Saturday 27 April 2013

Lush: Lip Scrub in Mint Juplips & Bubblegum.



Lush's lip scrubs (£5.25, 25g) seems to be favourite by many beauty bloggers, and I can see (and taste) why. Scrubbing your lips with these little gems allows dead skin and flakiness to be banished and leaves your lips feeling lovely and soft. To use the scrub you simply get a small amount on your finger lip and scrub your lips gently. The final stage to get rid of excess scrub is to lick it off. The star ingredient which makes the scrub is caster sugar, which means yes it is edible! Or if you think it's unhygienic simply wipe it off, although with the gorgeous sweet smell of them I don't know anyone who could resist even a little cheeky taste.


Bubblegum Lip Scrub: If you have a sweet tooth this is the perfect scrub for you! It smells like candyfloss (and tastes like it too!)

Mint Julips Lip Scrub: The peppermint and vanilla scrub doesn't smell as sweet smelling as the Bubblegum but I suppose this could be a good thing as it doesn't make you want to eat it all at once. Don't get me wrong it still smells really nice but it's obviously got that fresh minty smell rather than sugary sweet.



The tub may look small but a little goes a long way with these. If you can resist applying it constantly anyway!

Tuesday 23 April 2013

The Body Shop: Macadamia Straightening Balm.

Straightening my hair is a part of my daily routine, sometimes it feels more like a chore. My hair is always a little frizzy, and if it's nearing the time I am due my regular trim at the hairdressers the split ends do not help. I'm always wary on using hair products as I find sometimes they leave your hair feeling like the products just stuck clinging to every strand which makes you feel like you haven't even bothered to shampoo it!

The Body Shops Macadamia Straightening Balm (£7.00 for 150ml) has been sat on my bathroom shelf for a while so after towel drying my hair I put a pea sized blob on my finger tips and rubbed it through the ends of my hair and the remaining amount through the rest of my hair. Although the bottle says for curly/wavy which my hair isn't I wanted to see how it would battle against a little after a blast with the hair dryer.

Whilst drying my hair I could still feel the product sticking and predicted the end results was going to be similar to the classic forgetting to wash the hair conditioner out. I continued to dry my hair instead of rushing to the bathroom to wash the product out. As my hair was fully dry the first thing I noticed was the straightening balm seems to have not only calmed the frizzyness but my hair seemed thicker and had more volume, this being a mega bonus as my hair is quite fine. As I said before my hair isn't naturally curly or wavy like the balm is intended for but it did stop my hair from being frizzy and I didn't really feel the need to straighten it but for the sake of really testing it for what it says on the label I flicked my GHDs on.

After using heat protection products you sometimes feel like there's a thick layer of product coming between your hair and the iron but with Macadamia Straightening Balm the straighteners glided through. My hair was left feeling soft and looking salon fresh. For me personally the best use for future use of the balm is to banish frizz so I stop putting my hair through the pain of being frazzled every day by straighteners  Fantastic product from The Body Shop! Click here to shop for it online.


Friday 19 April 2013

Lush: Cosmetic Warrior Fresh Face Mask.

Are you at war with your face? Yes Lush, I am! Okay maybe I'm over reacting a little. Now and again I do get the odd spot and now with a mini mountain on my chin and a couple of little ones on my forehead I decided it was time to try my first fresh face mask from Lush.

Cosmetic Warrior (£5.95, 75g) needs to be stored in the fridge because of the natural ingredients, which also means it has a use by date as it'll go off. Pros of this? It's nice and refreshingly cool when you take it out of the fridge.

All the ingredients are: Kaolin, Fresh Green Grapes, Fresh Free Range Eggs, Honey, Cornstarch, Glycerine, Fresh Garlic, Tea Tree Oil, Limonene and Perfume.




My first thoughts on reading the ingredients was "uh oh". Fresh garlic is one of the main ingredients and I didn't want to leave the house with a garlic smelling face. Fresh garlic works as an antiseptic in this mask and surprisingly I couldn't smell any trace of it. The main ingredient I could smell was the tea tree oil and it didn't bother me at all. There isn't any over powering smells in this mask which led to me to leaving the mask on for over the 5-10 minutes recommended on the tub.

After applying Cosmetic Warrior on my face I felt it setting in under a minute. I put quite a thin layer on as I was a little scared of how strong it would smell! Although the tub is pretty small I can see it lasting a while (well until the use by date) as I only seemed to use the top layer and I covered my whole face, so if you're thinking it's a bit much for a small ish tub then I wouldn't worry. The mask dries with a yellowy tint it to as opposed to the grey colour it comes in.

It was really easy to wash off and I couldn't believe how soft my skin felt! After just one application my skin actually looks so much healthier too. And my mini mountain on my chin? The redness seems to gone down a little but obviously I wasn't expecting miracles. You literally cannot smell any of the ingredients from the mask lingering on your skin either once it's completely washed off. I am really pleased with Cosmetic Warrior and would recommend it to anyone with combination and spot-prone skin.

Have you tried any of the other fresh face masks by Lush? What's your favourite?


Thursday 18 April 2013

Barry M: Hi Shine Gel Effect Nail Polish.

I have always been a fan of Barry M nail polishes for as long as I can remember. I have TONS of the nail paint and a couple of Instant Nail Effects, but as soon as my sister came home with the 'Hi Shine Gel Effect' (RRP: £3.99) I couldn't wait to try it out!

The Hi Shine Gel Effects come in a range of shades but this one here 'Pomegrante'. Personally I'm not a massive fan of red coloured nail polishes but this shade wasn't too poppy red, more raspberry red.


Barry M claims the Hi Shine Gel Effects Nail Polish will provide an extra glossy finish in just one coat. That is just what it did but to make it last longer I would recommend using more than one coat. It doesn't have a super shiny finish as you may expect but it's still better than the average polish. One thing that bugs me about painting my nails is sometimes the polishes take aaaaaaaaages to dry and sometimes I just continue with what I need to do with my day resulting in a lot of smudges but Hi Shine seemed to have dried really quick (I suppose only really needing one coat is a bonus).


As I said previously I am a fan of Barry M nail paints so will probably end up buying myself more of the Hi Shine as I don't have anything bad to say about it. Perhaps next time I will try Blue Plum or Blackberry though!

Have you tried Hi Shine Gel Effect before? What's your favourite shade?

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Tuesday 16 April 2013

Newbie!

Hello Bloggers!

After months of reading all your blogs and thinking of starting mine here I am. I'm still pretty unsure which direction this is going to go in but I'm thinking mainly beauty with a bit of fashion and lifestyle. All feedback is welcomed!

Pretty Pugly is not just my blogs name, but firstly began as my online store. Currently I am in the middle of creating a revamp but there is still a few items for sale! I also make kawaii/decoden style phone cases (well I say phone cases but you can request anything for me to make super cute!). Here is a couple examples and if you are feeling extra kind give the Facebook page by clicking HERE or shop online HERE