January Sales Beauty Haul

Fingers tightly crossed that this is the last haul post you see from me for quite a long time! I'm not so much on a labelled 'spending ban' like other bloggers are at the moment, mine is more that I have realised (finally), that I have just too.much.stuff. really. and I am going to stop being so silly and buying things that aren't necessary when I already have so much.

It's not even funny how many products I have for body, hair, skin, make-up and all the rest of it, and I really don't have enough storage space to put it all away somewhere neat and tidy so right now my bedroom and bathroom is looking like somebody let off a bomb in Boots!

I received so many lovely things for Christmas, and also for my birthday that was just a couple of weeks earlier, that I really shouldn't need to be buying anything else for quite a long time, but who can resist those Boxing Day and January Sales?! Definitely not somebody with zero will power like me.

I personally think that I did quite well in not going overboard, as I didn't enter any shops at all (the craziness of sales in store scares me) so both of these were online orders, and I didn't order a single item of clothing either; I successfully filled my Topshop basket to about £50 the other night but mustered up the will power to click the 'x' on the page instead of the 'pay now' button.

Below are a couple of beauty bits that I ordered from the comfort of my own home during the days following Christmas:

Feel Unique || Instagram: hannahripley1

Boots || Instagram: hannahripley1

Feel Unique - ordered on Boxing Day

- Philip Kingsley Re-Moisturising Shampoo (250ml) £14.75 £7.35

For Christmas my Nanna got me a bottle of Philip Kingsley conditioner along with a small sachet of the elasticizer and I am ever so grateful so this as I loveee using high end hair products, but I'm a little bit funny about needing to use them as a 'duo' - I can't use the conditioner that she got me without the matching shampoo! (I hope other people are the same and need to have a matching pair with shampoo and conditioner??). On Christmas Day evening I had a peek online at Feel Unique sale and was overcome with joy to see 50% off Philip Kingsley products - yay! Perfect excuse to be able to snap up the shampoo for a bargain price and I placed my order the next morning.

- YSL Touche Eclat Radiant Touch Highlighting Pen £25.00 £21.25

A new Touche Eclat has been something that I have desperately needed for such a long time - honestly, I almost included a picture of my current tatty one.. I don't know what's happened to it but it's got about 3 dents in the metal, scratched and scraped within an inch of it's life, it's practically silver now instead of gold, and only a tiny splodge of gloopy product comes out after 20 clicks of the button.. it's been well loved! (and also abused by the sound of things). I was waiting first of all to see if my mum had taken my hints that I needed a new one and got me one for Christmas, but as she didn't it seemed only fitting that I used Christmas money to buy myself one on Boxing Day, and with 15% off there's no better time!

Boots - ordered on 28th December at 4am when I couldn't sleep!

- No7 Skincare Treats Gift Set £16.00 £8.00

This skincare set was the first, and really the only, item that I had wanted from Boots but unfortunately my local store didn't have it in so I needed to order it online. I'm super stingy with paying for delivery and opted to spend an extra £12+ on other items to be able to qualify for free delivery. Shameful. For only £8.00 I am so happy that I got this gift set for myself, especially as the Boots No7 vouchers are back again now and I never know what to get with my vouchers and always play it safe with the face wipes! This gives me a chance to try out the eye make-up remover, day cream, night cream and the hot cloth cleanser, complete with a muslin cloth and a fluffy head band for the ultimate pamper. This only arrived on Monday so I've not tried anything out yet, but I will do ASAP and pop a full review up in a little bit too.

- Palmers Cocoa Butter Natural Bronze Body Lotion £5.35 £2.67

'Half price on selected Palmers body care'

I've always been a bit curious to try this out ever since falling in love with the Palmers Cocoa Butter but never got round to buying one. I needed things to fill my basket and this being half price was the perfect reason to finally try it out.

- Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer £4.19 £3.69

'Save up to £2 on selected Collection 2000'

Yep, best concealer in the world, ever. Definitely. This only had 50p off so obviously not a huge saving but I would have bought this again at some point or another so there was no harm in picking it up while it had a little bit of discount. Plus, I want to review this but all the writing has rubbed away on my current one so that's not helpful for anyone in a review really!

- Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Love Sick £7.99 £5.00

'Only £5 on selected Revlon cosmetics' 

I bought a Chubby Stick (Intense) from Clinique just before Christmas and I absolutely love it to death but they are on the pricey side and these balm stains from Revlon have been so heavily compared to them that I needed to try it out for myself to see if it really was a good cheaper alternative. On first impressions.. these smell horrible and the Chubby Sticks are much nicer! But for just £5 these are okay and I will still use it, I just doubt that I'll be hopping out to buy anymore any time soon.

- Revlon Grow Luscious Plumping Mascara £9.99 £5.00

'Only £5 on selected Revlon cosmetics'

I can't even begin to express how rare it is for me to repurchase a mascara, and I think that most other people are the same. They have to really impress me for me to buy the same one twice when there's so many out there to try. I've been using the regular Grow Luscious for the past few months and it is definitely the best one that I have ever used, ever. If this one wasn't half price and only £5(!!) then I maybe wouldn't have bought it again, but I'm happy that I have and I can't wait to see if the 'plumping' version is much different.

I saved £19.15 in Boots, and £11.15 on Feel Unique, leaving me with a total savings of £30.30 on all of these 7 items! Bargainous sale shopping without even leaving the house.

Did you pick up any great bargains in the sales this year?

♥

What's On My Christmas List?

 

 

Merry Christmas girls & boys! 11 days until the BIG day!

Festive wishes to you all.

 

I made this 'wishlist' of my 'wants' for this Christmas using a site called Polyvore (link) which is a really great tool for making collages. The only problem is there are pre-loaded site images on the database so there are some products that I couldn't include because there wasn't an image available for them! Some of the things that would've been here if they could be include: Charles Worthington Intense Rescue Balm, Tangle Teezer, Lush 'I love juicy' and 'rehab' shampoo, and Mac nail laquer 'everything that glitters'.

 

This isn't a very realistic Christmas list at all, it isn't what is really going to be underneath my tree on Christmas morning or anything... it's just what I would love to be there in an ideal world, and of course they are all 'wants', not 'needs'. On closer observation I've noticed that there are seven hand creams, two cleansers, two eye creams ..and if I had my way there'd also be two shampoos and two nail varnishes on this list - what ever happened to only needing just one of anything??

Here's what's on the list:

 

Moroccan Oil (The Original) | NARS Orgasm Blush | Mac Brow Set | Bobbi Brown Correcter

REN Radiance Renewal | Burts Bees Eye Creme | Benefit They're Real Mascara

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser | The Body Shop Almond Hand and Nail Cream | Soap & Glory Peaches and Clean Cleanser | The Body Shop Chocomania Shower Gel

YSL Rouge Volupte Lipstick | Soap & Glory You Won't Believe Your Eyes | Topshop Razzmatazz Glitter Nail Varnish

Cath Kidson Hand Creams | UGG Mittens

 

What's on your wishlist?

♥

20th Birthday Presents

 

 

Hello my little lovely jubblies. I'm coming to you with a biiig smile on my face today after having another absolutely amazing weekend and have been spoilt so, so rotton! As some of you may know, it was my birthday on Friday and my nearest and dearest definitely treated me well, the little gems! I've hit the ripe old age of 20 now and have left those wonderful teenage years behind me *sob*, so as I'm an old prune now and this was no milestone age then I was expecting about 3 cards with a tenner shoved inside them and maybe some flowers from my boyfriend.. I didn't really expect to be showered with so many wonderful gifts and be up to my eyeballs in new and exciting things to try!

I feel like a spoilt little princess.

A very grateful, spoilt little princess.

 

Just a little disclaimer that this is no way intended to be any kind of 'bragging' or 'show off' kind of post at all, as it is basically just a haul.. apart from it wasn't me that picked the items out.. or paid for them. I personally like reading these kind of posts that other people do after their birthdays because more often than not they're full to the brim with beauty bits which excite me and also they're great for gift ideas so this could give you some hints and tips if you've not started Christmas shopping yet!

