Night Night! Our daily skincare routine…

If you haven’t already read our post on our morning skincare routine, then you can do so here. As we’ve said we thought we’d share our current favourites, and like a lot of people we have a different products that we use before bed. On reflection, we’re quite surprised at how many products we’ve got on the go at the moment, but it doesn’t take as long as you might think to get through all of this – honest! 

Here’s what we’re using before our head hits the pillow:

• Taaj Himalaya Micellar Water – We’ve already reviewed this makeup remover here. We use it on a damp cotton wool to remove the first layer of our makeup, as a “precleanse”.

• Temple Spa – In The Beginning Deep Cleansing Melt We love this luxurious cleanser so much, especially during the cold winter months we’re having at the moment. Read our full review here. 

• Temple Spa Toning Essence & Skinetica We use these two morning and night, see our earlier Morning All post. 

• Dermalogica – Overnight Clearing Gel If we’ve got a nasty blemish coming up or one that has already made an appearance, applying a blob of this gel before bed means that it is very often gone by morning, or at least very substantially reduced. We couldn’t live without this! 

• RapidLash & Brow Boost We’re currently undertaking a challenge to get our sparse brows and short lashes to grow! You can read our intro here. At the moment we’re applying both of these every night as directed and then let them dry before we finish up with our favourite facial oil. 

• Beatitude – Skin Salvation Facial Oil We’ll be doing a full review of this soon. We’ve been using it for a few weeks and we really love how it gives a really concentrated moisture boost and means we wake up with plumper and glowing skin.

Once we’ve applied all of these, we can get off to sleep guilt free. If we’re really tired or a tad worse for wear, we always try to at least use the Taaj makeup remover but we feel guilty if we do that too often! We also see a big difference in our skin if we do, so we think the extra 10 minutes a night is worth it! What’s your bedtime skincare routine like? Do you think this is too extensive or is your routine even more intensive?

Morning All! Our daily skincare routine…

As you know, here at thebeautyobsession, we are skincare ADDICTS. We thought we’d bring you a post on our current regular skincare routine to show you what’s working for us. We’re lucky enough to get to try lots of different brands and products and we change our routine based on how our skin is behaving, the seasons and when new products need trialing, but these are what we’re using in the mornings at the moment!

Our morning routine needs to be quick as we’ll take an extra five minutes in bed over skincare any day. It also needs to prep our skin and give us a good base for makeup. Here’s what’s working for us:

• Temple Spa – Dual Act Wet & Dry Cleansing Lotion This cleanser is a cross between a gel and a lotion and we love to slap in on dry skip as soon as we wake up as it’s really cooling and refreshing. Once we’ve rubbed it in to make sure we’ve got rid of all traces of sleep, we wipe it off with a wet natural sponge and it leaves our skin feeling really clean. You can apply it to wet skin as well and it does foam slightly, but we feel a bit like we’re wasting it if we use it that way. This cleanser is great for our combination skin as it takes away any oily sheen on our T-zone, but doesn’t make our skin feel tight in other areas. We don’t get any irritation or redness, which is always good when you want to apply makeup soon after cleansing. 

• Temple Spa – Toning Essence We love the smell of this toner and use it every morning on a damp cotton pad to make sure we’ve removed all traces of our cleanser. It doesn’t contain any alcohol and doesn’t irritate or tighten our skin. 

• Skinetica – We reviewed this here and we’re still using it morning and night to keep any pimples at bay. It absorbs straight into the skin and just leaves our face feeling nice and soft. Once its been absorbed it doesn’t matter what you apply over it, so we can put moisturiser and makeup on almost straight away.

• Temple Spa – Skin Truffle We’ll be doing a full review on this amazing day cream soon. Needless to say that a cream that contains strawberries, champagne and diamond dust is a winner with us!

• VirginVie Necker Gel – We know it’s quite extravagant to have a cream just for your neck but as it’s one of the first places to show aging and is normally on show every day, we think it’s worth it. Virgin Vie is no longer around, but we were given this gel some time ago and didn’t get around to using it. However when we did, we were hooked from the first use. It’s a really luxurious gel that instantly smooths and tightens. We just need to find a good alternative when this finally runs out! 

• Avon – Anew Eye Lift Pro This eye cream has two separate creams for the under eye to reduce dark circles and a gel formula for the brow bone to tighten and lift. We like how it really smooths the eye area and we think it reduces some of the fine lines we have. We also love what a bargain it is! 

So these are the products that we’re using every morning at the moment. It probably seems like this takes ages to do as there are quite a few products here, however we’ve got it down to a fine art and can get through it in 5 – 10 minutes max! What are your morning must haves?

Check out the site later today for our evening skincare favourites!

Trying to beat blemishes?

We love anything that can make our skin look brighter and clearer, so we were pleased to see a trial size of Skinetica in our October Glossybox. It’s not a brand we’ve come across before, it was previously known as Acnigon, but it makes some pretty impressive claims so we were happy to try it.

