medium sized bowl with hot, but not quite boiling water, and to drape a towel over your head and drop the toner in and steam your face until the tab stops fizzing. When I did this it irritated my face, perhaps my steam was too hot, I don't know. However you can save the water instead of throwing it out, and keep it in a little spritzer in the fridge for a few days and use it as a regular toner. I kept a little of the water in a small bottle I had and wiped it on my face with a cotton pad after cleansing, and I found this worked much better than steaming for me. It really did help keep my skin clear and balanced.

The final item from my part of the order is Vanilla in the Mist soap.

The first thing I'm going to say about this soap is that it is not as bright yellow as in the picture. It is a much darker, almost dark mustard-y colour.  Vanilla in the Mist is supposed to have a vanilla latte scent to it, which it does. When I first tried this soap on my hands, I couldn't stop smelling my hands for about 20 minutes, they smelled so good. Then after that the scent became too sweet, and I wasn't sure if I liked it. But I decided to give it another shot as a body soap, and I actually really like it. The smell isn't quite as strong on the rest of my body as it is on my hands, and doesn't get overly sweet. It soap is very creamy, and it lathers really well. The only thing I really don't like is that the lather is yellow....as in bright creamy yellow. I find the lather is not as yellow when you cure the soap, and the scent is not quite as strong. I will be repurchasing this soap, but not necessarily right away.

Sea Vegetable

Also with the order they gave 2 samples: Reincarnate solid shampoo, and Sea Vegetable soap.

Reincarnate

 I love Sea Vegetable soap. It has such an amazing scent, like being at the beach. It's got a breezy lime-lavender scent. It's exfoliating as well due to the sea salt on the top, and I actually do love the seaweed that's in it.  I originally wanted to purchase this, but wasn't sure about the lime-lavender scent since I wasn't able to smell it beforehand, so I'm glad that it was one of the samples. I want to go into an actual shop to get this so I can get a huge chunk of it instead of the standard online shop size.

I also tried the Reincarnate, and while it made my hair very shiny, it also dried it out. It is too harsh on my very dry curly hair. The shine it gave was amazing though.

Now for my sister's part of the order. I only used the Lovely Jubblies and it's a really nice lotion, and it does smooth out the skin and moisturize really well. It has a very strong rose scent. I wouldn't call it overpowering, but you definitely know it's there. Because of the strong floral scent, if I were to purchase it for myself, I would probably use it at night. The Karma perfume made the entire box smell like it, and even a couple of the containers absorbed the scent. It didn't get into any of the other products, just scented the outside of the containers. I think it may have leaked a couple drops during shipping. Karma is a very strong scent, too strong for me, but it's very much my sister's kind of scent. The smell is not as overpowering on her as it is from the tube. I haven't smelled/tried Ambrosia shaving lotion, so I don't know how that is, but my sister's Floating Island bath melt smells kinda like incense-y play-dough. I personally don't like the scent.

So that was my LUSH purchase from February. As we speak I am having more LUSH goodies shipped to me :) Again it's a split order. For myself I've ordered Gentle Lentil solid shampoo, Okra conditioner, Aqua Marina cleanser, Imperialis moisturizer, Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar (and a tin to keep it in), Token to the Forest Gods toner/sauna tab and a Geo Phyzz bath bomb. My sister ordered Smell of Freedom perfume, Dragon's Egg bath bomb, Think Pink bath bomb, and Big Blue bath bomb. I will probably review these after I have used them for a few weeks, and perhaps have my sister review hers. There are many many things I wanted to try from LUSH, but I felt the skincare and haircare were more important than bath bombs to me right now.
Hope this review is helpful.