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Elan Skincare: Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster, Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum & Whisper Skin Saviour

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If you are familiar with us at  The Amazing Blog, then you’ll know that we love to introduce natural skincare, and Elan Skincare is one of our favourite featured brands (see here). Very kindly, they sent us three more of their products to try the Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster,  Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum, and the Whisper Skin Saviour.

As we mentioned previously, Elan Skincare, is a natural British skincare brand founded by Joanna Silva in 2017.She has almost a decade of experience in the medical industry — in wound care, infection prevention, and specifically skincare. Elan Skincare’s mission is to be honest and transparent, and to have a strong foundation in science, nature, and art. Joanna hopes that Elan Skincare’s products will make people feel beautiful and confident and, thus, go for their dreams. The brand values integrity, kindness, and respect — integrity in the brand’s work, kindness to others and oneself, and respect for each other, and our natural environment. Elan Skincare cares about what you put on your skin. Their products contain an exquisite blend of botanicals that are carefully selected. In their formulations the brand uses cold-pressed unrefined oils and butters, Eco-cert or Soil Association certified organic botanicals, with the purest CO2 organic plant extracts, and natural active ingredients (coenzyme Q10, vitamins C & E, hyaluronic acid). Elan Skincare is women-led, and women’s health and wellbeing are at the heart of the company. The brand’s whole range of products are expertly formulated, dermatologically tested, is vegan, and cruelty-free. Their bottles and product labels are recyclable and sustainability is important to Elan Skincare. Their products have won multiple awards — the Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster won the Beauty Shortlist Awards 2019 Editor’s Choice, the Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum also won the Beauty Shortlist Awards 2019 Editor’s Choice, and these as a Duo Pack won a Beauty Bible Awards 2020. Silva said, “Elan Skincare is a truly feminine brand, made by women for women. At the end of the day, we face the same challenges of balancing work, family, love and finding a little bit of space for our dreams and pursuits. I strongly believe that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. I wish all of us women the confidence and belief in our dreams and ourselves.”

Elan Skincare’s Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster restores moisture balance and leaves your skin softer, smoother, and more radiant. The Booster water-based serum is fragrance-free and suitable for all skin types, and they call it their “Pure Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Serum.” The key benefits of this serum include reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improving skin texture and rejuvenating the tired-looking complexion. It also deeply hydrates and supports the skin’s renewal at the cellular level and promotes firmer, smoother, healthier, and more elastic skin. The ingredients in this serum are few and simple. They only include water, sodium hyaluronate, benzyl alcohol, and dehydroacetic acid. The key one is the potent eco-certified 3% of hyaluronic acid. The type of hyaluronic acid is sodium hyaluronate, this has a lower molecular weight than HA and hydrolysed HA, so it’s more easily absorbed into pores. It also penetrates the deeper layers of the dermis and prevents trans-epidermal water loss. The dehydroacetic acid is derived from the solandra plant, and works together with the benzyl alcohol as a broad-spectrum organic preservative system, and conforms to requirements of COSMOS and ECOCERT. This is super-fast at being absorbed by the skin and it’s fragrance-free. We used morning and evening with only a couple of drops from the pipette, directly onto cleansed face and neck, leaving it about 2 minutes before applying moisturiser. It performed well and made a good canvas for other skincare to follow. It’s wonderful to find a serum tha trulyt hydrates the skin and plumps up fine lines and wrinkles. By the wayElan also recommends using this with one of their oil-based serum (like below), to seal in the Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster; and there is a duo pack with their Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum.  

We also used the Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster with Elan Skincare’s Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum,They also call this ‘ Night Serum Vitamin C + E + Pomegranate’. It helps to improve skin tone and texture, stimulates skin regeneration, and give a more youthful look. We love how this oil-based serum is an amber coloured nectar with an uplifting citrus fragrance. It’s also ideal for uneven or dull skin (like ours). The key benefits of this serum include improving the overall skin tone, protecting skin from free radicals (which cause premature skin ageing), and creating ultra-smooth and glowing skin. The ingredients in this serum include: Organic pomegranate seed oil, vitamin C, organic carrot root extract, organic rosehip seed extract, abyssinian seed oil, oat kernel oil, hydrogenated farnesene, sea buckthorn oil, squalane, hazelnut oil, organic jojoba oil, vitamin E, and bisabolol. It’s not often we come across organic pomegranate seed oil as an ingredient. It has lots of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. As the brand says, it’s to ‘fight free radicals, and protect against UVB-induced sun damage’. The vitamin C boosts and regenerates skin cells and collagen stability; the organic carrot root extract reduces sun damage and helps maintain the elasticity of the skin; the organic rosehip seed extract offers cell renewal capabilities; the abyssinian seed oil is deeply nourishing, smoothing, and softening to your skin; and the oat kernel oil strengthens the skin’s barrier function. The hydrogenated farnesene creates a light texture with a silky finish; the sea buckthorn oil is anti-inflammatory, hydrating, soothing, toning, and again skin regenerating. The squalane acts as a barrier to keep moisture locked in improves tone and texture, and helps prevent water loss. The hazelnut oil tones and tightens skin and can help reduce pores' appearance; the organic jojoba oil calms, balances, and helps skin retain moisture; the vitamin E rejuvenates, restores, and helps protect skin from environmental aggression. The bisabolol derived from German chamomile and barks from the candeia tree, enhances the appearance of dehydrated or damaged skin and helps other active ingredients penetrate deeper into the skin. As mentioned earlier, we used this together with Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster first. We put two drops on your fingertips and gently massage into our skin, it didn't feel greasy and left skin glowing. We woke to radiant and hydrated skin - ready to take on the day! 

