Friday Favourites Beauty Tools

This Friday we have decided to share with you some of our favourite beauty tools here at The Amazing Blog. Sometimes, we need a little assistance when it comes to looking our best, which is why makeup tools exist, to make our lives that little bit easier. We have chosen the Glam Tech Brow Comb Tweezers, the Sue Marsh Lash Holder, some of the NewVitaLash collection, the Bronze Buffer’s Self-Tan Remover and the Saiya Makeup Remover Sponge.

Many of us squint our way through our morning makeup routine because we are still recovering from that painfully early alarm. We normal folk don’t have a personal makeup artist to get us looking glam in the morning, so we struggle tiresomely through and do our best. Glam Tech has designed a trendy little tool to help us out. The multitasking Brow Comb Tweezers save rummaging around for multiple tools. The sharp slanted tip is perfect for getting rid of those stubborn hairs and the comb then neatens up the brow for the complete smart brow look. We thought it worked well as an eyelash separator as well, which means it has another handy purpose. This Brow Comb Tweezer is just £6, and can be purchased from glamtech.co.uk.

On the topic of lashes, isn’t it a pain when you spend hours fiddling with your falsies, trying to get them in the right position, or to stay attached. Luckily, Sue Marsh came up with a tool called the Lash Holder, which does just that, it holds your lashes! Who’d have guessed? The instrument is designed with strength and maintains a tight grip on the lashes throughout the whole application. It’s much thinner than our fingers so is easy to manoeuvre around and get them where you want. Once you get into using this, your night out makeup routine will be a lot simpler, trust us. You can buy the Lash Holder for £15 and can find it here.

We are always looking for ways to naturally enhance our lash and brow growth, so we were excited to try some NewVitaLash treats. These included an eyelash growth serum, brow growth serum and mascara. The lash and brow serum are designed to make your lashes thicker, stronger, and hopefully longer. The ingredient which stimulates growth is Provitamin B5, and it helps to rebuild the structure. You will have to wait 3 to 4 months before seeing great results, but if you’re patient they will grow. We tested it in the office and found after about a month they felt thicker. The brow serum works in the same way, it’s basically the same with a different applicator. We are excited to see the final results in a month or two. The mascara is great, no clumps or smudges, and leave your lashes feeling more conditioned than other mascaras. The NewVitaLash is £45, as is the NewVitaBrow, and the mascara £15. There are purchase options here.

When it comes to tanning, we never really think about the ‘getting it off’ stage, it’s only ever about the application and getting ourselves gloriously bronzed for the summer. Streaks are inevitable when applying our own fake tan, we just accept that, so it’s time to get hold of the Bronze Buffer Self-Tan Remover. It’s a pretty little sponge (which admittedly I found felt a bit weird at first) and it works by molding itself into the spots you usually miss, like ankles and around your toes. It really makes a difference to your overall tanned finish, definitely worth a purchase. Head to here to invest in this handy tool, its £10 for two sponges.

 

So whilst we are on the topic of removing tan, we thought it would be nice to throw in one of our favourite makeup removers. The Saiya Cosmetics makeup removing sponge could easily be a pillow, it’s so soft and feels amazing to use. It’s so different from the coarse texture of wet wipes which can often irritate the skin. You simply add some water, and that’s it. Gently sweep it around your face to work layers of makeup off. It’s best to give it a good rinse when you’re done too. The just hang it up to try and repeat tomorrow. A great little tool for keeping your pores clean, just work it into your evening routine to really make sure your skin is as clean as possible. It’s only £6 and can be found on their website. Bargain!

