Review // Argan Dew - Argan Oil Hair Mask // Daily Hair Treatment

Argan oil, also known as the Moroccan Liquid gold is used mainly for hair but pure argan oil can be a miracle for your skin too. I was sent samples by Argan Dew to try their daily hair treatment and their replenishing hair mask, and who says no to a chance of frizz free hair? 

Daily Hair Treatment - I used this oil on my hair when its dry (or damp from out the shower) in attempt to  tame my oh so frizzy ends. After bleaching and dyeing the ends of my hair its been left straw-like ever since, believe me I've tried every hair treatment going. This certainly did the job at taming and adding shine to my locks, just what i need! With this oil, a little goes a long way to smoothing your ends. It didn't make my hair feel greasy and kept the frizz under control, so i would say its perfect for thick, frizzy or dry hair. I wouldn't recommend it on fine hair as it would only weigh it down.  

Replenishing Hair Mask - If your hair is colour damaged or really dry, this stuff will be your savior. This mask you use on wet hair, so i just replaced my usual conditioner for this. However, use it liberally, i made the mistake of smothering it all over my hair and ending up with hair that resembled a chip fryer. Not a good look. Regardless of that, when i used it properly again it made my hair so silky smooth and feeling so nourished. I wouldn't recommend this one at all for normal/greasy hair, it would only make it greasier, unless you're into that sort of look, each to their own of course.  I would buy both of these at full size without a doubt as they're perfect for taming my hair, new fave? I think so! 

Leave a comment and let me know your favorite hair treatments.

Amber x

*Disclaimer - These samples were sent to me by Argan dew to review, however my review is completely honest. 

Review // Nuxe Reve de Miel

After reading so many positive reviews, I decided to buy the bloggers most hyped lip balm, the Nuxe Reve de Miel. After all, if anyone can be the judge of a good lip balm, I've certainly got the fuller lip for it. Not to mention that they're dry or chapped almost all the time. Challenge accepted!

The Formula - This is something quite revolutionary for a lip balm, i must say! Unlike most  it doesn't give that glossy shiny finish, its actually quite the opposite. It feels smooth across the lips and leaves a matte velvet sort of finish. The formula is thick but its soft enough to glide over lips. Some of the ingredients that are to thanks for the super moisturising lip saviour are honey, shea butter and sweet almond oil. Honey is natures own skin protector and it helps to lock in moisture on the lips to prevent further chapping. Shea butter, well there is no messing around with Shea butter, this stuff would make any dry patch run and hide. Onto more technical terminology (lets get professional now amber), shea butter is rich in vitamin A, this is what makes your dry lips heal faster. Sweet almond oil is rich in vitamin E, which soothes dry chapped lips and keeps them nice and soft, now we all want that don't we. 

The verdict - I will never use anything else, ever. If there is one product that i have way too many of, its lip balms. In an attempt to keep my lips in tip top condition, I've tried every lip balm going but none have come anywhere near this beauty! Not only does it work wonders as a lip balm, but you can wear it under matte lipsticks too. You know how lipsticks like Mac Ruby Woo clings onto dry parts you didn't even know was there, well this stops that completely. This and Ruby Woo are a match made in heaven.  This product was well worth the hype. 10/10. 

Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the Nuxe Reve de Meil if you've tried it :)

Amber x

My Day In Pictures - 06/05/14 // Warner Brother Studios - The Making Of HarryPotter Tour

Two days ago I went on a trip with college to visit the Warner Brothers Studio in London for the Making of Harry Potter tour. Although I didn't take my DSLR camera, I had my iPhone and took some pictures of my day.

It's quite a long journey from my hometown Sheffield to London, so we stopped off at a service station and I got myself a Starbucks to keep me going for the rest of the journey.

We arrived and I was amazed at how huge it looked on arrival! I took pictures of almost everything, but I'm only uploading a few things... I think everyone (or at least H.P fans) needs to experience it in person and I don't want to ruin any of the best bits for people that are planning to go.

Ohh, butterbeer... How I regret buying this. I was slightly convinced to try it by the fact that it's only sold in two places in the world, the warner bro studio in London and somewhere in Florida. I had of give it a go! 

