Reflection - product stars

Thanks all for such a warm welcome back to the beauty blogosphere!

I wanted to start my first blog with a time of reflection. We have tried and tested so many beauty products over the last few years, that I wanted to revisit past posts, and see what I still use and have repeat purchased, and therefore love!

• Neal's Yard Rosemary and Elderflower shower gel

This shower gel may be pricey, but it definitely delivers, the smell us divine and leaves my skin silky smooth. I stocked up on this product a few months ago when my local store had a 3 for 2 offer, bargain!

• Tangle Teezer

I continue to be impressed by this product. So simple and cheap and it really sorts out my mess of hair! I am starting to think I need to buy another one, to pop in my handbag. Finally said goodbye to knots!

• Bare Minerals

Bare Minerals foundation, and Mineral Veil continues to be a staple product in my make up bag. It continues to deliver a radiant face, but also treating any blemishes. I am a complete faithful advocate to this brand!

• OPI nail polish

OPI continues to be my nail polish of choice, I love the colours, names of colours and the ease of application. I have some new colours I will have to share with you soon!!

Another picture from the archives below, for anyone attending a firework bash tonight! Have fun and stay beautiful!

Stace x

Beautiful You – an update

Hello to all our beautiful readers!

We have had a rather long, overdue break from the blog and we wanted to give you an update on the reasons, and how we will be going forward with our Beautiful You blog.

The main reasons for our break were both time and money. Life is so busy with new jobs, work commitments, family commitments and hobbies, that we could not blog with the pace that we used to. 

We are also feeling the recession pinch and could no longer justify buying every new beauty product on the market (as much as we would love to, ha ha). We both have our staple beauty products that we no longer like to stray to far away from, our skin and our routine is used to these old favourites. Although we are still partial to a QVC TSV or a new product launch!

But we miss blogging! So we have decided to take our blog back to its roots and write on our little space on the web, when we want to and about what we want. It may not be frequently, but it will be quality!

A few things to expect from us in the coming months:

·         Spa and salon visits and treatments

·         Making beauty products at home

·         Guest blogs

·         Food, diet and recipe techniques (beauty starts on the inside!)

·         Our classic favourite beauty products.

We hope you stay with us, we aim to blog because we want to, about things we want to write about, and hopefully this will come over in our writing.

For now, we’ve taken a Halloween picture out of the archives, below, for you to enjoy.

And we will see you very soon!

Stay beautiful!

Stace & Mags x

Happy Halloween!

Jemma Kidd make-up - free with Red!

Hello all!

Well we have had an extended break from all things beauty. With holidays and sunny days, we have both take a break from the beauty world to re-charge our batteries, but are back and excited by the products we have to tell you about in the next few months!

Tonight, easing us back in gently, is a little sneak preview into this month's Red magazine superb freebie. Red is a magazine that has a great reputation and does not need to rely on freebies, so when they include one it is a nice 'thank you' to their readers.


As a subscriber I get the edition earlier than it is in the shop, and the only downside is I didn't get to choose between the two great freebies on offer :-(

July issue of Red magazine

The freebies on offer are either a black mascara, normally retailing for £15 or a black eyeliner retailing at £14. So for the price of the mag (£3.50 - £4.00 I think!) You can't go wrong!

I Glamour volume mascara

The mascara wand is quite substantial, glides nicely out of the pot, and the wand has quite fine brushes on it.


I am looking forward to putting this mascara through its paces, and I'll let you know how I get on!! The mascara boasts 'fuller lashes' so I am excited to see the results.


If you want to bag this bargain, look out for Red magazine July edition hitting the shops on May 30th.


If you've tried Jemma Kidd make-up before, please let us know what you thought, we would love to hear from you.


Stay beautiful


Stace x

Make-up brushes - how do you clean yours?

Hope you're all having fab weekends! Something a bit different today...A plea for some advice.