 

When I first caught wind of these advent calendars from Ciate way back in October I had my heart well and truely set on getting one - what could be better than opening a door to a bottle of nail varnish every single morning leading up to Christmas Day?! I puppy dog eyed my mummy if she could get me one as a birthday present and tryed my best to justify the steep price tag with the fact that it contains exclusive shades and and 4 bottles of the ever so famous caviar pearls. She finally said 'yes'.. but then let on to me that they had all sold out before she had chance to order one, allowing me to moan and sulk that I'd missed the chance and she well and truely threw me off the scent that she had snapped one up for me. Little minx. I was jumping for joy when I realised she'd tricked me and I ripped open that yellow Selfridges box and admired my new Ciate Mini Mani Month and all of it's glory with a great big smile on my face. Yay!
 

The Benefit 'How To Look The Best At Everything' gift set pictured above was from my younger sister and contains minis of everything that you need to create the ideal complexion and base with the Pore-fessional primer, Hello Flawless foundation, 2 shades of Boi-ing concealer, and Me Vain? setting powder and it comes in a super cute old fashioned book style packaging - LOVE. The earrings were from my boyfriend's parents and the elephant Pandora charm was from my Grandma. She also gave me some money with strict instructions that I 'must treat myself to something pretty' with it, and treating myself is of course one of my favourite things to do so I don't think I'll find that too hard!

 

Below is a 'Topshop Hottie', i.e. a hot water bottle, that I got from one of the girls that I live with at uni and she said that she picked this one out because it's a wolf.. but when he has his hood up he's a cosy little sheep - aw! Now, I know that the saying 'wolf in sheep's clothing' means something to do with pretending you're something you're not?.. but lets just pretend it's nothing to do with that and it's nothing but a cute little wolf with a fluffy white jumper on! This is adorable and who wouldn't want to receive this as a present?



The little collage above is all the gifts I got from my two best friends at university; how generous? Rachael decorated our house with 'Happy birthday' banners and even got me a little cupcake from Greggs and put a candle in it for me - aw! As if a gorgeous clutch bag from River Island wasn't enough there was a nice purple box absolutely full of little goodies! They definitely satified my beauty cravings as well as my massive sweet tooth! So many sweets haha. Soap and Glory goodies, earrings and a ring, eyelashes, Rihanna perfume, a Skittles candle (mmm) and more!

 

The collage below is presents from my boyfriend. I asked if there was any particular order that I should open them and his only specification was the one that needed to be last.. and it was the socks which confused me why these had to be last until I realised that inside one of the socks was a little Pandora box! It's the white mother of pearl 'Love Me' charm, and he said he didn't want it to be too obvious what it was straight away so tried to disguise what the box would be by putting it inside pair of socks haha! He also got me a Body Shop gift set with scrubs, body butters, soaps and shower gels and moisturisers in and although I've never known what 'Moringa' is before it turns out to be a scent I really like - it's fresh and floral so I'll be saving these for spring and summer, but the coconut body milk has already been put into regular use.

 

I think the biggest surprise was definitely a camera, there was no hints or clues about this one! I don't actually own a camera - I steal my mum's to take my blog pictures and have to take them in bulk too because she uses her camera all the time, but now I have my very own! It has lots of fancy settings on it that I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with yet but I've had a good play about with it and it has good focus on close up pictures which I really like. That's why this post is so photo heavy - I've been trialling my new camera!

 

Andddd on top of all that he also got me some sweets and one of THE best onesies that I have ever seen.. ever! It's from Next and I'd spotted it before and told him that I'd never buy it myself as it's expensive for a onesie - and I wasn't even hinting! Safe to say I want to live in this now for the next few weeks, it so amazingly cosy and warm, and look how well I match my new hot water bottle!!

 

I like sweets more than I like cosmetics and I think people may have figured this out! My teeth are going to fall out after I've worked my way through this great big pile of sweets - mmmm!

