October 2012 empties

This post is only 13 days late as I means to write it on the 15th of this month like the previous entries. But nevermind, here it is now...

This month I haven't finished up very much, maybe it will mean I have more in November, but I also don't want to force myself to use more as that's just a waste.

1)Aussie Miracle Moist Shampoo 300ml
2)Aussie Miracle Moist Conditioner 250ml
I love them and they do wonders for my frizzy dry hair, but some months it's a bit rich for me, so I like to switch my shampoo around every so often

3)Aussie Take The Heat 3 minute Deep Treatment 250ml
Again, love Aussie hair stuff. I stopped straightening my hair about 8 weeks ago and have noticed such a difference. I don't have any split ends, which is lovely. So because of that I haven't been using as many hair products. It's been nice giving my hair a bit of a break.
But I will be purchasing some more of these when I go to Florida in 75 days :)

4)The Body Shop 'Love ETC' Body Butter 200ml
I mentioned it before, but my skin is terribly dry, so body lotions do nothing for it. I love this Body Butter as the scent reminds me of the Soap & Glory one. But that one has recently been on the 3for2 offer at boots, so I have picked up a tub of that. Again, I like switching my products around or else I get bored. I probably like both Body Butters equally as much.

5)The Body Shop Hemp Foot Protector 100ml
I hate my dry feet, this cream is brilliant, but some people might not like the scent as it's quite herbal...I use it at night.

6)Soap & Glory Scrub Your Nose In It facial peeling 125ml
I didn't really like this one, not sure why. I didn't enjoy the peppermint scent either. Will not repurchase.

7)Secret 'so very summerberry' gel deodorant 76g
Gosh I love these. I always stock up when I'm in the States and they last ages. I still have 2 full ones left, so I will be fine until I'm back over there to buy some more.
My favourite scent was 'peach', which I got in 2011. This year I got 'summerberry' and 'pear'(which I am using at the moment)
So efficient!

8)No7 Cleanse & Care Eye Make Up Remover 100ml
I like two phase eye make up removers as I find them very efficient in removing my waterproof mascara.
I got this 'cheap' with a £5 No7 voucher.
At the moment I am using a Loreal one but I'm really keen on trying the Lancome two phase 'bi facil' eye make up remover. Maybe Father Christmas could bring me some?

9)Aquafresh extra care Mouthwash 250ml
Well, there's not much to say about mouthwash, it did the job and wasn't too strong. Need to repurchase.

10)Bath & Bodyworks 'dark kiss' body lotion 59ml
Like I mentioned earlier, Body lotions aren't moisturising enough for my skin, especially now with Winter just around the corner. But I adore the scent of this lotion and took it with me on a couple of weekends away. As much as I love the scent, I really need to stop myself from buying more of this next January.
This one was 2 years old. I remember picking it up for $1 when I was in new York in 2010 as it was a brand new scent back then. I got another, slightly bigger bottle earlier this year in Orlando.

11) & 12) REN Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask 5ml & 15ml
I do love this mask, it makes my skin feel brighter and I prefer 'chemical' or enzyme peels to mechanical peels.(scrubs)
I have got two more travel sizes and also a 50ml full size of this :)

13)essence nail oil 3.5ml
I love this nail oil. I suffer from very dry cuticles and love to use this oil often, especially when I'm 'on the go' like on the train.
This wasn't supposed to be in this month's empties but unfortunately I left it in my jeans' pocket and it went through the washing machine. The bottle didn't crack but it was empty when it came out the machine. Luckily I picked up two more when I was in Germany back in August.

14)Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula Skin Therapy Oil 5ml
Just a sachet from a magazine. I do like skin oils but the scent was too strong for me as it clashed with my perfume. It did make my skin feel very nice and soft though.

15)Glamour magazine shower gel
Another sachet freebie. This was in Glamour magazine a year or so ago and they kept the brand a secret as it was supposed to be market research. Did the trick but I didn't enjoy the scent, I have nicer shower gels at home so I didn't go through the trouble of finding out which brand this was.

