Monthly Empties | September & October

 

This is quite a large looking bundle of 'empties' this time but it is a combination of the previous two months as I was far too busy at the end of September to be able to put this up. I like doing empties posts, although I do think it is slightly a weird thing to do; when finishing a product instead of just throwing it in the bin like a normal person you keep it in a little box or a bag until the end of the month and then you take pictures of them all, write about them and post it on the Internet, and then you can throw them away. Weird - yes?

I had mine kept in my bedroom just in a plastic bag that's next to my rubbish bin and last week my mum came in my room and went 'oh is this bag rubbish? its bin day tomorrow I'll go take it downstairs for you' and I hopped up and shouted 'no no don't throw that away!' even though she could quite clearly see that it was a tesco bag full of empty bottles ..I didn't bother to explain and she just gave me a very confused look before walking away - haha embarassing!

 

Anyway, here we go. First up are some bath and body bits: this Next Just Pink Body Wash was in my 'What's In My Shower Post' from September and I explained how it was received as a Christmas gift as part of a gift set containing the matching perfume and body lotion, it wasn't really anything special it was just a shower gel that needed to be used. St Moriz Fake Tan Mousse is the only brand of fake tan that I ever use, mainly because I'm not mad over fake tan like I used to be so I'm not interested in spending a lot of money on it - it's only needed if my outfit for a night out shows a little too much skin and that skin would look better if it wasn't Casper-white! This fake tan is cheap as chips (about £3 from Home Bargains or Body Care) and does the job just fine, despite the biscuit-y smell. I also finished off a small 50ml tub of The Body Shop's Wild Cherry Body Butter; this cost £2 and I thought it was a bargain when I bought it but it turned out that there was barely enough product to cover just my legs let alone my whole body and I did actually use all of this in one go. It is a really rich moisturising and smells beautiful - not so sure if I'd spend £13.50 on a bigger tub though.

 

I'm a massive conditioner lover and always love to treat my poor over-processed hair to some TLC with a deep conditioning treatment, often left on overnight or atleast for a good few hours. The two tubes, one is Clairol and the other is L'Oreal, are ones that have been stashed away in a drawer in my mum's bedroom from occasions when she has dyed her hair and not used the conditioner that has come with it as she prefers to use her own. These come in handy for me to use as a quick fix to slather all over my hair and leave on for a few hours - they are super intensive and nourishing as they're intended for use straight after dyeing hair. The Herbal Essences Beautiful Ends Intensive Mask is a really, really good budget deep conditioner and I really loved using this. I'm up to my eyeballs in conditioners at the moment but at some point I do plan on repurchasing this - it costs a couple of pounds and you get a huge tub full to brim with product that lasts a really long time, and it works too!

 



A bit of Nivea loving going on recently too! The Nivea Essential Care Lip Balm has been knocking around in my life for a really long time and has seen better days. I think Nivea are one of the better brands for lip balms and treatments and they're an affordable price too. I have other lip balms by Nivea and love them all - would highly recommend them. The mini Nivea Deodorant is a perfect handbag sized product and is great for when you're 'on the go' and need a quick freshening up. The travel size bottles can be found for around 99p and are a really handy little thing to have. I always have a pack or two of make-up wipes hanging around somewhere for super quick and easy make-up removal but I'm not fussy about which brand I pick up - normally whatever is the cheapest or on offer at the time which will have been why I picked up these Nivea Gentle Facial Cleansing Wipes for Sensitive Skin but they were really good, nice and 'moist', good at taking off make-up and left the skin feeling soft and moisturised too.

 

Lastly, a couple of make-up and skincare bits. The T-Zone Blackhead Fighting Facial Scrub was a super cheap  exfoliator (99p) that I picked up just to use in the shower for a bit of extra cleanliness - it contained tea tree which I love the smell of and it left my skin feeling really fresh and clean. The Molton Brown Skin Fresh Facial Wash is a little bottle that I took from a hotel room back in the summer and have only recently got around to using it, it's incredibly mild and gentle and feels really luxurious - if only my budget would allow for me to use Molton Brown products regularly! I got the Maybelline False Lash Effect Mascara when it was very first released which was probably about three years ago now and this has completed dried up and is almost certainly out of date, it's just been hanging around in a box of make-up needing to be thrown away - I can't even remember what it was like it's been so long since I've used it! The next three were all freebie samples: Yardley Royal Diamond EDT was a sample in a beauty box and was 'okay', but I spilt more of it than I actually used, the Caudalie Vinoperfect Complexion Correcting Serum arrived as gift with purchase of a Caudalie Beauty Elixir and I love, love, lovedddd this sample! It was only a 2ml tube and I completely dismissed it at first but later discovered its amazing qualities - it worked wonders on angry and inflamed spots on my face helping to calm them right down, dramatically reduce redness and smoothing the skin area and the next day the area looked close to flawless. I used this as more of a spot treatment around the certain area and I would love to buy the full sized version if it wasn't so darn expensive - around £35 for 30ml! I got a sample pot of Lush Fresh Face Mask in Love Lettuce when I was having an indepth browse at almost every product in Lush in order to avoid a heavy rain shower outside! I just got a sample on a whim after the sales assistant talked me into it and I'm definitely going to buy a full sized tub of it soon - I loved using the fresh face mask Cupcake so much and have always wanted to try another and it will definitely be Love Lettuce. They're so cooling and soothing on the skin but this one is exfoliating too.

 



So, that's my big pile of fifteen empty products from the months of September and October. I really wish there was more brands and companies who did empties returns schemes like Lush and Mac do - I'd especially love The Body Shop to do something like that too.

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