As you might be able to tell from my face... I wasn't enjoying it! 

The next few pictures really show all the work behind the scenes of Harry Potter and I couldn't believe the amount of work that goes into making these films. We also had a small workshop with a worker who told us how an idea turns into the reality, from scripts to the cinema. 

Green screen and special effects are used a lot throughout the film. We could see how green screen is used and the big TV in the back was playing different informative videos on how the special effects team creating some of the most amazing scenes in the film. 

I had such an amazing day and learnt a lot about the film making process at this big scale. I would recommend this to all Harry Potter fans and to all media students or people interested in the film industry. 

Leave a comment if you've been here before, if you would like to :) 

Amber x

OOTD Details // 02/05/14

 

A simple OOTD today. H&M black jeans, H&M jumper, white hightop Converse, Zara leather jacket, Aldo bag, Next watch, New Look necklace.

April Favourites // 2014

Products left to right (inc clickable links) - Nars sheer lipstick in 'Damage', Soap and Glory 'Heel Genius', Benefit 'Gimme Brow', MUA nail varnish in 'Plum Noir', Lush Tea Tree Water 

Wowza, where has the month of April gone? Even though it feels like its passed so fast, I'm so glad were slowly but surely getting into the warmer months! Anyway, lets get straight onto the bits I've been love love loving this month...

When it comes to the brows, everything has changed this month! I used to use my trustee 'Browzings' from Benefit but it was starting to run out so i thought id give this out as it was a relatively new release. The Gimme Brow is like a mascara for your eyebrows. I LOVEEEE IT! This is by far my favourite discovery all year. Ive been filling in my brows for years with either powder or brow pencil but i realised they're both too harsh for my face sometimes, but this gives the most amazing eyebrows. Im not going to go too in depth with this one because I'm going to do a full review of it very soon! 

My skin has been a little cray cray this month. Ive had more break outs then usual and i knew it was time i went back to lush and repurchased the Tea Tree Water. I used to use this all the time and make my way through bottles and bottles of it when i had oilier and more acne prone skin, but as my skin improved i stopped using it and didn't use any toner at all. Big mistake. My skin loves this stuff. Even though its cleared up a lot more from before, i still do get at least one or two spots at a time, but this stuff is back in my routine and I'm seeing the difference. My spots are at bay and when i do have break out the Tea Tree water helps reduce it. Tea Tree is antibacterial which means its perfect at fighting those spots and cleaning the skin of anything left on the skin after cleansing.  

Summer is slowly approaching and that means sandals and toes out… oh gosh! Ive committed to try to pamper my feet as much as possible so they look at least half decent before summer. This is my by far the best foot cream/foot mask I've tried and the strangest. Look, its blue. Thats weird enough for a cream i think. Its more of a thick gel sort of texture which you put on clean feet at night (I'm rather generous with it and put a rather nice slathering of it on) and put cotton socks over the top and go to bed. You wake up with the softest feet. I also sometimes use a little bit as a foot cream rather than the intensive mask way, which i find it can work well but does feel a little greasy and doesn't sink in quickly so id only do that if I'm not going out. All round 10/10! 

This is my very first Nars product and I'm impressed! Ive been wearing it so much this month. This is a gorgeous sheer lipstick that i can wear day to day and it looks so pretty. In the second picture i did two swatches the first being one coat and the second shows how the colour can be built up. Its so sheer and moisturising that one coat is nice as a little glossiness on your lips with a hint of colour but can be built up for more pigmentation. It also lasts for quite a while but does need a few top ups throughout the day but this is the case with most sheer lipsticks. 

Side note - The first picture shows the MUA nail varnish in 'Plum noir' but i totally forgot to put it on and take a picture, oopsy! It just deserved a mention that for a £1 nail varnish its gorgeous!

Thats really all for this month, have you tried any of these products? If so leave a comment and tell me what you thought to them? 

Amber x

Review // Chanel Perfection Lumiere Velvet

I couldn't resist picking up this new launch from Chanel even though I've never tried their foundations before and i was very tempted to get the Vitalumiere Aqua, but for 'blogging purposes' i went for this one. To be completely honest I've only wore this foundation a few times so this is more of a first impressions but it doesn't take me long to decide what i think of foundations. Im going to try to be as in depth as possible with this review because i know it can be hard to decide whether to splurge on a foundation that is expensive like this. 

