Brief thoughts on four lipbalms I've finished recently.

I don't much like my eyes (which are far too small, even for a Chinese person. *sadface*), so I often try to direct attention to the lower part of my face, instead. And that's why I absolutely love lipglosses and lipbalms, because they fulfil this role so well! [example of me parading my cheeky pout].

Inevitably, due to my predilection for coating my lips in the stuff, I finished four small tubs of lipbalm recently, so here be brief thoughts and grades for each of them: 

Soap & Glory Smooch Operator

I very much have a love/hate relationship with S&G products. When they strive for excellence, their products are better in their field than any of their competitors. When they phone it in, the outcome is bottom of the barrel. This lipbalm, which I got given last April for my birthday and I love so much I only use on nights out and when I'm seeing friends, falls very much in the former camp.

Its ingredients of wild mango butter, vitamin E oil and sweet almond and shea butters make for a lipbalm that is quite sturdy in consistency in the pot, but rubs easily across your lips, and moisturises them very fulfillingly. The feeling of moisture sustains longer than most other lipbalms, and it has an ace smell to go with it. A.

Body Shop Born Lippy - passionberry and strawberry flavours

These lipbalms are softer in texture than the Smooch Operator, and moisturise your lips for slightly less time, so you have to apply it on more frequently. Whereas the Smooch Operator was used purely for social occasions, the two Body Shop ones, had more day-to-day applications.

My feelings about this vary by the two flavours; the strawberry one tasted and smelt too artificial, whereas the passionberry one smelt lush, so much so that it's a nice item to have in your bag just to smell now and then, even if you aren't going to use it.

Pasisionberry: A

Strawberry: C

Vaseline rosy lips: Rose and Almond Oil

Due to its slightly more oily texture and clear(ish) colour, the Vaseline Petroleum jelly is a more versatile product than the other three, which due to their sturdiness (Smooch Operator), or their bright colour (the Body Shop items) can only be used for lipbalms and lipbalms only. The Petroleum jelly can also be used for hand cream, or general moisturiser for parts of the face that are dry.

My only quibble is the smell; whilst not as sickly as the strawberry Body Shop lipbalm, too much of the rose smell gave me a faint headache. I'm currently using the Vaseline Aloe Vera product, which has a more natural smell, and I much favour. B+.

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For the rest of my thoughts on fashion/make-up products, click here. If you would like me to review one of your products, or to place a sponsored post on my blog, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com

Product reviews: BLUEBERRY BODY BUTTER AND PEACH BODY SCRUB (The Body Shop)

Post-Christmas sales, I treatment myself to two Body Shop items to make my daily showering routine a teensy bit more exciting. They were the blueberry butter and the peach body scrub, pictured below, both 200ml in quantity.

One aspect of both products that I can't fault is the design of the containers. I love the colours and the simplistic use of just one fruit on the front. After I've finished the products, I'mma keep the containers to store my jewellery!

Soap and Glory Sugar Crush Review.

After the Soap and Glory Thick and Fast mascara leaving me most unimpressed, the brand had saving to do with its Sugar Crush body scrub.

 

Compared to the Soap and Glory Flake Away, Sugar Crush is much more comfortable. The former was borderline painful on application, whereas the sugar granules of Sugar Crush are altogether finer and softer, and thus, take to the skin much better.

 

In terms of functionality, however, the Flake Away has Sugar Crush beat. Flake Away not only left my skin feeling totally smooth, but shiny, too. Sugar Crush doesn't really do either, and I'm entirely convinced it washes away dead cells either. Granted, it leaves my legs smelling sweeter and more ready for moisturising, but therein lies the problem: with Flake Away, I could often use that product in isolation, and my legs were ready to be bared. With Sugar Crush, it's imperative that I apply oil/moisturiser on my legs after usage, otherwise my legs still aren't quite presentation ready.

 

Thus, if I were to purchase another Soap and Glory body scrub, I'd definitely opt for Flake Away. However, having used both and neither being just quite right for me, the next time I buy body scrub, I reckon I'll explore options from another brand altogether.

Grade: C

Soap and Glory's Thick & Fast Mascara Review.

My eyes are small, bordering on non-existant. Usually in photos, I'm able to disguise this by hiding them behind sunglasses. However, this isn't really an option for graduation (or at least, I'd bloody hope not; imagine how bizarre I'd look strutting up on stage to accept my certificate in a pair of shades), so I've had to resort to more conventional eye-opening tricks of the trade. The standard one, of course, is mascara, but my success with the sooty-eyed-eyelash-lengthener has left me a state resembling the bear of my homeland in the past, so it was no surprise that I approached this product with trepidation.

 

Relatively inexperienced with mascara I may be, but even I knew enough about them to realise that this was a complete dud of a product. As aforementioned, my eyes & eyelashes are already woefully short, so you could argue that this product doesn't have a whole lot to worth it. But them, the counter argument is, as my eyelashes are so short, you would think any impact, however small, would be noticeable.

