review

A pre-Christmas swap with the lovely Charlotte yielded a lipstick from a brand I'd never tried before - NYX Round Lipstick in a beautiful red called Chaos. The name of the product might not be particularly inspiring, but the product itself certainly is!

Firstly, the application of this lipstick is fantastic. It's incredibly smooth; feels very moisturising as it glides onto the lips. The pigmentation is also brilliant - fully opaque colour in one swipe. It feels very comfortable on the lips; at the beginning almost too moist - I started to worry that it would come off on everything - but after five minutes or so it dried down a little.

By far the most impressive thing about this lipstick is the wear. It's so impressive that I felt compelled to take several photos throughout a day to demonstrate how long one application lasts.

On the right, we have a photo of Chaos freshly applied at 2pm, and photographed in natural light. The colour is a lovely blue red with fushia undertones and you can see how full the coverage is. Lips look (and felt) moist and smooth.

4 hours later, and it's no longer light outside. I've had several cups of coffee, quite a bit of water, and an apple. The colour is still going on strong; the lips don't look quite so moist, but they are still comfortable and don't feel overly dry.

At 9pm, after a couple more drinks and a bagel deli dinner, I finally feel that my lips feel too dry and wipe the remaining lipstick off. The colour is still fairly evident, although any moistness has long since dissipated. To be fair though, this is a whole 7 hours after application with no touch ups.

What strikes me is that the colour is still so even - I don't mind lipstick that fades, it's unavoidable, but I dislike being left with a stupid ring of lipstick around the edges of my lips.

In short - this stuff rocks. It lasts for a long while, it's pigmented, it's moist - it's rocketed up to being one of my favourite lipsticks already. I might even stop immediately going to MAC when I want a new lipstick (shock horror). And guess how much it costs?

$3.50. Incredible. I immediately went to Cherry Culture (who ship to the UK) and bought a few more - they're currently on offer for $1.75. If you're a lipstick lover, I highly recommend you try these out.

A while back, I had a makeover at Laura Mercier, and one of the things I walked away with was the Thickening and Building mascara, in black. I can't find a decent pack shot, so we'll go straight into the in-use pictures - the photo on the left is after two coats.

The mascara has a fairly fat brush with dense bristles - nothing particularly unusual or gimicky. The number of bristles helps to really grab each lash and coat it with mascara, whilst giving good separation too. The formula of the mascara itself works really well with the brush; it's thick, but also fairly slow-drying, so you can make sure your lashes are evenly coated and not clumpy before it dries. So, thumbs up for the formula and the brush.

The description given on the Space NK website claims that this mascara is waterproof. It is not. I dampened my fingers and pressed them against my eyelashes and immediately my eye was a runny black mess. The description also claims that the formula is "smudge and flake resistant", and as illustrated by the photo to the right, this is also not true. After a days wear, my under eye area had both flakes and smudges galore, more than I've had with any mascara in the past.

So, although I love the formula, the brush, and the effect of this mascara, the terrible wear really ruins the whole product for me. When paying for a premium brand, I expect the whole package, and this just doesn't have it!

If you'd like to try this for yourself, you can get it at Space NK, for £15.66 for 5.7g.

This product was sent to us free of charge for review.

The phrase "cold cream" probably occupies a similar place in most people's minds to "girdle", "curling tongs", "Epsom salts" and "hairpiece". It is at the very least a definite "blast from the past".

However, we were prepared to be convinced that Ponds Cold Cream had a place in the beauty regime of the 21st Century, and we put it through its paces in the four ways suggested to us by the manufacturers.

First and foremost - as a cleanser and makeup remover, Cold Cream does an excellent job of gently dissolving eyemakeup, foundation and lipstick. Applied liberally to the face, the oil-based cream formula happily obliterates all cosmetics in its path. It is removed with cotton wool (or tissues in your gran's day) and takes your makeup straight off with it. For a more indulgent experience, it can be removed with a warm damp facecloth - feels lovely!
The skin is left with a slight oily residue. I would definitely use this as a skin-friendly way to take off heavy slap, but I'd also follow with an alcohol-free toner to "tidy up".

