DermaCo Soothing Revival Balm

I am quite a fan of the DermaCo range and first brought them to my blog HERE and HERE and I have really enjoyed using the Cleanser and Toner so was equally delighted when I was sent the DermaCo Soothing Revival Balm which is the third of four products from within the range.

The first thing you look at when it comes to these products is the rather fancy packaging, it is very much a luxury item.  The perfect cylindrical tubes with the metal top and bottoms just look amazing and feel amazing, the tubes themselves being cool to the touch.

Described as being

"A gentle balm providing immediate relief to all skin types especially sensitive or stressed. With rose and bergamot essential oils and comforting peptides to help relieve irritation and reduce inflammation. With an instant wrinkle smoothing action, the DermaCo Soothing Revival Balm boosts skin radiance and hydration and helps to prevent cellular UV damage. It is light and comfortable, resulting in a naturally fresh, smooth appearance".

What I love about this balm is not only does it smell absolutely wonderful, but as soon as it applied to the skin there is an instant cooling sensation on your face and as you apply to your face and neck and massage upwards the cream itself, which is quite luxurious softens and soothes the skin.

I am one of those people who likes to know what is in a product that I am about to use and apply to my skin, face and so on. This Balm has some lovely ingredients and is no tested on animals, it includes no animal derived ingredients, no chemical sunscreens, no synthetic perfumes or colours not to mention no parabens or petro-chemical derived ingredients! What it does contain is:

- Relaxing Acmella Extract
- Smoothing Polysaccharides
- Protective Plant Flavonoids
- Sodium Hyaluronate
- Vitamin C
- Light Reflecting Pigments

It can be used on all skin types, so whether you have sensitive skin, dry skin, sensitive skin or even like me which is combination skin leaning to the oily side. Using the essential oils of rose and bergamot, this balm helps to relieve irritation, reduce inflammation and leave your skin feeling soft, smooth and it is incredibly soothing. As for the fragrance, for me it is a delicate rose scented balm, if like me, you are a fan of rose scents, you will love this, it isn't too powerful but you know it is there.

A 100ml bottle will cost £44.99 and it lasts a long long time. I have been using this regularly for a good few months now and I am nowhere near, as you can see, halfway through, you only need a small amount because it is a case of a little goes a long long way.

Edelweiss 'Milky Cleanser' and '24 H Essence Cream'

I was recently lucky enough to be selected as one of just 75 bloggers to trial a limited edition skincare set by Edelweiss' from Siin Life. The set which was wrapped so beautifully that I didn't want to take it out of the box includes two products which are a 30ml tube of a 'Milky Cleanser' and a '24 H Essence Cream'. 

Before this set had arrived Edelweiss and Siin Life are two brands I had never heard of or come across.  Originating in Austria their products are now available in the UK which you can see HERE.  The first thing I noticed about the brand is that they are paraben and paraffin free and are not tested on animals, more about the brand can be read on their site.

For me the first thing I loved about this set is how I felt when it was opened. The bright royal purple packaging inside the box really caught my attention and then there is the actual packaging itself, quite simple and subtle in design but it does look sleek.  Opening the box is also an experience in itself because it slides open to reveal the two products inside and again their packaging replicate that of the box, sleek, simple and subtle. 

The one thing that did grab my immediate attention was "The Eternal Beauty" which you can clearly see on the wrap around and the words "The Austrian Innovation against all kinds of wrinkles".

I have been using both of these products since I got them and the first thing I can say about them is that they are very much a luxury product, almost like a spa treatment at home and given how stunning everything had been, I wasn't surprised.

The Milky Cleanser is what I would describe as being a clear gel when first applied to the skin and then as you begin to massage it onto your face it becomes 'milky'.  The scent is totally amazing, I liked it from the first try and again exactly the kind of scent that I would associate with a spa, that fresh clean scent.

"The siin active ingredients relax stressed skin and let it breathe in the truest sense of the word"

It claims to give a Deep cleansing for regeneration of your skin which is rich in nutrients and contains some of the following:

• Energised Spring Water from the Alps
• Exclusive Edelweiss Extract
• Goji-berry with Vitamin C, A (retinol) and Vitamin B
• Ginseng Root Extract

Once on the skin there is an immediate soothing feeling and whenever I do use a product like this, I always leave it on the skin for a few minutes to allow it to sink into the skin and work its magic and with this cream it didn't take long at all.

The 24H Essence Cream which has an SPF15 is quite different from other moisture products I've used.  It is referred too as a 2 in 1 product and is said to combines the properties of a day and night cream in one single product and gives 24-hour all-round protection of your skin for your face, your neck and your décolleté.

