Winter skin care must haves

 

 Aaahh, winter: my favourite season! I know, I'm crazy but....hey, what's new?!

The one thing I don't like about it though is the havoc it wreaks on my face. Cold weather skin care is hard enough to crack as it is, never mind for someone with uber sensitive skin living in a really windy country. 

Central heating, wind, temperature differences, rain, snow, they all contribute to messing up the hydration balance of your skin. What I need to pay particular care to is my face, most other areas seem perfectly fine. 

So here follows a compendium

La Roche-Posay CICAPLAST BAUME B5 - review

40ml

RRP €7.50

Firstly I wish to apologise for the poor quality of the photos, unfortunately I am going t have to rely on my phone for the foreseeable future so, please bare with me.

Cicaplast is one of those super cult products you will find reviewed on most beauty blogs and that is the kind of items I am generally weary of.

I was very intrigued then when

La Roche-Posay Rosaliac AR Intense review

Ladies with highly sensitive skin the world over: rejoice!

Before I left for my surgery in October, I was under  an enormous amount of stress and I was well aware of the fact the surgery, the waiting for the results was going to bring even more strain and that would have played havoc on my skin. So I made it my ONE mission to  find a proper, good product that would help me keep all that in check.
As an heaven sent a couple of weeks before I left I was given the chance to try this product for free and I somersaulted to the chance!

My winter essentials

Moisturisers

Vichy Aqualia Antiox Hydrating cream

You can read my review of this here . I use this as my daily moisturiser mixed with an anti redness cream.
As yup know my skin is super sensitive so you can imagine what the strong Irish cold winds do to it, team it with going from the cold weather to heated interiors, equals a very unhappy skin.

Here are the 2 anti redness products I use:

Roc Calmance Soothing Moisturiser

Read my review of this here .

Witch skincare Anti-blemish Redness Relief Moisturiser

Here you'll find my review.


Lip balm

My lips, just like my skin, are super super sensitive and need extra care in winter. My current lip balm obsession that has been going on since mid august is

Carmex moisture plus Clear

I am absolutely in LOVE with this!!!! love love love!!!! Go buy it people!!! It is a tad bit pricey but it's totally worth it!
My lips are very weird in the sense that most other lip balms I've tried before aren't hydrating enough or after a few weeks they just don't have the same effect on my lips anymore. But this is still making my lips super soft after so many months of usage. I've also tried the Peach version but I found it doesn't moisturise as much as the clear version, still VERY good but not as the good as the clear one.

Warmers

my faves being

ear muffs

and

a warm hat

I will show you the ones I'm loving right now in a post very soon.

Hot beverages



Gingerbread spicy biscuits
(preferably German)

Lights and scented candles
(this isn't actually just a wintery thing but it is especially appreciated during this season)

So these are my Winter faves, what do you think and what are yours?

Lil

Witch Skincare overview, part 1

I was meant to type up this overview ages ago but something else and life in general ALWAYS got in the way.
But! I'm doing it now, so...

I won these on one of my fave blogs the lovely and gorgeous Stina's Chic Beauty Blog, go check her out and subscribe if you can. In the bitchy(for the bigger part) world of beauty blogging she is just a breath of fresh air! She doesn't mind talking to/helping less popular bloggers and is always the nicest.
Before I go ahead I would like to send Witch skincare PR Holly a massive Thank You, companies with nice PRs are SO under rated these days!!

Please remember this post reflects MY experience with these products and what might have not worked for me, could work MASSIVELY for you.

Witch hazel is a natural ingredient that naturally cleanses, tones and soothes, leaving your skin perfectly balanced, soft and healthy looking.
Witch products are suitable for most skin types, but it’s on oily or combination skin that the power of witch hazel can prove particularly effective.

You can find Witch Skincare in the UK & Ireland in Tesco, Boots and Superdrug and local chemists. It is also to be launched in Australia.
For more information you can check out their web site: www.witchskincare.com

Anti-blemish Skin Clearing Primer, 30ml RRP £6.99

It's a REALLY good primer and it does the job of many other primers that come at higher prices, with the added bonus of preventing blemishes too. Skin tone is evened out and those pesky pores appear smaller and smoother. You only really need a small amount so one bottle will go a LONG way! Stays on all day, your foundation will still look fresh and pristine when you remove as when you first apply it.



Anti-blemish Redness Relief Moisturiser, 30ml RRP £6.99
This is a green based anti-redness product which would have usually seen me run a mile, as they all are too tinted for my skin tone. Yeah they combat the redness, but they also make me look like a ruddy mutant!
This one however didn't, which REALLY positively surprised me, clearly you need to be careful and not use too much, but otherwise the green tint really does disappear upon application. Unlike other anti-redness products, when applied on red areas it doesn't sting or feel overly cooling, but just pleasing, you feel like giving out a sigh or relief...and you do when you check your face and see no pink/red areas.
It's incredibly light and it almost has the texture of a gel, it is that light. Your skin is left soft and smooth.
I will definitely purchase it after this one runs out.
Both thumbs are up for this one!!


