Instagram update

Hey guys, I know I know I say this ALL the time but sorry i've not posted in a while. Literally feel like I never get any time to do anything but work lately. I've not had the best start to 2014 if I'm honest but thats another story for another day. Anyways, a quick and easy post for you all is just a quick look at my instagram! Again, it should be linked somewhere on here but if not just search for 'cocomariedavis'. Thanks for sticking with the blog guys, I know a few of you have departed but I'm still proud of the followers I do have and I will hopefully be getting a lot more content up for you guys soon. I am getting my new camera, Canon 600D for my birthday and am looking to set up a little home in a few months with my amazing boyfriend which is all exciting. At that point I will get my own computer set up and then I can blog and maybe even youtube? I'm wondering if vlogging will be a bit easier to do and then edit in due time. But either way guys, thanks for your patience and for sticking with me!

My week in Instagram.

1. Friday night booze and treats - 2. Swatches of Kate Moss Lipsticks (the red was 22 and the 2nd pink was 05) - 3. Fire evacuation at work - 4. Girl crush Ellie Goulding - 5. Being silly and messing about with hair applications, want to go dark ash blonde. - 6. Me and the man beef Ashley. - 7. Koppaberg and a snuggle with my new primark blanket. - 8. Beautiful sandwich for lunch. - 9. Foreo discount code for Luna products! - 10.Bath time. - 11. Feeling homer's pain. - 12. Makeup free and filter free thanks to my Luna Mini. - 13. Current Skincare routinue. - 14. Chocolate truffle freshly dyed hair and 15. The dye I used!

Luna Mini Review - After Week One.

(Excuse the lack of exciting photo's, my camera is currently not working so all these are via my Samsung S3 and Instagram!)

As a beauty blogger, I regularly read about brand new products people are loving and are their 'holy grail' products - things they can't live without. One of the most known items to appear on mostly all of my subscribed bloggers and youtubers was a Clarisonic, a few different versions would pop up every now and again but it was always rated very highly and well, I wanted one for myself after seeing my favourite faces raving about it every month. 

 After my boyfriend questioning me about my Christmas wishlist, I was just about to add a Clarisonic on there, that was until I got received this very exciting email from Bzz about this new 'Luna Mini' product. I had never heard of it but was very wise on the whole powered face cleaning devices. After seeing it was very heavily discounted (£27.70 - with P+P instead of RRP £99.00) I wanted in. I was very happy to have booked myself a place on the campaign and there was an added extra bonus when I got to choose a colour I wanted - I chose the bright Magenta colour as I love bright coloured accessories. Literally 2 days later, my mum text me whilst I was at work to say it had already arrived, before the campaign had even started on Bzz, the first time this has happened for me. I couldn't wait to get home and rip open the box and use my new fancy product. I was worried about fitting it into my skincare routine as I thought it might need specialised products or it would be a pain to use but WOW - it's so easy to use and it will fit into anyone's routine. 

All you have to do is make sure you remove your make-up (I just use my Body Shop Camomile butter to do this with a hot flannel) lather up my face with my favourite cleanser or cleanser of choice that day (it's great because they don't try and sell you extra products - you can use anything with it but it does recommend you avoid scrubs and clay products to avoid damaging the silcone knobbles) and switch on the device with the central button. There are two speeds to the Luna Mini that are both accessed via the central button, you press once for the normal cleansing speed for the whole of your face and press again for the lower speed which is suitable for under eyes and I use this also on my nose. I originally for the first few days got a bit excited and used the back side of the Luna Mini. (There are 3 small sections on the brush. The front consists of mainly small knobbles and a few larger ones at the top suitable for normal everyday cleaning and the back is just larger knobbles which on the online manual suggest for deeper cleaning) Whilst getting over excited and using the back side for deeper cleaning twice a day for three days I actually hurt my skin a little and over cleansed. This just meant my skin was a little sore and putting on face masks and such stung a little. I changed back to the general cleaning for the next 4 days and the soreness disappeared. I am now just over a week of a Luna Mini user and I have to say, I don't know what I would do without it. 

My skin is baby soft, spots are disappearing, it is bringing out spots in places I didn't even know I could get spots in but this is due to the deep cleaning it is doing with the T sonic pulsations. BUT this is good in the long run as it brings them out to be cleaned away so they only last for around a day and aren't sore and can be easily covered with a bit of Mac and concealer. My skin is physically glowing - colleagues and friends are asking what highlighters or make-up products I am using and nothing has changed, just the Luna Mini is making my skin glow and look brighter and healthier. I have to say this is the best invention every and I am soooooooo happy Bzz gave me the chance to have this product. I love it and I am a total convert. 

When eventually my Luna Mini does become damaged (this will be a long long time away) and it falls out of my warranty, I would happily pay £99 to replace this. You have to try this if you haven't already, skincare addict is now addicted to a new product.

 P.S - It also allows your products to work better! So no more fancy products are needed, your simple skincare works 10 x better. Also on the mention of products the current cleanser I am using with this is the Balance Me Pure Skin Face Wash which smells amazing and is nearly all natural! I also have 35% off discount codes for anyone who wants to purchase a Luna Mini or any of the Luna range from Foreo. (below)

 

 ******PRO'S*******

 - Skin is glowing

 - Skin is softer 

- Helps with acne and spots 

- Is amazing hygenic 

- Only needs charging once and it is able to be used 300 times! 

- Travel friendly - Sleek and beautiful in colour and size

 - Kind to skin 

- Different speeds for different sections of the face 

- Pulsates when you need to move onto the next section of the face

 *********CON'S**********

 - Would've been nice to come with a little carry case for travel maybe made from material or something 

- Would've been nice to come with a better manual, comes with basic instructions but there is a manual online that the user can print off 

-The RRP is a little unattractive to new buyers but trust me - it's worth it. 

I will review again in a few weeks time, maybe around the 6 week mark to see how much more my skin has improved if it does and how I am finding it as a long term product. Stay tuned!!

Check out my instagram 'cocomariedavis'

beautybylucky xox

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!