Used as handcream, Cold Cream is definitely serviceable. I wouldn't use it as a day to day desktop-type hand cream because it is greasy as all heck on your hands if you're actually trying to do something with them! As a nourishing "mask" type of application, I think it would be a great way to nurture wind-chapped hands and sore knuckles, especially at this time of year.

Which brings us to the third use, as a mask. Gemma has been the guinea pig on this one and she found that it was a great saviour for her dehydrated post-holiday skin. She also loves the rosy scent of it and plans to keep a jar of it handy in future.

So I think it's fair to say that overall we are rather impressed by this vintage item - humble though its £3.99 price-point may be, it's a great fail-safe for heavy-duty makeup removal, general cleansing and a bit of budget facemask luxury.

Verdict - we gladly join our forebears in the noble Cold Cream tradition!

Buy Ponds Cold Cream from Boots, Superdrug, Wilkinsons, John Lewis, Asda and most supermarkets and chemists. You can order it online from Boots too.

Continuing my habit of picking up little beauty buys at Tesco, here we have a Barbara Daly for Tesco souffle blush in Rose.

I'll be honest; I've never really understood the whole mousse/souffle makeup texture thing. I didn't buy into the revolutionary Maybelline Dream Mousse foundation thing, partially because they never quite went pale enough for my skin. But I digress. The reason I chose to try this souffle textured blush is mostly because I'm starting to feel like I repeatedly buy the same stuff over and over again, and I wanted to try something different.

I'm quite glad I did, in this case. The souffle texture translates into a little pot of what is essentially a very light and airy cream blush which is incredibly blendable. A couple of dabs applied to the cheeks and patted in gives a very natural and subtle flush, and once it's blended in, you can't feel it sitting on the skin. This is fabulous in my book; I hate cream blushers that leave a greasy residue. This stuff is also easily layerable, and with no sparkle or shimmer in the finish, it's ideal for a natural look, or for when you are wearing a lot of glitter on your eyes.

The only downside, I think, is the size of the pot. On the right, we have the little tiny souffle blush pot sat next to a Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner pot. And it's seriously tiny for a cheek product. Given that the product costs £5, on the surface you're not getting a great deal here, for a high street brand. However, as you need so little of the stuff to get a pretty flush, it should last a long time.

If you'd like to try it for yourself, you can get it at Tesco for around £5 (and they're doing 3 for 2 across a wide range of cosmetics at the moment, so even better).

I have found a truly excellent mascara.

Here it is.



And here's what it did for my lashes.



And that is just one coat!

NYX Doll Eye Volume mascara has a wonderful, creamy, thick, un-clumpy formula that applies auperbly. On top of that, it has one of the most ergonomic brushes I have ever seen. The shape of the brush head is sort of "waisted", so that it conforms to the curve of your eyelid. This means that it's easy for the long bristles at each end to catch the lashes at inner and outer corners of the eye, and in the centre you can get in close to the roots without sploging mascara on the eyelid above your lashes.



An absolute pleasure to use.

Sadly, NYX is hard to find in the UK. I picked up Doll Eye Volume mascara at a little outlet in Slough of all places, situated in the Queensmere Observatory. It was priced at £5.99.

You can puchase it online at Cherryculture.com, who ship to the UK. Or if you're very lucky, you may end up winning some in our upcoming US Beauty giveaway competition...

In any case, take any opportunity to get your hands on this product, it's a total bargain and performs well beyond expectations for its price range.

When I gave up using silicone, I resigned myself to not using serum again, as most formulations are very silicone heavy. However, I discovered that Naked Bodycare make two serums, both silicone free - Frizz Fighter, and Extra Shiny. I picked up both, and today I'm reviewing the Frizz Fighter variety.

The most stand out feature of this product is the consistency. Silicone based serums are smooth, silky, and fluid. This one, however, is sort of like a soft, non-sticky gel. It comes out of the bottle in blobs, not in a little puddle of serum like I'm used to, but once it's been spread out it feels much like a silicone serum, albeit one with less slip.