Anti-blemish Pressed Powder - Translucent, 10g £4.99
This one will be particularly good for oily or combination skins, it absorbs excess oils and leaves you shine free. I wouldn't personally recommend it if you have dry skin as it will make it slightly more dry and ashy.
It gives a light to medium coverage and goes very well with really pale skin tones as it's not too yellow, orange or pink.

Anti-blemish Tinted moisturiser - Light, Medium Or Dark, 30ml £5.99
I didn't have much hope in this as generally tinted moisturisers are too dark for me, and unfortunately this was one of them. My redhead friend tried it and unfortunately it was too orangey for her as well.

Stay tuned for part 2

Roc Calmance Soothing Moisturiser

Redness calming/erasing products is one of the kinds of products I get asked about the most on YouTube, here, Twitter and e-mails.
This is my second attempt at calmin moisturiser, you can read about the first here.

First of what is so cool about this is that it's NOT GREEN!!
This RoC product really does its job of reducing redness, I LOVE IT! However it doesn't do that if you're spending most of your day outdoors, after 10 hours redness will sstart to show. But that's totally ok to me, I can re-apply if necessary.
So the getting rid of redness side gets the thumbs up.
As for the moisturising side of it I am 50/50, only because I have dry skin. Other people with less dry skin say it's totally fine as a moisturiser. Personally I have to add a bit of my face cream to it to get some nice moisturising.
I have been using this for 3 weeks and when I don't use it, the reduction of redness is noticeable, although not greatly.
When I first apply it I definitely feel the soothing sensation, my face feels cool and soothed.
The fragrance is fresh and doesn't bother me, although it is easily covered if you're using perfume, hairspray or foundation.
Unfortunately I can't give you a retail price as I bought mine off Amazon UK for about €10, but I'm pretty sure there's a chemist near you that sells RoC...or do like me and buy it on-line.
This gets the complete thumbs up from me !!!

Let me know if you've tried this before or if you are going to and what do you think.

Lil

No 7 Colour Calming Make Up base review

Firstly I want to say Thank You to all those who are sending feedback about the blog and videos: THANK YOU!!!!
Secondly... guys don't be scared to leave PUBLIC comments! I have now had about 30 people(friends excluded) contacting me to thank me and request reviews/tutorials... However they were all done privately. Seriously, don't be scared! (and it also makes me look kind of daft. I mean, people passing by the blog/YouTube channel will be thinking "Why the hell does she keep on doing this if nobody cares?!").

Anyhow! Let's get to the review.....
We all have to leave with skin imperfections and most of us try to cover them to achieve that perfectly air brushed finish we all dream of. This is particularly hard for very fair skinned people, because our skin will blush at the drop of a hat and there's NO disguising it unless we tarmac our face with layers of concelear, foundation and powder.
I personally find the redness getting VERY bad in winter and summer. In winter because the constant going outdoors and then back in REALLY stresses the skin, especially with the big temperature change; plus let's not forget that cold wind on our cheeks that makes us look like clowns on the loose. In the summer it's of course the body over heating, sweating and...making us turn red.
So here come in green concelears or green moisturisers. Why green? Because it counter acts the colour red and neutralises it.
As I am not personally a big fun of the "cakey" look, I decided I will not go ahead and use tons of pore clogging and heavy green concelear on big areas of my face.
So I opted for the green make-up base option and decided to try one that has had very good reviews.

Well let me tell you I have very mixed feelings about it...
As it's a make-up base it also has moisturising prperties and I am REALLY happy with that side of it: skin stays smooth and not at all greasy for a very very long time and dries very quickly for you to carry on with you make-up applicaion.
It has a very very subtle smell which you only smell off the bottle when you squeeze it, you don't smell it AT ALL when applying it.
Because the bottle reads "make-up base", I thought it would basically mean "face primer"...boy was I wrong!!!! Assuming that I went ahead and applied it all over my face...only for it to turn me into a green mutant! Heeelp call the space police!!!
So I decided to try a different technique: apply ONLY on the red areas. It did actually turn down the redness quite a bit...however if I made the mistake of going 1 mm over non rosy skin, the green would show up IMMEDIATELY! Even after applying a nice layer of compact powder(I am not a big fan of foundation...) the green would still slightly show on non rosy skin, especially under natural light. I guess it's because there is no pigmentation at all there. Maybe it wors better in that sense on someone with fair skin but with no albinism...
Maybe the unwanted "green-ness" would disappear with some foundation over... I will let you know if I try that and what's the result.
Ciao for now.

Lil
xx

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PS: I am fiddlying with the layout so please excuse if writing or photos or framse are a bit off or anything goes wrong.