Empties – January 2016

January is already over! Only a few months left until my graduation – how scary is that! This month I’ve been incredibly lazy so I have only managed to empty a couple of products… which is not a bad thing considering my empties posts are always really long!

Garnier Micellar Water for Combination Skin (£4.99 for 400ml)

So many people have raved about this product, stating that it is as good as the Bioderma micellar water. I own the Bioderma micellar water for oily skin and, honestly, I do not agree – in my opinion Bioderma is slightly better. However, I completely understand the hype: 400ml for £4.99 is a bargain, and it is a fairly good quality product. So why would you pay £10.50 (!!!) for 250ml of Bioderma when you can get more product for half the price? I am lucky enough to go to France regularly where Bioderma is way cheaper, but as much as I love Bioderma as a brand, it is a lot of money. The only reason why I didn’t love the Garnier micellar water is that I find it a bit drying, especially around my eyes, and it takes a bit of rubbing to get my mascara off. Overall not the best micellar water I have tried, but for the price you can’t go wrong!

Le Petit Marseillais Après Shampooing Nutrition Intense

Meh. This product did absolutely nothing to my hair. It is targeted for very dry hair, so I was expecting a fairly thick conditioner, but this product is exactly the opposite. It smells OK but nothing special. I have another bottle to use up but I would not be repurchasing it.

Tresemmé Moisture Rich Luxurious Moisture Shampoo (£5.24 for 900ml)

I had the 500ml bottle but £5.24 for 900ml? Now that’s really cheap! However I am not planning on buying this shampoo again, as this is another haircare product that did nothing to my hair whatsoever. Why is it so hard to find a shampoo/drugstore from the high street that actually does something? I’ve tried so many brands and they all seem the same to me. If you have any suggestions please do tell me in the comments because I really need a good shampoo for dry hair, and I’d like not to spend a fortune.

 

That’s it for my first empties of the year! Have you tried any of these products?

 

Lorraine x

My Haircare Routine

I never really cared about what products I used on my hair. Whatever I did, they used to get greasy which meant that I washed them frequently. However, about a year ago, I decided to reduce the number of weekly washes to two per week, and as a consequence my hair type changed drastically. No more greasy hair! Which is great, but not so great compared to dry hair, which is what I have now. I guess it might also be due to the fact that temperatures in England are much lower than in Italy so my hair doesn’t get as oily as it used to. So in this post I want to show you my haircare routine, and how I try to keep it as nourished as possible.
I didn’t mention this in my introduction, but I also suffer from dandruff. It’s not a permanent problem, but is rather due to the change of weather or stress. It’s incredibly hard to find a good anti-dandruff shampoo unless you buy it online – the most popular brand has to be Head & Shoulder but that dries my hair like crazy. So one day I decided to look carefully at every single shampoo my local Boots stocks, until I found the Neutrogena shampoo in a tiny little corner where they keep the specialist shampoos. This product is a life saviour: as it is a shampoo and conditioner in one, it does not dry my hair at all. It does not foam a lot which is not an inconvenient for me as I only massage it where I need it the most and in two washes my dandruff was gone.

I then go on to wash the rest of my hair with a shampoo for dry hair – the one I am using at the moment is from Tresemmé (which is not the one pictured in the photo, as I’ve only just realised, I apologise). Honestly I have never found a shampoo that genuinely impressed me, so I don’t really care about which brand I’m using, as long as the shampoo is for dry hair. The last step is conditioner/mask, which I alternate every time I wash my hair. The conditioner I am using is from Mark Hill: it’s neither amazing nor horrible, however I really dislike its scent, as opposed to my Saint Algue Syoss mask’s scent, which is really pleasant. Just like the conditioner, the mask isn’t anything special, and in terms of performance I can’t really see a big difference.