So, I finished 15 items and bought about 50 new ones ;-) Haul post soon...

InStyle and Marie Claire November 2012 Freebies

I LOVE reading magazines and especially love buying them when they have good freebies included.
Right now there are a few ones out worth buying and I picked up a couple of them

Marie Claire November 2012
This includes a 30ml L'Occitane shea handcream in one of 4 varieties. You can choose from original scent, date, rose and mango.
I picked up the original and mango one but may also get the date scented cream next time I'm at the shops.
The magazine retails at £3.70 and the hand cream normally retails at £8 each.

There was also a 50ml Dove colour radiance conditioner included with my magazine but I know some store had sachets of TRESemme hairproducts instead.

Also a sample of Clarins foundation

InStyle November 2012
This included one of three mini Benefit products, choose from Cha Cha tint(mango tinted lip and cheek stain), Benetint(rose tinted lip and cheek stain) or Sunbeam.
I picked up the first two a year ago with Glamour magazine and didn't really care for them, so I tried Sun Beam this time.
It's a golden bronze complexion highlighter, which you apply over your make up.

The magazine also includes a voucher to exchange for a free Bad Gal mini mascara at participating benefit counters as well as the same foundation sample included in Marie Claire.

The Benefit samples are all worth around £8(give or take a few pence) and the magazine retails at £3.80. However, I got mine at Tesco where it sells for £2.50.

I'm very happy about this month's 'freebies', I know I still spent almost £10 on 3 beauty products, so technically they are not freebies but I really enjoy trying out new products like Benefit or getting old favourites like L'Occitane hand cream, which is normally a little too pricey for me considering how much hand cream I use.

August 2012 Germany Haul

I recently went to Germany to visit my family and of course I couldn't help myself but buy a few things while I was there, mostly food and of course beauty items from the drugstore.

A few months ago I subscribed to a German Beauty Box, which is being sent to my mum's place every month, so when I visited, there were three boxes waiting for me full of wonderful little surprises. This particular beauty box recently changed from being a complete surprise to now knowing in advance what's inside, since you can chose your own samples from a selection of roughly 14 products.
As well as samples, the Douglas Box of Beauty also contains one main product every month, which is usually worth around €10, making the box a very good value since the total cost is in fact €10 including shipping.
Take that Glossy Box!!

Anyway, here are some of the wonderful procducts I bought and some I had in my beauty box(marked with a BOB, which stands for 'Box of Beauty')

starting in the back from left to right:

1) Night Life by Esprit 15ml Eau de Toilette
I don't normally like cheap drugstore perfumes but I quite liked this one when I tested it and for €9 I had to buy it

2) Isana mango guava lipbalm

3) Labello(Nivea in the UK) fruity shine 'cherry' lip balm x 2

4) Clarins HydraQuench mask 15ml(BOB)
this is one of the beauty box luxury samples, so far I have used it once as my skin is rather dehydrated at the moment.

5) & 6) Synergen Handcream in 'lovesong' and 'white chocolate'
cheap and cheerful handcream, €0.65!!

7) Tana Egypt Wonder Lipstick(BOB)
This one changes colour according to the pH of your lips. Mine turned into a very bright pinkish red

8) Gucci Guilty 5ml EdP(BOB)

9) Kenzo Flower Tag 5ml EdP(BOB)

10) Estee Lauder Doublewear Light in a shade 2, my favourite foundation

11) Rexona Maximum Protection 48hr deodorant. I think this brand is called 'Sure' in the UK. I've been wanting to try these for ages but couldn't bring myself to pay £5, so when it was on offer for €3(£2.50) in Germany I snapped one up. Haven't tried it yet as I'm still finishing one of the Secret ones I bought in the US. I always buy my deodorant abroad it seems ;-)

12) Catrice glitter nail polish. Apparently you can never have too many nail polishes

13) Tetesept glitter bath perls for children. This is part of a christmas hamper I'm making for the girls. Full of pink, gllittery girly things.

