MOR Body Butter Score

Well I just couldn't resist using my MOR Cosmetics promotional discount of 30% off all of their Emporium Body Butters the other day and this is what I ended up with:

I ordered the full size of the Candied Vanilla Almond scent and the Lychee Flower scent (both are just devine and were so cheap at 30% off!) and ended up receiving three samples in Snow Gardenia, Belladonna (the original one I tried that has given me my MOR Body Butter obsession) and also Italian Blood Orange.

Unfortunately the Snow Gardenia sample isn't in the picture as one of my very naughty puppy dogs also took a liking to it's smell and ran off with the tube and I haven't found his hiding place as yet :-) I hope I find it unscathed as it smells so good and reminds me of my gardenia bush in my front garden and is the first sample that I actually wanted to try!

I can see me having the softest skin by the end of summer as I will be slathering this stuff on as much as I can. I just can't get enough of it!

I wonder what is everyone else's favourite body butter at the moment?

Book Review - 'Good Intentions' by Joy Fielding

'It was simple enough once you broke it down. Her husband had left her for another woman. A married woman. That woman's husband had called her on the phone and asked if he might come over, there were some things he thought she should know....'

Well, what can I say other than I feel like I have lost quite a few hours in my life that would have been much more productive if they weren't spent reading this book.
To me it was just Boring (yep, that's right, with a capital 'B') and it wasn't until the final 20 or so pages that anything seemed to finally happened. Even then what did happen was extremely predictable and totally uninspiring.
This story is about the lives of two women. One a social worker who's husband has just left her for another woman, the other a sucessful divorce lawyer who's marriage isn't all that it appears to be. It had the potential to be a really captivating read but I just didn't feel like the characters were developed enough and sometimes their actions (or lack of) frustrated me so much that I wanted to literally throw the book across the room.
It's a shame because I am normally a fan of Joy Fielding and have read a few of her other books so was extremely disappointed in the result of this one. I felt like a was reading the diary entries of two boring and lonely women who really just needed a kick up the 'you know what' to get with the program and change their awful lives and it unfortunately took the entire book for this to happen.
Oh well, you can't always read something that will blow your mind I guess.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars.

Next up I will be tackling 'Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing' by Gabrielle Lord. I thought I'd stay with female writers for a little bit and see what happens.

Better Homes and Gardens Expo 2011

Well yesterday hubby, bub and I all drove down to Sydney Showground at Homebush to see the 2011 Better Homes and Gardens Expo. This is the first year I've been and I was quite excited as a friend went last year and raved about it and all in all we had a pretty good day (bar the crappy overcast weather all day, boo!)

The event was split into three different sections, the Gardening & Pet Zone, the Home Dome & Craft Zone and the Food & Lifestyle Zone. Being the crappy weather that it was we decided to do the Gardening & Pet Zone first as it was the only outdoor section so we wanted to get through it before any rain could start.

I found this section my favourite, there were so many stalls on gardening, garden ornaments, plants, vegetables, and pet products. It was just such a shame that we are in a bit of a financial hole at the moment due to having bub six months ago and the fact that I've only been able to go back to work two days a week so far so it was a lot of looking and dreaming and not much buying unfortunately. But, the main things that caught my eye were the following:

* The Italian Gardener - This guy had some of the most unusual fruit and vegetable seeds I have ever seen. Since I have my vegetable garden in the process of being completed and will be filling it with soil soon to start planting I am so going to order some seeds from this site just to play with things I have never heard of before.
* Fruit Salad Trees - I think these are just totally awesome. One tree can have up to 8 different fruits on one tree. I would love to see one of these trees in full bloom with all the fruits hanging off of it as I think it would just be the coolest thing. Being that we planted an orange tree the weekend we moved into our house almost four years ago which has refused to produce one single orange for us so far I want one of these trees to compensate.

Next was the Food & Lifestyle Zone. This was of course hubby's favourite section as he will taste test absolutely anything and everything just because it's there. The highlight for me was the white and milk chocolate covered strawberry skewer we bought to share, oh so yummy! We also ended up buying some Saucilicious Sweet Tequila Chilli Lime Sauce (totally yum!) and some Captain Coffee mixed chocolate coated coffee beans (so addictive!)