"This intensely moisturising day and night cream helps to neautralise free radicals, protects your skin and ensures a silky smooth complexion"

As with the Milky Cleanser, this product also contains:

• Energised Spring Water from the Alps
• Exclusive Edelweiss Extract
• Aloe Vera and Olive Tree Leave Extract
• Goji-berry
• Wheat Germ Extract and Jojoba Oil

When the cream first comes out of the tube, it is released really slowly and I found I needed to squeeze a little harder than I would usually for it to be released, so I had expected it to be quite a thick consistency but it wasn't at all, the cream itself is quite light and once on the skin it took a bit of massaging to absorb into the surface and once on the skin there is another wonderful scent left behind as well as leaving my skin feeling very soft and smooth to the touch.

I have really enjoyed using these products and they are most definitely very luxurious and such a nice treat to have had.  The little kit I have costs just over £50 for these two tubes in the wonderful packaging and I think would make a fantastic gift for someone who enjoys a little bit of luxury or needs a bit of extra TLC because I would be more than happy to use them again.

Lush - Let The Good Times Roll

Lush’s Let The Good Times Roll** fresh cleanser for the face and body is not just for Christmas anymore. Back by popular demand, this cleanser has become an all year round product and is a treat for the skin. Made with maize flour and polenta to gently exfoliate, and cinnamon powder to stimulate and leave your skin feeling soft. Let The Good Times Roll is topped off with corn oil and popcorn to leave your skin with an irresistible caramel buttery scent and a natural glow.

Well if that isn't enough to grab your attention, then I don't know what is, but when this little pot of joy came through my door I was so delighted because this had been one of my favourite Lush products for a long time and it suddenly went and disappeared. But now it is back and it is all mine. 

For me this cleanser is quite similar to 'Angels on Bare skin' which I also love, but instead of having the exfoliating ingredient of ground almonds this has ground corn or maize.

WHAT LUSH SAY Fresh Cleanser "A Maize In, gentle facial wash We popped corn oil, polenta, maize flour and cinnamon in here. The perfect recipe to gently exfoliate, moisturise and soften your skin for those times when you want to get ready for close-ups. Let The Good Times Roll is a gentle treat for the skin, leaving you soft to the touch with a lingering buttery caramel popcorn fragrance - when you look and feel this good you can give your Body Double the day off.." 

As with most Lush products there is a huge list of ingredients and within this one there are some worth mentioning:

• Maize Flour - gives the product a nice doughy consistency whilst also effectively cleansing the skin, helping to scrub away excess dirt and leaving skin clean and soft. 
• Polenta - is packed with good amounts of iron, thiamine, zinc, phosphorus and magnesium. It's also a good source of fibre.
• Cinnamon Powder - good cleansing herb, it also has powerful antiseptic properties. Its sensual aroma has been proven to have an aphrodisiac effect when used in baked cinnamon rolls! 
• Corn Oil - Corn oil is great for good skin and hair due to it being a rich source of linoleic acid, which is one of two essential acids necessary for growth. Corn oil is also recognized as an excellent source of tocopherols. Tocopherols function as antioxidants and provide a good source of Vitamin E.

To look at, this looks like some dough, it has a rich buttery colour and as soon as the lid is removed the scent is really lovely, reminds me of biscuits.

Once on the skin it has a slight sandy texture to it and naturally there are bits of popcorn which gives it some added oomph.  

As you mix it with water to make a paste you simply massage it onto your face using your fingers and as you do that you can feel those fine particles working on your skin to remove anything dead or dry, sounds gruesome but it does actually do that.  Then once you have finished simply wash any excess off with warm water and then pat your skin dry. Ideally this is designed for those with normal/dry skin but given I have combination skin, I do find it works really well with my skin.  As this is an exfoliating cleanser the ingredients are designed to exfoliate, stimulate and nourish your skin and no sooner had I patted my skin dry, my skin was soft and smooth to the touch.

Lush’s Let The Good Times Roll fresh cleanser for the face and body has an RRP of £6.35 for 100g / £15.88 for 250g

I absolutely love this product and am so glad Lush have brought it back, have you tried it?

Eye Bright Make-up Remover from Heaven by Deborah Mitchell

Eye make-up remover is not one of those things I have spent too much time thinking about truth be told, I tend to use whatever I have got to hand.  Then Eye Bright came into my possession and now I know why people rave about eye make-up removers and certain mascaras not being that difficult to remove!

Heaven by Deborah Mitchell Eye Bright Makeup Remover**, the people who brought to you the Bee Venom mask which I reviewed HERE, very kindly sent me this product to try. It arrives in this lovely sleek cylindrical bottle with the brand name and product name both clearly visible.  What I also found useful is the little plastic clip which goes around the pump dispenser to stop any wastefulness of the product you should drop it, press it accidentally and so on.