14) and 15) Burberry Brit scented Body Lotion 30ml and mini perfume spray, this was a 'gift with purchase' and included a nice cosmetics bag as well.

16) Hildegard Braukmann Powder in a shade medium(BOB)
This was the main product in the Beauty Box back in June and everyone thought medium was going to be too dark(we didn't get to choose a shade) but it's perfect for me. I will definitely repurchase this one.

17) Rival de Loop Young Eyeshadow base
I've been lusting for the Urban Decay Primer Potion but it's been out of stock everywhere I went, so I decided to give this one a go. Worth a try for €2.
Have used it twice and the eye shadow stayed put, it's a winner for me!

18) and 19) Essence Nail Polish Corrector pen and nail oil(x2)
I'm not very good at paining my nails, especially my right hand and get quite a bit of polish on my cuticles, this should help me afterwards.
The nail oil is great, I bought one at Christmas and carry it in my bag at all times. They don't always have it in stock so I bought two when I saw them.(€2 each)

20) Ellie Saab Le Perfum 4ml EdT(BOB)
Don't like the smell so trying to swap/sell it

21) Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour cream(BOB) 5ml
I bought this once before on a plane but didn't enjoy the herbal scent. It was very rich and nourishing, so will keep this for my handbag or for when I go on holiday next January.

22) Lancaster Skin Therapy Oxygen Flash Mask(BOB) 15ml
This was again one of the luxury samples from the beauty box, will finish my Clarins mask first and then try this one.

23) and 24) Alien by Thierry Mugler EdT sample and 30ml scented Body Lotion(BOB).
As I mentioned in my post about my perfume collection, I really do love this scent so when the scented Body Lotion was one of the choices in a previous beauty box I had to have it.
It's slightly shimmery so I will save this for a special occasion and use it on my arms.
The sample is perfect to pop into my handbag.
Sadly my partner is allergic to perfume, so I have to be careful when I use it.

I bought more when I was there but had to leave some things behind due to luggage restriction. Will bring them home at Christmas :)

ttfn
x

September 2012 Empties

So, another month has passed and I have managed to empty a few products since my last post 4 weeks ago.
I probably didn't empty as much as I could have since I was away on holiday for 2 weeks ut I still have quite a few things to throw away, 13 to be precise:

Starting in the back:

1. Bath and Bodyworks Foaming Handwash 'Midnight Pomegranate' 259ml
Like I previously mentioned, I love these and tend to bring 4 or 5 back everytime I go to the States. I do refill the soap dispensers with diluted liquid soap from time to time so I don't use up my Bath and Bodyworks ones too quickly.

2.Nivea Daily Essentials Moisturiser for normal to combination skin 50ml
I've been using this one for years and it's so cheap. i do love it. I keep trying to switch to different ones as I sometimes think my skin needs more now that I am a bit older, but other creams make me break out or I don't like the scent, so I always come back to this one.

3.Synergen Hand Creme 'Freche Fruechte' 75ml
This is a cheap hand creme I bought in Germany sometime last year, it was cheap €0.69, so about 60p(less than $1) and it was good for using after washing up, which I do way to much with two kids in the house. It was fruit scented,'Freche Fruechte' means cheeky fruit.

4.Aussie 3 Minute Miracle Reconstructor 250ml
I LOVE this hair mask and buy it whenever it's on offer. My hair is not very healthy and very dry, so always needs lots and lots of extra moisture.

5.Aussie Miracle Moist Shampoo 300ml
Again, I LOVE Aussie haircare and this gives my hair lots of moisture.

6.The Body Shop Body Scrub 'Candied Ginger' 200ml
Thank God that's finished. I got this free with some sort of a deal on their website last winter and never really cared for the scent. I don't fine their body scrubs to be rough enough for my liking and prefer the Soap & Glory Scrubs.