I apply this to my wet hair, along the mid-lengths and ends. A small amount goes a long way - although I don't think it would be particularly easy to overdose on this, as it is quite light textured and absorbable - if you spread a bit on the back of your hand, it's absorbed into the skin quite quickly.

I don't think that this has a huge effect on frizz when applied to wet hair - while it certainly lubricates the hair and adds some moisture, the effect on frizz is fairly minimal. Applying a small amount to dry hair smoothes down any flyaways and imparts a bit more moisture, with pretty much the same effect as with the Extra Shiny serum.

For me, this isn't a HG product - it's nice, and if you're looking for a very light, non-oily serum, or looking for a bit more moisture post-wash, then it might be a good buy. Don't go expecting a major decrease in frizz though.

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, you can get it for £4.99 for 50ml from Boots or from Naked's website.

Last week, I mentioned that coconut scented things are a great love of mine, and indeed, this week I'm bringing you a review of yet another coconut scented conditioner. Sorry about that, I'm weak willed.

I'd heard good things about Inecto's Coconut Oil conditioner; many of these things centred around the fact that it's rather cheap (about £2 for 500ml), silicone free, and effective. And it is pretty effective - in a light, non-heavy kind of way. In the form of a fairly thin cream, this conditioner has a lot of slip to it, and is easy to distribute through the hair. However, I needed rather a lot of it to adequately coat my fairly thick hair, which negates the cheapness slightly, as I think I'll work my way through the bottle quite quickly.

The effects are pretty good; shiny, light hair which doesn't feel weighed down. For me, it doesn't offer enough moisturisation for my dry mid-lengths and ends. It makes a fabulous conditioner for a co-wash, if you've sworn off the shampoo, and if you have normal hair, I imagine it would be a good all-round conditioner.

Now, I have one slight gripe with this product, and that's the scent. Despite containing pure coconut oil, I find the coconut scent a little bit too sweet, and a bit artificial. It's not so nose-wrinklingly artificial smelling that I wouldn't repurchase, but this isn't the nicest coconut scented thing I own.

If you'd like to try it for yourself, you can find Inecto products at Superdrug, where it will cost you around £2 (not stocked online, unfortunately).

Despite being a bit of a bathing fantatic (I rarely take showers if I can avoid them - baths are much nicer), I've never used bath salts. I'm not quite sure why. Possibly because I associate them with lavendar scents and old ladies.

While purchasing many boring things at Tesco the other day, I was having a bit of a nose around the bath products section, and happened upon this lovely glass jar full of bath salts and rose petals. It being a mere £3.69 for 500g, I decided to take the plunge. When poured into a running bath, these salts produce an absolutely lovely rose based scent. It's not overly heavy or sweet, nor is it too floral. It actually smells like a rose in bloom, rather than a chemical approximation that goes too far.

Although I didn't notice any benefit to my skin, I did emerge totally relaxed. Not only do you get the lovely scent, but you also get the experience of bathing with rose petals, which is quite luxurious - although unfortunately, this doesn't turn you into Mena Suvari in American Beauty. Just don't do what I did and see a rose petal stuck to your knee, and immediately assume that you've accidentally cut yourself somehow and have a small panic.

All in all, this is a lovely product for a bath experience - no particular effect on the skin, but very relaxing. A good buy for anyone who likes a good long soak, it's available at larger Tesco stores for £3.69 for 500g - and the pretty packaging (which doesn't have Tesco written on it in big letters) would make this an ideal stocking stuffer.

I love the smell of coconut in the morning. Or in the evening, which is generally when I wash my hair. Such is my love of coconut-scented things that I'm 87% more likely to purchase a hair product if it smells of coconut (that's a scientific fact). And this was the case for this Superdrug Naturals intensive conditioner, which I picked up at the weekend.

