My natural skincare

Good Afternoon my lovely readers, I want to share my minimalistic skincare with you today, any questions, ask away, but i will try to cover all the products here.
So starting from the top left - Sukin facial moisturiser, paraben free, lots of good ingredients in there, I really wanted to like this, and was chuffed to get it in Holland & Barrett, but... it made me break out, and I think that is the alcohol in it, my skin reacts badly to it, so as soon as I saw it in the ingredients list, I knew it will be a problem, and ta-da, the pimple presented itself the next morning.. Still not wanting to give up on it, I tried it a few more times, and the same thing happened. So if you're like me, sensitive skin gurl, proceed with caution as a face cream. i use it as a hands cream just to use it up, and sadly won't be repurchasing. It kinda halted me purchasing anything else from their line, and I know H&B have another face cream and haircare from this company, but I am scared they wouldn't suit me either, and I don't want to waste my money..
(it cost me around 13€ in Holland and Barrett)
Second from the left in the round jar is my own mix of body oil, it's just raw coconut oil and Weleda Stretch Marks body oil (pictured here on the bottom left). It does leave you a bit orange, but I volunteer to be orange, because your skin feels amazing, and with those fabulous natural ingredients the skin will thank you for nourishment. I used to mix coconut oil with Weleda's Sea Buckthorn oil and the smell was divine, but as the price went way up I didn't repurchase it, and looking at the ingredients list I noticed orange essential oil in there, so that was probably why it had smelled so wonderfully, so I should mix in a few drops of orange essential oil too, as I have it as well. (Be careful with citrus essential oils though as they are photosensitive, so do not go out in the sun one hour after applying it). when it comes to body butters, as much as i used to love them, the ingredients in conventional products are horrible to your skin, and even most natural ones have some sort of preservatives in them (you know, so they could keep the stuff on the shop shelves for long time without it going bad). From the natural brands I tried Korres and Pacifica, none were any good, Korres has left white patches on the skin and was very hard to rub into, and Pacifica had long list of ingredients none of which i could understand and had a black marking (meaning it is not natural) and has left my skin drier than before, so I gave it away after a couple of uses. Now, back to my own concoction of body oil - I used good quality coconut oil on my skin for a couple of years now, but from time to time I mix something more luxurious, like my orange mix in this photo, just coconut oil mixed with some other good oil, and you can add essential oils to your liking, I plan to add frankincense since I bought it not too long ago and it's supposed to be superb for the skin, so we will see. The beauty of this recipe is that you can mix and match anything you like, anything you have in the house at that moment. I plan to buy some shea or mango butter and whip it up as I've seen some videos for this on Youtube, so stay tuned :)
The third from the top left is Korres hand cream - amazing! the one I have is with shea butter and organic almond oil, l got it in the set like 2yrs ago, and it is still going strong. Moisturises hands well, not sticky at all, lasts for hours, definitely a favourite and will be for years to come. No other hand cream is coming even close to it.
Now for the bottom row - first is Weleda Stretch Mark Oil which I mentioned already, it does not work on stretch marks, as nothing will make them go away, but it is nice body oil with good ingredients.
Next is Caudalie Divine oil, which is new to my collection, and I don't know how i feel about it yet, I only bought it to try it out of curiosity at a very good price at the sales after Christmas, and I only used it a few times. I read on the beautybible.com that this is natural oil, but with a few non natural ingredients added to make it a dry oil, and you can use it on the face, hair or body. I tried all of it, it does not break out my face, which is good, as for body oil it is nice, but only lasts for a day (in comparison to my coconut oil, which you can feel for days afterwards), so l will probably save this to use as a hair oil to tame flyaways. Smells nice, nothing "divine" as advertised, so l don't know if it will be a repurchase or not, too early to say.
Next is Liz Earle Superskin Bust And Neck Treatment with naturally active ingredients, and let me tell you, this stuff is a miracle in the bottle! Liz Earle know her stuff, and as I was so sceptical about it, my girls are in a bad way after breastfeeding two kids, so l had no hopes when I received this product, but oh my god, it worked! While nothing will lift the bust, it made my skin soft and supple , and by some miracle smoothed the cracks in skin, aka the strech marks! i am so in love with this product, and use it sparingly, as it costs an arm and a leg- but you knew i will say that, right?
And the last product in the dark spray bottle is my cheapy secret wonder product, the orange blossom water, I use it instead of a tonic and to cool down the skin after sunbathing. The best part is, I get it from Asian shop for around €1.5 for 330ml, so takes ages to finish, and it doubles as a make up remover, even for the mascara!

So that is all for now, stay tuned for more skincare and haircare posts very soon :)

Have a nice day!
Renata.

