A Guilt-Free Chocolate Beauty Routine

Although bathing in actual chocolate does sound quite inviting, it’s probably not great to do that to our skin and waistlines everyday. The Amazing Blog has found the next best thing to satisfy our chocolate needs, and that is Lush cosmetics chocolate range. Yes, all of these products are real skincare products and have actual benefits, whilst looking and smelling like our favourite sweet treat at the same time. Perfect! We tried the Soft Coeur Massage Bar, Cupcake Face Mask, and the Chocolate Whip Stick Lip Balm.

The Soft Coeur Massage Bar smelt heavenly. The shape of the bar makes it look lovely in the bathroom, we all love a good heart shaped gift. The shape also makes it a great present for the other half (hint). The core of the massage bar is soft and melts as you use it. As you get nearer to the centre, a chocolate and honey liquid oozes out and works with the shower or bath water to cleanse and moisturise your skin. It’s ideal if you need to unwind after a long day as I genuinely found my body relaxed and wasn’t too tense from stress after my bath. The cocoa butter, shea butter and almond oil infuse together to create a lovely massage bar with lots of benefits for your skin.

The cocoa powder used in the Cupcake facemask is also a product of the cocoa bean. This is combined with deep cleansing Rhassoul mud to absorb unwanted oil which can cause bad skin such as spot break outs.  I must admit, it was tempting to forget this mask was actually skincare and not a tub of melted chocolate, it smells like it would taste great. It’s probably best to avoid getting this mask in your hair so make sure it’s scraped back before applying. I used a fairly generous amount but didn’t ‘cake’ my face in it. As I was washing it off I could feel my pores were much cleaner so I felt less guilty adding moisturiser to my skin later on as it wasn’t already oily. It’s useful having the mask in a pot because it means less mess in between uses.

The Lush chocolate range has also created the Whip Stick Chocolate Lip Balm to give us a taste of sweetness with fewer calories. This balm contains dark chocolate and as we all know this is the most beneficial chocolate to consume, but it also has many skin improving qualities. To seal in all the natural moisture we have in our lips, Lush have used almond oil, shea butter, and oatmilk. The new formula is also completely free of preservatives, it just gets better… Applying this lip balm is no different from any other, but has many more benefits and fewer chemicals than lots of high street balms. It left my lips feeling soft and hydrated which is exactly what I needed in this weather.

All the products can be bought in store or online here. The Soft Coeur Massage Bar is £4.75 per 30g, the Cupcake Face Mask is £5.95 per 75g, and the Whip Stick is £5.75 per 8g.

Pamper Festive Finds

Day three of our Festive Finds and its time for the all important beauty choices. When it comes to Christmas presents, beauty products  are always welcomed with the The Amazing Blog girls. However, sometimes it can be hard to find the perfect present for a loved one, so we have been doing the hard work for you and want to share with you some of our favourite beauty and grooming gift sets to help you out with your Christmas shopping.

After trying out Pevonia’s Lumafirm Eye Contour Lift and Glow back in September we couldn’t wait to see what their Christmas Gift Sets had to offer us. We settled on the Essential Salvation Gift Set, designed to provide your loved one (or you!) with the Pevonia’s essential care range. The Essential Salvation set includes Face Cream, Cleanser, Lotion and Aromatherapy Face Oil. The kits can be specialised for dry, sensitive or combination skin types. These natural products are designed to revitalise, desensitise and normalise the skin by nourishing and energising it to help it look healthier and fresher. All the products smell lovely and really work to replenish your skin, which I have needed recently in this cold weather. You can get your hands on the Essential Salvation Gift Set from the Pevonia website for £66.

We all know that the winter weather is harmful to our skin, and the Christmas party season does not do our skin any favours either. This means, that at this time of year we should make an extra effort with our skin and use products to rectify any damage done. Thankfully, Aurelia Probiotic Skincare have a wonderful skincare Christmas gift set: The Relax and Repair Night Time Kit. The gift set includes Aurelia’s Cell Repair Night Oil to intensively repair the skin cells overnight which works in conjunction with the body’s nightly repair function. The oil works by hydrating and soothing dehydrated skin and by morning your skin will be left radiant and healthier looking. This gift set also includes a gorgeous vintage looking pink and gold teacup and saucer along with a signature blend of night time tea to drink with your nightly oil ritual. You can get the Relax and Repair Night Time Kit from The Aurelia Probiotic Skincare website for £65.

