Christmas Beauty Gifts

Hi everyone!

How was your Christmas? I hope you had a lovely time with family and friends, ate lots of yummy food and received some lovely gifts. I thought I’d show you my beauty related gifts and do a mini review of them :)

Now before I get started, I KNOW none of these products are exactly new to the market, but it’s the first time I have used some of them so these are just my thoughts and views!

Body Shop Raspberry Body Butter

This stuff smells amaaaaazziiinnnggg! I can’t even describe. Gorgeous creamy texture, super moisturising and just generally delicious! Also the scent stays on your skin for ages which is obviously a plus. I like using body butters on my legs, and dry areas like elbows ankles etc., sometimes i find it a little too heavy and thick for the rest of my body. I have a bit of a thing for body butters…

 From the bottom raspberry, spiced vanilla, and the top two are coconut. I also have mango and strawberry but they are both at my Uni house!

Moroccan Oil

My hairdresser uses this on my hair every time I go to the salon but I've never actually had it myself. It’s so good, and I really like the smell - not too overpowering or obvious, just a subtle aroma of essential oils or something….i can’t quite put my finger on it! I used it when my hair was damp, not soaking or it just drips right off (I made this mistake!), and blowdried as normal. I've also used it when my hair was dry and styled, and used as a serum for flyaways. It made my hair feel so lovely when used both ways. This product is pretty pricey, but I think it’s oh-so worth it! Although the rest of the beauty industry has cottoned on to the wonder of hair oils so there are lots of cheaper alternatives available.

Lush BIG shampoo

I’d heard so much about this product from other beauty blogs that it just had to go on my Christmas list! My hair is pretty fine but there’s a lot of it, if that makes sense, and it lacks volume. Anything that claims to give me volume, lift, oomph etc etc I have to test out.

I can’t get my head around this product, it’s weird…I mean i love it, but it’s weird. First of all it has weird ingredients – sea weed, fresh sea water, sea salt, as well as some normal yummy things like various citrus oils, coconut oil and vanilla. It has a weird texture – really gritty and coarse and a little bit gloopy. I know. The texture turns even weirder when it’s applied - it pretty much turned to oil. When I first used it I was thinking ‘how the hell will this make my hair feel clean, it feels like I'm rubbing olive oil into my hair, surely it will go greasy?!’.

All this aside, this is a great little product. Smells delicious, works really well, feels clean and lo and behold, my hair had a little more volume – YAY!

Lush Snow Fairy

I get this for Christmas every year and I just love it. It smells like sweet bubblegum and candy floss, and pretty much the smell of a Lush shop in a bottle! Not much else to say on this one, it’s a shower gel and does its job whilst smelling divine and being pink and sparkly…nuff said!

I'm not sure why it says Limited Edition on the bottle, I'm hoping it's limited edition packaging and this won't be taken off the shelves cos i love it! Also it can't be limited edition seeing as i've been using it for years...hmmm. Hey ho!

Chanel Perfection Lumière Foundation

Gosh golly i just love this. I really wanted a new winter foundation, I have a summer one which is too dark for my paler skin tone during winter. This is a fab foundation and has a nice little scent to it. It provided great coverage, suited my skin really well and has SPF10, a must for me with skincare. The girl at the counter said this more mattifying than the other foundations, which I wasn’t sure about as I like a dewy base, but I really really like it. Plus there wasn't actually a foundation from the dewy-er (yep, that’s a real word..!) range that was pale enough for my skin tone… le sigh. I do find that hard to believe though...I'm not that pale!

Benefit Realness of Concealness

I LOVE Benefit. Great products, beautiful packaging and always have great names! Their little kits and sets  like this are my favourite – their Big Beautiful Eyes kit is my number 1!

This little bad boy contains a mini lip plump (lip primer), Ooh la lift (under eye cream) and High Beam (highlighter), as well as Boi-ing and Lemon Aid, both concealers. All of these products are fab, I have a couple of them in regular size and they are all great. The shade of Boi-ing is a little too dark for me but I’m hoping in summer when I hopefully have a bit more of a tan it will fit fine. This was a present from my Goddaughter, although as she is only 2 i'm guessing it was more the doings of her Mum, my cousin! Really love this product.

Ciaté Mini Mani Month

This wasn’t technically a Christmas present, but I opened the last little door on Christmas Eve soooo it kinda is. Rather than going through and sampling each one, I’ve done a little over view of all 24 of them…

I absolutely love this concept! A cute surprise every morning and 24 beautiful little polishes, including four of their caviar polishes which I can’t wait to try! I haven’t had a chance to try those ones yet but I really want to see how they turn out! But now I want one for every month of the year…

I was so happy with all of my presents this year, and had such a lovely Christmas. But now Christmas and New Year are almost behind us, I need to start thinking about my 21^st in February…YIKES!

Speak soon!

x