Lenny Forever

Lenny Forever by sleepy-head-zzzz featuring Burberry

Hey

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Natural And Mineral Dupes for Nars Orgasm

 

Update: you might want to check my updated post where I list nearly twenty natural Nars Orgasm dupes here.

Hello hello again :) Today I am coming at you with a vegan and natural alternatives to Nars Orgasm blush, personally for me that was the hardest thing to find and replace, so l want to help the fellow girls in the same situation. You're most welcome :) I will include reviews for these blushes all the same.

So, the first dupe is PurMinerals Polynesian Pink. It looks almost exactly the same as you can see in the photo (the silver packaging, the one in the bottom left), has ever so slightly less golden shimmer to it, but on the cheeks it looks the same. It performs the same too, same texture, holds all day and looks awesome, you're guaranteed to get compliments when wearing this! Found on Amazon and Marks & Spencers.

The second close dupe is Inika Peachy Keen (bottom right) which was recommended to me by Sims Natural Choices - thanks girl! but as you can see in the photo, it is way more orange and has a lot more shimmer too. Let me tell you the blush is highly pigmented, so don't do what I did and don't stick your finger in it and try to apply this way, way too much colour and you will sparkle for the rest of the day. You only need a tiny amount of this, and I ended up layering it with some other blushes to tone it down. The other issue is lasting power, I feel it's gone after 3 hours, and as it is loose powder, it is not portable, so there.. I do enjoy it having in my collection, and as Inika is such a clean brand and has only great reviews, I plan to try more of their products, the experience with this blush hasn't put me off. I got mine in lovelula.com - great website I really recommend, great customer service, you get points for shopping there and a free shipping worldwide, what more could you ask for?

So, have you tried any of these blushes? Or you know more good dupes that I don't know about? Share below! 

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Have a nice day!

Renata..

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Expanding my mineral/natural makeup collection

(and first impressions Pur Minerals review)

So, if you read my previous post, you know I have much love for TK Maxx beauty section, so the first chance i got I was all over there again and I got some more goodies as you can see from the photos! The fact it's all purminerals is a coincidence, as you all know, you get what you see on the shelves at that time in TK Maxx and there's not much chance you will be able to repurchase product you liked either. So here are my first impression reviews. The set you see in the second photo was €17 and it came with mini lip gloss, highlighter and bronzer. All products I liked, the bronzer is very concentrated so you need a light hand with it, and it is matte, which is good, so many other other bronzers on the market have shimmer in them, and in my humble opinion no one wants to sparkle like a Christmas tree in the daytime, right? The lip gloss smells like honey and does it's job, the gold shade is universal and flatters most if not all skin tones, so there's not much else to say about this product. The highlighter has bronzy feel to it with gold undertones, and again, it is very concentrated, so use it lightly. I feel these products will last me a good while even though the sizes are small. The only downside is that the bronzer has dimeticone in it, and the highlighter has alcohol, not a fan of these ingredients in my make up or skincare, so don't be rushing to buy like I did and read the ingredients before, not at home.. Lesson learned. The 4-in-1 mineral foundation (seen at the bottom of second photo) I am testing today, so far so good. 4 in 1 is a generous claim and I was a bit sceptical about it, but the coverage is rather good i would say, evened out my skintone nicely except for my dark under eye circles or my hyperpigmentation (lovely combo I have, I know) which needed something more strong than that. A few hours in my skin looks the same, not settling in the fine lines, no emphasising pores, nothing like that. So I like it, way better than some of my mineral foundations! (For mineral make up fails, stay tuned for my next post)

The lip loss in the first photo above is really nice as well, so happy to have two new lip glosses that are more natural and perform the same as conventional ones. The mascara I am super happy about, miles and miles better than my Dr.Hauschka one, it gives lots of volume and length, so so happy I found it, and I plan to purchase it at a full price if needed! This could be my holy grail mascara, but we will see, I plan to test Origins and Bare Mineral ones to compare, so stay tuned :)

I saved the best for the last, which is the blush in Polynesian Pink, it is a close dupe for Nars Orgasm, so if you were looking for vegan/mineral replacement, you're welcome :) 

I also own Inika's Peachy Keen, which was recommended to me by Sim from youtube (Sim's Natural Choices), I like it, but with some small issues, i feel it's idea for my next blog post, so stay tuned for that as well :)

If you want me to do a follow up review a few weeks down the line for all these products, let me know! I would love to hear from you, please tell me if you tried any Pur Minerals products and which are your faves and why, please share them with me :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

(all products were purchased with my own money and all opinions are my own)

Lots of LOVE,

Renata.  

