Review Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil

High end brands, they make you feel like a million dollars and they cause your wallet to want to jump out of your purse whenever you walk into a beauty shop.

I tend to use mostly drugstore items, but I have to confess... There are times I become a woos and I splurge.
Last summer I was walking through the beauty alley and I saw that some of the products of Clarins were on sale. Yes, I justified it because it was on sale.

I got myself the Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil.
It's a yellow oil that you put on your face to treat your skin. This is towards those with oily or combination skin. You may be thinking: Lily, I already have enough oils on my face going on and now you're saying to slather on some more oil? Really?!?

Yes. I'm telling you to treat your oily faces with oil. as crazy as it may sound, this actually works.

This product is made from 100% of pure plant extracts. All natural for those who are wondering :p

Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil

After cleansing my face I put 2 drops in my hands, rub it and press it into my skin. If you massage it well, this will sink into your skin. Just give it some time for the oil to do its work.

I do have to mention the rather medicinal scent to the product. For those who don't like heavily fragrances, this may not be your cup of tea. When massages into the skin you can still smell a subtle hint of the medicine.

I have been using this for a couple of months now, and I have noticed less blemishes and less oily skin.

Since you only need a few drops of this, I'm sure this bottle will last me quite a while.
I spent 24€ on this bottle, with discount. Normally I won't spend that much money on something I've never tried before, but ... once in a while won't hurt, right?

Let me know if you've tried this as well. What do you think about this oil fighter?

Beauty meets food: She wore lemon

Lemons.
Pro, they can be refreshing in your beverage.

Con, they make you make funny faces.
Pro, it can take the fishy smell out of a fish.
Con, they are just way too sour.
Pro, it can be your bbf (yes, bbf), your best beauty friend.

Let me tell you about the benefits a lemon can have for your beauty regimen. And let's face it, who doesn't have a lemon laying around in their kitchen? If you're really one of those exceptions, I'm sure the supermarket isn't too far away from you.

Lemons have calcium, vitamin C, magnesium, kalium and minerals, which are healthy for your hair, skin, teeth and nails. If you're thinking "wow, good stuff those lemons", you're wrong. Bare in mind that lemon juice cannot, again canNOT, have too long skin contact. Please do pay attention to the warnings in the explanations.

This being said, let's get this sour party started!

• Hair
• Dull: Nowadays there are plenty of people who like to color their hair. If they go lighter, the hairdressers use chemical bleach on your hair. Instead of using something chemical why not use lemon juicy? If you add a bit of lemon juice to your conditioner, brush it out, go sit in the sun for a few hours and wash it out afterwards. Warning: Sitting in the sun for too long won't do good to your hair. If you want to have your hair lighter, repeat this process until satisfied. It may take longer and you may not be putting anything chemical on your hair, lemon juice can dry out your hair.
• Dandruff: Do you have a dry scalp? Do people keep asking you whether it's snowing outside? Do you happen to have coco oil, honey and lemon juice near you? Well, then let's start making your own hair mask! Mix the 3 ingredients, let it work into your scalp for about 10 minutes and rinse off with a lot of water.
• Teeth: Who doesn't want whiter teeth? You can easily make your own teeth whitening home remedy by adding baking soda to lemon juice. This will bubble when mixed and can be applied to your teeth with a cotton swab. Warning: Let it sit for about a minute, depending on how sensitive your teeth are. Afterwards make sure to brush your teeth because otherwise the lemon juice will erode your teeth.
• Skin
• Breakouts: Lemons are antibacterial, period. This can be used as a natural method to fight against those breakouts. Just rub some lemon juice over your face, let it work in for about 5 to 10 minutes and wash it all off with water. Warning: Do I need to say to be careful to not get the lemon juice into your eyes? If so, rinse it off with plenty of water.
• Hyperpigmentation: Unless your skin is perfect and don't have dark spots or scarves from former breakouts, you can skip this part. The sour of a lemon juice can lighten the dark spots on the face.
• Oily skin types: Those with oily skin types, I got your back folks! Lemon juice can be used to soak up the oils on your face. Warning: Don't overdo this because if your skin thinks it's too dry it will produce some more oils, and we do not want more oils on our slippery faces!
• Body
• Armpits: Did you know you can lighten your dark armpits with some lemon juice? You can cut the lemon so that you still have something comfortable to hold, put some sugar on top of it and rub it into your armpits. The sugar will exfoliate to remove the dead skin cells and the lemon juice will make the darkened armpits lighter. Warning: don't do this after you've shaved. your skin's already quite sensitive and eventual razor cuts and lemon juice don't really go together.
• Nails: If you didn't know, yes I'm a nail junkie. If my NOTW's aren't good enough of a proof, I'm a nail polish hoarder who likes to try out all colors of all brands. This had made my nails quite brittle and yellow. To strengthen them and get their original color back, just apply a mix of some olive oil and lemon juice.

