Natural Science For Your Skin| Monu Skincare Review

 

Monu Skincare is a new brand to me, having not heard of them before they contacted me asking if I would like to review their products. As a girl who does struggle with my skin I obviously jumped at the chance to try a new skincare regime. I was asked about my skin type and any issues I have with my skin, and then sent the products that would best suit my skin type and help offer the results I needed. I received a lovely package in the post; the products in a handy wash bag and an informative brochure.

I received the Line Smoothing Beauty Bag, retailing at £29.95, which is designed for normal or combination skin, or those with fine lines, first lines and expression line. I agree I have combination skin, however I’m not sure on the fine lines! I seem to have been given quite a lot of products for fine and first lines recently and I’m starting to get a little paranoid! I must be looking older than my 23 years! Anyways enough about me and onto the review.

The Company

In case you are new to the brand, like me, I will give them a little introduction. Monu believe in quality, purity and authenticity; their products being designed to bring out the best in the user, using only the best of nature. They use only pure, natural ingredients such as plants, herbs, minerals and essential oils. No damaging chemicals, artificial perfumes or synthetic colours, and definitely no testing on animals!

The Products

• Active Cleanser and Toner

Monu- “This milky cleanser and refreshing toner, leave skin thoroughly cleansed, balanced, toned and comfortable.”

I completely agree, the cleanser was gorgeous, very creamy and it applied like a dream. When rubbing into your skin it was both soft and refreshing, and my makeup was completely removed after using the cleanser twice and the toner once. The Witch Hazel in the toner really helped reduce the size of my pore over the period of use.

• Skin Perfector

Monu- “An award winning weightless cream that instantly soothes imperfections and enhances natural radiance. Its soft focus technology has an instant smoothing effect, giving your skin a flawless, fresh and incredibly smooth complexion”

This has to be one of my favourite products in a long time! I used it as a day cream; it sunk into my skin well and gave a great based for my makeup. It is described as being a BB cream but it doesn’t have any colour in it, so I would say it is more of a primer. My skin was left as smooth as a baby's bum and looking fresh, glowing and healthy.

• Night Renewal Complex

Monu- “A rich complex of actives to help smooth and frim the skin whilst you sleep, leaving you with rejuvenated and renewed skin”

I love this night cream! It was very rich and creamy, but not heavy and “too rich” like I find many to be. It did not leave a residue on my skin and was absorbed quite quickly, but not too quickly, so I knew it was still working miracles.

• Warming Aromatic Mask

Monu- “ The velvety smooth mask slightly warms on application to renew and invigorate the complexion”

Unfortunately I was not overly impressed with this product, it did warm slightly, not enough for my liking and left my skin clean. However I prefer other mud mask products on the market. (I am quite fussy with my facemasks)

• Eye Cool Gel

Monu- “The refreshing gel instantly revives and tones tired eyes, reduces puffiness and dark circles”

Again I have to agree with Monu, this product did deliver results. My puffy morning eyes soon disappeared after applying this gel. However I prefer eye creams that are applied with a metal ball, as this helps to wake me up!

• Extra Freebie! Monu Micro Exfoliant

Monu- “ Dual-action microdermabrasion. This powerful treatment delivers instantly radiant skin, refines skin texture and reduces the appearance of fine line and pores.”

Oh my word! Did some one replace my skin with someone else's! I have never tried microdermabrasion products before but I would definitely purchase this product! This exfoliant had the tiniest little beads that really got into every corner of your nose; great for those blackheads! Even better these tiny beads did not break up they were persistent little things, meaning you could give your skin a good scrub. Once the product was washed off I was left with the smoothest skin that was glowing… it was like I had new skin, no word of a lie! I was (as you can tell) made up with this product. Thank you Monu!