haircare routine

Blow-drying my hair has never been an option for me – although I keep reading that blow-drying your hair is not good at all, there is no way I can let my hair dry naturally, as I have a TON of hair (which is also quite thick) and that literally takes a day to dry! So a heat-protection spray is essential to make sure the heat doesn’t damage my hair too much. The one I am using at the moment is from Lee Stafford, which I have to say it is rather expensive for a high street brand. Its alcohol scent is very strong (as alcohol is, unsurprisingly, the first ingredient), but surprisingly it doesn’t dry my hair. I then apply a leave-in conditioner from Aussie which is quite nice but I wish it would spray the product more evenly, and I finish by applying the Ogx coconut milk on my ends (I would recommend this product just for its amazing coconut smell!).

haircare routine

Oh, and before I do all this, I apply Le Petit Marseillais Argan Oil which I leave on for 15 minutes.

So do all these products combined make my hair super hydrated? I guess so. They are definitely in a better condition, but I don’t like using these many product to achieve this result. I have always believed that less is more, so I would be more than happy to cut the number of products I use as soon as I found one great shampoo and one great conditioner/mask. Do you lovely people have any suggestions? I’d be more than grateful.

Lorraine x


Products mentioned:
Neutrogena TGel Anti-Dandruff Dermatological Shampoo for Dry Hair (£6.99 for 250ml)
TRESemmé Moisture Rich Luxurious Moisture Shampoo (£5.24 for 900ml)
Mark Hill MiracOILicious Nourishing Conditioner (£6.49 for 250ml)
Saint Algue Syoss Masque Réparateur 60 secondes (5.90€ ? for 200ml)
Lee Stafford ARGANOIL from Morocco Heat Defence Spray (£12.99 for 200ml)
Aussie Miracle Recharge Moisture Infuser Leave-In Conditioner (£4.69 for 250ml)
Ogx Nourishing Coconut Milk Anti-Breakage Serum (£7.35 for 118ml)
Le Petit Marseillais Huile Elixir Soin Avant-Shampooing Argan & Karité (? for 150ml)

I’m back! + A few empties

Yes, I’m back! It’s been a while since I’ve last blogged, I’ve been incredibly busy writing assignment these past few months that I haven’t had any free time to write here! In this blog post I’m going to talk about all of the products I’ve emptied in January and February, and as there are quite a lot of products, I’ll try to keep the reviews pretty short 🙂 2015 - 01 Eau Precieuse – I’ve already written about this product here. It was good when I was 15 and very lazy with my skincare, but it’s not a product I would buy now.

Le Petit Marseillais in Mandarine et Citron Vert – What I love about these shower gels is that they have a very particular scent, so you recognise them immediately. And oh they smell gorgeous! They also lather very well so this 250ml lasts for a while. If only it was readily available in the UK.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Nail Polish in 058 Lemon Drop – OK, I cheated, this is not actually empty.. I just don’t like the colour anymore! Actually, I’ve never really like it and it doesn’t look nice on my pale skin… I wonder what 15-year-old me was thinking when buying this. However, after 5 years, this nail polish still looks brand new and the quality is just the same! Definitely great value for your money.

Batiste Dry Shampoo in Tropical – Ah Batiste… Everyone loves it but me. My hair might not look greasy after I’ve applied the dry shampoo, but it still fells dirty and it makes my head so itchy! Maybe it just isn’t for me.

Elemis Hydra-Boost Day Cream – I got this in a magazine a while ago and it didn’t impress me at all, which is good considering how much the full size costs! I’m not saying it’s bad, but I’ve used much nicer moisturisers that cost half the price. Also the scent is too overpowering for me.

Benefit They’re Real! Push-Up Liner – Another sample I got with a magazine, and I’m so glad I didn’t spend any money for this. I don’t know about the full size, but I found it quite hard to apply the product nicely and easily with this sample. And this isn’t the only problem: it was so hard to remove when I applied on my hands that I didn’t even dare applying it on my super sensitive eyes.

