Lush Empties.

So for the past few weeks I've been using up most of my Lush products (mainly to recycle my black pots and get my free face mask) and most of my samples I was given with my purchases. I didn't actually get a chance to get photos of my pots of large products before I took them back so I'll go through my samples and then list my large products. You can review and purchase all these products on the Lush website.

1. Handy Gurugu Hand and Foot Lotion - I had a sample size of this given to me during one of my transactions and I LOVE it. Its actually listed on the pot as a hand lotion but can also be used for feet. It is a rich butter cream texture that has a gorgeous smell of Almonds and Lemon, which is really fresh.After wearing a brand new pair of shoes and having the awful 'wear in' marks on my feet (not to mention HUGE pain) I used a little bit of this on my bunions and the backs of my feet where you get horrible blisters from new shoes, rubbed it in and the next day my feet were all fresh and not in pain anymore. Not to mention soft as well. This product is a bit on the more expensive size at £7.50 for 100G but I think its actually quite worth the money, Its something I will invest in in the future.

2. Celestial Face Moisturizer - Another sample size but with this I was actually really disappointed. This is the first product from Lush that I would not touch at all. Its not a very thick cream but as soon as it goes onto the skin it feels heavy and doesn't melt into the skin at all. Its really not a very nice product to deal with, for me. It states that its a sensitive skin moisturizer that helps to stop inflammation in the skin. I don't really have much else to say about this product except it wasn't right for my skin. I did buy the full size product without realizing it wasn't that good for my skin and was a little disappointed, however they did let me return it as I wasn't happy and purchased Vanishing Cream which I love, so it all worked out good. Its £11.75 for 45G which again is a little on the expensive side but the actual one I use is more expensive but I love that one so its a good investment, a little of the product goes a long way too.

3. Ultrabland Cleanser - Not much to say about this as I have raved about this product before, this is my go to cleanser to rid my face of all my makeup and dirt. Its just a holy grail product and I will not to purchasing this, I am already on my 2nd pot of full sized product and I love it. Couldn't live without it. They have actually put the price up on this so it is now £6.25 for 45G or £10.75 for 100G, next time I will be buying the larger sized product as it seems like a lot better value for money doubling the size of the product for £4.50 more. I would recommend this product to everybody.

4. American Cream Conditioner - This product smelt AMAZING when I put it on my hair and really did make my hair feel lovely and soft but sadly, the small pot literally gave me one use so I'm really not sure if its something I would invest in and I know i'd have to use a lot of the product thus it not lasting me as long as it should. It states its a strawberry and vanilla scent but I'd say it was a lot more on the vanilla side of the spectrum. It really is a lovely product to use, its very watery in consistency (even though it states its a thick conditioner, maybe I had a watery batch) but it allows you to really massage it into your hair, which helps when you have dried ends due to bleaching like I do. I loved it for the once use I got from it and I'd maybe think about buying it again. At £4.45 for 100G I don't think it would last me very long but then I'm not sure if £14.25 for 500G is an acceptable amount of money to pay for this product. I'm 50-50 on repurchasing.

5. Skin's Shangri La Moisturizer - This product, well i can't really comment on it. I was given a sample and knowing how expensive it is (£27.50 for 45G) I thought i'd save it for a special occasion to see if it bad my skin nice and soft so that my makeup would glide on, big mistake it would seem. I was sorting my room yesterday and found it, opened it up and was extremely sad, It has hardened and formed a film over the moisturizer which has utterly destroyed the product. Now I had the packaging all screwed up tight like you would and I really don't know whats happened to it. I would not purchase this as 1. I don't even know how it feels/works and 2. If it did this would a full sized pot I would be very unhappy.

Now these are only my opinions so don't fully base your purchases and choices on this, feel free to go into the shop and ask for samples of products you wish to try, they will happily hand them over to you. Thankyou for reading and if you have any opposite opinions on the products I didn't like that you think I should give them another shot then please just comment and I'll get back to you.

Payday Purchases and Sample Haul.

So yet again Wednesday is my favorite day, its payday! I had to go shopping for a few beauty products of course and I walked straight into the doors of Lush, addicted a little. I've been raving about their products lately as they have dramatically improved my skin so I wanted to go back and get a few more things, for my hair and for my skin but I didn't get as much as I'd have wanted, I have said some cash for Tuesday as then I know whatever is left, I can spend on more. As of lately I have also somehow managed to get quite a few samples, some asked for, some gifted to me from the lovely Clarins ladies in the mall and some just gave to me. So without further or do here goes!

So the first thing on my list to buy at Lush was some new hair conditioner. I have been using the Jungle bar and as much as I love it I feel like it isn't giving me quite enough condition. Like I said i'm not sure if this is me being used to heavy conditioners as the 'norm' or if the bar really isn't that good so I thought if I gave another one a try and it was too much I could just use it as a treatment and continue using Jungle. I had a small look over the website to see what reviews people had wrote about certain ones and the one that seemed to top trump them all was Retread. It is a conditioner that is described as a 'heavy weight conditioner that is full of ingredients to fuel your hair up again and get it back out on the road.' It is pretty much exactly that. It is a VERY heavy conditioner (I feel a little too heavy for me) that left my hair feeling very conditioned but when I woke up in the morning it had a slight greasy texture to my hair and it was quite hard to style. I'm not sure if I used maybe too much but it does state you should apply loads to hair and leave it on. I think this is going to be much more of a treatment I may use in the week once and just use less of it for my hair. It was £9.50 for 245g which is quite a set back for a conditioner but bearing in mind I used a little too much, I think it will last me a fair few weeks. 

