Review: Neal's Yard Rehydrating Rose Daily Moisture

Free with Marie-Claire this month, which retails at £3.70, is this face moisturiser from Neal's Yard. As my Mum always says, it's only free if you actually want it, and would pay the price to get it. I wouldn't usually spend £4 on a mascara, hence why I didn't buy Elle when it had Soap & Glory's mascara free with it. I would, however, spend £3.50 at least on a face moisturiser - so I did!

On the left in this picture is the free moisturiser, and on the right the moisturiser I have been using and therefore what all the comments are made in light of, really.

First, price. Obviously this tube of the Neal's Yard moisturiser was free, for 45ml, but the full size product would cost £22.50 for 100ml. The Neutrogena costs £5 for 50ml, so would be £10 for 100ml. Because of this price difference, you would expect the Neal's Yard to definitely be the better moisturiser. But is it?

Well, it obviously smells nicer, and I do like the subtly flowery smell - though if I wore very modern non-floral scented perfume, it might clash. The Neutrogena doesn't have a smell - or, at least, it has that non-perfume 'moisturiser' smell, which I'm not a big fan of.

Next, drying time. This is very important if I'm going to use a moisturiser every day - and the Neal's Yard moisturiser was great on this. No more waiting after moisturising to apply makeup - pretty much moisturise and go. By contrast, the Neutrogena takes forever to absorb into the skin - so much so that I end up using it before I go to bed rather than in the morning.

This all sounds very good for my free moisturiser, but there are three points which mean I won't repurchase it:

1. Moisturising action. It works fine on my cheeks, sure, but actually it makes the skin on my forehead (where it is driest) feel tight. When I touch that skin it does feel soft, which makes a change to normal, so maybe the effect just takes time to filter down, or maybe the feeling tight is just my forehead muscles getting used to softer skin - yes, I know that's scientific baloney. So overall this has good moisturising action, but not great, which brings me onto my next point.
2. Price. I'm just not in the market to spend that much on a moisturiser when I have a perfectly good one already - even if the Neutrogena can't fully deal with the dry patch on my forehead, there are other moisturisers around at that price point (such as the dry skin formula of that moisturiser) which might be able to - I'll only repurchase the Neal's Yard if I can't find any moisturiser at a lower price per 100ml that I prefer.
3. Size - a 100ml bottle is fine for on the dressing table, but you can't take it on holiday very easily. Plus with its sticky-out pump handle, it doesn't look particularly robust.

Normally I'd wait for longer before publishing a skincare review, but I thought it would be helpful to publish it while the April 2012 issue of Marie Claire is on sale for a while longer. Overall - a good moisturiser, but not one I'll repurchase.

(and the magazine's pretty good this month, even if I can't afford any of the fashion)

e.l.f. Haul and free gift!

Last weekend, elf had a sale where, if you spent £10, you got a free gift and free shipping. 'Count me in!' I thought. There are two reasons that I love free gifts:

1. Freebies! Product without having to pay for it!
2. They help me to try new things that I wouldn't have, and in this case, since elf are mail-order, allow me to sample products that I would have doubts about buying sight unseen

This first picture is my freebie:

I received:

• A shimmer eye pencil in shade 7608 - Plum Passion. I'm really happy about this as I've been wanting a purple eye pencil, and, even better, this one is shimmery! It sells for £1 or £1.50, depending on colour, here.
• Nail polish in 1565 - Purple Pleaser - and 1573 - Twinkle. Purple Pleaser is a lovely sophisticated shade, which I think I'll wear a lot. Twinkle is a generic sparkly topcoat, which is also something I've really wanted. As with the eye pencil, it sells for £1-£1.50. And gosh they have a lot of colours.
• The eyeshadow palette, which I think was a part of a Christmas gift collection. It says it has '32 Warm colours' though it's actually the 'cool' palette on this page. The colours aren't so soft as the custom eye colours, but they're still divinely soft. Lily likey. I can see myself using this palette a lot for a while, and, like I said earlier, it'll get me to try eye looks with lots of colours I wouldn't normally use.

