Lush: Product Review no.2 - Ultrabland

After the flu, I had a problem with red blotchy skin which was getting me kinda down, so, remembering how good their Cosmetic Warrior was for getting rid of my acne, I wandered down to Lush again to ask for their advice.

The salesgirl recommended two products to me: Ultrabland and one I can't even remember the name of. All I can remember is that it reeked of lavender, and the smell of lavender gives me an intense headache.

Ultrabland's key point is that it is a very bland concoction for problematic skin. It's oil-based, so it can't be removed just with water, so you have two options, and I tried them both.

The first one is to use a damp muslin cloth. I thought, well, since this is how I'd been washing my face with Liz Earle (and since I removed my Cosmetic Warrior with a damp cloth just because I find it easier to remove masks that way), I decided I would do that. It kind of works. But, something I didn't notice, was that it was leaving a ring of dirty oil clumps in the sink after draining the water (I filled the sink with water and would soak and wring it out between wipes). Good news is that it ate clean through my make up at the end of the day, something that Liz Earle couldn't always do.

Coincidentally, I noticed the grime it was leaving in the sink around the same time I sprained my ankles, so I decided to go with option two, which is to remove it with toner. I had run out of Liz Earle and wasn't so sure I wanted to use an expensive (Benefit) toner to remove it, so I had bought one of Lush's aromatherapy sprays, especially as the salesgirl said that could only help with my blotchiness.

Removing it in this way requires a lot of cotton and a lot of toner, since Ultrabland really is quite oily (mind you, it doesn't feel bad because it's natural oil and not like... I don't know... pizza grease being rubbed all over your face. After removing it with toner, it still felt oily, so I then followed it up per usual with regular toner and then moisturiser.

This way is fairly effective, and - best of all for little old me with sprained ankles - it doesn't require water so I could do it from the comfort of my own bed.

But all in all, near the end of the pot, I got a bit sick of the oiliness. So I really had to push myself to finish it. It was also about a week past its expiry date by the time I finished it, but it hadn't gone mouldy or started to smell so I figured there was no harm in continuing to use it.

Summary:

• Oil-based and eats through make up
• Quite a nice almondy smell
• Smooth and unoffensive to the skin
• Bit annoying to remove
• Lasts a while, and about a week after its expiry date it's still ok

Score: 6/10. Would I recommend? Yes, particularly to people with dry skin or don't have time to moisturise etc in the morning. I ended up using this product at night and during the next day my skin still felt soft and neither dry nor oily.

Will I go back to it? Only as a make-up remover or if I have blotchiness again.

Lush: Product Review no.1 - Cosmetic Warrior

Last year I came off my contraceptive for a little bit, thinking my acne had gone away and it was safe to be extra-hormone-free. Unfortunately I ended up having to go back on a different contraceptive, for my mood rather than my acne. I don't know if it was that or stress, since the spots came up along the jawline which is the "hormone" area, but either way, I had some horribly red and painful spots around Christmas last year. The Liz Earle products I reviewed last entry didn't do anything to help, so I asked a fellow acne-prone friend if she had any good cures.

She swears by natural masks and cleansers you can make from ingredients found in the kitchen/larder.

I was mortified!

I can't put food on my face! It's food - the objective is to get it into your mouth without getting it all over your face! Plus, I have an OCD-suffering brother and whenever he eats when I'm around he asks me if he has food on his face or on himself and then I wonder if I have food on myself and I don't want food on myself because it's messy and doesn't belong there!!

So I pouted away for a few days when I suddenly remembered my colleague used to work at Lush - it's food designed to be put on the face!! And so like a happy little schoolgirl I plodded along to Lush with a friend - he also adores Lush products so was glad to take me along~

We went to their Covent Garden branch, which is still my personal favourite to go to, although I have to admit that as far as I can remember, I have only been to two in London. The shop assistant who helped me was lovely, but sadly she doesn't work there any more.

She recommended Cosmetic Warrior, one of their fresh face masks. I forgot to take my own pic of it so I'm borrowing the one from the website in good faith:

The main ingredient for this one is - as I'm sure you can guess - garlic, though it also contains white grapes and raw egg. As such, it has to be stored in the fridge and has a relatively short shelf-life. I think the expiry date on mine was three weeks from the day of purchase, and I did actually manage to use it all up in that time. Handily, somewhere on the packaging for all their products, there's an expiry date.

Now, if you want something that smells like roses or a spring meadow, this isn't for you. But neither does it smell like garlic or rotten eggs or anything like that. To me it just smelt faintly like clay, or just something very natural, but I like that - it means they definitely haven't added something chemical just to make it smell nice.