The next product I wanted to buy was a moisturizer as my skin was doing amazing with my facial products so far but I wanted a light base to go under my makeup and keep me feeling soft and keep my makeup looking fresh. I did ask the sales assistant about this the day before I purchased it and she gave me a sample of Celestial and Skin’s Shangri La. I tried the Celestial the morning of payday and have to admit my skin did feel quite nice and my makeup stayed on for most of the day. At £11.50 for 45g it is one of the cheaper moisturizers that Lush do, considering the other sample I was given was £27.50 for 45g I think its not a bad price. Anyways I have only used my sample up, I'm yet to give the big pot a go but my skin does feel quite soft when I use this and you do have to apply it in upwards motions I guess to encourage circulation in the skin. I will keep giving this a go and report back in a week or so about it.

The last little thing I bought at Lush was a Shampoo bar tin, my GoDiva bar had no storage and I felt a little bit sad about it. The tin is perfect and keeps the shampoo bar out of the way and dry, however it is a bugger to open and close. That's really all I can say about the tin, its pretty much a bulk standard storage metal tin but its from Lush and the shampoo bar fits in so I had to have it.

I went to Superdrug in the hope they had restocked the Accessorize pallete that I wanted and THEY DID. I was so excited to purchase this, its still on offer from £8.95 to £5.95 and its so pretty. They all look like little jewels. I have used three of the colours for a work shift and they looked lovely to begin with but sadly did fade a little quicker than I liked but I don't usually build them up a lot so that may have been my problem. I will see how it goes and let you know. The pigmentation of them though is lovely.

Anyways onto the sample haul. I seem to have aquired lots of samples over the past few months and I am determined to use them all and report back to see if they are purchase worthy. The first 3 I have are some from Body Shop that I aquired whilst working at La Senza. These samples are Strawberry Body Butter (full size retails for £12.50 but is on a 50% off promotion currently), Ginger Body Scrub (full size retails for £3 in the sale) and Spiced Vanilla Shower Gel (full size retails for £2 in the sale) These samples were given to me around the December ish time so I think the last two samples are older products as they do feature on the website's current sale. 

I also managed to get two more samples from Lush, after the success of having Ultrabland's sample and LOVING the product I thought this would be the best way to try a product before I spent a lot of money on them. If you ask nicely and just say your unsure, they do usually offer but if not just out right ask them nicely and they won't be rude about it. I got the Celestial moisturizer and the Skin’s Shangri La. Celestrial is £11.50 for 45g and the Skin’s Shangri La is £27.50 for 45g also. I have actually repurchased Celestrial but I have not tried the other one just yet, I'm saving it for a special occasion in the hope its AMAZING and will really condition my face.

The next samples I have are from Clarins. Now I have NEVER tried Clarins but a lot of you beauty bloggers rave about their products so I am very much looking forward to giving these a try. The ones I have been given are the Daily Energizer Cleansing Gel (full size retails between £10-£12), Gentle Night Cream (full size retails between £28-£30) and Pure Melt Cleansing Gel (full size retails between £10-£15). I'm not sure how these products will fair but I will give them a good old try and let you girls know.

The last sample I was given yesterday was from some Nivea scouts, they gave me two Nivea Soft samples which have been released in new packaging to promote them to fashion worthy people. The full size pot retails for about £4-£7 but i'm not sure about the new packaging ones. They may be on a promotion or something but I will give this a little test and will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading, not sure if that was really any interest to any of you but let me know if you want to know anymore about these products or want to just leave some feedback about featured products in this post. Thankyou!

Lush Facial Skincare.

(All images used from the Lush website - www.lush.co.uk)

Now I am a girl who will hunt and hunt for a good face product, thinking I had find a few sound products such as my 3in1 Neutrogena Facial Toner and Simple's Eyemakeup Remover. But nothing could have prepared me for the WOW factor I have had from giving Lush's skincare a go. I am converted. I have not touched one of my other facial products in over a week. This has come from using Lush's Ultrabland Cleanser and Lush's Catastrophe Cosmetic Fresh Facemask. Seriously I have used both these products together now for about 5 days roughly and I have such good skin, its amazing. I haven't had hardly any spots, no blemishes and my makeup glides on like a dream!  I used to love walking into Lush when I was little and being overpowered by the amazing smells and sites in there. Now its caught back up with me in my older years and I am so glad I have reinvested in this company. It has inspired me to be more natural with my products and just to be more careful with my skin and my hair. 

The shampoo and conditioner bars that I also bought have been a dream, more the shampoo than the conditioner. My hair feels squeaky clean without it being overly abused and has never been this soft and manageable ever, considering the underside has been bleached and dyed twice this is amazing. I sometimes don't even need to straighten my hair, that's hardly ever happened. 

I will be going back to purchase loads more of their facial products and will even test out a few skin and bath products too. I know I want to go back and try a moisturizer, I may ask for a sample as last time I did (I got the UltraBland cleanser) I had to go back and buy the bigger pot. I'm thinking maybe the SkinDrink moisturizer or the Celestial moisturizer. I also would be quite interested in trying their Color Supplements in the Jackie Oates which can be used as a tinted moisturizer if you mix it with your daily moisturizer or as a pure foundation if you use the color supplement straight. I also would like to either repurchase the Catastrophe Cosmetic facemask or try a new one and go with the Cupcake one which smells and looks like chocolate, YUMMY. 

Anyways this was just a quick post to say how amazing the products that I have already purchased are and how I will be buying a lot more in the future so keep an eye out for more of me big up Lush and I will do some reviews soon. If you'd like to know anymore on the products I have used (GoDiva Shampoo bar, Jungle Conditioner bar, UltraBland Cleanser, Catastrophe Cosmetic facemask) then please feel free to leave a question and I'll get straight back to you!