May Favourites 2018

Hi everyone!

This is my first skincare / product post that isn't nail varnish based for a long time and it feels good to be back. The reason I haven't posted any product reviews in such a long time is because I have really been battling with my skin recently so have been quite hesitant to try anything new on my skin until I found a routine that meant it wouldn't flare up.

I don't know whether it is just the winter months cold weather, but I had a similar situation last year where my skin just deteriorated over the Christmas months (probably due to bad diet and alcohol) and just carried on being grim until the Spring time. This year it has taken me a bit longer to pin point the cause and also a remedy. A few products along the way made it much much worse (ahem, Glossier Solution) and so this month I have put together the products that have made my skin feel normal again, and some other little luxuries that have made me feel grand!

First up is the product that I can pretty much hands down say transformed my skin from red spot remnants to *almost* clean and clear. Just a few short weeks ago, my skin was sprouting new spots each day, and leaving behind really red marks that were almost worse than the spots themselves. I read online that Vitamin C is a great ingredient to reduce redness so picked up the first thing I could lay my hands on in my vast "to try" pile of skincare, and I honestly woke up the next day with transformed skin.

This bliss Triple Oxygen Radiant Protection Energizing Serum, £52, lookfantastic.com cleared it up so well that even my boyfriend commented that my skin was "amazing". It is a pearlescent thin formula which absorbs really well and smells of zesty oranges. It is illuminating, and gives your skin a natural glow, and of course that added vitamin C evens out skin tones and dark spots.

It is also worth nothing that my skin dramatically changed after being outside. I know this sounds silly, but actually when I look back I was barely going out on my lunch breaks because it was cold and spent 95% of my time indoors. I went on holiday to the Lake District a few weeks ago, and spent all day outside in the fresh air, my skin felt clearer and cleaner and I do honestly think this combined with the serum helped so much.

As you can see by my virtually empty bottle, I have really loved using the Pixi Rose Tonic, £10, pixibeauty.co.uk which is a huge contrast to how much I used the cult favourite, Glow Tonic. Having had such a bad reaction to their number one selling product, I was a little apprehensive to try more skincare from Pixi, especially a Tonic. I am so glad I did though as I have found this so gentle on my skin and felt it really soothing my skin after cleansing. It reduces redness and adds hydration and calms the skin.

I went to a Pixi event at my local department store Fenwicks Tunbridge Wells a few months ago where their regional make up artist Amanda Bell was doing a demo and walk through of all their products. She clearly had so much passion for the brand and the fact that she is best mates with Caroline Hirons also made me want to drink in everything she was saying.

She also convinced me I had to buy the H20 Skin Tint, £24, pixibeauty.co.uk, which I am so glad I did as I hate using foundation in the warmer months and this gives me enough coverage and confidence to go without. I am the lightest shade 'Cream' but as it is just a tint, it wouldn't matter too much if you were to match yourself wrong online.

Whilst in the Lake District we also experienced some uncharacteristically sunny weather, so once again I went to my 'to try' pile and picked up this Skin Laundry Advanced Protection Daily Moisturiser SPF 35, £24, cultbeauty.co.uk. I am SO glad I did. This has become a staple in my skincare routine now as it is really creamy and luxurious, but the added protection of the SPF makes it great as a daily moisturiser for Summer. It is really light and absorbs really fast making it feel like a moisturiser and not a sun cream.

Skin Laundry is fairly still slightly unknown in the UK as it is a L.A brand, but if you want to find out how you can get a FREE light facial with them then read this post here

Whilst I have been using sun protection, I would be lying if I said I haven't been caught short a couple of times and been a bit burnt in the last few heat waves we have had. Whilst I use this Vitamin E Sleeping Mask, £11, thebodyshop.com a couple of times a week, this works absolute wonders if you have had a little too much sun. It is a really cooling gel consistency and locks in moisture so well. Vitamin E protects the skin and wheatgerm oil intensely hydrates. It smells like baby wipes which may be the one thing I would change about it, but otherwise it does it's job very very well!

Something that has been a little strange for me is my love for plain nails this month, especially sophisticated nude nails! I got these two colours in my Ciate Advent Calender.

'Maybe Baby' is a lovely coffee colour and 'The Naked Truth' a pretty peachy pink which looks great with a tan!

Speaking of tans, I have loved using these products by Tan-Luxe to prepare me for showing a little more skin this summer. This brand suddenly blew up on Instagram a few months ago and I saw a few of my favourite smaller bloggers talking about it and I knew I had to get involved. The Sleep Oil, £34 , Tan-Luxe.com is such a fab product. Like a facial oil, you apply this before bed and wake up with a natural, gorgeous glowy tan that hydrates your skin. It does smell a little buscuit-y, but the results are too good I can't complain. You must make sure wash your hands afterwards or you'll wake up with brown palms!

The other product I bought form them was The Water, £33, Tan-Luxe.com purely because I hadn't of this kind of tanner before. I LOVE using this water though as it is so quick and easy. You spray onto the skin and then use a mitt to diffuse and the end result is a ridiculously natural looking tan which absorbs really fast and with no streaks. I got shade light to medium and find it makes my skin the exact colour it would if I had been out in the sun.

