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.

Complexion Woes

I've not been making the time to write lately, which is a bit bad. It's good for me to have a routine, but right now my routine is work, laze around at home, sleep, go to work. And then the weekends are sleep and be lazy.

Not good!

So I joined the gym this week and am hoping to go for my first session tomorrow daytime.

At the moment, my skin is really irking me. I have deep lines under my eyes, as well as seriously dark circles, and my acne has come back under my jaw. But only on the right side...

I've been looking at some face-maps and most of them say that acne under the jaw is hormonal, though it can sometimes be kidney problems. I doubt I'm having any kidney issues, so it might be hormones. Again.

Though my sis did say she used to get a lot of acne in the same area when she was drinking coffee everyday. I don't drink coffee, but have been drinking a lot of tea lately to keep me perky at work. So, starting today, I'm going to cut tea out of my diet. I used to have the occasional cup of Assam, so will stick to that and caffeine free drinks.

Seeing my doctor in about 10 days so will ask her about it. If I can wait that long without going crazy! I'm worried it means my actual face-acne is going to come back, because it all started under the jaw...

New skincare products

While I was at John Lewis I decided to buy a couple of new skincare products since I'm almost out of facewash and toner.

My friend introduced me to Liz Earle, a skincare brand that I think is relatively new, and looks really interesting. For example, the whole brand only has one type of shampoo which is supposed to work on all types of hair! Right now I'm still happy with Aussie so I don't think I'll be changing shampoo just yet, but I liked the look of their hot polish cleanser and toner.

At the moment their products are online (uk.lizearle.com) or at John Lewis. And, compared with a lot of designer store skincare, it's a lot cheaper than I was expecting!

Cleanse and Polish kit (100ml pump bottle of cleanser, 1 muslin cloth, cute little pouch), £14.25
Skin Tonic (200ml), £12.50

Both products can be used morning and night. Can't wait to try them!