7.Estee Lauder Doublewear Light Intensity '2' 30ml
I tried this for the first time 1.5 years ago after an unsuccessful trial of the regular doublewear. I'm not sure this is actually any better than any of the other foundations I use(Rimmel, Revlon) but I like using it for some reason and always stock up when I'm on holiday in the States if they offer a 'gift with purchase'

8.Benefit BAD GAL mascara in black
This was a magazine freebie, but I bought several of the magazines(£2) because I wanted to keep a few of these mini mascaras for holidays. I go through phases with bad gal mascara, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it.

9.REN Hydra Calm Cleansing Gel 5ml
*free sample*

10.REN Invisible Pores Detox Mask 5ml
*free sample* I have used it 4 times and not seen a difference

11.REN Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask 15ml
I really liked this, it's a skin renewal mask and my skin feels lovely and smooth afterwards. I had 4 sample sizes but have since bought a full size for almost £30 because I really like what it does to my skin

12.Molton Brown invigorating suma ginseng bath & shower 30ml
*hotel freebie* Didn't really enjoy the scent as it was a little too masculine for me but I'm saving the empty bottle and will be refilling it for weekends away.

13.Cotton Pads
Okay, maybe that's cheating *ha*
These were from Boots and I find them much better than the ones from Tesco or Superdrug

I'm happy I managed to use up a few more products, especially because of course I have bought some more over the last few weeks and a haul post will be coming soon :)

The bare neccessities?

So my suitcase is packed and when packing my cosmetics bag I really tried sticking to the minimum as I know my girlfriend would be making fun of me and my massive washbag, especially because we will have a weight limit of 15kg on one of our flights.

Well, these are my 'essentials' for 12 nights away, which includes a cruise so some make up will be needed:

*oops*

Holiday shopping

I'm going on holiday on Monday so today I went shopping to get a few last bits like travel size toothpaste, facewash and nail polish remover wipes.

I had seen this adorable wash bag on someone else's blog and knew I HAD to have it. It's from the kids department at Primark and only £4, it's adorable!

And these are the nail polishes I have bought/swapped this week alone, I think I have a problem ;-)

Also, look what my lovely friend sent me in the post. She was given this as a gift with purchase at the clinique counter and didn't have any use for it.
So cute!

August 2012 Empties

Hello, my name is The Nanny and I'm a cosmetics hoarder

I have a massive drawer full of creams, soaps and potions and I've been trying to use up some of them before purchasing new 'stock' ;-)

So between July 15th and August 15th, this is what I finished up. I didn't use more of it just to finish a product as that would have been a waste.

Let's start:

1.Imperial Leather foamburst Hawaiian Spa shower foam 200ml
This took ages to finish. The bottle claims it contains enough for 40 showers and I definitely believe it. What a bargain!
I really liked the smell of it.

2.Soap & Glory Flake Away Body Scrub 300ml
My alltime favourite body scrub. The smell is amazing and it leaves your skin baby soft. I have already re-purchased this one.

3.The Body Shop 'Love ETC' Body Butter 200ml
The smell is similar to the Soap & Glory Body Butter so that was nice as I got the Body Shop one during an online sale(50% off I think) Left my skin soft but maybe not as nourishing as Soap & Glory 'Righteous Butter', which I will buy again in the winter, by which time I should have used up all my other body butters.

4.Cutex Strengthening Nail Polish remover 100ml
5.Asda Nail Polish Remover 250ml
They both did exactly what it says on the tin. Didn't notice any difference between cheap and more expensive nail polish remover.

6.Mischa Barton 'Lemon Zest' Whipped Shea Body Butter 65g
This is amazing and if this small pot wasn't £10 it would be all I'd ever use. I managed to buy one more on ebay for a couple of £ but haven't been able to find it anywhere for cheap. The smell is lovely and fresh and it feels really nourishing to my dry skin.

7.Bath & BodyWorks 'Vanilla Berry Sorbet' antibacterial foaming hand soap 259ml
One of the things I bought when I was in Florida earlier this year.
I LOVE Bath & BodyWorks hand soaps and always bring 3 or 4 back home from the States.