Rimmel Glam’Eyes Liquid Eye Liner – I loved this eyeliner so much that I had to include it in my 2014 favourites. It’s so easy to apply, you can easily draw a very precise and thin line, the colour looks really black (unlike those eyeliners that are meant to be black but actually look like a very bad dark grey) and most importantly it lasts all day! There are so many other products I would like to try but I might repurchase this in the future.

Rimmel ScandalEyes Precision Micro Eye Liner – Well, this clearly proves that not all Rimmel eyeliners are great. This one certainly isn’t. Maybe I got a faulty one, but this product was already half-dry when I first used it. The felt tip is so soft that it was hard to draw a nice line on the eye, and it definitely didn’t look black.

Bourjois Liner Feutre – another disappointment in the eyeliner category. It’s not as bad as the Rimmel eyeliner, but I still found it incredibly difficult to draw a nice line on my eyes. Maybe it’s because I can’t use felt-tip liners… I think I’ll stick to the liquid ones.

Kiko Eyeshadow in 128 – By far the most pigmented eyeshadow I’ve ever owned. It was a really nice, pinky-glittley-white (if this makes any sense) everyday eyeshadow. It’s super cheap and it lasted me over a year!

Bioderma Hydrabio Light – another well-loved product that I included in my 2014 favourites. It’s aimed at dehydrated skin, but I would say that you can use it whatever your skin type. It sinks in very quickly, it’s great as a make-up base and it’s quite good with dry patches… although I will probably try the rich version next winter, as I felt that the light one wasn’t enough for my dry skin.

Avene Skin Recovery Cream – This is a very tiny sample Avene sent me when I registered on their site. It’s aimed at sensitive skin, it’s relatively light and sinks in very quickly. I might buy the full size in the future.

Burt’s Bees Milk and Honey Body Lotion – My housemate gave it to me because she didn’t like the smell at all. I have to admit I didn’t love the smell myself but I’ve definitely smelt worse. As I don’t use body moisturisers I can’t compare it with anything else, but it sinks in fairly quickly so I guess it’s a good product.

Vichy Idealia Eyes Cream – Although this is a small sample it did last me a while as you only need a tiny bit. Again, I can’t really say much about it as I’ve never used eye creams before and probably never will, as I haven’t seen any difference with this cream.

Colgate Deep Clean Whitening with Baking Soda – A very average toothpaste, like most are to be fair. It does the job and it doesn’t taste horrible, and that’s all I want from my toothpaste really. Not my favourite one though. 2015 - 02 Sanex Dermo Sensitive Anti-Perspirant Deodorant – I really thought I would like this deodorant. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, far from it, but why isn’t there a 48h version? 24h just isn’t enough and I notice the difference. I will certainly buy it again when they make a 48h protection version, though.

La Roche-Posay Physiological Eye Make-Up Remover – This is simply the best eye make-up remover I’ve tried so far, and I like is so much that I’ve quickly repurchased it as soon as I run out of it. Water-based make-up removers are by far my favourites and this removes everything effortlessly.

Eucerin DermatoCLEAN Cleansing Gel – I already miss this so much! I used to swear by foaming cleansers, but now I’m converted! The creamy gel texture feels so nice on the skin, it removes every make-up residue and my sensitive skin doesn’t feel all tight!

Seventeen Miracle Matte Pressed Powder in Porcelain – I didn’t really like this, it looks a bit too cakey and it felt heavy on my skin.

Schwarzkopf Taft Hairspray – I don’t use hairspray everyday, so this lasted me over a year and a half. It’s a good product, it did the job, and I might repurchase it in the future (if I go to Germany again, hair products are way cheaper there!).

Bioderma Atoderm Gentle Shower Gel – It’s a great product if you have sensitive skin, as it’s very gentle and the scent is not overpowering at all. As my body is not sensitive I don’t really need a sensitive shower gel, but if yours is then you should definitely give this a try.

That’s it for now! What have you used up recently? Have you tried any of the products I mentioned? If so, what did you think of them?

Lorraine x

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