Nuxe Reve De Miel Lip Balm

Lip balms, so many to choose from including all varieties of flavours, tints, fragrances, with SPF, without SPF the list goes on. What I want from a lip balm however, is one that sinks in and repairs my lips. A balm that I don't need to keep re-applying to stop them feeling dry. The kind of balm where I apply it at night and wake up in the morning with soft, smooth lips.

I know I expect a lot from my beauty products, but fortunately Nuxe's Reve De Miel Lip Balm fulfils all my requirements. It's a balms that sinks into your lips and keeps them moisturised for the majority of the day. It's a great base for lip colour as it helps any gloss or lipstick glide on smoothly and stops it from catching on any dry bits. The best part is, I picked it up from Marks & Spencer for about eight quid in a sale! It's a steel really for what I think could easily sit in with high end beauty product lines.

Texture-wise it's quite dense, you may feel like you have to work it into your lips but I quite like that. Despite that it's super nourishing and soothing so great if you suffer with dry, chapped lips. Definitely a 'must have' skincare item. No other balm that I have comes close to this one so it's definitely a keeper, and I have loads of lip balms!

Just love

Rina xoxo

My all time favourite body moisturisers

 
I've always had a bit of an obsession with body moisturisers. When I was in school I was gifted the the delightful nickname 'moisturiser' by the other English Lit students because on a residential to London they laughed at how long my shower routine took. I needed longer than everyone else to moisturise my entire body, something that was strange to them but completely natural to me.

I'm sure many other readers that grew up in an Asian family can relate. From as early as I can remember, my mum used to dry me off after a wash and massage baby oil on me, head to toe. This routine has become somewhat of a ritual and now I'm always on the look out for a really great body moisturiser.

I know some people only moisturise their skin when it feels dry but I swear by moisturising everyday. The main reason is of course to keep my skin soft but I'm certain that in giving my my body a massage everyday it's helped prevent cellulite. My tummy and thighs are what I'd describe as soft to put it kindly, but I've never really had a problem with cellulite. It also promotes an even skin tone and mostly it just makes you feel good to take five minutes to pamper yourself once a day.

So those are what I think are the benefits of ritual body moisturising and he are my four all time favourite body moisturisers.

The Righteous Butter by Soap & Glory

When Soap & Glory first launched, this quickly became one of my most loved body butters. At £10.50 for a 300ml jar, which is huge, this butter absorbs into the skin quickly, it's rich but doesn't leave a greasy finish but most importantly, it smells AMAZING. It's by far one of the most beautifully fragranced body butters I've ever tried. I'll take breaks away from this product every now and then but I often find myself in the aisles of Boots slipping one in my basket because I remember how sensational it smells! It really does feel like a luxury moisturiser and the smell truly makes you feel pampered and sexy.

The Body Shop's Mango Body Butter

Body butters are most definitely associated with The Body Shop. As one of their cult products The Body Shop Body Butters have surely inspired many similar products that have been produced since then but theirs will always be the creme de la creme. Some of my favourite 'flavours' include papaya and passion fruit but when it comes to moisturising benefits my top pick has to be mango. I discovered it when I was working in the backstage team for London Fashion Week A/W '13. The Vaxhaull Fashion Scout shows were sponsored by The Body Shop and we used the mango body butter on the models' legs and arms. I love this particular body butter because unlike the others which actually have a buttery texture which can take some work to buff into the skin, the mango one has more of a gel-like texture which absorbs quickly. It's also extra rich and deeply moisturising. It's so rich that when I shower 24 hours later, I can still feel it slick on the skin. These are the kind of moisturisers I like. The ones where you can definitely tell that it's keeping your skin moisturised for hours.

Astral

This one is a fail safe. I always have one of these in the house as a back-up but it really is a great moisturiser. If you don't like extremely rich creams then stay well away! Personally I like the kind of creams that sink in and stay on your skin. It's a hard-working moisturiser that does the job it's supposed to do. A little greasy maybe, but I guarantee that your skin will drink it right up. Astral's also good for people who prefer fuss-free, un-fragranced products. This cream must be good because I have a cousin in Australia that gets me to ship them to her - madness! But for a budget, drug-store moisturiser, it certainly ticks a lot of boxes.