Friday Favourites: Health Supplements

We all know the importance of looking after our bodies with regular exercise and a healthy balanced diet, but there are additional ways of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and ensuring your body is in tip top condition. Here at The Amazing Blog, we have been trying out a range of health drinks and supplements to improve your health, and we wanted to share with you our favourites. Sigma Foods has created a small collection of instant powders with health benefits that you can add to any drink and even your food to boost your overall wellbeing. There are four varieties on offer: Chaga, Reishi, Cordyseps and Lion’s Mane, each offering distinct health benefits. Chaga can be taken to boost your immune system by fighting pathogens, and it is a very strong antioxidant. Reishi can reduce your stress levels, improve your night’s sleep and increase blood circulation. Codyseps is used to increase energy levels and speed up recovery after exercise and can boost your sexual performance! Lastly, Lion’s Mane is used to protect the nervous system, improve cognitive ability and improve your memory. The powders are made from medicinal mushrooms, herbs to improve digestion and absorption of essentials nutrients. They are vegan friendly as well as being gluten and lactose free. While the powders don’t taste great mixed with just water, they are just as effective mixed into a smoothie or even cake! You can find plenty of recipes on the Sigma Foods website. The Instant Beverage sachets are available from Inspiral to buy singularly at £1.35 or in a box of 20 from £16.95.

When trying to gain muscle, protein shakes can be a good supplement to aiding muscle growth and repair. Purition have a 100% natural whey protein supplement shake to use in conjunction with your training. The shakes are filled with essential nutrients and proteins as well as being full of natural fibre to increase your metabolism and improve digestive function. They are also gluten free, with no added sugar and absolutely nothing artificial added in. The shake is idea to use pre or post workout or as a meal replacement. We love the wonderful instruction illustration on the packaging which gives the option to make the mixture into a smoothie with added berries and banana, which we think looks amazing! The Body Pro shake is available in three flavours Chocolate, Pistachio and Coconut, and can be bought from the Purition website for £19.95 for 500g.

With our hectic modern lifestyles it can often be hard for us to ensure we are always getting enough of the nutrients that our body needs. Ovivio Wellness is a liquid based supplement drink that made using the leaves of the Olive tree, which is well known for its health benefits. The Olive leaf is rich in antioxidants that are vital in dealing with pollutants, additives from poor diet, excess sun, smoking and alcohol as well as reducing signs of aging. It has also been proven to be antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal so can actually work with your immune system to keep you healthy and ailment free. This wonderful supplement can improve blood circulation, decrease blood sugar levels and reduce tiredness. The drink doesn’t taste that great, but it can be mixed into fruit juices, smoothies and tea to make it more palatable. You can purchase Ovivio Wellness from Holland & Barrett or the Ovivio Wellness website where you can buy a two week supply for £28.

To ensure we get all the essential nutrients to help our bodies to function correctly, Revive Active have created supplement sachets that contain over 26 active ingredients that work in synergy to effectively and efficiently boost your body’s key functions. Revive Active is caffeine and sugar free, but provides an energy boost to keep you going throughout the day. It looks after your heart and cardiovascular system and boasts anti-aging benefits for not just your skin, but hair and nails too. The supplement helps to promote an improved immune system as well as boosting focus and cognition. Our Executive Editor, Edwina, has been taking these supplements religiously and have since found that they have increased her metabolism and energy levels resulting in weight loss as well as feeling healthier. We can’t argue with that! To discover all of the wonderful health benefits of Revive Active, visit their website where there is a wealth of information as well as scientific evidence of the positive effects of this supplement. The Revive Active sachets are available from the website where you can buy a months supply for £59.85.

You may remember being force fed cod liver oil as a child to provide you with essential Omega 3. We remember well the awful fishy taste and, even worse, when it repeats on you. However, Omega 3 is such an important supplement to take as our body does not make EPA and DHA fatty acids which our essential for our bodies. So if you do not eat enough oily fish, taking a fish oil supplement such as Bare Biology Lion Heart is one way to ensure you get all the nutrients you need. Fish oil that tastes fishy is actually rancid, so unlike the fish oil of our youth, Bare Biology Lion Heart has a pleasant lemony taste. One 5ml spoonful of this oil is contains the same amount of Omega 3 as ten 1000mg fish oil capsules, so what you are taking is much purer and thus you get more for your money. I’m surprised at how much I liked this oil compared to other varieties that I have tried and would definitely continue taking it. The Bare Biology Lion Heart Omega 3 Fish Oil can be purchased from their website for £47.50 for 150ml.

