Pickle’s Potions and Lotions : Vegan Lash + Brow Serum

The team at The Amazing Blog knows how difficult it is to find an affordable, vegan lash and brow serum, especially one that is handmade, woman-owned, organic, natural and cruelty-free. Pickle’s Potions and Lotions’ Vegan Lash and Brow Serum ticks all these boxes. This best-seller is an award-winning product, having won the Editor’s Choice in the Beauty Shortlist 2021 Awards and the Bronze Award in the Best Natural Product at UK Global Makeup Awards 2021.

A skincare junkie from a young age, founder Kristin Mutchler’s cabinets were always filled to the brim with perfumes and products, but it wasn’t until she became pregnant with her first child that Pickle’s Potions’ journey began. “As first-time mums are prone to do, I started researching everything and discovered that my skincare products were full of highly suspect ingredients, from hormone disruptors to toxic fragrances,” Kristin went on to say, “I began to make my own products and dove into the science of skincare, researching different ingredients and the chemical composition of plants and oils and how they work in synergy.” She was even more determined to create an all-natural skincare brand that is safe and effective for everyone after discovering her baby was prone to eczema. Kristin’s background in science, having taken several college-level science courses, and her passion for learning about skincare motivated her to take classes in product formulation, aromatherapy and skin care science, which marked the first steps of her brand’s creation. Combine this with her knack for gardening in her rural Maine garden, foraging local surrounding fields and woods for other ingredients too. Pickle’s Potions’ biggest wish is to create products with the best possible ingredients for our precious skin, free from synthetic chemicals, parabens, artificial fragrances and petroleum byproducts. Instead, each non-toxic batch is family-safe, handcrafted and carefully formulated using freshly handpicked botanical ingredients and precious oils in Wayne, Maine. On top of this, each bottle and tube is PETA-certified and has never been tested on animals. With this in mind, their distinctive potions are handcrafted with only 100% pure therapeutic grade essential oils, as well as cold-pressed vegetable oils, butters and botanical extracts. You won’t find any pre-made bases with synthetic colours, fragrances or preservatives. In contrast, everything is handmade in tiny batches to ensure the utmost freshness and potency. As Kristin promises, “I handcraft each batch with compassion and dedication and have poured my heart and soul into this small business.”

Their much-loved Vegan Lash and Brow Serum is a luscious blend of various natural, nutritious oils that have been used for centuries to encourage and stimulate hair growth and health. This product is designed to naturally boost hair growth using the key ingredients of burdock, horsetail, liquorice root, nettle, and meadowsweet-infused camellia seed oil.

Burdock is a plant native to Japan that promotes healthy hair and reverses thinning through an ingredient called arctiin. Meanwhile, horsetail, a non-flowering weed, encourages proper hair growth through its high silica and selenium content. Additionally, liquorice root’s richness in L-carnitine, creatine and glycyrrhiza inflata stimulates hair roots, promoting growth and reducing thinning. Nettle combats hair loss and aids hair growth through its abundance of silica and sulphur as hair follicles are regenerated, and hair breakage is minimised. Lastly, camellia seed oil’s blend of proteins, glycerides and vitamin E conditions and fortifies hair; and when infused with meadowsweet, it can boost scalp and hair health as a natural astringent.

More ingredients in the mix comprise hexane-free castor oil, which lubricates the hair shaft and strengthens hair, unrefined rosehip seed oil, which nourishes hair through its high fatty acid and vitamin content, and sea buckthorn oil replenishes hair through its abundance in fatty acids. Besides the above, you can find vitamin E, vegetable glycerin, candelilla wax, therapeutic grade organic Bulgarian lavender, frankincense carterii and organic rosemary essential oils. Nearly all these ingredients are organic, from burdock to rosehip seed oil. As you can see, an array of nutrients are packed in this little tube – ready to condition lashes and brows, helping them to strengthen and grow. BTW the difference between their regular Lash + Brow Serum and this vegan version is the beeswax used.