Palmer's Cocoa Butter

I used this for years when I was a teenager. It was a very popular product then and I remember a time when I loved it that much I never strayed onto other moisturisers. As I've gotten older I've found myself steering towards richer, thicker creams but Palmer's Cocoa Butter will always have a place on my shelf. It helps even out skin-tone and it's great as an after-sun. A great moisturiser to take on holidays, unlike the other products I've mentioned this one isn't in a bulky tub which makes it convenient for travelling. 

So there you have it, my all time favourite body moisturisers. I've tried and tested each one several times along with many others but I'll always go back to these four. 

I'm always on the lookout for body moisturisers to try, are there any you'd add to the list? 

Just love

Rina xoxo 

The Body Shop - Wild Argan Oil Launch Event

Last Thursday my friend and fellow blogger, Belinda and I attended the launch event for the new Wild Argan Oil collection at The Body Shop in Leeds. The event was a great way to introduce the collection to a crowd of beauty enthusiasts as it gave us an opportunity to look at the new line outside of trading hours.

The theme for the event was of course all things Moroccan. All the sales assistants were wearing middle eastern inspired hair accessories and they had sweet mint tea and my favourite, Baklava for refreshments. As well as the opportunity to try out the new products, they also had professionals doing sample back and hand massages. They did a really great job of letting everyone indulge in a bit of luxury and they were all very clued up on the line and how the new range came about.

A presentation was delivered telling us all about the collection, where the oil comes from and how it is made. It was clear that The Body Shop really invest their efforts into where they source their ingredients from and more importantly how they source them.

Their Wild Argan Oil comes from the foothills of the Atlas mountains and the kernels that the oil comes from can only be extracted by hand cracking the nut with a stone! This is all done by the Berber women of the Taraganine cooperative who are experts in doing this. Beauty with Heart is what The Body Shop call their collections that are made with Community Fair Trade ingredients and their Wild Argan Oil suppliers in Morocco are the latest to partner up with them.

The collection itself includes eight products all containing the luxurious 'Queen of Oils' as the Moroccan women call it. Rich in vitamin E and essential fatty acids the range is great for all skin types as it deeply hydrates, protects and nourishes the skin. My favourites in the collection are the Radiant Oil and of course, the Body Butter. It's a great luxury addition to their current product line and is perfect for anyone who wants to indulge and achieve beautiful skin. As the Moroccan women say: 'When your skin is glowing it's a reflection of a peaceful soul' and anyone who knows me knows I'm all for a peaceful soul!

You can see the Wild Argan Oil collection by clicking here.

Have you tried the Wild Argan Oil products yet? What do you think of the collection?

Just love

Rina xoxo

Skincare shoot for Stylelux

In July I got involved in a project that was commissioned by a Danish health and beauty company called Stylelux. My friend and photographer, Emily Bailey called me in to do make up for an editorial style beauty shoot for one of their face masks. Which was black!

So with close up beauty photography in mind, we needed a great model with excellent skin. Emily I have have worked together on shoots lots of times before and what I love about collaborating with her is the fact that we both gel our ideas effortlessly and come out with some wonderful images. It truly is a collaboration when I work with Emily so there was no doubt that it was the right choice when we invited friend, model and muse Pippa Perkins to be the face of our shoot.

Before we cracked on with the face mask I wanted to get a few beauty shots in given my love of natural looking make up. Pippa's look is perfect for beauty photography and I really wanted to create a soft, sensual beauty look with natural looking contours and highlights.

I created this look by keeping the skin looking fresh and dewy with MAC Face & Body foundation. This is one of my favourite formulas for natural, beauty photography as it photographs really well and doesn't look like the model is wearing make up at all. When a model already has great skin, I don't see the need to put on heavy coverage foundation. I like to let the model's features speak for themselves. And as Pippa already has great skin, I didn't cover it up too much.