 

Overall I greatly enjoyed these products and definitely saw amazing results. I have used them for around 2 months now, so they have definitely lasted well, so they were great value for money! Plus I believe I have used them for an adequate amount of time to give an honest and realistic review. Overall my skin has been left incredibly soft, smooth and glowing. If I did have fine lines before there is little evidence of it now! The whole skin care regime that I developed when using these products has been an absolute treat, normally I use face wipes! However I have definitely been converted! My face actually feels clean and refreshed after going through the regime twice daily. The only negative to these products is that when first using them they have quite a strong smell, it is a floral smell so not pungent, its just a little over powering at first. Secondly as much as I love the sleek minimalistic packaging, the writing on the back of the bottles was very small and in a pale colour so it made reading it quite difficult.

Have you heard of Monu Skincare before? Have you tried any of their products? Which would you recommend?

Scary Cat| My Halloween Look| FOTD & OOTD

I don’t know about you, but I have never been a huge fan of fancy dress. I do love Halloween, but find that it is a little bit too Americanised now, and preferred it when the point of a Halloween costume was firstly for it to be Halloween related and secondly it was to scare someone. I’m all about the pumpkins, trick or treating, scary masks, claws, cobwebs and cloaks! This year I was invited to a Halloween party last Saturday night by my manger at work. I was a little unsure to begin with, but when she said that you had to dress up, and your costume had to be scary I was all for it. Now, I am a little unoriginal with my Halloween outfits, as I normally go as I cat as I can’t help but love the irony. I love when drunk people find it hilarious that I’m called Cat and I am a cat!

I decided to stick with what I know but wanted to scare my outfit up and make it a bit more dramatic. I had originally bought face paint and face crayons to decorate my face, but after practicing with them I found them very waxy and not very pigmented; consequently not creating the dramatic look I was after. I changed tactics and decided to buy the above makeup items to create my look. The Lipstick I have talked about here, and the eyeliner I already had. The lip liner was used to draw on cuts and scratches all over my body, and it was the perfect blood red. The eye-shadow is Boujois and was part of their Halloween collection and it’s amazing! I don’t know if I will wear it again soon, as it is a very pigmented and a very matte black. But it creates the perfect dramatic cat eye, and stayed  in place all night! The Boujois nail varnish was again very dramatic; it needed a few layers to build up colour, but once you did it looked great.

For my outfit I wore a black cocktail dress and tights which I ripped up. My hair I backcombed to the max and used a whole can of dry shampoo to turn it grey. Unfortunately you can’t see it too much in the pictures but believe me my hair was very tatty and grey! I actually woke up on Sunday morning and was rather confused by all the white dust all over the surfaces in my bedroom, it took me a while to realise the white dust was in fact the residue of my dry shampoo.

I admit my look isn’t the scariest ever, but I think I did a pretty good job. At the party and in town there was some great scary costumes, lots of very convincing zombies and vampires, along with Goth brides, Bettlejuice and Jimmy Saville (a little bit of bad taste, but we all knew someone would dress up as him).

What do you think of my look? What did/ are you dressing up as for Halloween?

*Apologies for the poor quality iPhone pictures, still in need of a camera*

Why do you wear makeup? | Tag

*Combination of my own images and those from We Heart It*

I have seen this tag floating around on peoples blogs over the past few weeks and it seems to be spreading like wild fire. Now I’m not normally one for tags; I don’t know why, I just never found one that inspired me and if they did, they were quite lengthy. However this tag is short and sweet and gives a little insight into the blogger. So here goes my answers.

When did you begin to love makeup?

Like many others I have forever been a girly girl. When I was a little girl I was obsessed with princesses, pink, glitter, Barbie's and spent my time dressing up, putting on fashion shows and baking mud pies. With this girliness came the love of makeup. I remember I used to have a big pink makeup case at my Nanas house and would stand in front of her mirror applying glitter, stick-on tattoos, peel off nail varnish and sickly sweet perfumes. I have always been gifted numerous makeup palettes for birthdays and Christmas, and as I grew so did my make up case. Obviously as I got older the quality of the product improved.