Here at The Amazing Blog, we love Lush products as they all seem to smell good enough to eat. This Christmassy Lush gift set, Fab Christmas, has become one of our favourite beauty sets this year, and for good reason too! We love everything about this gift set, from the beautiful pink and purple hat box style packaging, to the wide array of products waiting inside. Some of our favourite products inside have to be the Snow Fairy Shower Gel and Sparkle Bar. The fragrance is a rich candy floss scent infused with pear drops, it is very girly and sweet but there is just something about it that reminds us so much of Christmas, so it is no wonder that it is always a Christmas bestseller. The set also includes a mixture of bath bombs, soaps, shower gel and lotions that is sure to thrill this gift’s recipient. You can get hold of the Fab Christmas set from Lush stores or online from their website for £49.95.

The Bluebeard’s Revenge Aftershave was a big hit with Jose, our resident male here at The Amazing Blog, so when we discovered the huge range of gift sets on offer from The Bluebeard’s Revenge, we just knew that they would be a fantastic gift for a man. We love the Deluxe Kit as it contains all the essential shaving products that the modern man could possibly need, including Pre-shave Oil, Beard Reducing Shaving Cream, Post Shave Balm, the “Doubloon” Shaving Brush and Silver Technology Anti-perspirant Deodorant. These premium products are the ultimate products in luxury shaving and are formulated to help men get the best out of their shaving experience. We think that this set would be an ideal gift for men who are very interested in grooming or teenagers who are just starting to shave and would benefit from an all-inclusive kit. The Deluxe Kit is available on The Bluebeard’s Revenge website and costs £35.

The Bulldog Expert Skincare Set is the perfect Christmas gift for the man in your life who takes an interest in personal grooming and skincare. The wonderful set is packaged in a metal tin featuring a bulldog on the front which is great to store these Bulldog goodies inside. The set includes a range of Bulldog products, including the Original Face Wash, Original Moisturiser, Original Aftershave Balm and the Original Face Scrub, so is full of all the essentials to build up a good skincare routine. We love that Bulldog’s products do not contain artificial colours, synthetic ingredients or animal products. They do however contain a range of eight essential oils that work to cleanse and moisturise the skin. The Bulldog Expert Skincare Set is available exclusively in Boots stores and online where it is retailing at £20.

Our final hamper is by A Beautiful World. It’s a limited edition hamper priced at £100, and filled with every fabulous natural beauty product you could want. A Beautiful World stocks a variety of beauty products that many people don’t know about but need to. This hamper would be ideal to give to your mum or someone else very special this Christmas to spoil them a little. Nothing wrong with dropping a few hints to your partner if you want it yourself… Inside you will find the Dahliana Overnight Fruit Lift, Lumiere d'Opale, 5 x Collagen Face Mask, MuLondon White Chocolate Elbow, Knee & Heel Cream, Yarok Feed Your Youth, S.W Basics Shea Butter Cream, Know-it-oil, Marble & Milkweed Body Oil and Konjac Sponge. All these organic products are incredibly beneficial for the skin and perfect for all seasons and the different effects the weather will have on your face and body. The MuLondon White Chocolate Elbow smells incredible, obviously it would, it’s chocolate! This hand whipped moisturiser replenishes the skin well without leaving a heavy layer to clog your pores. There are also great oils in the set, which we all love to use during the winter because they are quite calming as well as giving you balanced skin.  The Marble & Milkweed body oil is packaged beautifully and would sit perfectly amongst some girly skincare products in the bathroom. Everything in the hamper is unique and has individuality which sets it aside from other products on the market. This may be the ingredients or the way the products are produced but you can be sure to get a selection of lovely, organic products to treat your skin to.  £100 is a great deal for the amount you receive in the hamper and the quality they all are. You can buy the hamper here.

Tomorrow we have some Festive Finds for your home this Christmas and New Year.

Naturalmente

Here at The Amazing Blog , we are very passionate about beauty products that are natural and are made sustainably. Naturalmente is high end salon haircare brand with an extensive range of natural shampoos, conditioners and styling products, and the good news is they are now available for consumer purchase, so you can get salon quality hair at home. Not only are these luxurious haircare products natural, but they are also environmentally friendly and the whole range is biodynamic. Biodynamic agriculture was first developed in the 1920’s, and essentially means that everything in the production process has been done ethically and ecologically, preventing harm to the environment. All the sourcing of the ingredients in the shampoos, conditioners, and stlying range has been done sustainably, limiting Naturalmente's environmental impact.

The Naturalmente range is based on natural ingredients, using mainly botanics to create their wide range of products. The shampoos contain ingredients such as Aloe, Sandlewood and Fennel Geranium, and conditioners use Yogurt and Millet, which are much better for your hair as there is no nasty chemicals such as parabens, alcohol and fragrance. As the products are naturally based, they cover all hair and scalp types, so there is a product to keep everyone happy. Each product contains specific natural ingredients blended to target various hair issues, so there is a shampoo for every need that you might have.