Finally, we tried Elan Skincare’s latest addition to the range, the Whisper Skin Saviourit’s a multi-purpose balm that promises to soothe, and condition dehydrated, dry, or sensitive skin. This balm is a brilliant natural alternative to petrolatum or paraffin oil-based products. It is recommended for stretch marks, scars, redness, dry/cracked hands, scaly skin, dry skin on legs and elbows, chapped lips, and cuticles. If you, like us, have been washing your hands and applying hand sanitiser like crazy, then a thin layer of this balm will calm and protect sore skin. The main ingredients include shea butter, sunflower seed oil, coconut oil, green tea extract, zinc oxide aloe leaf, vitamin E and bisabolol (discussed above). The aloe vera has anti-inflammatory properties and contains vitamins and minerals; the green tea calms irritations, soothes redness and swelling, evens out discolouration, and helps the skin retain moisture. The zinc here helps the body produce collagen, is an anti-inflammatory, treats burns, minimises scar tissue, heals the skin. The coconut oil has a calming effect, can help reduce redness and alleviate any discomfort associated with sore skin. We used this specifically on lips and cuticles, as these are two areas we suffer from dry and flakey skin. It has a rather moreish shea butter and coconut oil fragrance. As a multitasker, it works exceptionally well, and we highly recommend keeping this handy in a bag or by your desk. Although we regularly use hand cream, we’re guilty of never paying enough attention to our cuticles, and this balm helps to sort that out. Elan recommends for optimal results to apply the balm on slightly damp skin and to use a tiny amount, as a little goes a long way!

To purchase, you can find the 20ml Dream Hyaluronic Acid Booster here for £36, the 20ml Dream Overnight Renewal Face Serum here for £55Or both together as the duo pack here for £80; and the 20ml Whisper Skin Saviour here for £12.75. 

Casa Mencarelli: Limited Edition Miniature Gift Box

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Now we’re now fast approaching the bank holiday, there are two things on our mind at The Amazing Blog: packing and gift-giving for our host. Finding an all-natural travel-sized skincare, and/or the perfect gift for a host can be a difficult one at the best of times. That's why want to introduce Casa Mencarelli's Limited Edition Miniature Gift Box which has five 15ml-sized products, making it ideal as a gift or an all-in-one travel skincare set for a weekend break.

Casa Mencarelli is an Italian skincare brand that focuses on making natural and organic products without any essential oils or synthetics. The brand's founder, Lucia Mencarelli, started her passion for making natural skincare products after being diagnosed with ‘multiple chemical sensitivity’, from using too many synthetics ingredients in her skincare. This struggle to find the right fragrance-free and natural skincare, prompted Lucia to enrol with Formula Botanica, where she graduated and went on to create her own range. Casa Mencarelli launched in 2018, using traditionally Italian and Mediterranean ingredients. This is where Lucia looked to her home country, Italy, to find powerful and healing botanicals to be the basis of her products. Lucia’s natural and ‘less is more’ approach to her ingredients has earned Casa Mencarelli over 11 national and international skincare awards, including being featured in The Beauty Shortlist and The Green Parent. All Casa Mencarelli skincare products are suitable for different skin types, and stay true to their ethos of creating of an all-natural skincare. Something that sets this cruelty-free brand apart, is that there are between three to eight COSMOS certified ingredients in each product, together with no have added fragrance or essential oils. 