So here's the thing, cleaning brushes...I use mineral make-up so my brushes get used everyday, A LOT. I am totally rubbish at cleaning them regularly, I would dearly love to clean them once a week like I read some of you all do, but I just run out of time or forget!

And I also don't even know if I am cleaning them right, so please, please comment with your tips, and words of wisdom on how you clean your make-up brushes as I would love to hear!

Here's what I do...

Firstly I always use Johnson's baby shampoo, no idea why really. Think I read it somewhere, figure it's for babies so must be gentle and I like the smell.

My weapon against dirty make-up brushes

Next I run my brushes under lukewarm water and then add the shampoo foaming it up. I tilt the brush down so the water runs away from the handle and not against the bristles.

I will continue running the brush under the water until the water runs clean and the shampoo has thoroughly washed away.

I then leave them to dry naturally.

And voila, I have clean brushes!

My brushes are all from bareMinerals and were all quite expensive, they seem to respond well to being cleaned like this so that is why I have stuck with it.

I would love to hear what you do with your brushes. How do you clean them, and how often do you clean them? I know I definitely need to start cleaning mine more often!

Keep your make-up brushes beautiful!

Stace x

Montagne Jeunesse skin heroes face masks

Montagne Jeunesse has to be one of the beauty brands I remember back from my teenage years. We would buy these masks for about 70p back then, and apply them to ensure fresh looking skin before we went on a date.

Roll on 15 years and this brand is still reinventing itself and its masks. So I was thrilled when they sent us some to try out. The new skin heroes range is all about tailoring products for different skin types, rather than a one size fits all approach, which we love. All of the products are suitable for vegetarians and the company always look to use natural ingredients, another plus point.

Montagne Jeunesse skin heroes face mask range

There are five masks in the range, for different skin conditions: shine control, break out, T zone, de-clog pores and dry skin.

The first one I was keen to try was the de-clog pores strip.

In the pack comes three to try. The strips are designed to fit across your nose, and are infused with orange flower water and witch hazel, it was a bit overwhelming to start with, but I soon got used to it.

The strips fit perfectly across the nose, where I get
most of my blocked pores

The idea is to leave this strip on the nose for 10-15 minutes. I really suffer from blocked pores around the nose area so this was a great treatment, and you can really feel it working.

Me wearing the de-clog nose strip!

The next mask I tried was the shine control, another of my skin conditions! Suffering from very greasy skin, this is an obvious choice for me. 

The mask is very light in appearance and consistency. It is a mud mask, which has aragan oil and crushed acai berries added to it, and I know the acai berries have antioxidant properties so it is interesting to find them as an ingredient in this mask. It is very different to the clay masks I have been so used to in the past.

The great thing with these masks is they have a two step process. So once you have covered your face with the mask and let it settle for about ten minutes, you rinse it off, and then apply the moisturiser to restore the skins balance.

Moisturiser is the 2nd step in the skin
 heroes face mask process

The moisturiser smells really fresh and leaves skin so smooth and silky!

The next mask is the dry skin mask. Now neither myself or Mags suffer from dry skin, but I gave this one ago in the name of research!

This mask has a slightly creamier texture to it, which I guess makes sense as it is combating dry skin, which will require more moisture, and feels a lot heavier that the previous mask. It boasts raspberries, blueberries and red grapes, and you can smell all these fruits!

 

The mask also comes with a serum similar to the moisturiser in the last mask. This is a great touch as it really feels like the two treatments work hand in hand and have really been thought through as an overall treatment for the face.

The only down side to these masks is probably the fiddly sachets they come in, but for the price, I don’t thing you can expect any lavish packaging.

They are really simple to use, following the instructions on the back of the packet is easy, and you can see results after one use.

Mags will be telling us more about the other two masks later in the month.

Montagne Jeunesse skin heroes are available now from Asda, and cost a wonderful, penny pinching £1.49. I’m off to stock up on some more and buy some for my friends!

Have you tried Montagne Jeunesse skin heroes? What did you think of them? Please let us know by commenting below.