 

♥

 



Beauty Essential #1: Sudocrem

Sudocrem Antiseptic Healing Cream 125g £2.75

 

It's undeniable that Sudocrem is a popular household product, and I assume that everybody reading this has used Sudocrem at some point or another in their life, whether it's when you were a baby and you had it smeared all over your botty, or in later life for one of it's many other purposes, but how many of you would regard it as a beauty essential and could not be without it and it's wonders?

 

If you want to know an interesting little fact about Sudocrem then when I Googled it to find out what the average price of it is for reference in this blog post, what came up from my search was a little article from back in March by The Daily Mail titled 'The Latest Beauty Must Have? A £2.75 Tub Of Nappy Rash Cream?' and yes - The Daily Mail is correct, this tub of 'nappy rash cream' is indeed a beauty must-have. Apparently, according to this article, Superdrug's sales of this little tub have risen over 150% since February 2011 which is quite astonishing really ..perhaps it's due to it's guest appearance on an episode of TOWIE? Or maybe just more down to the fact that it's a brilliant, bargain buy that has more than just a few multi-purpose functions and does the the same, if not better, job than many other different products that are out there on the shelves right now.

 

One tub of this will last literally years; we had the same one tub of this floating around our house for about 20 years before it finally just went missing one day and it's not like it wasn't regularly used! This stuff will go on forever and I'm sure you could cover your whole body head to toe in a white smear several times and not even make a dint in the tub; when I say that 'a little goes a long way' I mean it to the absolute extreme.

 

This little gem has especially been brought to my attention recently because my boyfriend, my mum and I have all broken out in a nasty looking rash spreading over our arms, chest and my boyfriend has it pretty bad on his face (just incase it's contagious I've not been to uni today ..tehe) and in attempt to soothe the itching and resist scratting away at it we've been slathering on the Sudocrem and it's really helped to reduce redness and irration and calm the area as it is a natural antiseptic. It doesn't really ever sink into the skin, it sits on the surface until rubbed away and it definitely cannot be washed off the face or hands just with warm water, a gentle cleanser or soap will be required for removal.

 

I've noticed that the packaging has changed on Sudocream ever so slightly with regards to its list of uses; my previous tub only listed 'nappy rash, eczema and bed sores' as problems that it is perfect for giving a helping hand to, but more recent packages have a broader list of uses which include the likes of 'surface wounds' and more importantly 'acne'. We won't get into it but trust me when I say I've had a lot of experience with acne in my life, enough to know that a blob of £2 cream from a supemarket isn't going to be the answer to your woes and Sudocrem have used incorrect terminology in this situation. 'Acne' is an internal problem originating from hormones and no matter how expensive they are topical treatments (creams/lotions) will not be much use to you. What Sudocream should have instead said that it's good for is your average, everyday, run of the mill spots and pimples; the kind that everybody gets from time to time. This product is a favouite spot cream of Cheryl Cole's, and also mine, and really works as an overnight treatment applied directly onto the affected area. It's an extremely fast working process and dramatic results can be noted in the morning with huge reductions in redness and inflammation. This is one of my very favourite spot treatments despite it's lack of subtlety and Sudocrem should definitely take onboard some of the tweets I've seen about how 'skin coloured Sudocrem would be perfect!'.

 

 

 

I found this 30g travel sized tube of Sudocrem the other week in Home Bargains and thought that it was brilliant. It was between £1-£2 (sorry that I can't remember exactly how much it cost) and compared to the amount of product that you get - 30g instead of 125g - it isn't exactly great value for money but it does have the conveniance factor! I've got long nails so digging about into a tub isn't always ideal for me as the cream gets stuck underneath my nails (eugh) so being able to dispense from a squeezey tube is so much easier and also a lot more hygienic too, it's just not as easy to come by in this form of packaging; Home Bargains is the only place I have spotted it but keep your eyes peeled for it as you never know when you might really need a little splodge of this. Everyone should have a tub or a tube somewhere in their home!

 

Is Sudocrem a must-have beauty essential for you too?

♥