8.REN Mayblossom Balancing Cleansing Gel 25ml
9.Clinique liquid facial soap mild 30ml
They were nice face soap, not much to say about them. Not too harsh but managed to remove my make up. I have recently given up facial wipes and have been using muslins and cloths instead and feel my face has been cleaner compared to when I was using the wipes.

10.No7 Beautiful Skin Facial Wipes
I bought these using my £5 off voucher so they only cost me £2.50, they did the job of cleansing my face and removing my make up but like I said, I try not to use them anymore.

11.Di Palomo Wild Fig&Grape hand cream 25ml
This was in a recent Lux Bux and I really enjoyed the smell. I'm constantly washing up or washing my hands so I have extremely dry hands and cuticles and am always using hand cream.

12.L'Occitane Immoretelle Brightening Hand Cream 15ml
This was in the 'Latest in Beauty' Box a couple of months ago and I'm glad I finished it. It was a lovely handbag sized product but it felt a bit sticky.

13.Oral B complete Toothpaste 50ml
nothing to say about toothpaste really ;-)

And now some products I didn't actually finish but I'm throwing them out anyway

14.VO5 curl boost crunching spray 200ml
This made my hair look 'wet' even when I didn't use a lot of the spray. Not a fan of 'wet hair' look

15.Impulse 'Loving Words' body fragrance 75ml
I just bought it because the bottle looked fun but I'm not liking the scent

16.No7 Extravagant Volume Mascara in black 9ml
This was a £12 mascara and in my eyes(ha) it's not worth the money. I didn't like the brush and it made my lashes look clumpy.

17.Clinique High Impact Mascara black 4g
a magazine freebie and I really liked it. Just throwing it out because it's gotten a bit too old and I have a few more miniature mascaras to use up.

WOW, 17 products and I didn't even try hard to use up :)
I hope this makes up for the 12 or so nail polishes I have bought in the last week, and no I'm not joking ;-)

I'm going to try and make this a monthly installment, maybe someone out there is interested in seeing which products I'm using up.

Nobody puts nanny in the corner....

One of the reasons I haven't really posted much is that I haven't really figured out what blogging niche I belong in.

I'm by no means a beauty blogger, I can't post any pictures of the kids I look after, so wouldn't make an interesting 'nanny blogger', but I'm also nowhere near ready to start blogging about our own journey to start a family, since that's probably still a couple of years away.
So what do I do?

If you're here because you googled the birthday parties, then you're not interested in reading about the beauty boxes, yet of you're here because you're looking for a product review, you're likely not going to want to read about what the kids and I do all summer long.

I guess I shouldn't really worry since the reason I'm blogging is because I want to do it for myself, but let's admit: it's always nice to have a few followers along for the journey.

Toodle-ooo
:)

U.S.A. beauty haul

So, a couple of weeks ago my mummy and I embarked on an adventure together...12 days at Disneyworld Florida. The longest amount of time we've spent together since I moved out of her flat and the country 10 years ago so I was curious to see how we'd get along.

We did just fine but were both ready to get back home.

I very much enjoyed the sunshine, everything Disney, the pool, THE FOOD, the shopping and just being back in America :)

So of course we had to go shopping a couple of times, 12 days at Disney could get a bit too much if you don't get a little break every now and then.

Because we like to complicate things a little bit, we decided not to rent a car and rely entirely on public transport. I should have timed the amount of time we spent on Disney buses while we were there...or maybe it's better that I didn't.
It took us a good 2 hours door to door to get to the Florida Mall and the Outlets, even Target and Walmart weren't much closer because you always had to take 2 buses or a bus and a Monorail to the Main car park first, where you could catch the public buses.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff-the pictures:

First the food, OMG I love American Junk ;-)
We were on one of the dining plans(free with our booking) so all of our food during the stay was FREE, at the end we still had a ton of snack credits leftover so we went to town and I brought 4 packs of cheesey Mickey head crackers, 2 packs of Disney gummy sweets, 2 boxes of Nutter Butter cookies and one piece of Tiki Toffee, which I got at the Polynesian Resort.
The rest is from our 3 trips to Target and Walmart, chewing gum, about 60 sticks of Crystal Light Ice Tea, peanutbutter/Raspberry/Mint M&Ms, Goldfish Crackers, various other crackers and pretzel...