And here are the products I bought for myself:

• Custom Eyes element in Driftwood. They accidentally sent me two, which is great because it looks like a colour I'm gonna use a lot. It's a shimmery greenish brown, similar to Boots 17's Walnut Pearl.
• Custom Face element in Flushed, which is a bit darker than the Shy blusher I have. Looking forward to using this, but it'll probably have to wait til I use one of my three Custom Eyes shadows, as I only have the one space in my compact and I desperately want to try the Driftwood shadow.
• Eyeshadow duo in Olive, which is a nice pale green/brown matte duo. Fairly summery and springy.
• Shimmering facial whip in Persimmon - I bought it as a blusher, but I might also give it a try as a lip colour.
• Eyelid Primer in Champagne. Something I've been wanting for ages
• Brushes - Blending Eye Brush and Eye Crease Brush, both lovely and soft.

I will swatch and review these soonish, I hope. Even if I don't, they'll definitely appear in faces of the day :)

FOTD: with Boots All About Nude palette

So today I decided to see just how nice a look I could get using every element of the All About Nude palette - as mentioned in my year review post, I never use the Funfair eyeshadow shade, so I thought it would be good to use it for once.

As usual, I started with my Neutrogena moisturiser and Natural Collection foundation. So far, so good.
Then I put the Funfair (a pinkish shade) across my whole eyelid and the Walnut Pearl on the outer half. I think I got a bit overexcited at this point as I didn't apply it particularly well, and I think I started it too far into the eye, so it covered way more than just the outer half of the eyelid, if that makes sense, and you can see that I didn't do the eyes particularly evenly (each eye the same) either.
Putting the lipstick on was odd. I don't own a lip brush so I did it with my finger... But it was still shiny and nice, yet not sticky. This lipstick is one that I don't use enough, I'm always surprised by how good it is.
The blusher was odd, it's less creamy in consistency than my Natural Collection one, which is to be expected I suppose because it's in solid form. One thing I've never liked about this particular blush is that for ages it is unnoticeable and then you put a minuscule hint more on and it's suddenly too much. But it's still easier to use - and less messy - than a powder blush.

To finish off I used my usual eyeliner - Boots 17 Photo Flawless eye pencil - and mascara - Natural Collection

This photo was taken a couple of hours after application - and after eating and drinking - yet you can see how long lasting the products have been.

Review - No7 High Shine Lipgloss in shade Whisper

Before I start I shall disclose that I didn't have to pay for this - it was in a free gift that was given out when you spent £22 on the No7 range.
It's normally out of my price range, but my mum ended up with the free gift, so we split the contents between us.
Normally I'm an eye makeup girl rather than being into lippy, and I must admit that I initially picked this out of my makeup box to attempt a more negative review than my last two, but I think it's great.
Initially I was fazed by what is a bit of an odd colour in the tube: I couldn't think why anyone would want lips such a pale shade of pink - which was why I thought this would be a negative review. However, upon putting the gloss on (in the photo my top lip is bare and the lower lip has the gloss on) I found that really it just adds shine - and a bit of fairly subtle sparkle. I've also swatched it on my hand, to show the transparency of the gloss. I suppose I should have taken more notice of the product's name, it really does add shine.
It also has a great applicator (pictured) - something I think I will keep to use with other glosses after this tube is empty. Unlike some of the other wands, it's got a small unfluffy end which makes it easy to apply the gloss on the lips and not around them. Lily likey.
The only issue I can find with this gloss is that it is sticky. This may not be such an issue if you have less wayward hair than mine, but I have quite a lot which likes to go in my face, and this lip gloss seems almost to attract the hair, and it is sticky. Admittedly it's not the most sticky lip gloss I've ever tried, but it's certainly more sticky than, say, chapstick. (not capitalising that as I use Boots' own brand).
Then there's the price. I will enjoy using this tube, yes, but with a replacement cost of £9 I don't think I shall buy another or try any of the other colours. When I come to start spending that sort of money on makeup, or for Prom maybe, I'll come back to it, but for now it's out of my price range, and I'll go back to the lip salve and Vaseline when I run out of this.
http://www.boots.com/en/No7-High-Shine-Lip-Gloss_927422/

Picture 1: swatched on my hand

Picture 2: the fab wand

Picture 3: on my lower lip, with the top lip bare - you can see the shine

Picture 4: the tube, showing the oddness of the colour as I thought it would be