We had heard so many great things about this brand, and couldn’t wait to try it, and to get a feel of Casa Mencarelli’s many products, we requested their Limited Edition Gift Box. The Gift Box has five 15ml-sized products together with an organic face cotton cloth and a little wooden measuring spoon. The skincare here includes: Green Clay Mask, Sea Buckthorn Serum, the Sea Buckthorn Balm, Honey & Orange Toner and the Nourishing Tomato Night Cream and Cleanser. The Sea Buckthorn Serum is a moisturising and rejuvenating serum due to its antioxidant ingredients that help to increase the production of collagen, resulting in smoother skin and reduced appearance of fine lines. Sea Buckthorn Balm, similar to the serum, is excellent for moisturising and nourishing the skin, making it perfect for dry or sensitive skin types (like ours). The Green Clay and Lemon Mask and Scrub contains marine minerals and antioxidants that allow for a spa-like treatment that leaves the skin feeling soft and restored. The Orange and Honey Toner helps keep skin in check by tightening the pores and leaves a natural aroma of honey and orange blossom. The Nourishing Tomato Night Cream and Cleanser is rich in vitamin E, antioxidants, and omega 3-6-9, making it an effective cleanser to remove makeup or other impurities, while also hydrating the skin. . All of these products help to cleanse, hydrate and protect the skin.

We loved the simplicity of the ingredients here, as well as how gentle these were to use. If we had to choose a favourite from this Gift Box it would be the multitasking Tomato Cream & Cleanser - which performed brilliantly as both a cleanser and a night cream/balm. Apart from being conveniently travel-sized, we also liked how all the products are packaged in recyclable glass jars and bottles. If you are looking to sample some of Casa Mencarelli's natural skincare products, or to introduce a friend as a gift, we think that this is a must-have. To purchase this Limited Edition Miniature Gift Box see here, for 5 x 15ml products, it’s priced at £65. We also noticed that the brand offers a Discovery Set here for £12, which includes 2ml and 5ml samples of these products, in three skin specific ranges.

Elan Skincare: Wonder Face Cleanser Melon & Cucumber Cleanse & Calm

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Cleansing is the foundation of every skincare routine. By removing makeup, dirt, and other kinds of pollutants from the skin, a good cleanser keeps pores clear and maintains skin health. Today at The Amazing Blog we’d like to introduce another award-winning organic skincare brand that we’ve been keen to try,  Elan Skincare. They recently launched the Wonder Face Cleanser Melon & Cucumber Cleanse & Calm, a gentle yet effective plant-based cleanser for removing makeup and daily grime which we put to test.

When Elan Skincare was launched in 2017, it had a mission to create an honest, transparent and organic skincare that combined both science and natureFounded by women and made for women, Elan Skincare’s primary aim is to empower women, and with Joanna Silva at the helm and her ten years of experience in the medical industry, it’s a brand you can trust, as she understands the importance of women’s health and wellbeing. Elan’s commitment is to produce natural, sustainable and organic formulas that are cruelty-free, vegan and recyclable. All products are dermatologically tested and embrace the latest green technologies for producing cold-pressed unrefined butter and oils, the purest CO2 organic plant extracts and actives, coenzyme Q10, vitamin C and E, hyaluronic acid and more... All products contain organic botanical ingredients that are Eco-cert and Soil Association certified.

The Wonder Face Cleanser Melon & Cucumber Cleanse & Calm  is a lightweight, silky-textured cleansing oil ideal for all skin types, especially those with sensitive skin. Enriched with the key ingredients of hazelnut seed oil, containing tannins which work as powerful antioxidants. The sunflower seed oil is high in omega 6 and vitamin E, whereas the caprylic/capric triglyceride (derived from coconut) works as a preservative to bind ingredients. The isoamyl laurate (derived from sugarcane) is a skin conditioning agent which resurfaces, tones and brightens the skin. The hydrogenated farnesene (plant-derived squalane) works as an emollient, and the sea buckthorn oil is full of vitamin C to nourish and moisturise skin.  The unusual addition here is bakuchiol (often referred to as the plant-based alternative to retinol) known an anti-inflammatory which helps deliver a smoother skin texture and stimulate collagen production. There is also a plethora of fruit extracts making this a potent mix, as it effectively and gently dissolves makeup (yes, even mascara!) We like how it improves skin texture and firmness while at the same time cleanses the skin. Without using artificial fragrances, alcohol or essential oils, it has a refreshing scent of cucumber and melon incorporating these fresh fruits extracts into the formula.  In the evening, we massaged in a 50p amount of the cleansing oil on to a damp skin, then rinsed it away with warm water and a washcloth. It removed daily grime and makeup with ease. Elan Skincare also recommends apply the cleanser as a mask, leaving it on for a 5-10 minutes allowing it to penetrate, feed and strengthen the skin; this felt like an early morning treat, before our shower. We love their use of organic botanical actives and the gentle performance of this cleanser. It even soothed our red and irritated #lockdown eczema! Yes, we consider this yet another of our #amazingfinds. It can be purchased here a 50ml bottle for £28.