It goes on dry skin, should be left for 5-10 minutes and then washed off. I used it once a day since I had a lot of spots, but even after the first usage the spots had decreased in size, colour and pain - miraculous! And, once the spots were gone, there was no scarring. So many products/spots have left scars when they disappear, even if they don't pop. I was so happy to not add more scars to my face!

So, in short (since I appear to be quite rambly today):

• all natural
• fresh
• smells like...nature
• keep an eye on the expiry date and keep it in the fridge.

My score: 9/10. I took off one point for the shelf life, even though it's not that big a deal. And yes, I definitely recommend and a friend has taken me up on that advice (I need to check in with her to see how it went).

I'm ecstatic that I can get this in Japan - colleague who used to work at Lush also lived in Japan and warned me that not all the UK products are available there.

Liz Earle Facecare

I keep meaning - and mentioning - that I'm going to write various posts and then never get round to it.

I mentioned a while ago, back when I first moved into my current place with my sister, that I was going to try out Liz Earle's face-wash and toner. I went through two bottles of toner and one and a bit bottles of face-wash before switching (I'm about to go back to the left over face-wash though as I need to use it up before I go, or at least, use it up so it wasn't a complete waste of money).

The method for the face-wash feels nice, but really it could be applied to any face-wash or face soap. Fill the sink with warm water and soak a muslin cloth in it. Rub the face-wash all over the face and neck. Squeeze excess water out of the cloth and buff the soap off the face. Rinse the face and pat dry. The soap itself feels nice and silky, but I didn't feel like it was doing anything for my spots when I had them. Sure, my face felt exfoliated, but that was just cause of the cloth, not the soap itself. In fact, when I used it in the shower and didn't use the cloth, it didn't feel nearly as nice afterwards. It does smell nice though, and is very good at removing make up.

The toner is lovely, refreshing and cool with a beautiful floral fragrance. But again, I didn't feel like it was doing much. In fact that's all I can really say about it. Cause of the nature of the dispenser, you end up with a lot of it on the cotton and consequently it runs out quickly. I hate this, cause I'm used to toners that last ages. Granted, these toners are expensive, but because they last for so long, I don't feel like I'm being ripped off.

Summary: 

• Products smell nice
• Not overly expensive either
• The soap lasts a really long time.
• Toner runs out quickly
• Not effective against acne

I give both products 5/10, and I would recommend them to a friend, but warn them I didn't feel like it did a lot if anything for my acne.

At the moment I have one spot above the bridge of my glasses near my right eyebrow and it is driving me mental...

Product review - Clinique Pore Minimiser

One of my major skin concerns is open pores - namely on my nose and on my cheeks just at the side of my nose, so pretty much an extension of the vertical of the T-zone.

I've been searching for ages for something that would treat them. I used to use the old Clinique Pore Refining cream, which came in a lilac tube.

Sadly, after using it for months, I found it hadn't done anything except discolour my skin slightly, making it lighter than the rest of the skin where the product hadn't been applied, so I stopped using it. I eventually found a cosmetic solution from Benefit, their Porefessional (will do a separate review for that).

Then while windowshopping recently I saw Clinique had discontinued their previous lilac-packaged serum - it had more of a lotion consistency so I don't really count it as a serum... - in favour of the gel-cream green-packaged new version.

I immediately decided when I had enough money to spare for it that I'd get it. Everyone has been telling me pores become worse when you get older - especially my mother, for whom pores are also a concern.

The new serum has a pretty hefty price tag for me: £38.00 But boasts quick results, "in 2 weeks, pores look 58% smaller. Guaranteed." as the website says.

And I have to admit, even though I was doubtful, it's true that the pores do look smaller. Blackheads are removed, there's not nearly as much dead skin collected there which I used to get, despite washing my face thoroughly twice a day.

The downside - the serum makes my skin so smooth that it feels greasy. I can't use it under make up, and if I use it when I'm wearing glasses I get frustrated at just how much more my glasses slide down my nose. It's rather annoying. On days when I'm going to be wearing make up, I just use it at night after my nighttime washing routine.

And of course the other downside is the price of it. However I've found you only need to use the tiniest amount of it to thoroughly cover the problem areas, so hopefully it'll last for a long time (I think I've been using it for about a month or just over a month now)

But, the important point, the pores are smaller.

Verdict: 7/10. (lost one point for the price, two points for the super slippery feeling)