For many of us weight loss is part of our healthy lifestyle concerns, so when we find out about supplements that can aid us in our plight to lose weight and get fit, we just have to try them out. Aspire Drinks are carbonated cranberry flavour drinks that are sugar free, fat free, and even calorie free. They work to increase your metabolism so you burn off extra calories. Aspire have recently launched their Two Week Little Black Dress Challenge, inspiring us to get in shape for the upcoming Christmas party season. Just two weeks of drinking Aspire can lead to weight loss between 2 and 10lbs. We think that these drinks are the perfect way to rehydrate after a workout, as they taste delicious and are very refreshing. You can get your hands on these wonderful Aspire drinks from Tesco for just £1 each.

Gatineau - MELATOGENINE AOX PROBIOTICS™ Skincare

How to look after my complexion was taught to me from a very early age.  My Mother would despair of me, as I sneaked into her bedroom, then sit at her dressing table and open jars of her extremely expensive creams then randomly smear them all over my face.  My curiosity was (and still is) overwhelming. And as you can imagine her array of colourful bottles and jars on the dressing table were the height of temptation, where I just had to open and try each and every one of them! Exasperated, my Mother decided there and then that I was ready, at the tender age of 6, to have my very first ‘beauty lesson’. What I particularly remember was the great variety of textures and fragrances which really heightened my senses. So when I smelt the selection of Gatineau  products that were very kindly sent to us at The Amazing Blog; it instantly took me on a trip down memory lane. As you see, Gatineau was my Mother’s favourite brand and the very first pot of face cream that I ever tried… For those of you who don’t know the Gatineau brand, it has a very established heritage and was founded by Jeanne Gatineau in 1930’s. It has many cosmetic breakthroughs to its name and it is particularly renowned for setting a precedent and for being the ‘first’ to: (1) Launch slimming creams with iodides, (2) to do skin type profiling, (3) creating a revolutionary breast firming treatment packaged in ampules and (4) to use collagen as an anti-ageing ingredient. This is quite some record.

I’m currently trialling their award-wining anti-ageing MELATOGENINE™ range which has a unique triple defence system. Containing the ever powerful anti-oxidants and probiotics which are there to intensively moisturise, protect and balance the skin and help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.  It is ideally for 30+ age group – ‘to preserve youthful appearance’ I am using the face cream MELATOGENINE™ Aox Probiotics Advanced Rejuvenating cream which I love. It one of the more powerful skincare products from this range and probably better suited to the 40+ as it more about ‘repair’ than ‘preserve’. It has a wonderful consistency, very luxurious and rich. It has really helped to plump-up my skin which in the current weather conditions has recently taken a real beating and been quite dry and fragile. Ingredients include Biotechnological Micro-Seaweed extract for firming and toning, Pro-firmness Peptide for restructuring and refining the skin, Mother-of-Pearl Pigments + AHA derivative for restoring radiance.  I have certainly noticed  that when if I’m looking tired, by applying this cream, it definitely gives me an instant radiance and ‘uplift’. I’m also loving the gentle fragrance too - so I’m hooked. I’ve also been using MELATOGENINE™ Aox Probiotics Advanced Rejuvenating Eye Concentrate which offers fantastic protection and reduction of puffiness around the eye area. It’s also fabulously cooling and soothing – great for either end of the day. It also contains the Biotechnological Micro-Seaweed extract, Pro-firmness Peptides too but also has the addition of Hyaluronic acid (which as we all know helps to moisturise and reduce the appearance of wrinkles) and the Saccharomyces extract to help diminish the appearance of dark circles. I’ve then been alternating this with their Eye Concentrate with the MELATOGENINE™ Aox Probiotics Essential Eye Corrector for days that I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. It’s enriched with Marine Collagen and Prickly Pear extract which particularly helps to fill in wrinkles. Whereas the other key ingredient of Horse Chestnut extract aids the eradication of dark circles. So with this Eye Corrector all you need is just a pin head around the orbital bone/eye socket. It is great for regeneration and for helping to return my tired skin around the eye area back to how it should be…