While the products do not contain any added fragrances or parfum, they boast wonderful natural fragrances from the ingredients used, particularly from the essential oils. We really love that the natural fragrances are very unisex, so with that in mind, we think that these products are bathroom essentials, and the  perfect space saver in your bathroom. The packaging reflects all things natural, with its simple and earthy colours and soft bottles. This is all rather fitting, seeing as the packaging is all  100% biodegradable as well, fitting in with the brands environmental ethos.

I myself have coloured hair so I have been using the Anti-oxidant shampoo and conditioner and the smell is amazing, as it’s so unlike any other shampoo or conditioner I’ve used before. As the range is very natural I think it really helps the condition of my hair after I have it coloured, due to the natural oils which nourish and revitalise the hair.

If you want to get your hands on any of the Naturalmente collection, then you can find out more information about their product range and environmental ethos on the Naturalmente website, and you can purchase the haircare products from Gentle Bodycare where all 250ml shampoo and conditioners are £9 each, another reason why we love them!

Madame La La Tan

The tanning industry is an incredibly popular one, especially at the moment because none of us are going to get a tan in this frosty weather. At The Amazing Blog we would rather our bronzed glow come from tanning creams and sprays than exposing our skin to UV rays on a sun bed. In the run up to the Christmas party season we have been trying out self tanning products to make sure we are fearless when it comes to revealing a little flesh in our Christmas dresses. One product we all agree on is the Madame La La Tan, in fact, we love this tan so much, that our Executive Editor will be taking it away on holiday with her!

Madame La La Tan is a self-tanning DD mousse (Dynamic Do-all); it is lightweight and gently tinted to leave you with a natural looking glow without the risk of looking orange. It is perfect for any fake tan first timers out there as the mousse leaves a guide colour on the skin during application so you know exactly what you have covered which means you have even and streak free coverage. This guide colour also means that you are instantly tanned, which is perfect if you are in a rush. The tan will then take approximately 4 hours to develop into a sun kissed golden glow which lasts for up to 10 days, and it even fades naturally just like a real sun tan.

To use the Madame La La Tan, we recommend exfoliating your entire body before moisturising drier areas such as knees, elbows and ankles. Then pump the mousse directly onto a tanning mitt and smooth over the skin, taking care to ensure you have covered everything, then leave to dry for 5 minutes before dressing.

There is a delicious tropical coconut fragrance upon application so you are not left with a horrid biscuity smell that might giveaway your tan as fake. Unlike other tanning products we’ve used, it is not at all drying on the skin. The mousse contains Coco Water which is hydrating and smoothes the skin while preventing streaks. It also boasts anti-aging Aloe Vera and green tea leaf extracts which are also hydrating and repairing. 

The Madame La La Tan is now available in the UK and you can get your from their website where a 200ml bottle is £36.

Surya Brasil Henna Cream and Restorative Colour Hair Mask

Here at The Amazing Blog, we love to experiment with our hair depending on the seasons, and this includes dying our hair regularly. However, chemical dye treatments are very damaging to the hair, and so it can often end up dry and unhealthy, which is not a good look! We have recently been using Surya Brasil’s Henna Cream to prevent further chemical damage to our locks and the Restorative Colour Hair Mask to repair the damage that has already been done.

The Surya Brasil Henna Cream hair colour treatment is semi-permanent henna based hair dye containing herbs and fruit extracts that deeply condition the hair. This dye is far less damaging than conventional chemical hair dyes, as it contains no ammonia, PPD, parabens, peroxide or artificial fragrances. We have tried the Henna Cream in the shade Burgundy which transforms dark brown hair to a rich chestnut red and blonde hair a stunning auburn shade, and we think that it is the perfect autumnal colour.

We also tried the Amazonia Preciosa Restorative Colour Hair Mask from Surya Brasil for colour damaged hair. This wonderful organic mask can be used twice weekly after washing your hair, and then left on for ten minutes, resulting in healthier, hydrated hair. The mask contains Buriti oil which is rich in vitamin A that protects the hair colour while giving extra long-lasting shine. We found the mask a real treat for damaged hair as it was incredibly moisturising and left our hair feeling salon smooth.

If you want to try out  natural hair care and colouring, visit the Surya Brasil website where you can find more information on the range of products on offer. You can purchase these treatments from Your Tonic where the Henna Cream retails at £12 and the Hair Mask is £10.35.