I have loved a lot of face cleansers in my time, but none as much as these from Burt’s Bees. The grapefruit scent is so refreshing. My face feels just as clean as if I had used a regular face wash. Since it’s for normal to oily skin, it leaves my face feeling nice and dry. There is no residue or moisture leftover to clog my pores. My face is just dry and clean. The cleanser can’t stand up to strong waterproof makup, but it will remove any normal makeup and dirt from your average day.
Now is the time to discover moisturizing products from Lierac Paris ladies, because we can’t pretend that it isn’t winter any more. Cold temperatures are here and my skin is feeling it. Take the plunge and treat yourself to luxury from Lierac Paris.
I started my journey with Lierac Paris with the Hydragenist Moisture Cream. It has a light scent that won’t overwhelm you. I hate moisturizer that has too strong a smell, so this light rose was nice. The cream is meant for dry to very dry skin. It’s a treat for your face. It will leave you feeling softer and more moisturized almost instantly. You don’t have to wait for it to dry or absorb like some other moisturizers. You can get on with your day right away with softer skin.
Because everyone wants to wake up looking refreshed with smooth skin, I tried the Lierac Paris Magnificence Nuit Gel-In-Balm. You apply this cream before you go to sleep, so it can work overnight. Like the name suggests, it’s a cream that acts more like a gel. My skin loves gel based products, so it’s no surprise that I liked the feel of this cream. It left my face feeling still clean. So you don’t have to go to sleep with a face that feels like it’s covered in product.
Last, but not least, for ultimate moisturizing, I tried the Lierac Paris Premium The Supreme Mask. This is serious moisturizing! I’m not going to lie, this was too much for my face. I didn’t need this much moisture.You apply a thick layer of this cream on your face and just wipe it off after 5-10 minutes. You don’t wash it off like most other masks. This means that you are keeping a lot of that moisturizer on your face. If you have serious dry skin, I urge your to splurge on this product though. It packs a serious punch.
Everyone’s skin suffers in the winter and a skin care gift is a fantastic way to take care of it.
REN x Kangan Arora Moroccan Rose Otto Duo
Skin care experts teamed up with London based textile designer Kangan Arora to bring together some pretty great looking gifts. This Moroccan Rose Otto body wash and lotion will leave you clean, hydrated and smelling delicious all winter. It’s also great for sensitive skin.
Amopé Pedi Perfect Gift Set
If you know someone whose feet need help but don’t go for pedicures, you need to get them this gift. It comes with a rechargable foot file, charger station, Daily Moisturizing Foot Cream, suction shower hook and an Amopé and Veet coupon book. Since the foot file is waterproof, you can use it wet or dry, meaning there are no excuses not to use it. I wish I had about five of these lying around, I know some people who would love it.
Biotherm Aquasource Skin Perfection Holiday Set
A lot of us have dry or oily skin with a ton of issues but if you’re shopping for someone with the covetable ‘normal’ skin, this Biotherm set is a great way to go. With an Aquasource Skin Perfection, Night Spa, Cleanser and Toner all in a holiday pouch, they’ll have everything they’ll need for soft, glowing skin.
Boscia Balanced To Pore-fection
I’m constantly trying to find products that’ll help minimize my pores and one of my holy grail items for that is Boscia’s Luminizing Black Mask. I’ve been using it for years and it’s hands down my favourite. This gift set has that mask plus the Detoxifying Black Cleanser, White Charcoal Mattifying Makeup Setting Spray and Revitalizing Black Hydration Gel, all teaming up to whip my pores into shape. If you know someone who wants to minimize their pores or a teenager who might be a little self conscious, you might want this one.
Fresh Rose Skincare Ritual: Daily Essentials
Fresh’s Rose products have been cult faves for years when it comes to dry skin beauty junkies and their Soy Face Cleanser is also pretty legendary. This gift teams them up for an essential winter hydration boost. It includes the Soy Face Cleanser, Rose Hydrating Gel Eye Cream, Rose Face Mask and Rose Floral toner. Anyone would be happy with a gift of bright, hydrated skin!
I’m getting older now and it’s finally time for me to start worrying about wrinkles. I have been using anti-wrinkle creams for years, but this collection from Nivea is one of my favourites so far.
I have to disclose that the collection isn’t all new. Nivea has given their collection a new look, which helped me discover it. I tried two products in the Nivea Q10 collection.
The Day Cream is a rich, thick moisturizer that is perfect for keeping your face protected all day long. After application my skin feels dewy and it absorbs well, just leaving the powdery scent behind.
The Replenishing Pearls Serum is a cooling gel serum that also leaves my skin feeling so soft.
I like that the pair are different consistencies. It doesn’t leave my skin feeling heavy with too much moisturizer or sticky with gels. The products work perfectly in harmony. My skin, which can sometimes be prone to acne, loves this combo. I honestly can’t wait to try the rest of this line. It’s been a long time since I said that!
There’s nothing I love more in skin care than an overnight mask but a lot of them don’t work quite as well as I want them to. I’d never used anything from Origins before and we received the Breast Cancer Awareness version of their Drink Up Intensive Overnight Mask a few months ago. We get so much skin care to review that this honestly stayed on my shelf until a couple weeks ago when I started getting my seasonal dry, scaly patches near my mouth. I tried about ten new products to help me get them cleared up with zero success and then I tried Drink Up Intensive.