Once on the cotton wool pad, this product is actually really creamy and similar to a cleanser that I use in texture, colour wise there is a tint of blue/purple to it which I really like.  When using the product, you need such a small amount, one pump from the dispenser on the cotton wool pad removes eye-shadow, eye-liner and They're Real in one foul swoop, no need for rubbing, rubbing a bit more and then finally with a bit of elbow grease removing your make-up, one wipe across and around your eyes and your cotton wool pad will look like this:

You might notice that it takes off a little bit more than your make-up, all the dirt, grime and pollution that clings to your skin, especially in a city like London is also removed.  

You can also use this product as an all-over facial cleanser, something which I am yet to try but I can tell you that as well as removing eye make-up, it does also work exceptionally well at removing all make-up from your face and this is how I am currently using it, more as a pre-cleansing make-up remover

I am told that this make-up remover contains Eyebright, a herb which helps your eyes to look whiter and if you Google it, you can find all kinds of interesting facts about what it does. Eye Bright also helps to regenerate dry skin and can be used both in the morning and in an evening and is suitable for mature and dry skin too.

Have you tried any products from the Heaven Skincare range?

Ruby Red Cosmetics Natural Skincare

Ruby Red is a company I came by after an opportunity arose in an email and I have to say, if you want a product to make you go "Wow" then read on.

The brand Ruby Red is a combination of Mike’s surname (Ruby), the owner and Red for their London roots. Ruby Red as a company believe that healthy, radiant skin needs vital nutrients from the outside as well as the inside. Their Skin and Body care ranges are full of plant nourishment combined with distinctive pampering aromas made from oils without SLS, parabens, sulphates, petrochemicals and dyes as well as never tested on Animals.  

I was sent two products in the form of a Reviving Body Cleanser** and a Renewal Shea Skin Cream** which as you can see below arrived really well packaged and inside two very different containers.  

The Body Cleanser, which was a finalist in the Best Shower Gel category at the 2014 Beauty Shortlist Awards is described as follows:

"Botanical glucosides found in sugar and coconut makes an effective cleansing agent which does not irritate the skin; botanical extract of Aloe Vera soften and soothe the skin. A warm, invigorating, citrus aroma of Lime, Red Mandarin, Coriander and Cedarwood boost circulation while toning and refreshing the skin"

The first thing about this cleanser is the scent, it is absolutely phenomenal, one of those scents you need on a morning when you feel really sluggish, annoyed that you have had to leave your bed and a morning when no amount of caffeine is going to wake up - well this product will! To use you simply apply a generous amount onto your hands or onto a cloth and then massage over your damp skin whilst in the shower, as soon as the clear looking gel leaves the bottle the scent wakes you, but when it hits the steam you become more alert than you probably have done in a long time, after wahsing you simply wash it off, again using a damp cloth and it leaves your skin not only squeaky clean but smelling so good and the scent lasts pretty much all day, even as it fades it is still wonderful. it is also worth noting that this Reviving Body Cleanser can also be used as hand cleanser, something I am yet to try.

The second product is the Renewal Shea Skin Cream which is in this 60ml glass jar and when I first removed the jar, I didnt find what I was expecting. I was expecting to find a runny cream not a solid, so I was very much intrigued to use this. It comes with the following description:

"The healing enzymes in Lemon and Honey work together to improve cell renewal while Vitamins A, E, & F in our pure, hand processed organic Shea butter help to restore the skin’s elasticity lost through dryness or sun-exposure. A small of cream amount will moisturise, softening and smoothing the skin".

Even though this skin cream contains lemon and honey, the scent isn't as strong as the body cleanser, but it is subtle enough for me to absolutely love it. To use you simply warm a really small amount in your hands and on the Ruby Red site they make a point of stating that by small they mean no bigger than a raindrop, the reason being that as soon as it comes into contact with your skin it begins to melt, so it literally absorbs without no amount of effort on your part and as you massage it into the skin, the lemony scent comes to life and reminds me of sherbet lemons, a scent I happen to adore. Once massaged onto the skin, within a matter of minutes there is no trace that anything was actually there, instead you have soft, smooth skin. If like me you spend a lot of your working life, days and sometimes evening dealing with paper, I find it dries my hands out, hence my love of hand cream, well I have been using this for the last 2 months and it is a perfect remedy for my dry hands, not to mention I use it on my shins, elbows and feet as well.

These products I cannot rate highly enough, they have caused no adverse reactions to my skin, they smell more wonderful than I can give them credit for and I absolutely love using them.  You can find more information about Ruby Red on their website which is HERE and their products can be bought online through the Ruby Red shop or from places like Amazon, Fortnum and Mason and soon to launch in Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge.