Firstly, this product is cheap. Priced at just £1.85 for 400ml, this is definitely a bit of a bargain. Don't think that you're getting an inferior quality product though, oh no. This is one of the nicest intensive conditioners I've tried in a while. Gently scented with a sweet but not excessively sweet, very mildly coconutty scent, this is a very thick and rich product. Think butter at room temperature thick.

A good scoop distributed through the ends of the hair, and left on for a few minutes, left my hair feeling very soft, shiny, and well moisturised. Despite being silicone free, this product has that extra bit of 'slip' that I've been missing, and really feels like it's making a difference to my hair.

The only downside is that because of it's thickness, it can take a little longer than usual to rinse out of the hair. But that's a fairly minor point, and something I'm more than willing to do for such a lovely - and budget friendly - product.

If you'd like to try it yourself, you can get it at Superdrug.com for £1.85.

Lipstick Queen was founded by Poppy King, a lady whose obsession with the lips and lip products led to the production of her first lipstick line when she was just 18 years old. Since then, Poppy has owned several lip-based businesses, and now runs Lipstick Queen, who aim to produce unusual lip products. They're an exclusive, niche brand - not widely available, and with a high end price tag.

I've wanted to try out the Sinner lipstick for ages. Billed as a 90% pigment matte lipstick, with a "opaque, rich and creamy with a matte yet silky finish", I took the opportunity to try out the Rose shade at Space NK's recent 20% off event. The range of shades is 10-strong,with nude, pink, red and brown shades on offer, all with a fairly browny base.

The lipstick comes in a slim black tube; there's nothing particularly original or interesting about the packaging. The product within, however, is undoubtably one of the best matte lipsticks I've ever tried. Most matte lipsticks are incredibly drying, and can be difficult to apply - but this is smooth and creamy, and while it doesn't glide onto the lips, there's no tugging to get good coverage.

The colour is completely opaque with one pass over the lips, and this stuff definitely lasts - I had a good 4 hours between top-ups, which in itself isn't unusual for a matte, but my lips didn't feel at all dry after those 4 hours - they felt soft and cushion-y. I'm in love with the formula. The overall effect is very 1940s glamour - perfectly matte, perfectly opaque, and still very lush looking.


If you'd like to try this one for yourself, you can find Lipstick Queen at Space NK, where a Sinner lipstick will cost you £16.15 for 4g.

I remember when I was in my early teens, just starting to be able to afford cosmetics, I used to covet my mother's Olay moisturiser. It came in a fancy pump bottle like this one, and it seemed SO expensive. So, when I needed a new night cream recently, I found myself in Boots looking at the Olay display, and decided to try the Total Effects Night cream, in a bid to recapture my youth in more ways than one.

I'll admit I wasn't really expecting a lot from this cream. I've been using it for several weeks now, and I'm very pleasantly surprised. The cream is fairly light, yet still rich, and sinks in very quickly. In the morning, my skin is soft, plumped up and smooth, with no residual oiliness or that film that too-rich creams can give. Three weeks on, my skin is much smoother, the tone seems more even, and I'm fairly sure that my hated frown lines are looking less deep too.

The packaging is also a win for me - the very hygienic pump bottle allows you to dispense exactly the right amount of cream while keeping it safe from the air and contamination from the fingers. The only downside I can think of is that I'm not sure how I'll know when it's empty. The price of this cream is also pretty fab - at around £16, I think that on balance, it out performs my previous £45 Darphin cream.

If you'd like to try it for yourself you can find it at Boots, for £16.63 for 50ml, and many other places - Olay is very widely stocked.

Since my last Collection 2000 foray, Glam Crystal Liner, turned out to be so damn good, I decided that I'd buy another one. As I chose my new colour I noticed another liner product in some lovely looking colours. Glam Metallics Coloured Liquid Eyeliner purports to be a metallic, water resistant liquid liner, and comes in 6 jewel toned shades. I picked up Ripped, a metallic purple.

Unfortunately I was disappointed by the product itself; while the glitter liner gives opaque coverage after two coats, this one definitely doesn't - the liner itself is slightly watery and after two coats the colour was still too sheer for my liking. It did have a slight metallic sheen, but without the depth of colour behind it, the overall effect was a bit meh.