With all these products from Gatineau I’m very happy to report that they’re not tested on animals (recent EU ruling), contain no parabens (a very big one for me!) And silicone-free.  Although they are quite pricey I see them as a worthwhile investment. In fact you only have to have a quick peak at the QVC website to see all the glowing reviews  to know this brand is worth every penny.

loveursoul Vitamin D3 spray

 

At The Amazing Blog as we slowly start to see more sun in the coming weeks, we have maintained our Vitamin D3 levels throughout the winter with loveursoul Vitamin D3 spray. After already trying out the loveursoul Goodnight Spray, we knew we were in for a treat again. Loveursoul makes it easy, convenient, and enjoyable to take the right amount of Vitamin D3 with their tasteful spray.

With the lack of sun we see everyday in the winter it is important to keep your Vitamin D3 levels up in order to maintain good health. To get the right amounts of Vitamin D3, we usually need help from the sun and different food sources. With my semi-healthy diet and about 20 minutes a day in the sun, this is exactly what I needed. With this spray, I have made it my daily routine to spray 8 pumps a day every morning right when I arrive to work, it’s my peppermint wake-up call! Trust me, after the first two pumps you want more, it is that enjoyable! It has a peppermint fresh taste to it that is addicting, especially since I love my minty fresh gum. After spraying loveursoul vitamin D3 everyday, my London blues started to go away from not seeing the sun all that much and I noticed myself to be more alert in the morning, even if it was from that fresh peppermint jolt you get from the spray!

After reviewing two loveursoul spray's we absolutely love them and find them very effective. To get your hands of a small tube of loveursoul Vitamin D3 spray, you can purchase it on-line.

Saitaku Sushi Kit

One of my favourite types of food is Japanese. It is one of those delights I will randomly crave, whether it is sushi or chicken teriyaki, you can never go wrong with a good Japanese meal. At The Amazing Blog, we love trying new foods, especially new brands that allow you to easily cook international food in our own homes! We recently stumbled upon Saitaku, a global brand of authentic Japanese ingredients, which recently launched a line of “cook-from-scratch” products.

Our favourites are their Sushi Kit, the Tempura Batter Mix, and Teriyaki Sauce. The Sushi Kit contains everything you need to make sushi at home. For beginners this is a great kit to ‘wet your feet’ and learn how to make the perfect sushi rolls in several easy steps. The kit includes sushi rice, sushi vinegar, soy sauce, sushi nori, sushi ginger, wasabi paste, a rolling mat, chopsticks, and most importantly your very own leaflet with step-by-step instructions along with images to wrap your first ever sushi. The Sushi Kit is by far my favourite one of their products! Along with create-your-own kits they also sell an array of sauces and noodles. My favourite sauce, Teriyaki, is delicious on meats and vegetables. It is a mixture of naturally brewed soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar. The Tempura Batter Mix includes all of the ingredients to make the perfect batter to put over chicken and even shrimp. Saitaku’s Tempura is absolutely delicious. All of Saitaku’s products are made with high quality ingredients to authentic Japanese recipes, and all products are wrapped up in a distinctive and eye catching Japanese packaging.

These products can be purchased on numerous online retailers, a list of which can be found here which currently has discounts on all of Saitaku’s products. The Sushi Kit retails for £6.99 and a 150ml bottle of the Teriyaki sauce retails for £1.29. For more information on the brand and other products visit their website here. We at The Amazing Blog thing Saitaku’s Japanese food products are great and definitely worth a try!