I am ashamed to admit that most of this stuff(apart from the gum, some of the crackers and icetea) has already been eaten and I've only been back 2 weeks. No wonder I have gained 4 lbs since my return ;-)
Best purchase? Peanutbutter M&Ms!

Next, Beauty stuff:
*2 bottles of Aussie 3 Minute Miracle(a bargain at 2 for $5, when I usually pay 2 for £7 here) The heat, sun and chlorine quickly messed with my hair so I needed more than just the conditioner I had brought.
I will definitely be stocking up on Aussie stuff as this is what I am using here and if I had known that my suitcase would be almost 5kg/10lbs under the weight limit on departure day I would have picked up one of the massive shampoo bottles with the pump which has enough for up to 100 washes!
*Aussie smoothing serum, housekeeping must have thrown my Frizzease serum out, so for a couple of days I was sporting afro-like hairstyles until we managed to get back to a shop and buy a replacement. Florida humidity and my hair aren't friends!
*Banana Boat Sun Protection Spray SPF30. I love this stuff and buy a bottle whenever I'm in the States. I paid $5, it's closer to £9 over here. It's invisible and doesn't need to be rubbed in. Use in a ventilated room! Earlier this year my friend and I used this stuff in a tiny cruise ship cabin and could hardly breathe afterwards ;-)
*4 Bath & Bodyworks Foaming Handsoaps, they're amazing and I've been buying these for a couple of years now. It may sound a bit naff that I buy soap when I go to the States but I really love them and it's sort of like and 'all year round' souvenir because they last ages(since it's just me using them) I got 4 for $20 and bought them in 'caribbean escape', 'coconut lime verbena', vanilla berry sorbet' and 'sea island cotton' which is part of a birthday present for my friend next month. Sadly my favourite scent had been discontinued
*A small 'caribbean escape' scented candle, also from Bath & Bodyworks, which was a free gift that day as they were holding a Mother's Day event(Mother's Day is the second Sunday of May over there)
*2 frangrance mists, one in 'Be Enchanted'[quote: frosted florals sweetend with sparkling, sugared pomegranate inspired by all that glitters] and one if 'sea island cotton(fresh linen type scent), which also is a part of my friend's birthday present. The 'Be Enchanted' mist is for me and I love using it because it is so much lighter that a perfume or eau de toilette
*3x Secret Deodorant, I love this stuff and it lasts ages. It's an invisible gel and I thought the bottle would be finished really quickly as you're supposed to use 2 'clicks' under each arm but they end up lasting about 3 months for me, good stuff for $4 each. This time I got two in summerberry and one pear scented because they didn't seem to stock my usual peach scented one anymore. Pear deodorant sounds a bit strange, we will see what I think of it.

And last but not least, my nail polishes, a slight addiction of mine.[right to left in the picture below]
As well as the free food, our booking also included a Disney gift card for $150, which my mum and I split. This was valid in any shop or restaurant on Disney property but we were having a really hard time spending the money because we didn't feel the need to buy Disney merchandise like tshirts or teddies. I was so happy when I found that one of the shops in Downtown Disney stocked the Muppets range OPI nail polishes, so I got three for $8 each.
I got:
*Designer De Better a silver foil nail colour with little specks of bronze/copper in it. It looks amazing. So far I have only tried it on one nail but can't wait to try a full set of nails. I envision removal to be a pain though.
*Meep Meep Meep, a shimmery fuchsia, more glittery than the next one...
*Wocka Wocka! A shimmery red, I actually took this to the nail salon to be used for my pedicure yesterday and I love it. I don't normally wear red polish so it's a bit something new for me :)