Stay beautiful

Stace x

L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil – my guilty pleasure

I’ve been using the L’Occitane Almond Shower Oil on and off for some time now, but haven’t thought of reviewing it until someone posted a question about it on Stace’s shower gels post recently. This shower oil is an amazing product and I love it so much I always keep a spare bottle in the cupboard in case I fancy using it, which is a lot lately!

L'Occitane Almond Shower Oil, RRP £25 for 500ml

The oil consistency is fantastic, looks like an oil and feels like an oil:

Oily consistancy of the Almond Shower Oil

However, once it’s mixed with water it produces this wonderful and velvety to touch lather that envelopes my body with its softness! It’s an amazing experience, as the lather isn’t too bubbly or thick but very smooth and fantastically moisturising.

Perfect lather created with L'Occitane Almond Shower Oil.

Once I shower with this product I don’t feel the need to use any additional moisturisers afterwards as the skin is so nourished and silky! Hence, during the summer months (whenever we’re going to have any this year!) I only use the oil alone. However, I do use a bit of the L’Occitane Shea Butter Ultra Rich Body Lotion in the winter to add the extra bit of nourishment to my skin.

The smell is fantastic! It’s a combination of almond oil, grape seed oil, fresh green apples and a slightly hint of rosemary that creates this fresh but subtle smell that lasts for a few hours after I use it, which is why I usually use it in the late afternoons or evenings to be able to enjoy the aroma for longer with no need to rush anywhere!

The versatility of this product is amazing, too! The lather creates the perfect shaving foam, which I sometimes use to shave my legs or underarms! It leaves my skin amazingly soft and smooth with no irritation!

Almond Shower Oil creates the perfect lather to shave with no irritation!

I absolutely love this Almond Shower Oil! It usually comes in 250ml bottles (RRP £16.50) but recently I’ve discovered that the L’Occitane shop stocks it in the mega 500ml bottles for £25 each! It may seem expensive, however the feel you get after using this product is worth every penny, and the huge bottle lasts a long time as you only need one pump to use over the whole body!

Have you used this L’Occitane product before? If so, what do you think? What other L’Occitane products have you used and would recommend? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Stay beautiful!

Mags xx

Magnetised with Magnetic Nail Paint by BarryM

A few weeks ago I reviewed two magnetic nail polishes and I thought I was in heaven when I’ve seen the finished look of both of them! However, I couldn’t be more wrong! A few days later, after chit-chatting on twitter, I’ve discovered that there is another, even more beautiful, shape to the magnetic nail polish family! Check out this little gem:

Magnetic Nail Paint by BarryM - RRP£4.99 in Superdrug

Magnetic Nail Paint by BarryM

 

This very pretty Magnetic Nail Paint is created by BarryM! It’s the best of the magnetic nail polishes I’ve yet seen! It has the most magnificent colour and finish:

Magnetic Nail Paint by BarryM - RRP4.99

The pretty finish

A close up of the magnetic pattern

The price is out of this world – £4.99 in Superdrug! However, it’s hard to get as it flies out of the shelves!!! So be quick if you want one! Otherwise, it’s available on the BarryM’s website.

Application

The application is pretty simple, too! I’ve applied one, thick coat on a nail and while the polish is still wet, I hovered the magnet over the nail, without touching it, and waited for a few seconds for the magic to happen!!! It’s amazing how quickly the iron particles form the beautiful pattern!

On the bottle it states to use a base coat, but to be honest I haven’t used any of the base or top coats and my nails looked really pretty for a long time. 

10 days later...

The colour stayed on for 10 days, and would probably still be on my nails, if I haven’t removed it myself! Check out my nails after 10 days of wearing the BarryM’s Magnetic Nail Paint. It didn’t chip too much, it looks more as it was slowly wearing out. 

Magnetic Nail Pain 10 days after application without using top coat!

If the photos here haven’t convinced you to purchase this nail polish, especially if you are a nail junkie like I am, I don’t know what will!

