7 Quick and Easy Essential Beauty Tips

Good things don't come to people who don't try and the same goes with beauty. Unless you have been blessed with a natural beauty that doesn't change with age, emotions, or bad habits then the way to achieve then keep good hair and skin is by applying these 7 essential tips to your daily life.

If you're missing one or more of these tips in your routine then start doing it today. You'll soon realise that your beauty would not have been able to survive without it! 

Do you have any other essential tips that you would add to this list?

Soap & Glory Clean Getaway Gift Set | Review

Specially designed for travel purposes, the Soap & Glory Clean Getaway Gift Set includes four mini products perfect for when you're jetting off and not taking up space in your suitcase with original sized products. It's also great to give someone for a gift - which is how I received it. And since I have (almost) finished all these products I thought I'd take the chance to review each one of them.

Soap & Glory Clean Getaway Gift Set - £10

Firstly, you don't have to buy this just because you're going on holiday or to buy as a gift - Soap 7 Glory products can be a bit pricey (especially if you don't have an income, like me) so buying this would be great to experience the glory of their products without having to splash out.

The shower and bath gels lasted me just over a week each whilst the body butter lasted around 3 weeks and I'm still using the hand cream now (considering I started using it in November). Though it's not long for each product, it can help you decide what to buy if you want to get the larger product.

Clean On Me Creamy Clarifying Shower Gel





































As with all the products, the shower gel is scented with the Original Pink fragrance and it smells great! Though the scent doesn't stay with your body all day, I have still got a whiff of it at mid-point during the day.

With a 'built-in body lotion', it leaves you with super smooth skin as well as saving you time because you don't need to moisturise when you come out the shower.

The larger version is at £6.50 so I give this a 4/5

Calm One Calm All Stress-Battling Softening Bubble Bath

I don't favour baths so I used this as shower gel (judge me all you want) but I don't think it really matters, right? This also doubles up as a body lotion thanks to it's skin conditioning extracts to leave you feeling extra smooth.

Buying the larger one of these as a present, rather than the whole set, is a good idea especially if you know the person loves their baths, unlike me.

The larger size is £6.00 (a whole 50p cheaper than the shower gel!!!) even though there isn't much of a difference between them so this gets a 5/5

Hand Food

Now, my hands get very dry often as you may know if you have been reading my blog posts since I started so I can get pretty critical when it comes to hand cream. As Boots best selling hand cream (*), I can only agree to an extent.

It has been great to renew my hands when they need a quick bit of moisture but I wouldn't recommend this if you have really dry hands because the fragrance could irritate them even more otherwise. However, if you happen to use this when your hands are suffering then it doesn't irritate them as much as I have known others to, so you could use this as a back up hand cream if you are in a desperate situation.

You can buy this at £7.00 for 125ml, £2.50 for 50ml or a pump version with 250ml for £7.00 and this get's a 4/5 

The Righteous Butter

Another product with the Original Pink fragrance and determined to give you soft skin, you wont need to wear perfume if you put this on after you shower.

Similar with the Hand Food, don't use this if you have more serious skin problems because it will probably irritate it even more, however you could use it on other areas that can accept creams with a fragrance. It is also quite similar to the hand cream because of it's scent and it's purpose but as a body butter this is thicker.

To buy a 300ml pot, which would probably last a life time is £10.00 or you could buy a £2.50 50ml pot. Either way I give this product 3/5

And that marks the end of this review, I hope it was somewhat informative and influences your opinion when you next go to buy a Soap & Glory product.
- Zin

Neutrogena Visably Clear Pink Grapefruit Facial Wash | Review

If you feel like changing up your skin care routine for the new year (and yes, I will probably talk about new year changes in every post I do in January just to fore warn you), I suggest that picking a new facial cleanser is a good way to go about it.

I have been using the Simple Kind To Skin Foaming Cleanser for coming up to 2 years now and I think that I need a well deserved change. I have been as loyal to my foaming cleanser as it has been to me but a new cleanser might bring new excitement to my currently dull skin care routine.

The Product

Neutrogena Visably Clear Pink Grapefruit Facial Wash - £4.69

Specially formulated to help 'eliminate blackheads and spots'. the Neutrogena Pink Grapefruit Facial Wash looks and feels clean and refreshing. My skin has resulted to that same feeling also.

I have been using this for around 3 weeks and, though I wasn't anticipating any massive changes, my skin does feel less oily and more clear. I don't suffer from spots or terrible blackheads but I would wrestle my clogged pores to the ground if I could. Because the fresh grapefruit smell also plays a part in the sensation of cleanliness, my clogged pores are breathing a bit more air than they used to.

One thing that I would say about this product is that it contains sodium laureth sulphate which, in foaming cleansers, can be very drying on the skin. My Simple Foaming Cleanser doesn't contain it and I have noticed that, in comparison, my skin feels drier with the Neutrogena Facial Wash before I apply my moisturiser. Because of this, I recommend that if you shouldn't use this if you are prone to dry skin.