What attracted us to this formula was the natural and organic ingredients. If you have permanent make-up brows and eyeliner like us, then there are certain ingredients always to avoid such as retinol, ascorbic and salicylic acid - which fade the pigment. This is why we want to try the natural Vegan Lash + Brows Serum. It’s recommended to apply the serum nightly for both growth and restoration on the lashes and brows. Rest assured, the serum’s thicker consistency won’t drip or run, meaning it won’t irritate the eyes. Despite being thick, we found the serum is highly spreadable, allowing easy application. It can also be used as a clear gel for taming unruly brows. It has a mild and natural castor oil scent and is smooth in texture so that it doesn’t lashes weigh down. We’ve used it regularly for a couple of weeks, taking a break from wearing our Lashify lashes. It’s perfect for reconditioning and hydrating the hair follicles. And in that time, it made our lashes slightly thick and more nourished. However, it probably needs at least 6-9 weeks of regular use to see noticeable results in any sparse areas. It’s a natural brow and lash serum and conditions like no other we’ve tried. It’s another of our #amazingfinds and a product we’d highly recommend adding to your nighttime routine. To purchase a 10ml tube of Pickle’s Potions and Lotions Vegan Lash and Brow Serum at £16.96, see here.

Floragy : No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil

More so than any other time of year, the balmy British summer days bring humidity, giving our hair the dreaded frizz… Every summer at The Amazing Blog, it becomes a bit of a mission to find a nourishing and hydrating haircare to tame our flyaway locks, which is why we want to talk about Floragy's No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil, which Edwina judged at the 2022 Beauty Shortlist Awards, where it was awarded an Editor's Choice.

Floragy is a natural skincare brand, founded in 2019 by Louisa Tidy, She started the company after stepping down from her fast-paced city world and moving to the countryside to embrace a slower pace of life. "I was exhausted after a full-on career travelling and working too many hours and wanted to take some time to rebalance my life. I’d always suffered from dry skin but as I’ve got older, I’ve found I need extra protection during the colder months. After some extensive research and experimenting, I created a few recipes for skincare products which my skin reacted well to, and I preferred over my usual products.” Louisa also became involved with various holistic practices such as acupuncture, homoeopathy and mediation, together with natural ingredients and studying how they could improve one's wellbeing. After a few years of testing and developing formulas, she launched Floragy with the ethos that ‘less is more’ keeping their ingredients to a minimum and using only key botanicals. In an interview with Faversham Life, Louisa revealed how they came up with the brand name, "We dreamt up the name Floragy by combining 'flora' and 'foraging." Floragy, as the name suggests, is made up of only natural botanicals; it’s clean and transparent with easy-to-understand labelling and focuses on using the healing powers of plant-based ingredients. Since its inception, Floragy’s focus is on its eco credentials and sustainability. Ingredients are sourced from local farmers and ethical producers, and the packaging is recyclable and has glass bottles and jars with aluminium lids. They also offer a refill option for the haircare range, so there’s less waste is generated from the pipette applicators. It’s a vegan and 100% cruelty-free brand and lists all the product ingredients and their benefits on its website here.. Floragy gives back by planting a minimum of 10 trees a month through One Tree Planted, they donaten10% of all sales of their Restore Body Oil to the Ocean Generation, and has pledged to be net zero carbon by 2040 as part of the SME Climate Hub.

The No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil is one of Floragy's most popular and well-loved products and with good reason. This product is designed to soften and strengthen dry hair as well as soothing and moisturising the scalp. When used for styling, it offers more defined curls and worked brilliantly on our unruly hair.

There are only five ingredients, coconut oil which hydrates and enhances the hair's lubrication, making it easier to style and manage. It also increases shine and helps prevent frizz. Argan oil is probably the key ingredient with its many benefits. It’s rich in fatty acids and vitamin E, and helps improve dryness, smooths and detangles the hair, and protects it from damage. Olive squalane is an excellent conditioner and helps restore hydration to the hair and scalp. It also softens the hair texture and adds shine without adding any greasiness. The two essential oils are sweet orange and bergamot; apart from their zesty fragrance they also provide other hair and scalp benefits. The sweet orange is full of vitamin C to purify the scalp and aid healthy hair growth; bergamot is full of antioxidants which shield the hair and scalp against the damaging effects of oxidative stress, and antimicrobials which stop bacteria.

