Lush Mint Julips Lip Scrub

Do you ever take off a bold lipstick because your lips look too dry with it on? Do you love a matte lipstick and then suffer at bedtime with peeling, sore, cracked lips? I think I have a solution for you.

Good old Lush sugar scrubs. They have a plethora of lip scrubs in various sweetie shop/ice cream parlour flavours. My hands down favourite is Mint Julips. Once I have removed my make up, I scoop out a pea sized amount of this scrub and get to work on that dry skin. It gently buffs off the dead skin and when you rinse (I prefer to remove it with a flannel) it leaves your lips extremely soft. 

Have I mentioned how good these smell (and taste)? As I said, Mint Julips is my chosen favourite - it tastes of mint choc chip ice cream. Delicious. In a weird way I like that it is minty because it then doesn't compete with my minty toothpaste at bedtime. Weird? Yeah, I thought so. 

Admittedly at £5.50 a pot for what is essentially a sugar scrub is a bit excessive. However, it means that you don't make a mess in your kitchen with sugar and honey. If you're like me then you get the measurements wrong and end up dissolving the sugar in too much honey when you try to be clever and make some extra to store.

If you are a lover of a bold lip, then I think that these pots are well worth the £5.50, particularly as we approach autumn and our skin starts to take beating from the elements. 

Have you tried Lush lip scrubs before? Which flavour do you like?

The Beginners Guide to Skincare

Did you know that your skin is the largest organ of your body? Chances are yes, you did know that. Do you treat your skin with the level of care that you should treat the largest organ of your body? Probably not. Don't worry! Most people that I have come across that don't have a proper skincare routine in place have said that it is because they just don't know where you start. We are bombarded with advertisements from beauty brands claiming that their products will cure all of our skin woes and even address the ones that we didn't know existed until they told us about them. There are so many companies and products out there which can make the search for perfect skincare daunting and bewildering if you're not entirely sure of what you need. 

Fear not, I am about to share with you the basics of skincare along with my tips on how to find the perfect routine for you and for your skin.  Let's start with what you need to be using in the first place. 

Cleanser and Toner - Ones which are suitable for your skin type. Please don't skip toner, it is designed to get the pH of the skin back to normal after cleansing, it helps to close the pores and completes the cleansing of your skin. Would you shampoo your long hair and then not condition it? If you don't think that you would do both steps then buy an all in one! You can get cleansers which have built in toners too.

Exfoliator - Something which so many women don't do. Try and do this once or twice a week, it gets rid of the dead skin cells and so can help with dryness of the skin, it clears pores and so can diminish pore size and it helps to give you better absorption of your serums and creams - so you'll get more effective benefits from them! 

Eye Cream - The skin around the eye area is 10x thinner than the rest of the face. Using your normal moisturiser around that area will contribute to puffiness because the richer products will absorb and lie under the skin. Ew. Using a cream or gel specifically for the eye area will not only hydrate the area but it is going to protect it. Think of your eye product as a barrier from everything else, so apply this first. Also, when applying follow the bone of the eye socket - never take the cream higher than this and certainly don't apply to the lids. Your skin is clever - it will absorb what it needs in these areas. 

Serum -  Your skin has many layers and your moisturiser can only get so far, serums are designed to penetrate deeper into the skin and work on your concerns from there. Whether it be lines and wrinkles, radiance, sun damage, dehydration - there is a serum out there with your name on it. Apply after your eye product and before your moistutiser and you'll get maximum benefits.

Day and Night Cream - Why do I need two separate creams, can't I just use the same one day and night? You can, but you'll find better results in your skin by using one specifically for the day (with an SPF!) and one specifically for the night. This is because while we are awake and wile we are asleep our skin requires different things. Our skin renews itself more while we sleep so a specific night cream will aid cell renewal and help to get your skin looking totally gorgeous in the morning - it';s not called beauty sleep for nothing!

Now that you know what you need, it's time to go shopping - yay! Before you reach for your purse though, take a trip around the beauty hall in a department store, stop at a few counters and ask for a skin consultation, take their recommendations on board and take a note of what they suggest but make sure that you stop at a few to make sure that you are totally happy with what you buy - you want to be sure that you will use it because it won't help your skin in the bathroom cabinet unused!

Empties

I've been a little quiet as of late. I apologise, but I am making a point to get more organised with my blog and post regularly again. Of course while I have been quiet I haven't stopped using (and buying) beauty products. I have a few new favourites which I cannot wait to share with you over the coming weeks, there are some real stand out products to come! For today, however, I have a few recent empties to share with you!

I have mentioned Gatineau Aquamemory Concentrate on the blog before. It was a brilliant hydrating treat for the skin and I did really enjoy using it under my daytime moisturisers. However, I wasn't left wanting to repurchase. Perhaps because I have found other hydrating serums which had similar benefits and felt nicer on the skin? I'm not entirely sure, the product was lovely but I can't see me buying it again. 

Second up is a product which I initially discovered back in September and oh my goodness do I love it. Clarins Pure Melt Cleansing Gel genuinely makes me look forward to washing my face. I'm not kidding - I am that sad. You massage this onto dry skin, as you are doing this the consistency changes from gel to oil which removes all traces of makeup and dirt (I do use this to remove my eye makeup - don't do this if you have particularly sensitive eyes though!) by this point my shower has heat up and I then rinse my face and the product then changes again,. this time to a milk and removes everything from the face and leaves your skin feeling smooth and supple. Pretty clever, eh? Not only is this product great at it's job, but as with all Clarins products it is plant extracts which are the active ingredients, so there are no hidden nasties in there either. 

Even though I use Pure Melt to remove my eye makeup if I have very heavy makeup on, I will use an eye makeup remover first. In this case it was another Clarins offering in the form of Instant Eye Makeup Remover  which was good, it did it's job with minimal effort so no tugging around the fragile area. I am currently working my way through another bottle of this at the moment as I had another in my stash. I have to say it is more effective than the cheaper branded ones that I have used in the past, even though £18 is steep for an eye makeup remover you can always get it on some kind of deal to get more for your hard earned pennies. 

Have you used any of these products? What have you recently used up?