I was also lucky enough to get a quick 5 minute makeover by a representative from Ere Perez Natural Cosmetics. I usually steer clear of these things as I get a little embarrassed when getting made up by someone else (I even struggled on my wedding day) but this time I thought 'what the heck' and took up the makeover offer. Hey, at least it meant I didn't have to do my makeup for our night out with friends :-) The representative used the following products on me:
* Natural Calendula Tinted Face Dust in Medium
* Tinted Rice Powder in Bronze Tones and My Blush
* Natural Mascara in Clear (on my totally ungroomed brows)
* Natural Chamomile Eye Colour in Without Clothes, From Beginning to End and Very Important
* Natural Rosehip Oil Lipbar in Life
Overall I was very impressed with how my face looked afterwards as she made my eyes look great and showed me that using a bronzer is not a scary as I thought it would be on my fair skin. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos as I'm just not confident enough to have close-up facial photos all over the internet. You'll just have to believe me when I say it looked good :-)

After a short intermission and some lunch (Turkish Gozleme anyone?) we then headed to the Home Dome & Craft Zone to finish off our afternoon.

I was totally captivated by the Cat Condo which is a really cool tall-boy like structure that has roll out draws where you put your cat's food bowls and litter tray so they are hidden away and their bed can sit on top. The draws have an internal staircase so your cat can walk throughout it at their leisure and given the fact that our two cats will hop into any open draw they see at home I just love this concept. Hubby and I are in the process of trying to work out a way to turn an old set of draws into a similar structure (which is more in our price range) so that our pussy cats can have their own little space like this.

After finally getting dragged away from the cat condo by hubby, I couldn't help but stop at the Pure Animal Wellbeing stall as I have had a lot of exposure to these products when working part time as a vet nurse and use them personally on my two beagles. They had a great special on their Sensitive Skin shampoo and conditioner so I just had to buy some and then I also got three decent size samples given to me as well. Awesome!

Finally we came to the end of the day and given that we had a spare hour before we really needed to head home to meet up with some friends I managed to talk hubby into taking me to Ikea for the first time to just 'have a quick look around'. Well, huh! There is no such thing as having a quick look around Ikea we discovered as once you are in you have no choice but to follow the path through the whole store to get out. I felt like a fish swimming up a stream and it took us an hour just to get from the beginning to the end, and that was with very minimal stopping to look at any of their products! Needless to say I am now hooked in this store and can't wait to update some of our furniture and homewares as soon as our budget allows. Unfortunately I think poor hubby is a little scarred by the experience and may have to be heavily convinced to ever take me back again.

Well, that was my great day out with my little family yesterday. Hopefully next year we'll be in a better position financially and I can spend up a storm at the 2012 Better Home and Gardens Expo and get all the things I drooled over this year :-)

Andrew Collinge Conditioner - Fail!

I've been using the Andrew Collinge - Simply No Frizz Smooth & Shiny Salon Conditioner for a while now as I won some at a trivia night out with friends (along with some other products) and I am seriously disappointed.
When applying it I have to use about 7-10 pumps (which is frustrating in itself) as it doesn't really spread well in the hair unless you apply quite a lot and I really don't like the way it feels on my hair either while I'm massaging it in. It also has no smell at all (where's the fun in that?) and the consistency just doesn't seem right for a conditioner, it actually seems more shampoo like.
Afterwards when I rinse it out I feel as if my hair is very straw-like and quite dry and my frizz has definitely not been reduced in any way. I have certainly become very friendly with my leave-in conditioner lately to compensate!
Overall I'm very unimpressed with every aspect of this conditioner and have decided to stop using it and go back to my trusty Tresemme brand instead. I must say that I'm certainly glad I didn't part with any of my own money to buy this product.

Boring Beauty Products

I have been using this Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser for a while now and frankly, I am getting quite bored with it and just want to finish the bottle already!!

Yes, it does what it supposed to do, which is cleanse the face of all impurities while being hypo-allergenic and without being over drying or irritating to sensitive skin (which I can suffer from) but it's just a boring cleanser to use. The packaging is boring, the smell is boring and even the way it foams doesn't do it for me either.