Lastly is hair care, and I have been trying a few new styles and styling methods on my hair recently. I have completely given up my hair straighteners as I want bouncy beach waves that don't go flat. I am also trying to keep my colour healthier as my blonde hair can go quite dull really fast.

I first heard of Josh Wood when I interned at their PR agency, but since those days the brand has had a dramatic rebrand which focusses heavily on hair colour and care and I think it looks so amazing, chic and fresh. I love the way these products look in my bathroom.

Before buying any Josh Wood products, I would HIGHLY recommend going to the website and doing their online hair consultation. I answered a few simple questions and ended up buying the Uplifting Shampoo and Conditioner, £10 each, joshwoodcolour.com as they are for my type of blonde hair and also targeted to hair prone to frizz which is definitely mine. 

The products contain no nasty ingredients, and work better with more water meaning you save money on product. They have UV filters to help fading colour . I love how light they make my feel after washing like it hasn't been overloaded with product. The smell is really subtle and fresh and I also bought the Everything Mask, £15, joshwoodcolour.com to use once a week and really nourish.

So those are my favourite products for May, I hope you enjoyed reading about them, and if you have any suggestions of products you think I'll love in June then do let me know!

Pixi Glow Tonic

A few years ago, when I was first getting Glossybox and Birchbox, I always remember Pixi being a brand that would pop up occasionally. Fast forward a few years now, and that mint green packaging can be seen everywhere, as it is a largely recognised brand in the beauty world.

Not only this, but one product in particular has even reached cult staple among beauty editors and bloggers, and that product is Glow Tonic.

This product is so exclusive, it can only be bought online, or in Liberty London.

As soon as I hear about anything being a cult favourite, I always jump at the opportunity to find it, because, well, it's got to be good surely?

Thankfully, working up in London, Liberty wasn't too far for me to go to get this product, so I strolled in one day and picked one up out of the large tubs they had displaying them.

For £18, this isn't the cheapest tonic on the market, but it is also not the most expensive, and with ingredients such as Aloe Vera, Ginsing, and a little glycolic acid, I knew I was investing into some ingredients that my skin really loved and thrived off.

Or so I thought.

From day 1 of using the tonic, I was getting the largest spots I've ever had in my life, all over my forehead and between my brows. I thought maybe as it's an exfoliation product, that perhoaps this was the products way of getting my skin to remove impurities? As I thought that, I proceeded to carry on using the tonic twice a day, however the spots were not reducing, and where actually getting really painful, to the point where I though I was getting a headache to find it was just the spots throbbing on my head.

I cut down using it to once a day, but still, the spots wouldn't go, until I finally gave it up to give my skin a rest. For a few weeks, the spots remained but were going down. 

Even though I am mid twenties and have never suffered from acne as a teen, I do think I have developed more problematic skin in my adult life, so I can't blame all my spots on this product, however I never usually break out on my forehead, in fact I break out everywhere else APART from my forehead, so it did seem strange to me that this product was only affecting my head.

A few weeks passed, and I saw the tonic sitting there, and I thought I would give it another try. As I said earlier, the ingredients have been ones that have really helped my skin in the past, such as Ginsing which is the main ingredient in my Origins moisturiser which I would rate as my favourite moisturiser. Aloe vera which has always helped soothe and quench my dehydrated skin and seen me through many a sunburn whilst travelling, and also Glycolic, which is in the Ren Glycolactic mask which has never irritated me before.

Perhaps I had been hormonal the first time round and that is why I broke out so bad? Maybe I didn't persevere with it long enough to see the full benefits? Maybe it was actually another product I was using in conjunction with it?

With all this going through my mind, I wiped on the tonic with real commitment. The smell is so gentle and floral, it reminded me of rose which is such a soothing ingredient, so surely this would be just as gentle? I was using only my basic skincare as my skin had become so horrendous, and I had been dabbling with new skincare so wanted to strip back to what I knew worked for me so I could find the root of the problem.

I cleansed with my trusty Caudalie cleansing milk, and was moisturing with my Green People 24 hour vit fix. Two very natural products that my skin drinks up, and nothing else.

Sure enough, the next day, I woke up to a throbbing pain on my head, and yes you guessed it, I looked in the mirror to find a huge, under the skin spot, pretty much in exactly the same place as before.

I think it is fair to say that this tonic is not for me at all. In fact, this product is the first product to actually give me a noticeably bad reaction. I am really dissapointed about it as I really wanted to love this product. Having sensitive skin, I loved the idea of a gentle exfoliater using fruity enzymes so I didn't have to use a scrub. The ingredients sounded delicious and I also think it just looks like a really luxurious product to have on your dressing table.

There are other products from Pixi that I would really like to try such as the cleansing balm, or even from the glow range the glow mud cleanser and the glow mask. 

Due to my reaction from this product though, I am a little apprehensive.

I would love to know why I had such a bad reaction to this product, as my friend who has very similar skin to myself gets on really well with this product, so she is now the owner of my barely used bottle.

Have you tried this product? If so let me know your thoughts on it, or if you know of a similar product, I'd love to try it out!

Sorry this was a long one!

If you want to read about any of the other products mentioned in this post I have left links to my reviews when you click on them.