This overnight mask felt a little different right away. It’s a little bit thicker than I’m used to and took a good twenty minutes to fully absorb (so wait a little while before you go to bed) but it smells amazing, like rose and apricots and felt soothing right away. I woke up with seriously radiant skin, so much that people kept telling me that my skin looked amazing. And those scaly patches? One application turned them into simple red patches and the more I use it, the better they get.
I’m really happy I tried Drink Up Intensive before winter gets into full swing because this mask is going to save my skin and I’m already wondering what other Origins products I’m missing out on.
If you want to try this mask, you can get the Breast Cancer Awareness version until December 31, 2016 and as part of the The Estée Lauder Companies’ BCA Campaign, $5 off each one will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation up to $40,000.
Lise Watier is changing the way that you think about BB creams. When you see the words BB, you probably think more of a foundation type product. Other BB creams have coverage from light to full coverage giving you a different option from your regular foundation combo. Lise Watier’s Hydraforce BB isn’t like that.
When you go on their website, you might have a hard time finding it, because this BB isn’t in makeup, it’s in skincare.
Lise Watier has made a BB cream that is ready to protect your skin first. This cream is really moisturizing. It has a slight tint in it, but it’s not enough for any kind of coverage. Look elsewhere if you want to hide blemishes or discolouration. This is all about moisture.
I did find that Lise Watier’s BB cream made my face a bit shiny. I know that is part of the product giving me a healthy glow, but it’s too shiny for my liking.
If you need a new tinted moisturizer, I would recommend giving this a try, just know that it’s a moisturizer.
I’m definitely not on the kale bandwagon but I get why people are, so I’m not surprised that skin care companies have jumped on it. When we received Nip + Fab’s Kale Fix collection, we weren’t really sure what to expect. Both of us had the chance to try the products and we had some interesting (and non-interesting results).
Kale Moisturizer
When I try a new skin care line, I generally try out the moisturizer first. I like a lot of things about this one; it’s light, it moisturizes and it absorbs really quickly. All in all, a good option for a daytime moisturizer. It’s really too bad I hate the kale scent of it. It’s such a strong scent that I literally used this twice so I could review it and then gave up. I wish there was less of a smell because I would’ve used this a lot more.
Make-Up Removing Pads
I’m used to using huge wipes to take off my makeup but these pads actually come in really handy. I use them to just take my eye makeup off before I use my Clarisonic or after a shower when I have some leftover mascara run-off and they don’t sting or dry out my eyes. I generally use one pad per eye and they’re not the greatest at waterproof mascara so I have a tendency to go through these pretty quickly. They get the job done though and I was completely surprised by how much I liked them.
Clay Mask
I have used a ton of masks this year, so I feel like I have become pickier as we get into the second half. I had high hopes for this mask because of the brand and the fact that it’s a clay mask. I am used to clay masks really drawing out everything that is clogging up my skin. Unfortunately, I wasn’t overly impressed with the Nip + Fab mask. The colour was fun (who doesn’t love a bright green face mask?) and it did dry like a regular clay mask, but when it was cleaned off my face didn’t feel super clean. In the end, that’s really what it comes down to and unfortunately it didn’t live up to it.
If there’s one L’Occitane line I love the most, it’s the Verveine collection. I’ve always loved the scent of verbena and they just keep adding new products to the line. Like last summer’s additions, this year’s are equally refreshing in the crazy Toronto heat wave. We tried two of the products; the Moisturizing Body Mousse and the Fresh Body Mist.
The Moisturizing Body Mousse is extremely hydrating and cooling (and really fun to use!) but you’re definitely going to want to avoid touching your face for a while or wash your hands really well right after you apply it because it can make your eyes sting. That’s really the only downside though. Right after you put it on, your skin feels soft for hours and there’s no stickiness and it dries instantly.
The Fresh Body Mist is equally refreshing and an really light, fresh scent. Unfortunately, the scent doesn’t seem to last very long on me. It almost disappears as quickly as I spray it, but I do enjoy how refreshing the scent is when I use it. The bottle is small enough that you can throw it in your purse and use it as often as you want.
If you’re looking for ways to get refreshed, this line is a good place to start.
Anew is Avon’s most popular skin care collection, or at least it’s the one I’ve heard of the most and in August they’re introducing the Anew Clean Mini Cleansers. There are six products to choose from. Three traditional cleansers, a cleansing water, toner and a scrub.
The gel cleanser is meant for oily/combination skin, the rich cleansing foam is for normal/combination skin and the cream cleanser & mask is for normal/dry skin.
The cleansing water let’s you cleanse, hydrate and tone without needing water and the toner gets everything that you missed off. If you’re like me and love exfoliating, the daily scrub is a gentle way to do it.
All of these will be $6 each and are available as of August from whoever you get your Avon from. In the meantime, I’ll be taking a couple of these on vacation with me.
Finding travel sizes of some of our favourite products can be a hassle or really expensive. Luckily, Bioderma now has travel sizes of all their most loved products. If you love Bioderma’s Micellar Water (and who doesn’t?) you get three choices in the minis. Sensibio (sensitive skin), Hydrabio (dehydrated skin) and Sébium (combination to oily). I almost want to take all three on my trip with me but I’ll settle for Hydrabio.
If a Micellar water isn’t enough for your skin, you can also get the Sébium Foaming Gel to ward off blemishes and keep your skin super clean. And to top it all off you can also get the Atoderm Shower Gel, which is soap free and great for sensitive skin.
Bioderma has truly made it easy for us to get our skin clean and take off all our makeup on the go.