If you'd like to try it for yourself, you can find the Collection 2000 range at Boots, Tesco, or Superdrug. Mine was £2.63 from Boots. You can also learn more at Collection 2000's website.

This was a product that was sent to us free of charge to review.

On the deck today is the Amazonia Preciosa Cupuacu Revitalizing Hair Mask by Surya. (What is it with me and really long product names lately?)

This is a seriously eco-focused product. It's ECOCERT accredited. It's made of sustainably sourced Brazilian rainforest native plants and housed in recyclable PET packaging. The company are heavily invested in sustainable production policies and employ local people to harvest their ingredients. I'm not kidding. This mask? It positively gleams with virtue.

The question is - did my hair gleam, virtuously or otherwise, after using it?

Well, it's definitely a luxurious experience using this cream conditioner, which applies to the hair and is worn for 20 minutes under a hot towel before rinsing. With my hair wrapped up and a facemask on at the same time I felt quite decadent.

However, and this is a wholly personal thing, this product smells quite powerfully of almonds. I guess that the Cupuacu nut is a relative of the almond, going by the marizipan-like smell. The trouble is that I don't like almonds, and this marred the experience for me.

It took quite a lot of product for my hair to feel "covered" - there's not much "slip" to it, probably due to its being silicone free - it's almost like moisturiser or body lotion in texture. I guess I used up about 1/4 of the 120g tube.

After 20 minutes I had no trouble rinsing it out and my hair felt quite nice, tangle-free and generally happy. After drying though, I didn't feel that there was much difference to my hair. Usually when I use a leave-in conditioner I notice a marked improvement in the look and feel of my hair afterwards.

It's a shame, because the way the company seem to approach their business really does appeal to me (although I'm a little confused as to how shipping or air-freighting products all the way from Brazil can be carbon-friendly - nitpicking maybe). It's often (though not always!) sadly true that products with low impact on the environment also have low impact in terms of what they were designed to do.

I will say that I maybe should have used the mask designed for curly hair, since although I often wear my hair straight it is naturally curly and therefore probably more dry by nature. I could have chosen, in fact, from 5 masks in the range - Buriti, for dyed and damaged hair, Murumuru for oily hair, Brazil Nut for dry and fragile hair, or Ucuuba for curly hair. The one I had is for normal hair. Each mask also has a shampoo and conditioner in the same "flavour".

Amazonia Preciosa products are available at Liberty. The mask I tried retails at £10. Learn more at the Surya website.

I picked up one of Collection 2000's glitter eyeliners recently while shopping at Tesco - mostly because I was attracted by the highly sparkly purple shade just calling me from the display. And man, am I glad I did!

I absolutely adore anything with glitter in it, and as a result I have a few different glitter eyeliners which unfortunately don't really get used that often. The ones I've tried in the past have always been slightly flaky, fairly sparsely glittery, and generally a bit of a waste of time.

But not this one, oh no. The glitter is pretty dense, and two coats applied thinly along my upper lashline gave me a fully opaque, beautifully glittery line of colour. Not only was the colour and application fantastic ; it also lasted all day without flaking, smudging or budging. And at only £2.93 each, I'll definitely be buying a few more - especially as this is the first product in some time that has had people asking what I'm wearing, because it looks great!

You can find out more at the Collection 2000 website; these are widely available at Boots, Tesco, and Superdrug.

Naked produce a range of "97% natural" products which are free from petrochemicals, harsh surfectants, and parabens. As a result, their range of conditioners are suitable for my silicone free, shampoo free hair routine, so I picked up a tube of their Rescue intensive conditioner from Boots.

This fresh-scented intensive conditioner contains shea nut butter and olive oil extracts, and is targeted at damaged, frizzy hair. While it is quite rich, the texture of the conditioner is actually quite light; it distributes through the hair evenly, and produces an odd light frothing effect as it mingles with the water in the hair.