We did two trips to Target and 1 trip to Walmart and my mum was laughing that she would always find me in front of the nail polish shelf, I got
*Essie turquoise&caicos. I don't think these kind of shades particularly suit me but it just looked so pretty and I have read many positive things about Essie polishes. A bargain at $7.75, when they're about £8-10 here
*Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Hidden Treasure', I don't like wearing bright nail polish on my finger nails, so this will be perfect, just the right amount of shimmer $6
*Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Posh Plum, it's quite similar to my go-to Pedicure colour of Nails Inc 'Paris' but this one is shimmery, so quite looking forward to trying it out $2.49
*Seche Vite Dry fast Top Coat $10, I have read many raving reviews about this and can't wait to try it since I am a little bit impatient when it comes to lettin nail polish dry

There you have it, my little beauty haul, nothing too exciting but I enjoy having little souvenirs I get to use all year round. I'm already looking forward to my next trip out there, hopefully before January 2013, when I'm going on a cruise.

April 2012 LUX Box beauty box review

I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to Make Up and despite being dangerously close to turning 30 I don't really experiment with skincare at all and still use my trusty £4 Nivea Moisturiser on my face, I have been for about 10 years now.

But reading blogs and watching youtube vlogs have made me become aware of all the wonderful products available out there, including these curious things called 'beauty boxes'
I remember that as a child my parents would sometimes buy us what was called a 'wundertuete'(surprise bag) at the toystore or newsagent. For roughly 50p you'd get a little bag of treasures like stickers, colouring books, useless pencils and assorted plastic toys that never lasted more than a day, yet we still loved them.
Beauty Boxes are a similar idea. Every month you get a little box containing roughly 5 items to try out, some are samples, some are full size items.
So the more I started reading about beauty boxes, the more I wanted to give them a try.
The problem was that there were just too many for me to chose from and I kept reading bad things about every single one of them, mostly preferred treatment for the big beauty bloggers, which just isn't fair.
A couple of weeks ago I came across 'Lux Box', who were due to bring out their first box in April and to get customers interested, they were offering an introductionary price of £7.50(plus postage) instead of £10 for the first box.
I decided to give it a go and received mine this morning at 9am :)

Let's have a look:

It all came in a brown box without a logo, but I wasn't expecting any other parcels and had been stalking my postie all weekend so I knew what it was:

lovely champagne/dusky pink box, my straighteners are exactly the same colour, a shame my camera didn't pick it up properly

ooooh, the suspense:

So this is what the box includes:

*A full size steam cream(~£10-£13)
*Eldora false Lashes in H101, made from human hair, £4.25
*2 1g eyeshadows by BMbeauty, in the colours 'wolf howl' and 'her majesty', original sizes are 2g pots so these two are wirth £9 combined
*10ml Balance Me wonder eye cream(£14)
*a tiny pot of MOA The Green Balm, based on a full size product I estimate this to be worth £1
=total value £38.25(I paid £10.45)

To be honest I have to say at first I was a bit disappointed because to me these were all no name products and I expected there to be at least one product I would recognize.
But when I actually read up on the items that were sent I was a bit happier and will continue my subscription for one more month and then re-evaluate.

I have never used false lashes and the ones I received are quite 'thick', I think I will need to start off with a little more natural looking ones.

The MOA green balm is a good size for my handbag. I have the most horrendous cuticles so I will be using it to treat them a little bit.

I've been meaning to start using an eyecream, like I said...I'm getting older ;-)

The eyeshadows are fun colours, I'm going to buy a eye shadow base soon and try them out but here are some swatches on my hand, the pinky one is 'her majesty' and the blue/purple one is 'wolf howl':

The steam cream is the star item of the box, I had never heard of it before and I will say that I will probably not use this on my face but use it as a handcream instead. It does feel lovely on my skin but I think it may just be too rich for my face and make me break out in spots, also it's lavendar scented, which isn't something I would ever chose.

All in all a good first beauty box after getting over my inital disappoinment of not knowing a single item in the box.

I have another one coming soon(she said beauty box), so stay tuned for that one :)

If you want to find out more about the Lux Box and maybe even subscribe, this is the link:
Lux Box