Lush 9 To 5 Cleanser

Lush 9 To 5 can be found amongst the cleansers within your local Lush store. I love the cleansers from Lush and have probably tried most of the items on sale. This product is sold in a black bottle and comes in two different sizes, you can either opt for a 95g bottle which will set you back £4.75 or you can buy the bigger bottle which costs £9.25 for 240g and naturally I opted for the bigger bottle and duly took my goods home. The bottle itself for interest is pure black plastic and has a black flip top lid which is easy to open and close and around its middle is a label which details the name and size of the product and obviously the Lush logo. It is quite blandly presented but it's what's inside that counts! 

When it comes to cleansers there is a reason that I particularly like to use them. So why cleanse? Well living in London it's a polluter haven, lots of cars, buses, trains and tubes all equalling lots of pollution which in turn leads to dirt and grime on the skin. Since living in London, having moved down Sarf from oop North, I have noticed a change in my skin, it is now much dryer and oily in parts, so this has lead to my using more products to try and combat all of this. So Cleansing the skin, which should be part of everyone's daily routine, is done to remove sweat, air pollution, excess oil, grime, cosmetics and bacteria, all of which lead to skin problems and sometimes infection. Cleansing your skin isn't an arduous task, infact it takes me less than an extra five minutes a day to complete this routine, which isn't a lot really. 

Lush 9to5 is marketed as being a 'liquid cleanser' and usually with a cleanser it would involve using it in a similar way you use soap and that is by wetting your face and then lathering the cleanser in the palms of your hand and then massaging over your face for a few minutes before rinsing it off and this is certainly what I had been doing with the Wash Away Clinique Cleanser.

However, with 9to5 you don't need to do any of that, after washing and drying your face as you would normally do in a morning and an evening, all you will then need is a cotton wool pad or ball (I use a pad because the balls make me feel queasy when touching them, even now I've gone cold all over thinking about them) and you simply squeeze a small walnut sized blob onto the cotton wool pad and you simply wipe it over your face, paying attention to your problem areas, which in my case is my cheeks and t-zone where I have dry and oily skin and once you have completed this task, look at the cotton wool pad and despite washing your face thoroughly you will probably notice that this lotion has managed to remove even further excess dirt, grime, oil, make-up etc... without fail every time I use this cleanser on my face after washing, it will remove excess dirt and grime - Yuck! After using it on your face it doesn't leave behind any greasiness or slimy feel on the skin, just soft smooth and moisturised feeling skin. There is also a lovely fragrance of honeysuckle and ylang-ylang left on your skin.

The cream itself is really smooth to the touch, as soon as it touches your skin you can feel its smoothness and it is such a gentle cream which sinks into your skin without a problem. For anyone who hasn't tried it, I would suggest going into a Lush store and asking them if you can try it, they will use the back of your hand as a tester area. So after it is applied to your skin, using the cotton wool pad your skin should feel silky soft and smooth to the touch, which mine always does without fail and your skin should no longer feel dry instead completely moisturised and this is down to the ingredients. 

As ever with Lush you can expect to see a long list of ingredients which the shop assistant went through with me at the time of testing this product. Starting with:

• Almond oil which you can smell slightly when using, it is easily absorbed into the skin to help with moisturising and is suitable for use on all skin types, especially for someone like me with sensitive skin, it causes no irritations. 
• Ylang Ylang oil and this helps to balance the sebum in your skin which can create that over oily look especially around your T-zone (nose, chine and forehead) and in controlling and balances the sebum it also helps deal with overly dry and oily skin. Ylang Ylang also helps soften and smooth the skin. Next is the main ingredient and the one which gives the most noticeable aroma and that is 
• Fresh Dove Orchid Extract which are used to calm and soothe irritated skin and by irritated skin they mean dry problematic skin which is need of a little extra TLC and moisturising. For me, the Dove Orchid Extract is the most noticeable fragrance because it reminds me of the Orchid that I was given for my birthday last year and the aroma is just really lovely.  
• Everlasting Flower Absolute, again not something I have come across before and I was told that it acts as an antiseptic on the skin to ward off infection whilst at the same time it helps to rehydrate the skin. 

And it is suitable for Vegans!

So with all of that knowledge and those ingredients it isn't hard to see why this cleanser comes highly recommended not only from Lush but from me. Having used it since the beginning of November, every day in a morning and in an evening before going to bed I am still amazed at how soft my skin feels after using this cleanser and still shocked that it manages to find dirt and grime on a daily basis, even after I have washed my face. 

At the minute I alternate between using this and another Lush product and having purchased this one just over 2 and a half months I am surprised to say that I have got just over half the bottle left to use and that is with using it on a daily basis and the reason for this is that you don't need to use that much at any time yet it is simple, easy and effective and it ranks highly up on my list of my favourite Lush products and it is something that I am going to continue to use long after it has run out.