The effects are somewhat different from what you usually get from a silicone-heavy intensive conditioner - that feeling of slip and extreme smoothness when you rinse the conditioner out is not there. That's not to say that the hair doesn't feel more moisturised and much smoother - it definitely does. It also doesn't weigh the hair down, leaving it soft and light.

If you're interested, you can try it for the very wallet-friendly price of £3.91 for 250ml at Boots.com.

I'd always strolled past the Eau Thermal Avene concession at Boots, and I'm not really too sure why - possibly because their packaging is more simple and elegant than brightly coloured and shiny, which I'm generally more attracted to. Anyway, after accidentally overmoisturising my skin and ending up with some spots and oiliness, I decided I wanted a gentle toner to clear my skin out a bit, without overly drying it out.

I decided to try Eau Thermal Avene's Cleanance Purifying Anti-Shine Lotion. It has a very long name, and as with all of the products in the range, contains a high proportion of spring water. It takes the form of a dual-layered liquid which is shaken to produce an opaque fluid, which doesn't sting when applied to the skin, but does seem to lift off any excessive oil.

My skin was left feeling fresh, clean and ready to be moisturised, but I'm not particularly convinced that I experienced any less shine than usual; my t-zone can become shiny half way through the day, and still did with this product. I imagine that for someone with oily or very oily skin, it would make very little difference. For my dry/combination skin, however, this is a lovely freshening lotion, which lifts off extra oiliness without being drying.

If you're curious to try it yourself, you can find it at Boots.com, £8.49 for 200ml.

A recent trip to Sainsbury's netted me a Cargo PurseGloss, a little tiny lipgloss which is sized to fit into your purse. I believe that American purses are equal to British handbags, so I'm slightly unsure as to why you'd need a tiny lipgloss to fit in your handbag - even the smallest of clutches can hold a slim tube of gloss.

Anyway, on to the product itself - it's essentially a small squishy bulb of gloss with a built-in brush. You squeeze the bulb, gloss comes out of the brush, you apply, that's that. Nothing hugely exciting or surprising there.

The formula, however, was a bit of a surprise. Smooth and shiny, combined with that lovely cushiony, almost lip-balm-y texture that feels weightless and totally unsticky. With such a light formula, it doesn't last for ages, but I'd rather have something that's short lived and feels good than something that's sticky and long lasting.

Mine was a bit of a bargain at £2.20 at Sainsbury's; if they have any left, this is well worth the price. I would probably even pay full price for something that feels this good on the lips.

Full disclosure: We were sent this product by a PR to review on the LondonBeautyReview. That doesn't mean that the following review is biased; we promise to give the same honest opinions for all products, whether we paid for them ourselves or were given them to try out.

My first thought, when I received this handwash, was that it looks quite cool. Under the cardboard sleeve, the bottle is square, textured, and very chunky. I imagine that if you had a shiny ultra modern bathroom, this'd look right at home in it.

Method describe themselves as "people against dirty", and sell a small range of handwash and baby toiletries alongside a range of household cleaners. Their USP is that they make products which are derived from "plants not chemical plants", and are against animal testing. Their products are free from "parabens, EDTA or antibacterial agents" and their packaging is all recyclable.

Priced at £3.99, this handwash is the moisturising Almond Flower variety. The first time I tried it, I was surprised by how much effort I had to put into getting a lather - unlike conventional handwashes, the Method product doesn't produce masses of foam. I'm guessing that's down to the lack of SLS in the ingredients; the lack of SLS means that straight off, this product won't be quite so drying as other handwashes. The scent is light and pretty; it smells creamy and gently floral, is definitely not overpowering, and doesn't linger once you've dried your hands. And indeed - it cleaned my hands perfectly well, and left them feeling very soft compared to other handwashes I've used in the past.

If you're a green-thinking person, this product might appeal to you with its earth-friendly credentials. For me, I'll happily use the rest of the bottle, and may well repurchase if I happen across it.

If you'd like to learn more, or try it for yourself, you'll find more info and an online shop at Method's website.