Hair oils can be applied in many ways, post-wash, added to shampoo as a boost, or even as an overnight hair and scalp treatment. We do post-wash for condition and styling, and use oils overnight as a treatment. But adding to shampoo as a boost? Well, that was a first for us. When we tried combining it with shampoo, it stopped any stripping or straw-like effects, that we sometimes get from testing out various haircare. We highly recommend trying this method if you have any of these issues. We’d also like to add that this No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil was particularly suitable for our dry ends and for smoothing long, fine and textured hair. Hair oils are an essential part of our haircare, mainly used as a detangler and to help deter further split ends. Floragy offers three different hair oils, all of which have specific benefits. The No 2 Conditioning Hair Oil is lighter and probably best for bleached or damaged chemically treated hair, it helps to bring back condition and shine. And the No 3 Smoothing Hair Oil is another award-winning hair oil, that’s excellent for sealing in moisture and adding extra shine.

Apart from leaving hair smelling deliciously fresh and citrusy, this No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil made it shiner, softer and curls more defined. This is why Floragy is another of our #amazingfinds and a go-to for its simple, natural and effective haircare ingredients. To purchase the 15ml No 1 Strengthening Hair Oil at £14 see here, or £25 for 30ml, both have refill options.

Les huilettes - Mon huilette night

After a long and tiring day, we at The Amazing Blog can’t think of anything better than taking off our makeup and applying a soothing night serum. What makes  a night serum stand out for us from other skin care products is that they’re jam-packed with ingredients that nourish and brighten your skin while you sleep. We can never get enough of serums, as each one has specific properties to enhance the skin, such as anti-ageing from les huilettes we are referring to, of course, their very special mon huilette night serum. 

The brand was started in France in 2015 by two long-time friends, Pascale Gal and Claire Auzouy. Gal was a pharmacist with a degree in Aromatherapy while Auzouy had a background in luxury gastronomy. Gal desired to ‘return to a simpler beauty, essential and without sacrifice, summed up in a few principles and gestures’. The pair combined their unique experiences to start a cosmetics company that is 100 per cent natural, vegan, and botanical. Les huilettes is also committed to the environment and partnered with Up2green Reforestation, a French nonprofit organisation that helps replant fruit trees in communities affected by deforestation. 

The Mon huilette night serum is made for all skin types to smooth and enhance your skin’s suppleness. Overnight, it leaves your skin looking more radiant overnight and repairs any signs of anti-ageing such as wrinkles and skin dullness. The formula of a ‘plant synergy of essential and vegetable oils to be effective without fluff’makes the night serum stand out. Essential oils like Italian helichrysum have an anti-inflammatory benefit while myrtle and bourbon geranium have therapeutic aromatherapy effects to enhance positive well-being. Argan and avocado oils deeply moisturise and plump your skin while prickly pear cactus prevents the formation of premature wrinkles and lightens dark circles. These elements result in a light-feeling oil serum that melts evenly into your face and neck and doesn’t make you feel greasy. 

A little goes a long way, and you only need 3-5 drops per use. You should purposely but gently massage the serum into your freshly cleansed face for optimal results. However, for extra pampering and an at-home massage, we suggest you watch their serum application video here . On top of it all, rose and white flower leave a tangy and therapeutic scent on your face to relax you before bed. You can join ‘tribe of huilettes’ and amp up your night skin care routine by purchasing the mon huilette night (15ml) here for 45€

Virginia Stone – ‘Eyes’ for Kavesi

When you’re searching out skincare items, often the three categories you’ll see are ‘dry’, ‘normal’, and ‘oily’. They’re appear all encapsulating, or so it seems. Some of us with ‘combination’ skin at The Amazing Blog and frequently struggle to find the right cleanser or moisturiser that won’t make our skin greasy or dry. The latest product we tried is from Virginia Stone it brings about the idea that finding the right products for your skin may be based on your skin tone rather than these three general categories.