Happy New Year and Bare Minerals and Bellapierre reviews

 

Happy New Year and Happy New Purchases

Hello, how it is going everybody? Hope you all are having a great 2015 so far! What are your new year resolutions? And have you abandoned them already? :) I didn't make any this year because I never keep them, but one thing I want to do is to transition my family to more vegetarian/vegan diet, just wish I wouldn't be met with so much resistance.. My hubby always tells me the meat is the best vegetable :( Having watched a few movies about food which force you to think, I feel we would all benefit eating no or meat and dairy, because the way these are farmed is horrendous and gives you so many diseases, including cancer. This is one of my favourite topics and I can talk about it for hours, but don't want to start my new year's post on such a heavy notes, so all I will say please watch "Fork over knives" and "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead".

On the lighter and more fun note, let's talk shopping! Mineral make up shopping to be exact, so if you are interested in natural make up, read on :) From the pictures above you can see my purchases, Bare Minerals and Bellapierre sets, both came from TKMaxx.It's beauty section is my new favourite shopping spot, and I would recommend it to anyone! The prices are so much cheaper than in the shops, the products are good, not expired or anything, I don't know how TKMaxx does it, but so glad they do it. All my favourite purchases came from them in the lat year as well, Melvita organic facial serum, Korres serum, Sibu sea buckthorn oil and mask, pur minerals lip gloss and blush, the list goes on! (there are a few cons, the colour palette isn't great, you get what you can find at that time and you're never guaranteed to find the same thing again). I am extremely pleased with these sets, and let me tell you more in detail about each product.

Bare Minerals set came with full size foundation, veil powder, concealer and all over face shimmer, plus two brushes, the concealer brush and flawless face brush. Concealer brush is rather good, packs just the right amount of products and it's easy to blend. The flawless face brush, not so much. it is itchy and scratchy, not good for anything in my mind, it is not dense enough to give you full coverage, and the shape is odd too, l much prefer kabuki brushes or Real Techniques expert face brush if l am after full coverage. I am sure some of you will love this brush, but having find out it is made of goats hair (wtf, BareMinerals? you promote natural and mineral make up, and some of your brushes are made from animal hair?) and the fact it is scratchy and sheds like crazy after two uses, it's a no-go.

The foundation is lovely, gives a good coverage if you use a dense brush, or light coverage if you use kabuki, covers redness, broken capillaries, dark circles and most of the blemishes. Concealer is my first mineral concealer, so I've nothing to compare it to yet, but I do sort of like it, just it does not fully cover my dark under eye circles.. lasts good amount of time though, and covers small imperfections on the face rather beautifully. I didn't see much of a point of a veil until I tried it, my thinking was - why cover powder with a powder? but it really does work, minimising pores and giving you that glow that everybody is after :) So glad it came in this set, because I would have never picked up otherwise. Oh, and the set was 27€!! Crazy, right? Foundation alone costs €42 in their outlets. What can I say? Go stalk your local TKMaxx now! :)

Bellapierre sets I was seeing in TKMaxx for a good while now, almost picked up once or twice, but told myself to research ingredients and reviews first (I always do that now, long gone are the days I bought something without researching it like crazy woman). What helped to make my mind up was finding these products on lovelula.com website (I love that website, and I know they do research company & products extensively before accepting them, and their standards are high!), so I thought to myself if it's good for them, it's good for me too :) I am on lookout for more products from them, can never find it now that I want it now, sod's law.. Anyways, back to the product - the set contains full size mineral blush, mini bronzer and a cream product for lips and cheeks, plus a kabuki brush. Very good value at €17, you wouldn't even get a brush in other shop for that amount of money, right? Speaking of a brush, this kabuki is beautiful, applies product sheer, so I use it for a bronzer or blush. Of course you can use it for a face too, but for my foundations I like dense brush to get more coverage. The lip and cheek stain is nice shade, works on so many skin tones, I love it for my cheeks, not so much for my lips though, as it is not creamy enough for my chapped lips, but if you happen to have beautiful soft pout, be my guest. Last all day, which is a good thing.

Blush has shimmer in it, and it is a gorgeous bronzy shade, which is perfect for me right now, as this effect I am after right now. for my pale skin it can be a bronzer too, I used it this way a couple of times. The actual bronzer in this set is far too light and shimmery to be taken seriously, so I use it as a highlighter or an eyeshadow. It is lighter in shade than a blush, how can it be a bronzer for god's sake? l had to have a double look as I was convinced it's a mix up. Anyways, all of these products are amazing nice minimal ingredients, nice colours, last all day, what more could you want? It's a yes from me :)

I really hope you found these reviews helpful, and I encourage you to try mineral make up if you haven't already, it is so much better for you. Tell me below if you own and love any products mentioned, I would love to hear from you! Thanks for reading and have a lovely day.

Best wishes,

Renata.