I first started wearing “proper” makeup aged 12… yes it is a little early, however when I was a younger I wore glasses, which unfortunately made my eyes appear smaller than what they were. I was obviously very self conscious of this and used to (still do) layer on the mascara to make my eyes look bigger. I probably started wearing a full face of makeup when I was 14, again to mask my insecurities, which at the time was my bad skin. When I started wearing a full face my confidence with my makeup improved and so did my experimentation, cue lots of black eyeliner and bright eye shadow… baby pink was one of my favourites for a while. Thankfully my taste has changed and matured, but I still like to have fun with it.

How do you feel without makeup?

A bug! I have a bit of a complex whereby I think my eyes look very small when I’m not wearing mascara, I call them my little bug eyes! As a result I almost never leave the house without mascara, the only time I do is when I’m out running. I know they probably don’t but I just don’t feel very confident when not wearing mascara. I will quite gladly leave the house without other makeup; I choose not to though. When my skin is looking good I will happily just wear mascara and a bit of bronzer and blush, especially during the weekends.

What do you like about makeup?

Quite a difficult question I think as sometimes I love makeup (like 70% of the time) and other times I feel like its an evil necessity and more like war paint than makeup. The days when I love it are obviously days when I’m feeling on top of the world. I love that makeup allows me to look and feel more human. I like that it can help enhance anyone’s natural beauty, and draw out a persons individual and beautiful features that they may not have been aware of before. I also love how colourful and pretty makeup is, the colour combinations and collections are never ending… it’s always great finding a new favourite lippy.

The days when I don’t love makeup are obviously days when I’m not feeling quite my normally self, perhaps a little blue. On days such as this I tire of applying my makeup but I would never leave the house without it. Like I mentioned, I feel like it’s a necessary evil; war paint; a mask that myself and many others apply to hide behind. I wish there was a national day where us girl don’t wear our makeup and show and (try to) embrace our natural beauty, as no matter how much we fight it, we all have something unique and beautiful about out face.

Three “Holy Grail” Items:

Mascara- I’m not fussed on which brand, however I do love L'Oreal Telescopic False Lash Mascara and Maybelline Colossal Mascara

Urban Decay NAKED Palette- A god send for eyeshadow lovers! I use mine all the time, perfect for both day to day looks and for dramatic night out looks. The pigmentation is great and the colours all compliment each other perfectly.

Rimmel Blush Pink Rose- A bargain high street product, but one that is very pigmented, lasts forever and is a great match for my skin tone. Great at giving me some colour on these dull days and a daily wear for me.

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers and learnt a little more about me. I look forward to reading some of your answers, if you do write your own be sure to Tweet me or comment below so I can give them a read.

Vampy Lips| Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick Wine 107

Just a quick post for you today, as I wanted to share with you my new vampy lipstick. Firstly I apologise for the quality of these pictures, they were taken on my iPhone in bad light. I am really missing the sunshine, these dark days make taking pictures for my blog very difficult. I have actually resorted to taking the majority of them at the weekend when I actually see some daylight! So if someone wants to buy me a new camera to help my fight for good pictures then I will love you forever!

Anyways onto the lipstick; I picked this Rimmel lipstick up at Asda as it was on offer for £4 and I needed a blood red shade to wear for Halloween. It’s from Rimmels new collection with Kate Moss, which has been hyped up a lot. The 107 shade is actually more of a deep wine red shade, not blood red, but still perfect for Autumn. It is described as being matte, and it is more of a matte finish than my other lipsticks however I would say it is more of a demi-matte as it is applied quite easily. I can’t believe how pigmented it is, the pictures above show me wearing two coats. I would definitely pick up another lipstick in this range as the quality is great for the price I paid.

It is actually the brightest and boldest shade of lipstick I have ever owned, I normally go for a nude or slight plumb shade. However after wearing this around the house it is growing on me; I don’t have to confidence to wear it outside yet, but watch this space!

