Beauty : Olay Total Effects Day Moisturiser

 By: Unknown    00:00  No comments

Today's review is  about the Olay Total Effects Day Moisturiser product. It's been a while since I posted beauty reviews but I'm going to try and make it a blog rule that every Monday, come rain or shine, there'll be a new beauty review up on the blog.

Olay is one of those product lines that has always intrigued me. I admit, I'm mainly a bit of a product snob when it comes to skincare, I generally use products that are a bit on the pricey side like Clinique, Decleor, Estee Lauder. However, Olay gets really rave reviews, both from friends and blogs and magazines. When they approached me and asked me if I'd like to try out some of their products, I immediately said yes, I figured at the very least I'd get to satisfy my lingering curiosity.

The first thing I noticed when looking at the packaging is that the moisturiser has an SPF of 15 which was enough protection for May but would need sunblock to be worn over for the hotter months. The second thing I noticed is that the moisturiser has a pump-like application. I absolutely rave about pump applicators. I hate pot-style dispensers - I always feel worried about what germs I could possibly be inserting into the pot when extracting the cream, I always take too much and it always gets stuck underneath my nails. So points in favour for the pump.

For this product, these are the 7 official claims:

1. Visibly smoothes fine lines and wrinkles

2. Evens skin tone appearance

3. Enhances brightness

4. Minimizes the look of pores

5. Visibly reduces age spots

6. Restores firmness

7. Replenishes moisture

I used this product every morning for two weeks. There's nothing remarkable about my morning beauty routine. I generally like to start by cleaning my face, toning it, applying eye cream and applying moisturiser. 

Review Points

Line minimization - I get fine lines due to dryness or dehydration but am not yet suffering from age lines or wrinkles so couldn't really test this one

Tone & Brightness enhancement - I didn't really see any difference to my overall skin tone colour but my complexion did look nice and well rested somehow, as though it was really happy.

Pore refinement - I have some open pores, so had this feature worked, I'd have been a happy bunny, sadly I saw no difference.

Age spots - I don't have any age spots but I do have a couple of sun spots and those are still there.

Mositurising & Hydrating Effect - Pretty good, from the first day, by the evening, I had no dry patches anywhere - something which I have previously experienced with other products. Also, foundation stayed put on top of it and didn't cake or melt off.

Others :

Dries quickly - I refuse to wait a length of time between applying moisturiser and applying makup so a fast drying time is essential to me. This faired well.

Overall Review

I liked this moisturiser, comparing it to other much pricier ones I've used, I did not feel that this product did the job any worse than they did. In fact, I've continued to use it in the mornings - it's taken up a place of residence in my gym bag since I start most days with a gym session.

I did not feel that it meets all of the claims it makes, or at least in my case it didn't but in my experience that's generally true of most beauty products.

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Beauty Post : PUPA Vamp Eyeshadow

 By: Unknown    06:37  No comments

Whenever I'm packing for a trip abroad, I always hassle when it comes to choosing what makeup to take with me. I always want way too many things. On a recent trip to Paris which you can read more about here, I decided to take this aptly named PUPA Vamp eyeshadow from their Paris Experience Autumn Collection - perfect time to test it I thought - well with all the madness the past month has brought I completely forgot about it until I saw this photo and my purple eye shadow struck me and ....then I remembered.. 

This photo was taken after about 4 hrs that it has been applied and it still looks great. I love the colour because it works both as a standalone colour or as part of a blend.. the quality is very smooth and it glides on easily. In general, I always like PUPA makeup and the best part is they're such great value for money. 

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Beauty : Gellish Review

 By: Unknown    23:28  No comments

I've been posting my 'monthly nails look' for the past month, generally capturing the photos right after I'd have just done them but you may have noticed I skipped a month. I decided to turn this next post into a review and show you what they look like at the end - after three weeks have passed.

I first tried Gellish when it first made an appearance in Malta and being honest I wasn't a big fan. I switched beauty parlours around a few times and some worked and some didn't - at a couple of places they removed the polish badly, wreaking havoc on my nails, at others I could never find availability when I needed so then they'd chip and I'd try and remove them myself..  Anyway, I had given up and was sticking to normal polish but last June the Gellish Importers who also have a beauty parlour at Femme Beauty in Attard suggested sponsoring my nails. My first reaction was to say no but I thoguht it'd be rude and I decided to give Gellish a last go.

I'm not sure what exactly made all the difference - maybe the appointment availability, certainly they take great care to ensure the nail isn't damaged during removal and they use a product called structure build to make the polish extra long lasting.

Since last May, I haven't had a single break in my nails, my nails are hard, the polish never chips and my nails always look perfect - I visit the salon every three weeks and these photos were taken today, three weeks after my last visit. These three weeks included lots of typing on keyboards, travelling abroad, working out, washing stuff..everything basically. Of course, there's some visible growth and some cuticle showing but they still look good.

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Beauty Post : LABELM LEAVE-IN CONDITIONER

 By: Unknown    05:46  No comments

Anyone who has curly hair knows that frizz is our worst nightmare. Frizz seems to happen due to a number of factors - dry hair, wind, humid weather, products not working well ..but for me the biggest factor is always the dryness. My hair is the opposite of oily..it seems to have absolutely no ability to form any oil whatsoever.

There was a time when I spent quite some time reading up on curly hair and curly hair products and one thing I had read was to leave conditioner in your  hair i.e not rinse it out - they weren't talking about leave in conditioner, just normal conditioner you use when you wash your hair after shampooing. I tried this many times and to be honest it works very well but then a hairdresser once pointed out that it was probably damaging my hair and causing product buildup leading to an inability for my hair to grow properly (in fact my hair was splitting). 

I moved on to leave in conditioners but they just never seemed to provide enough conditioning, hair still seemed dry, frizz still appeared. LABELM UK recently suggested to me at LFW that I try their leave in conditioner and I have to say it's great. I got it from LABELM Malta when I got back. It's not sticky but at the same time does the job ..it even seems to somehow hold the curl. I used it when I snapped that photo above (I did use other styling products that I normally use (specifically Bumble and Bumble hair creme and John Frieda Dream curls on that day) but it was a really windy day and whilst normally the curls would have dried out in all that wind ..they didn't - yipeee !

Method of Application - just worked into hair after shampooing and conditioning and then continued styling as normal.

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