 

 

 

Well, the only real impact this item made on my eyelashes were that they made each individual hair stick together, which was definitely not what I was going for. The formula was extremely, extremely clumpy and came out in solid clots. Furthermore, its longevity was equally woeful. I tried this one, then stayed in my bedroom and red a chapter of a book, and then inspected my eyes, by the time which I noticed that what infinitesimal difference it made previously had worn off, leaving black marks under my eyelids instead. Definitely not the effect I was after.

 

I won't even go into the side effects of how application of this mascara made my eyes water, and various other horror stories it incurred. I'm a big fan of Soap and Glory skincare items, so thought it was a safe bet to pay £10 on this mascara. As it turned out, I was conned by the name and the pretty packaging; money down the drain. Never again.

 

Grade: F

Having recently rebranded this site as a lifestyle blog a couple of weeks back, I’m going to share a few reviews of items that I use in my “lifestyle”.

When it comes to beauty products, I am one of the most low-maintenance. I’ve never fake tanned, dyed my hair, and the only make-up I wear on nights out is lipstick/lipgloss to bring out my mouth a bit (my eyes are a lost cause, they are far too small for even make-up to salvage, so I abandon the top half of my face entirely and try to focus on the lower). But, moisturiser is one of my most relied up weapons in my arsenal, and I moisturise once in the morning and once before going to bed at night. The need to ~shine up~ extends to the legs (or such was the intention, but the weather in Britain this summer didn’t really allow for any occasions to get one’s legs out in the first place). Therefore, on Boots’ 3-fo-2 deals on Soap and Glory products, I picked myself up two beauty products for the legs – one to smoothen them during a shower and the other to apply after they’ve been smoothed, as well as my favourite kind of make-up around, lipgloss.

The lipgloss, at £9, is by far the most I’ve ever spent on a cosmetic item, but I considered it worthwhile immediately. When you apply it, your lips experience a kind of “fuzzing” sensation, and honest to god and not at all any kind of placebo effect, my lips genuinely swelled as a result of them! Now, for someone who idolises Lana del Rey and her luscious lips, this made the lipgloss an automatic win, but the scent, the shimmer the gloss gave to my lips and the general aura of sexiness the product brought to my face meant that it sat head and shoulders above all my other lipglosses.

My memory of the prices of the other two products for the legs are, but knowing me and my borderline annoying obsession with counting the pennies, they would have been £9, give or take two or three quid, due to the nature of the 3-for-2 deal (that is, I would not have considered it mathematically or economically sound to get one or two things that was drastically cheaper or more expensive than the third, as that wouldn't bve making the most of the offer.) In terms of use, the Flake Away tub goes first: I apply it in the two or so minutes that I don't have the shoerhead running when I'm waiting for my hair conditioner to set in. You take a mall chunk and basically spread it across your legs. The texture of the product means that it scrubs away any dead skin and leaves your legs completely smooth. The act of scrubbing isn't totally comfortable, but it doesn't hurt either, and as any young woman who looks after her looks will attest to, no pain no gain. And then, after all this is done, you shake the nozzle of the Glistener, apply in small patches across your legs, et viola, perfectly smooth skin!

The only flaw in all three of these products would be thus: 1) the lipgloss - I got drunk and lost the damn thing. ;____; I was heartbroken! 2) the Flake Away scrub - the initial discomfort of using it, and 3) the Glistener - it has too much glitter and sparkle on it, sparkle which very easily transfers itself to the rest of your body (say you use your hands to rub it in, then casually run your hands through your hair. The glitter will somehow find its way onto your forehead). But aside from that, they are all wonderful products, with a great fragrance, easy to use for the make up n00b, and do their jobs wonderfully.

Lipgloss: A+
Flake Away: A-
Glistener: B+/A-

Soap & Glory skincare products.

 I’m usually a stickler for routine in the skincare stakes, and live by Nivea soft moisturiser, which has served me loyally since I was about thirteen and as a result I have never once had so much as a blackhead. It is a simple, inexpensive skincare product that does everything that it says on the tin. However, now that I am a little order than thirteen and have the niggling issue of wrinkles to worry about, I needed to find a skincare product that not only did everything Nivea soft did, but worked hard to fight those signs of aging. And that’s where Soap & Glory, of which I already own their lipgloss (Sexy Mother Pucker – it’s my favourite lipgloss that I own) products came in.

I bought three products, one for the night time (Night Cream), and two for the day – the 6-in-1 cream as well as the Instant Radiance Energy Balm. I keep the latter in my handbag as it’s more travel friendly, and use the former every morning after I’ve washed my face.

The night cream has worked a treat; each morning when I wake up my skin feels smooth and nourished. I require less of it to cover my face than I did of the Nivea soft moisturiser due to the thickness of the cream, meaning that, whilst the container seems quite small, it has a very long life length (I bought the product back in April and am less than a quarter of the way through it now.) Indeed, used sparingly is the most effective way of applying the Night cream moisturiser as it is so good it doesn’t require massive dollops to work its magic.

The two moisturisers for the day are slightly more watery in consistency, and markedly less effective than the night cream. Due to the more liquidy content, they feel quite useless, and the 6-in-1 cream in particular has a has a close to nil effect on my skin, certainly nothing positive.


So a mixed bag, the night cream was a treat but the other two not only smelt poor but didn't do anything as moisturiser.