Have you tried Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick range? Do you wear bright shades such as this often? If so can you give me some confidence tips to help me pull these bright shades off!

OOTD| FOTD| Pre Wedding Dinner

Outfit Of The Day

Dress- Dorothy Perkins

Shoes- Christian Louboutin

Clutch bag- Tkmaxx

Face Of The Day

Eyes- Urban Decay Naked Palette

Face- Primer- Rimmel/ Foundation- Maybelline Super Stay 24 hours and Revlon Colour Stay 24 hour – Contouring- Sleek Palette- Blush- Rimmel

Lips- Rimmel Kate Moss Nude

I thought I would do a Face and Outfit Of The Day to show you what I wore for the night before my mums wedding this past weekend. I’m frantically trying to think if I could do an actual wedding day Outfit And Face Of The Day however I think I was so busy enjoying the day I didn't even take pictures of what I was wearing or what my makeup looked like… blogger fail!

Anyways back to the Friday. The Friday evening was a smart casual affair, where dinner and drinks were served at the hotel while we all mingled and got to know each other before the big day. I originally planned to wear a dusty pink dress to kick off the pink theme to the wedding and to match my Mum’s dress, however as much as I tried I did not find a dress I was completely happy with. In the end I spotted this teal number in the Dorothy Perkins sale. It is actually the same dress as another I had bought and worn previously (You can see it here) and as I knew it was a flattering fit and comfortable I chose to wear this for the Friday night instead. I paired the dress with my Louboutins which I received as a graduation present; its actually only the second time I have worn them as they are so precious, and my silver clutch and silver jewellery which I also wore on the wedding day.

For my face I decided to go for a dramatic smoky eye and nude lip as on the wedding day I wore a more natural look, so I wanted to create a contrast and dress my face up a little bit more. I created this look using my trusty Naked Palette, the same palette that the makeup artist on the Saturday actually complimented me upon, as she loves it just as much as us bloggers. I am wearing lash inserts in the above picture; I treated myself on the Thursday night as I didn’t want to have to be fiddling with fake eyelashes all weekend. I only got the two week occasional wear ones, but they are still going very strong and I am in love with them! It means getting ready in the morning takes about 10 minutes less as I don’t have to apply endless layers of mascara, and I am much more confident with out makeup as my eyes are very defined. I will be writing a review on them in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that. I have been attempting to contour my face this past week, and although still a beginner I am enjoying the way it makes my face look.

I had a great night, as did many others judging by some of the sore heads in the morning, my boyfriend being one of them. However everyone had soon recovered come the ceremony, and the Friday evening allowed the wedding day to be more relaxed as the ice had already been broken the night before.

Are you are contouring pro? Could you give me some tips or recommend any products?

Soap and Glory| No Clogs Allowed Super Self Heating Deep Pore Detox Mask| Review

 

My regular readers and followers will know that I am a Soap and glory fiend! I love this brand, although I have not tried every single product in their range I have ambitions to do so. The newest products to my ever growing collection is the ‘No Clogs Allowed Detox Mask’, and the ‘Greatest Scrub of All’, both are products I have heard many good things about, and have been longing after for some time. I finally took the plunge last weekend and bought them both as Soap and Glory products were on offer for Buy One Get One Half Price, and never being one to pass on a bargain they soon appeared in my basket.

As the title suggest I am firstly going to review the ‘No Clogs Allowed Detox Mask’. I have used the mask three times now, and believe this is long enough to give you a summery of my thoughts on the product and its results.

Their opinion

Soap and Glory claim that the the mask is a an intensive-action pore-refining facial peel. Here is what they have to say about the product-

“A super self-heating 5 minute deep pore detox face mask with a free skin smoothing sponge. This is a deep cleansing treatment, ideal for greasy and blackhead prone skin.”