Virginia Stone built her brand on the foundation of ‘passion, purpose, and an unyielding desire to innovate and inspire’. She set out to revolutionise the skincare industry by creating a sustainable luxury brand and adhering to three core values of people, planet, and passion. Virginia Stone, as a company, dedicates itself to global social and environmental sustainability and all of its products are fair-trade, eco-friendly, and vegan. What drew us to this brand was its ethos. It felt simple categories like ‘dry’, ‘normal’, and ‘oily’ do not account for certain skin-tone-specific characteristics such as skin density and sensitivity, SPF requirements, and potency tolerance levels. So, Virginia Stone created three collections: Kavesi for fair skin tones, Jasari for medium skin tones, and Odaja for dark skin tones. We felt these groupings were less arbitrary and more encapsulating, especially if you have ‘normal’ or ‘combination’ skin. 

We tried their ‘Eyes’ for Kavesi in Sand , a 3-in-1 superfood cream with five layers (Butter, Nectar, Tea Syrup, Corrective Complex, Elixir) of antioxidants, vitamins, and nutrients. The formula is also pH balanced and oxygenated to protect your skin from UV rays and pollution, improving your skin’s elasticity and lightening dark shadows. It is designed to stimulate cell renewal, increase blood flow, and improve circulation specifically for fair skin, which is highly sensitive and allergy prone. When we used it, we saw diminished fine lines as well as less puffy and brighter skin like we had used a jade roller. But what stood out to us was the cream’s texture. It’s solid, and you can’t dip your finger into it, but the warmth of your finger picks up the right amount of the product that feels smoother than butter and leaves your skin feeling the same way. The cream is oilier than typical moisturisers, yet it doesn’t feel sticky and spreads well. It leaves your skin feeling smooth and matte, which makes the cream perfect to use as a primer during the day, and nourishes for night time use. 

Finally, we cannot go through this post without mentioning the intricate packaging. The cream comes in a cube that Virginia Stone calls ‘The Luxador’. It’s 100 per cent recyclable concrete stone and has thermal insulating properties to protect the cream’s active ingredients and maintain its longevity. The Luxador is engraved with the company’s simple logo and pattern and has a magnetic stone lid. It’s quite solid and heavy, so be careful if you travel with it or keep it on your bathroom counter for décor and safekeeping.

You can buy ‘Eyes’ for Kavesi (15ml) here for $185. The price is quite high, but you don’t need very much and could spot treat certain areas rather than put it all over your face. 

Pretty Athletic – Cool Down: Purifying Gel Cleanser

Daily workouts are a must for all of us at The Amazing Blog. Whether it be a quick jog in the morning or a Pilates session, we’re all for the energy and health-boosting effects exercising give us. However, we’re less of a fan of the red, sweaty look and breakouts that come with it. In this day and age do we really have to choose between having amazing skin or an amazing bod? We want work out friendly skincare to target our exercise-related skincare needs. That’s where Pretty Athletic’s Cool Down: Purifying Gel Cleanser completely changed our skincare game.

While there are many sunscreens and moisturisers that market themselves as a ‘sport’ product, U.K. based skincare brand Pretty Athletic has been one of the first beauty companies to formulate specific products for the modern, active woman. Besides targeting exercise-specific skincare needs, all Pretty Athletic products are almost 100 % natural and vegan. After trying their Cool Down: Purifying Gel Cleanser, we can honestly say that we have seen a difference in our skin after a workout.

Unlike many other facial cleansers, Pretty Athletic’s Cool Down: Purifying Gel Cleanser doesn’t leave skin feeling dry and stripped. The gel cleanser was not only formulated to target ‘exercise-related breakouts’ but also to nourish your skin in the process. Infused natural ingredients like aloe vera, cucumber and chamomile, ensure red, sweaty skin is soothed and void of any oil and dirt that can clog pores during a heavy workout session. Added hyaluronic acid also helps decrease oiliness while hydrating skin. After a workout, directly apply a penny-sized amount of the cleanser to dry skin. Then after thirty seconds of massaging, rinse off for a clean, hydrated complexion. For £18 you can purchase a bottle of the 100 ml bottle on the Pretty Athletic website here.