Recent Beauty Buys

Hello! Well so far I've been successful in my makeup spending ban and have been happily using my stash rather than adding to it unnecessarily (I have been ridiculously tempted to get one of those Rouge Edition Velvet lipsticks from Bourjois though) so this post is going include a few skin and haircare bits that I've bought over the past month or so, with the Avene and Nice and Easy purchases being the most recent. Obviously it's only a matter of time before I crack and buy more makeup but hopefully by that point it will be something I actually need!

Firstly I went to Savers to save (heh) 80p off the Boots price for the Nice and Easy Root Touch Up Kit. My roots are beginning to show again and I fancied saving money by not going to the salon just yet and using this kit just to touch up my colour at the roots until I go again (for a haircut as well since I had my hair done yesterday.) I was deliberating between the Dark Blonde and the Medium Blonde shade as my hair is dark blonde but quite a few reviews of this I've read on Boots.com and Makeupalley have mentioned that this kit turned out darker than they expected. So I went for the Medium Blonde one and I'm just going to leave it on slightly longer than 10 minutes to let it have more time to develop and hopefully match the rest of my hair.

I'll let you know how I get on with this, probably in a review! I haven't seen many reviews of this in blogs but the ones on Boots/Makeupalley seem quite positive. The main complaint I've noticed seems to be from girls with very thick hair finding that they didn't have enough product, I have fine hair so that's okay but it's something to bear in mind.

I've pretty much all used up my No7 Beautiful Skin Day Cream (review here) so I picked up the Avene Cleanance MAT Mattifying Emulsion. Boots had an offer on in which you get a free 150ml Eau Thermal Spring Water Spray (worth £7) when you buy an Avene moisturiser so I was pleased with that - I've never tried anything from Avene but I've heard great things about the Thermal Spring Water, which is also part of the ingredients of the moisturiser. I'm going to use the water as my toner and then see how I get on with that and the moisturiser. Unfortunately I can't see anything about this offer online so it might just be an in store thing!

Anyway, I've only used these twice so far but I'm really liking both of them - the spray is very refreshing and the moisturiser sinks in perfectly, mattifies, and leaves my skin feeling really smooth. I'll probably review these properly once I've been using them for a while.

I've also been trying out the Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque which is a very highly rated product for fighting acne that I bought almost a month ago. I use it once a week because it's quite strong - I've used it 3 for 4 times so far but I haven't really noticed much change in my skin after using it yet which is a bit disappointing, but I'll keep trying it.

I wouldn't say I really have severe acne but when I mentioned my frequent breakouts in a visit to the Doctor's the other day I was actually prescribed Fucidin Cream which is an antibiotic. So hopefully my skin will clear up soon!

Moving on to hair stuff, and I bought the Dove Oxygen Moisture Root Lift Spray when it was on offer at Superdrug. (I just looked, and it's still on offer!) Again I may do a full review on this soon but so far I like it for using on wet hair, but can't seem to get it to do anything but wet my hair a bit when using it on dry hair (it's meant for both uses.) I feel like the fact that it's a spray makes it work better for blow drying, but I don't blow dry my hair often and I'm not sure that this has heat protectant.

When my trusty Batiste Dry Shampoo ran out I decided to try one from COLAB by Ruth Crilly as these have been raved about a lot lately. I have the Paris one which has a pleasant floral fragrance. However so far I haven't been sold on the oil-busting effects of this (I think a few times I've simply sprayed too much by accident and that's not helped) but I'll keep using this and trying not to spray too much of it and we'll see!

Update: Oops. Today I bought this month's InStyle Magazine and got the free 50ml St Tropez In Shower Gradual Tan and saw there was a voucher inside for £2 off the full size...guess what happened next.

I originally went into Boots for a prescription but when I saw that they'd restocked on the In Shower Gradual Tan I decided to ask if the £2 off voucher would work alongside the introductory 3rd off price (which has now ended, sorry!) and it did, meaning I only paid £8.33 I think for the full size one when it is worth £14.50! (For some reason it came to 10.33 rather than 9.67 on my receipt, but I didn't feel like querying it since it's only a small difference.) I'm going to use the 50ml one first as if I don't like it I can simply return the full size one unused.

I had been quite unsure about whether to buy this or not as not only is it pricey but it does get very mixed reviews - I think it might be a good option for me though as I'm super pale, still quite new to tanning and just looking for a radiant hint of colour rather than anything major.

I also bought two Soap and Glory Peaches and Clean Deep Cleansing Milk Cleansers (review here) for the following reasons:

1. Soap and Glory have kindly increased the amount of product you get from 200ml to 350ml but the price has stayed the same at £8 which makes it great value for money, especially compared to some of their other products.
2. Boots are currently doing a 'buy one get one half price' offer on Soap and Glory skincare, meaning I got these two for £12.
3. I also got double points for spending over £10 on Soap and Glory skincare (this offer was via the Boots app) - so around 80 points.
4. I'm happy for this to be my new makeup removing cleanser and now I have tons of the stuff so I won't need to buy any for quite a while (unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if S&G increased the price soon.)
5. It smells amazing.

^ So yes, I have slight shopping guilt now but at least I've taken advantage of some great offers! The 350ml size does mean it's obviously heavier to travel around with so what I'm thinking of doing is using one of my new ones at home and keeping the 200ml one (which I don't have much left of) for taking with me next time I travel down to see my boyfriend.

Have you tried any of these products? What have you been buying and testing out lately? :)

Sabrina xx