Skinetica say that it “soothes, calms and clears” with a fast acting formula that is kind to skin. We were very intrigued as Skinetica doesn’t contain any salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide which is what you would usually expect from a spot treatment. In fact the main ingredient is something we’ve never heard of. We quote “a highly sophisticated quaternary Ammonium Chloride compound combined with a Sylyl base” which works on a molecular level and once dry becomes chemically inert and has no side-effects.

Sounds very technical doesn’t it? Basically the particles in Skinetica are so small they are easily absorbed into the skin, where they will stay for up to 12 hours. Washing your face after Skinetica has dried will not affect it working, as the active ingredients have already been absorbed.

So now we’ve got our heads round that, does it actually work? We’ve been using it twice a day as instructed, applying it to cotton wool and dabbing onto clean, dry skin. It’s very easy to apply and dries very quickly. Once it’s been absorbed it doesn’t leave any residue or mark on the skin so putting makeup over the top is no problem.

Now, we are very wary of claiming anything is a miracle product as what works for one person may not work for the next. We also only had a small 10ml sample to try, which lasted just over a week. However, we can honestly say that Skinetica did have a great effect on our skin whilst we were using it. We don’t mind admitting we were surprised, as we can’t quite understand how it works. We’ve done some digging on Ammonium Chloride and it’s a chemical compound that is often used in cough medicines or metal preparation! The manufacturers explain it like this; “As Skinetica dries onto the skin it becomes a matrix or lattice on the surface and forms spikes or “swords” at the molecular level. Inflammatory microbes are then electrostatically attracted onto these swords which kill them physically by effectively skewering and rupturing their outer cellular walls. This is a process called lysis. When the membrane of a microbe is physically ruptured, Skinetica is not consumed and does not dissipate, nothing is transferred. The killing action is not depleted and Skinetica continues to control microbial growth over time with no loss of efficacy.”

So whilst we can’t quite grasp how it works, we can say that for us it definitely did. Within two days we noticed our skin was looking clearer and our pores were looking smaller. After each use our skin felt incredibly soft and smooth which really helped improve the overall appearance. We’re lucky in that we don’t get too many blemishes but we do get the odd breakout and this seemed to stop whilst we were using Skinetica. It doesn’t appear to have much effect on larger blemishes that are already there (we recommend Dermalogica Medicated Clearing Gel for those nasties); but like we said, we found that with continued use they seem to be kept at bay.

The packing and design isn’t very exciting but then again it’s a medicinal product rather than a cosmetic one, so putting it in luxury packaging wouldn’t actually improve the contents in anyway. It would also probably put the price up which at the moment is a reasonable £9.99 for 100ml. You can currently buy it online here or at a number of independent pharmacies.

Now we just need to get our hands on a bigger bottle to trial the ongoing results…..!

Thanks for reading.

tbo

xxx

Glossybox – October 2012

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Glossybox, it is one of many new “beauty boxes” taking the UK by storm at the moment.

The idea of a beauty box is that you pay a subscription fee and every month you are sent a box of beauty related samples, miniatures and occasionally full size products to use as you wish. Think of it as a rather glamorous “try before you buy” or as we like to think of it at thebeautyobsession, Christmas every month!

With the Glossybox, you receive 5 products each month for a subscription fee of £10 + £2.95 p&p. October’s box is filled with products for, and we quote, “an indulgent and cosy night in”. As October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, Glossybox have themed their boxes pink, and have said they’ll be donating, although we don’t know how much per box will be going to the charity.

As usual, the products inside are wrapped in tissue paper and tied with ribbon, making us feel like we’re opening a luxurious present before we’ve even seen what’s inside!

We weren’t disappointed once we unwrapped, this month’s box contained a great variety of products, all in generous sizes. Two of the products are full sized with an RRP of £24.99 alone.

From left to right: Yves Rocher France, Instant Anti-Wrinkle Moisturiser £18 for 100ml (full size included); The Organic Pharmacy, Enzyme Peel Mask, £49 for 40ml (5ml included); Skinetica, Anti-Blemish, £6.99 for 100ml (approx 15ml included); Sally Hansen, Complete Salon Manicure in 440 Calypso Blue, £6.99 for 14.7ml (full size included); Anatomicals, Don’t just clean it woman, scrub it Body Scrub, £3.49 for 200ml (75ml included).

We’re looking forward to trying everything in this month’s box, but we’re particularly excited about the Sally Hansen polish as it is such a gorgeous colour and the Skineitca Anti-Blemish, as anything that can help us fly through the day with confidence is always welcome here at thebeautyobsession!

We’ll update you with individual product reviews shortly, but in the meantime why don’t you let us know what you thought of your Glossybox this month? If you don’t yet subscribe to a beauty box, what do you think of the concept and would you be tempted?

You can subscribe to Glossybox here.

Thanks for reading!

tbo

xxx