Fair enough, if you want a plain old cleanser that does it's job fuss free, then this is for you. Maybe I'm just getting too spoilt for choice these days with all the fancy products that are out there with amazing packaging and even more amazing smells and consitencies that when I'm faced with something that purely just does what it's supposed to do without any bells and whistles I'm left feeling a little deflated.

Does that seem ridiculous or what??

Has anyone else experienced the same Blah-ness when using a similar product before??

Elizabeth Arden Intervene Stress Recovery Night Cream

I have fallen in love with this night cream. I think it will become a constant in my routine forever until I happen to ever find something better. I bought some as a little birthday present to myself at the end of July because I never spend so much money on anything and I felt like treating myself for once (last time husband gives me permission to do that!) and it's one of the best things I have ever bought!
This cream feels so luxurious when applying it and somehow the smell just instantly relaxes me when I put it on after my shower and before bed at night.
The cream has got a slight shimmer to it that seems to reflect in the light and make your face absolutely glow.
It also doesn't feel greasy like other night creams I've used and seems to sink in really well and in the morning my skin feels so soft and looks amazing. I've noticed a remarkable improvement to my overall skin tone and it's also dramatically reduced the look of my pores which has made applying makeup so much easier. In fact, my mother, who never says a nice thing about anybody, even me, actually commented the other day at how flawless my skin looked when I was dropping my son off on my way to work. This cream deserves 5 stars just for that comment alone!!

After buying this cream, getting a lovely facial from the Elizabeth Arden rep at David Jones afterwards and getting an awesome gift with purchase and heaps of samples I'm still working my way through (I think the rep spoiled me a little because I told her it was by birthday at the time) I seem to have developed a bit of a crush on their products ever since. I just wish I had the income to support it!

A.S.A.P. Sheer Tint Moisturiser SPF15

I was fortunate enough to receive quite a lot of this product as part of my loyalty status goodies for Beauty Heaven last month and I can honestly say that it is the best tinted moisturiser that I have ever used so far.

It goes on so smooth, is a really good tinted colour (not too dark, orange, or light) and my skin literally feels like velvet afterwards for the rest of the day. Previously, when I have tried other tinted moisturisers they have had a tendency to be quite greasy after being on for a few hours and the colour of them has been too dark or there has been no real noticeable tint at all.
This tinted moisturiser is so good that I practically treat it as a light coverage foundation and just apply a bit of blush, some eye shadow, mascara and lip gloss and away I go! This is awesome when in a rush and I don't have time for the whole moisturise, prime and foundation routine but still want my skin to look good.

I am so buying myself more of this once my huge amount of samples finally run out......Love it!

My House is Overweight

I had an insightful thought the other day.... Can houses be overweight?? You think about it, being overweight is having extra kilos that really aren't necessary, well, that's exactly how our house feels at the moment and it's really starting to bother me.

So, to start on my journey to rid my house of excess 'kilos' I started by cleaning out my makeup supplies. This is something I've been wanting to do for so long but when I have a 5 month old everything seems to just take forever to get around to these days, but yesterday was 'D' Day for my makeup. Everything that was old, dry or unused for a very long time is now gone.

Then, my second project was my shoe collection and if anyone knew me personally you'd know how big a project this was to tackle. A big thank you to my husband for keeping bub occupied for the afternoon because it took me three hours (yep, 3 hours!!) to go through all of my shoes and decide what I was going to keep, what was going to get thrown out and what could be donated to charity. Two garbage bags and one big red, white and blue storage bag later and my shoe collection is now so much lighter. One thing I realised after doing this project was just how many pairs of thongs I seemed to accumulate whilst being pregnant because, as we all know, thongs are a pregnant girl's best friend and I literally lived in them towards the end. I'd forgotten about half of them there were just so many. I'll never need to buy another pair for years!!

Anyway, I now feel so liberated and am thinking about what other excess kilos I can get rid of from my house next weekend when I can again put my husband in charge of bub for a few hours. I'm thinking the linen cupboard may be my next victim........