I simply used a touch of Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Uber Beige to contour her fantastic cheekbones but sticking to a cream formula, it kept the texture of the skin nice and supple rather than powdery and matte. And then for highlighting which was my main focus for this look, I used MAC Strobe Cream on the top of her cheekbones, down the bridge of her nose and on her cupid's bow and I punched the highlighter out even more by going over this with an almost white coloured, shimmer eyeshadow by The Body Shop in Moonstone.
I finished off the look with Shiseido Shimmering Cream Eye Colour in shade WT901 on the eyes and Bobbi Brown High Shimmer Lipgloss in Star on the lips.

The final images are stunning. I loved the lighting that Emily used as they make Pippa look really dreamy, soft and romantic. These are definitely some of my favourite beauty images to date.

I then had to switch the look up for a more editorial look. The face mask was a black gel texture so with Emily's monochromatic theme in mind I started by completely blanking out Pippa's face. I wanted full coverage so I built up over what base Pippa already had on using Illamasqua Rich Liquid foundation in white covering the lips as well. I slicked her hair back into a tight, clean ponytail and for a it of variation on some of the images I used Kryolan cream pigment in an orange tone on the eyes. These are some of my favourite edits from the shoot.

 



Just love

Rina xoxo

All photography by Emily Bailey click here for her facebook page.
Model - Pippa Perkins
Images commissioned for Stylelux.co.uk

I heart Kiehl's

Anybody that knows me well will be laughing at the title of this post because I go on about this brand all the time! I absolutely love this skincare brand and the reason is simple - it works!

I have tried quite a few skincare products by Kiehl's but I just wanted to talk about a couple of products that have made the biggest impact on my skin; Kiehl's Centella Skin Calming Facial Cleanser and their Calendula Herbal Extract Alcohol-Free Toner.

For months I had been having trouble with reoccurring spots on one side of my face. I could never understand why I had such terrible, bumpy skin on the right side of my face when the other side was absolutely fine. It was brought to my attention that some people often sleep on one side which can affect the skin on that side and coincidentally I did sleep on my right, often with my face cradled in my hand too! But I can't exactly help which side I sleep on so I was always looking for remedies to my problem when I decided to try Kiehl's. 

It was recommended to me by a guy interestingly enough. So after visiting a Kiehl's store and having a short skin consultation I was told that my skin was actually 'stressed' and 'irritated' rather than having too much oil in it which I always thought was the issue. And the fact that I was using an exfoliating scrub everyday was probably making it worse because I was irritating it even more. So I bought both the cleanser and the toner that the consultant recommended for me. 

The cleanser did take me some time to get used to. I've always preferred foams and soapy cleansers that make your skin feel really clean but this had more of a gel texture and it didn't really lather up. It's not the best for removing make up either. I like my cleansers to take everything off so I found it a bit of a chore removing my make up first and then cleansing my skin. But I was more than happy to compromise for the results I was getting. It includes tiger herb extract which is an antibacterial that helps to heal wounds and it was definitely healing my bumps.  

Toners, I've never really understood the point to them to be honest. I started using it about 2 weeks after the cleanser but I did notice a difference. It's formulated with real calendula flowers. You can see the petals inside the bottle! After using this my skin felt really fresh and it was good to know that it was getting rid of any make up residue that I had missed during the cleansing stage. The preparation is developed to balance out normal to oily skins without drying it out, while the calendula extract helps to soothe problem areas.

I can't stress how much of an impact these products made on my life let alone my skin! I feel confident not to cover up with as much foundation now and I am often getting complimented on how much my skin has improved. 

I know a lot of people suffer from similar skin problems. Red, lumpy, almost acne-like skin that just keeps flaring up no matter what you do. If this sounds familiar I urge you to give it a go and most importantly - stop exfoliating! It might seem like a good idea because you feel like you're scrubbing the dirt off your skin but you're actually making it worse. I've learnt that exfoliating actually stimulates oil production so if you have normal to oily skin, go easy with the scrubbing. I haven't exfoliated for 4 months now and my skin's never been better! 

I have since used many other Kiehl's products and I will be doing more reviews of their products soon :)

Just love                                             

Rina xoxo

Kiehl's Centella Skin Calming Facial Cleanser is priced at £26.50 for 200mls and the Calendula Herbal Extract Alcohol-Free Toner is £34.50 for 250mls. Products are available in Kiehl's stores across the UK and online.

www.kiehls.co.uk 

Have you tried any Kiehl's products? How did you find them?