Please, let us know what you think about this colour and about the magnetic nail polishes available on the market? We’d really like to know! Leave a comment or tweet us @beautyu.

Stay beautiful!

Mags xx

Little superstars from Elemis

Hi all!
Hope you are enjoying your weekend! I thought I would carry on down the theme of pampering in today's blog post. Last month while visiting the Vitality show Mags and I both picked up the Elemis 'Little Superstars' box of products. I love the name of the box, and it is actually all superstars inside!

Box of exciting Elemis products!

We picked up this little beauty at a mere £20, the best I can find it online for is £37.50 at Dove spa website

So what pampering treats are inside?

Tranquil touch creamy body wash

I touched on this product in my last post, it is a really creamy, lovely smelling shower gel. This is 50ml in size, so perfect for taking on holiday.

Tranquil touch indulgent bath elixir

This is 100ml and has a lovely smell infused with cedarwood, a small amount can be added to a bath to make a lovely bubble bath.

Frangipani monoi body oil

This is one of my favourite ever Elemis products. In this box you get 35ml of this fantastic product. For those of you who are new to this body oil, the contents are actually solid, and before you use it you have to immerse the bottle in warm water so that it forms a silky liquid.

You can then apply to the body for an amazing silky, moisturising finish that smells like you've stepped out of a salon in the comfort of your own home.

Pro-radiance cream cleanser

I have not used this cream cleanser before, so excited that it came as part of this box. The size is 30ml, and it boasts many awards so I am looking forward to trying this when I next go away, as it is a perfect travel size.

Pro collagen marine cream

Probably Elemis' most famous product, the marine cream has been a favourite of both mine and Mags' over the years, so this was one deciding factor that made me buy the box. Mags reviewed this product in depth last year, so if you want to know more about this little superstar from Elemis please read her blog post here.

And the excitement does not end there!! All of these products came in a gorgeous pink make up bag, again perfect for my next holiday!

All the products came in this cute pink make up bag!

Little collections like this are a great, cost effective way to try out high end products, before committing a lot of money on one product without knowing whether you like it.

I love my superstars! Have you tried any of these products and what did you think? Are you an Elemis fan? Let us know by commenting below!

Stay beautiful!

Stace x

Liz Earle, Neal's Yard and Elemis - high end shower gels

Evening all!

Sometimes we all deserve a real good pamper. And what better way to treat yourself than with a high end shower gel. If you like me all to easily throw a £1 bottle of whatever is on offer when you're doing the food shop, then I guarantee spending a bit more on shower gel sometimes will make you feel utterly pampered.

Tonight I'm going to show you three high end shower gels I have been using this month.

Elemis tranquil touch, creamy body wash

You barely need any of this rich, luxurious cream to smother over your body. It has hints of almond oil, patchouli, cedarwood and vetivert, it smells like a spa day! A real touch of high end luxury.


I have found this on lookfantastic.com for £18.40 for 300ml.

Liz Earle orange flower botanical body wash

This is a lovely body wash, that boasts ingredients like yarrow and gerenium. The smell of orange instantly wakes me up in the morning, again you don't need much of this to cover your body, and it leaves skin feeling silky smooth and thoroughly clean. I love the smell of oranges and get nuances of the scent throughout the day when I have used this product.

You can buy this body wash on the Liz Earle website, and it retails for £11.50 for 200ml.


Last but not least is an offering from Neal's Yard.

Rosemary and Elderflower shower gel from Neal's Yard

It was my Mum who got me on to Neal's Yard shower gel after telling me how silky they left her skin with no need to moisturise after showering - I like a multi tasking product! I actually went in to buy the orange and geranium, but came out with Rosemary and Elderflower, I absolutely love the rosemary scent, and when I smelt it in the shop I had to go for this one!

The smell is divine, and it really does leave skin feeling silky smooth.

This shower gel retails for £9.30 for 200ml, and can be found on the Neal's Yard website.