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Michelle

Weekend Blog Hop

Well it's that time of week again where another Blog Hop is happening so add your blog to the following list and copy and paste the linky code into your own blog to keep the 'hop' going :-)

So...? Sinful Body Spray - The Power of a Scent

I received one of the So...? Sinful body sprays recently as part of a loyalty status gift from BeautyHeaven and I just love it. I will definitely be going in and trying out all of the other scents in the So...? range now as there are many more different ones that I never knew about.
This scent is a little bit sweet but also a little bit warming (if that makes sense) and it's not overpowering at all like some other body sprays can be.

I used to be a big fan of the original So..? perfume when I was a teenager many years ago and used to get some as a present from my mum now and then but pretty much forgot all about it once I started trying out other perfumes.
Receiving this spray has brought all those teenage memories back and I tend to feel a little giggly whenever I put this on which means I start the day on a happy note. This is certainly not a bad thing!

It's amazing when you think of the power that certain smells can have over us. There are some smells that I just can't go near anymore because they remind me of a time when I was sick and they instantly make me feel unwell even if I'm feeling fine and then there are others that always make me feel instantly good just by smelling them. I guess this is how the whole basis for aromatherapy was formed many years ago.

 It would be interesting to know what certain smells do for everyone else too.

My First Beauty Box Delivery Just Arrived!!

Talk about excited! My poor postie was a bit shocked when I threw open the front door as soon as I saw him park in my driveway and get out with a bright pink box in his hands as I knew it just had to be the first ever Beauty Box delivery.
I wasn't going to subscribe to this one after receiving my Lust Have It pack last month and being pretty happy with what came in that. I also though that maybe I would eventually get a bit 'sampled out' if I subscribed to the two of them together. But, when I received the emailed invitation a few weeks ago to sign up for the first Beauty Box pack I thought 'what the hell', I might as well try it too and see which I end up liking the best.

Well, here is how the first ever Beauty Box delivery came:

Then I opened the bright pink cardboard box to find this:

 This information card was on top when I opened the black box:

All the goodies were wrapped in some tissue paper just waiting to be peeled open:

And this is what was inside:

The contents of the box were as follows:
1) Yves Saint Laurent - Beauty Sleep, 5ml: A night serum which claims to smooth the skin's micro-texture, plump the skin and reveal the radiance of the complexion in the morning;
2) Marc Jacobs - Oh! Lola!, 3 x 1.2ml samples: An Eau De Parfum that I have already sprayed on myself and am trying to see if it grows on me;
3) Sally Hansen - Everyday Strength Medium Nail File: I huge nail file that seems to be a really good texture for everyday tidying up the nails;
4) Playboy - Play It Spicy Body Spray, 75ml: I've also sprayed this on myself and keep getting wafts of it as I move around. Not too bad so far;
5) Shu Uemura - High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil, 20ml: This is a make-up cleanser that is supposed to maintain the skin's delicate moisture balance with a rich combination of botanical oils. I've actually never heard of this brand before so am keen to try this on my sensitive skin and see how it goes.

Apparently to guarantee ongoing membership with Beauty Box they want you to review each product after trying and every month they will feature a 'Beauty Treat' where you can win prizes for reviewing a particular product.

I don't know if the contents of this box have grabbed me as much as the Lust Have It contents did but I'll have to wait and see how I feel after using some of the products a few times.

I wonder what everyone else thought of their Beauty Box delivery??

MOR Belladonna Body Butter

I was recently fortunate enough to receive this MOR Belladonna Body Butter as part of my loyalty status prize from BeautyHeaven.com and I have seriously fallen in love. It would have to be one of the most luxurious feeling creams I have ever used and the smell is just divine!!
At first I didn't want to open it as it looked so cute all wrapped up like a little present but once I bit the bullet and opened it up I was hooked.
I love to put this body butter on at night after my shower and I have found that I can still smell it halfway through the next day as if it was just applied and it makes my skin feel so ultra smooth almost like velvet.
I've always been interested in trying the products from the MOR range as they always look so cute and are packaged so nice so getting this Body Butter as a gift was very exciting.
One thing I have noticed is that it can be a little bit hard to get out of the container sometimes, mainly because it is just so thick. You really don't need to use much though as it seems to go a long way.
For anyone that is interested if you register on the MOR Cosmetics site at the moment you can get 30% discount off all of the Emporium Body Butter range. This deal runs until the end of September. I certainly know what I'll be buying with my 30% off!!
Chat later,
Michelle