The Cleaning Test

I like to do this with every cleanser I try. I put a load of different make up products on my hand and marvel at what kind of miracles the cleanser could do for me. As you can see, I put lip tint, eye liner, eye shadow and BB cream on my hand and put the Neutrogena Facial Wash into action!

I massaged the wash into my hand, as I would on my face, using warm water and within a minute all the make up was gone (not even a hint of eye liner was left behind). And just like my face experiences, the back of my hand felt cleansed and refreshed. 

If I'm honest, I wasn't expecting it to cleanse this well so I am thoroughly impressed, Neutrogena!

The Bottom Line

If you want a very affordable everyday facial wash then this is perfect for you. It will leave you with a lovely-smelling fresh face and pores that are clean. However, be aware if you get dry skin because this is not likely to help you at all there. 

I give Neutrogena Visably Clear Pink Grapefruit Facial Wash 7/10

- Zin

Double Skin Care Review | Quick Fix Facials & No 7 Beautiful Skin Hydration Mask

Happy Autumn, everyone! Sorry for being very inactive recently as college and other commitments are taking up any spare time that I might have. Anyway, enough about me and my suddenly hectic life and more about the 2 products that I'm going to be reviewing today!!

I decided to review both products because I have been using them at the same time (not literally at the same time, but I'll use one every few days then the other and so on) and I thought that anything that I have noticed from one of these products could actually be an outcome from the other product. I hope that makes sense because it took me a few minutes to think of how to say that in the most understandable way possible...

Quick Fix Facials Exfoliating Scrub - Blackheads and Blocked Pores : £2.49 

One of the best methods to clean and clear skin is to try make your skin clean and clear. A make-up wipe does not get off all your make-up and you need to cleanse with warm water to really get rid of all that cake! Every so often I think it is also important to go one step further in cleaning out your pores which is why I picked this up in the first place!

This scrub is a very delicate rose pink colour, which is actually one of my favourite colours at the moment, and the smell matches the colour. As funny as it sounds, it smells pretty! It's made with pomegranate extract which will be why this smells so nice.

It's simple to use, just apply to wet skin and gently massage it around your face - whilst paying attention to problem areas. Leave for 5-10 minutes then remove with warm water.

As with any scrub - don't rub viciously!  I can rip your skin and cause it more damage than good. That is also why you should use a scrub every so often.

Back to the product. It feels very delicate on my skin but also feels like it is clearing out my pores which is how a scrub really should feel. It doesn't set like you would expect a mask to but you can feel that it dries up and therefore it doesn't actually take ages to rinse off your face like some masks do.

Afterwards, my face always feels refreshed and CLEAN!! Even after the first time I used it my pores were definitely less clogged and frequent use means that my pores can breathe much more clearly with each use.

Now, my skin has it's dry patches and frequent use of scrubs can make your skin become drier so it is important to always moisturise whilst using a scrub often. Because I had also bought No 7's Beautiful Skin Hydration Mask at around the same time I thought I would use them along side one another.

No 7 Beautiful Skin Hydration Mask : £12.50

So as I mentioned in a previous post, this was an impulse buy but I'm so glad that I did because this has been great for combating the early winter wind drying up my skin.

Firstly, I love the smell and texture of this thing! It's a bit like sun cream, and I know what you're thinking - sun cream is NOT something that is desirable to smell or feel. But don't judge just yet because, although I have never experienced sun cream in a really positive way, it is as though I am dealing with a very high quality sun cream that I want to put on.

Enough talk about it being like sun cream though because that is not what this is...

The smell is very delicate and, again, I would describe it by saying pretty (and let's not forget that hint of sun cream). And as for the texture, it is semi-velvety. By this I mean it has a deep yet soft feel but it is still very light and a little thin.

I love the feeling of putting this on my skin because of the texture and sometimes I can get a bit carried away and I'm stood massaging this into my skin for a good 3 minutes. All you do is massage it onto your previously-cleansed and dried skin, possibly focus a bit more in areas where your skin may need it more than others, and leave it for 5-10 minutes.

Again, this mask doesn't necessarily dry but you know when you should take it off - rinse or wipe off in this case actually. It goes translucent but keeps its texture, basically.

I have tried to wash this off and I don't really like the experience so I prefer to just kept some kitchen towel and wipe it off (it's a lot better and more hygienic than using a towel in my opinion). The moisture is still left over so there is no need to moisturise after using this mask which is one of my favourite things about it!

I would really recommend using this product even if you don't have dry skin, because the winter wind can bring out those dry patches and this is a great mask to soothe those areas and have them more moisturised! If you have very dry skin then this would be great for your skin and I definitely feel a difference after I have used it.

That's all folks!
- Zin x