These shower gels are one luxury I like to spoil myself with now and again, and I think they are worth every penny!

What do you do when you really want to pamper yourself? Do you have any high end shower gel brands you think are really worth the money and checking out? Let us know by commenting below or tweet us @beautyu

Have a beautiful weekend!

Stace x

Big, bright and brilliant - eye liners from bareMinerals

Good evening!

Firstly, a quick hello to both old and new followers, we are thrilled to now have over 100 followers! Hello to you all!

Today I am going to talk about my new eyeliners I purchased at the Vitality show.

Now as you probably know, we are both big fans of bareMinerals, and I have been using their eyeliner for a few years. When I saw this fab collection of three mini eyeliners I just had to have it!

The three colours that came in the pack were midnight moon, which is a bluey colour, black gold, which is a lighter black with a very subtle hint of gold and black diamond, which is a striking black. See below for swatches.

Left - midnight moon, middle - black gold, right - black diamond

I really like bareMinerals eyeliners. They are easy to apply as they glide straight on to either the bottom or top of the eye, depending on where you like to wear eyeliner. They really show off the eye colour, bringing out the whites of the eye. The colours have light reflective pearl which really glistens when it catches the light, the pictures really don't do the colours justice.

I have very sensitive eyes, and have often had to throw away eyeliners after one use because they have caused irritation, but with the preservative free formula of bareMinerals, I can happily wear these all day with no irritation.

My personal favourite is the midnight blue, as it really picks out the colours of my eyes.

I have tried to capture a better idea of the colour on the two pictures below, where I am wearing midnight blue:

Midnight blue is now my everyday wear eyeliner, and the other two are perfect for throwing into my make-up bag for nights out as they are handbag size.

I bought this set for £14, I have just tried looking for it online, and I cannot find it in stock anywhere, so it may have been a show only item.

What eyeliner do you use, and is it worth me checking out? Have you used  bareMinerals before and what did you think? Let us know by leaving a comment below or on twitter you can find us tweeting as @beautyu

Stay beautiful!

Stace x

Nails inc vs 17 – magnetic nail polishes put to the test!

As you may gather from my previous posts, I’m more of a ‘high-end’ product girl! If you’d visited my bathroom today, you’ll find products from Elemis, Decleor, Chanel, just to name a few brands. However, after a few conversations on Twitter recently, I thought I’ll go and rummage the High Street to find some suitable alternatives, with same or similar results… for less money! 

The first item I decided to try and put to the test is a magnetic nail polish! To do that I chose two brands, one more expensive than the other… a lot more! Here they are:

Nails inc. Magnetic Polish RRP £13 (!!)  vs. 17 Magnetized Nail Polish RRP £5.99

The idea of both products is virtually the same - Each polish contains magnetic/metallic particles to create a pattern on the nail when using the magnet which is part of the cap. When you applied the polish and it’s still wet, hover the magnet over your nail and watch the iron powder in the formula gravitating toward the magnet creating the wavy effect! 

Once I’ve applied the products I was happy to realise that both polishes create the same effect! Take a look at both of the photos below (Note: The colours are different as my local shops didn’t have the same colours for me to trial):

Nails inc Magnetic Polish (RRP £13)

17 Magnetized Nail Polish (RRP £5.99)

To make sure that the nail polishes will last longer, I’ve applied the same top coat to each hand. Apart from the difference in shades, the finish on both hands is the same so there is no point of spending more! I have to admit, I also had more pleasure in using the 17 nail varnish and found the coverage better than what Nails inc delivers. 

Nails inc Magnetic Polish (RRP £13) vs. 17 Magnetized Nail Polish (RRP £5.99)

I’ve learned a valuable lesson today! I found my beautiful nail product alternative for less, have you? What do you think about both of the finishes and effects? Would you pay more for something you can get for less, even knowing the quality is similar? Let us know by leaving a comment below or on twitter @beautyu.

Stay beautiful!

Mags xx