My opinion

The product has the consistency of a mud mask, but is not as thick as traditional ones. It comes out of the tube with ease, and when rubbed into my skin heats up with immediate effect. At first the mask feels a little grainy, but these grains soon rub out when you scrub the mask into your skin. It leaves a thin layer upon the surface of your skin and doesn’t take too long to dry. When drying the heating sensation soon levels off, and there is no tingly sensation that there is with some masks. When drying it doesn’t dry solid and crack like other mud masks.

For removal you are provided with a ‘skin smoothing sponge’. Although it is handy for removal I can’t say it leaves my skin anymore smooth than when I don’t use it. The mask cleans off easily, due to the fact only a thing layer is needed for application.

The end result is very good. My skin glows, looks very healthy and feels a lot smoother, and my blemishes and blackheads appearance are reduced. I feel like my skin is left completely clean with no dryness or sensitivity that I often suffer with after using mud masks. 

The only downsides to this product for myself are that firstly, I do not experience the blue Smurf face effect that is meant to happen when apply the mask. My face stayed white, as you can see from the pictures. Secondly, although I believe my pores appearance has reduced by using this mask, my blackheads have not reduced dramatically. This is one of the main reasons I bought this product, as I am always looking for a miracle product for reducing blackheads. I will continue to use this mask as I do love it regardless of this. I hope that in time my blackheads do disappear as it suggests on the tube, so watch this space as I will keep you updated with my progress.

Which Soap and Glory products are your favourite? Any you recommend for my collection? Or do you have any miracle cure for blackheads that you can recommend?

Pamper Night| Montagne Jeunesse Smoothie Face mask review

Using an entire sachet- lots of product!

Last night, I took my usual late night trip to Asda to get my tea, and was very excited to see they currently have a load of beauty and toiletry items on special offer.  I didn't get too much, but did buy a special bumper pack of face-masks, which I haven't seen been sold like this anywhere else. 

It was a bumper pack of Montagne Jeunesse sachets, there were two boxes on offer. A box filled with 5 sachets of chocolate treatments, for face, hair and body, and the pack I chose, a 5 pack of face-masks.The boxes are normally sold at £5 ish, however they were on offer for I think £3.

So last night I decided have a mini pamper and chose the Crushed Raspberry Fruit Smoothie, Deep Pore Cleaning face-mask. The product is described as; 

"Our delicious nutritious smoothie mix of raspberries, peach, mango, apricot and pomegranate isn't a drink but it is bound to leave you in a smiley mood- with fresher, cleansed  and softer skin' 

The Good

• Left my skin incredibly smooth.
• Loads of product, so enough for two treatments.
• Animal friendly. Quote- "We're vegetarian and animals are our friends-that's why we don't bash bunnies or add bits of animal!"
• A cheap product
• The product had a rich and creamy texture.

The Bad

• Nothing really, I suppose the fact that there is too much product can be wasteful.

Over all- 5/5- Its a super product and I have to agree with everything the product claims to be. It smelt absolutely gorgeous, good enough to eat (but don't.) I have used these products over the years, but  I'm still looking forward to using the other four products. 

FOTD

This is actually my first FOTD, and to think I've been blogging for 3 months now... what have I been chattering on about!

So this is my face I wore for a few celebratory drinks last Friday after I had handed all my assignments in. We went to a lovely new bar in Newcastle near Central station (really can't remember the name!) Anyways I had a few glasses of Prosecco to celebrate, and went for a glamourous casual look.

Please excuse my messy hair, and the hairs on my face from a makeup brush, only just realised them now.. amateur mistake.

For this look I used;

Face- Concealer- Rimmel Match Perfection

          Foundation- Rimmel Stay Matte 

          Bronzer- Rimmel Sun Shimmer

          Blush- Rimmel, Shade Pink Rose

Eyes- Mascara- Rimmel Scandaleyes

          Eyeshadow- Urban Decay- Naked Pallette- Shades- Sin and Half Baked.

I'm showing my Rimmel addiction here!