Application - The first day that i wore this foundation i used my fingers to apply it but also used a brush, i then realised that on the little instructions leaflet inside it stated that you should use your fingers to apply not a brush/sponge. Ohh and it also says that you should shake it before you use it. So the second time i tried it i did exactly that. I did find that when using my fingers it was slightly harder to blend but thats only because the shade i got was slightly more on the darker side so i applied it all with my fingers and right at the end i would just buff in any parts that didn't blend well with my Real Techniques Buffing brush. 

However if you get a perfect colour match this shouldn't be a problem. I will say though, Chanel foundations don't seem to have the best shade range which is very disappointing when they're charging £33 for it!

So this is the before and after, i only used the foundation and skipped my usual concealing so i could see how well the foundation works on its own. I did add a little extra foundation on my spot and on my acne scars around my chin to give them some extra coverage. 

Formula - The formula is exactly what the name suggests 'Velvet' i don't think i could explain it any better. Its got that feel that something like the Smashbox primer gives or you could say its quite a powdery feel. It is definitely a matte foundation but it isn't like most other matte foundations. It still gives the skin a nice luminosity and doesn't look cakey at all. I'd say I'm probably going to use this in the warmer months when my skin is oilier but if you have normal, combination or oily skin then this foundation is probably great for your skin. Whereas dry skin gals, you might want to steer away from this foundation it might just make your skin look even drier. I do have dry parts of my skin and it didn't cling to these but a foundation that it dewier is probably better for dry skin. 

Coverage - This is a light foundation, as you can see in the before and after picture it doesn't cover everything but it does give a lovely even natural finish. I think it can be built to a medium coverage with an extra layer or so. I just love how even it made my skin look without covering it completely. Seen as the coverage was only a light/medium i wasn't expecting it to have staying power, but i was wrong! It really does stay put all day. 

     

Packaging - I personally love the packaging! I find glass foundation bottles like the YSL Touche Eclat foundation do look more luxe but they're just not practical, they're heavier, take more space in your make up bag and i know someone who actually dropped and smashed her YSL foundation in a glass bottle and it smashed. Ooops! Well you won't be having any of those problems with this, its nice and small in a plastic bottle. I also find the squeezer (i don't actually know what its called but ill call it squeezer) the bit where the foundation comes out its really good. Pumps often squeeze out more than you need, and ones that don't have pumps are just a pain. But this little squeezer makes it perfect for getting just the right amount out. I also tested this by turning the bottle upside down and none comes out until you squeeze the bottle. 

Overall id say that this foundation for me is great, especially as the weather is warmer and i need something more matte. Its got the right amount of coverage for me because i love light/medium foundations and even though its matte its still really brightening and luminous. 

I hope this post helps any of you who are not sure on whether or not to buy this :) Leave a comment and let me know if you have tried this foundation or what your views are on it.

Amber x

The Statement Lip // Orange Edition

Today's post is dedicated to the lovely girl working in The Body Shop in Sheffield I met a few weeks ago. I was just browsing in the store and i was approached by the girl working in store, who was actually wearing this lipstick. Even though its pretty bright and a statement lip, i thought i could never pull off orange, but she insisted it would suit me. I reluctantly said okay i'll try it. She put it on for me with a lip brush and then handed me the mirror and i was pleasantly surprised. Who would have known it, orange lipstick isn't as bad as it sounds!

The swatch above shows how pigmented and vibrant the lipstick is! I had never even tried The Body Shop lipsticks before this so i was slightly skeptical as i'm into my Mac's and Chanel's but this is on par with them bigger brands, if not better! The formula is a matte but its not drying at all, its still really creamy and soft. Its got great staying power too.. Win Win all round!

I think this lipstick would suit most people, but it more so on olive skin or people with a more yellow/warm undertone. I'm so glad i stepped out of my 'beauty comfort zone' and tried something new. 

Leave a comment and let me know if you have tried any Body Shop Lipsticks and what you think to them.

Amber x