Do you have any home remedies you'd like to share using lemon juice? Or let me know whether you have tried out one of these remedies. Don't be shy and keep me posted in the comment bar below.

Review Bioderma moisturising mattifying fluid

I'd like to speak in the name of most oily-faces girls out there that we're constantly looking for a good matte moisturizer. It's not because we have oily faces that we don't need moisturizer. Au contraire, we need to moisturize our skin as well.We just need to make sure we don't use products that will add oil to out face since we produce enough of our own, but we cannot use too harsh face products that will totally strip the oils of our face. This will cause your skin to dry out for a while, and it may look good for about an hour, but you're giving your skin the message: Oh oh, dry skin? Need to product oil to make it balanced! Do make sure to read the labels very carefully before buying or applying it to your face. I'd say: try, try and try! It's not because a certain product works for your friend that it will work for you as well. Everyone has a different skin type. AND, it's not because one product for person A with oily skin will work for person B as well.

As for my rambling introduction to this blog post, I'd like to give you my opinion on this Bioderma moisturizer:

Bioderma sébium mat moisturising mattifying fluid

If you haven't heard of Bioderma before, it stands for Biology at the service of Dermatology. They have a wide variety of skin range, color accorded. Check out their website to see what colour range you're in.
The first time I've heard of Bioderma was when I was in Hong Kong. I saw these translucent bottles with a red detail (indicates sensitive skin) pretty much everywhere. When I came back to Belgium, I did some research to check out what the fuss was about. Turned out they were micellar solutions that cleanses, removes make up from and soothes the skin. I won't get too much into it, but if you'd like to read some more on it, click here.

During the summer I'm mostly on the look for a gel-like moisturizer because it's lighter for my skin to absorb. But when I saw this, I just had to try it, and I must say...I actually really like this :)

It has the green detail on it which is for those with combination or oily skin. On the bottle it claims to neutralize areas which are prone to shine. Long lasting moisturizing and anti-shine skin care for combination or oily skin. Its fluid texture is quickly absorbed. Does not flake off. The skin remains clear, soft and perfectly matte all day long.

It comes out as a white cream, but it's very light and it sinks into the skin rather fast. I apply it on my T-zone every morning and I have to say that I do stay matte for half the day, not for the entire day as it claims to do. I have to admit I'm quite satisfied with it staying matte for half the day, because most moisturizers force me to blot after 2 hours or so.

Since this product is only available in certain stores, it's quite difficult to get a hold of it in Belgium. If you don't have very oily skin, give this one a try.

I'm quite happy with this, but will continue my search for my HG moisturizer to combat my combination skin to oily skin :)

Review Yes To Cucumbers wipes

Hello my beloved readers!

Time to review some wipes I've been using for quite some time now... They're the Yes To Cucumbers soothing natural glow facial towelettes!

I think most of you beauty fans have heard of the Yes To line before. If you haven't, let me introduce you to a natural skin&hair care line :)

There are 5 different collections on the market and every line is named after a vegetable, which is towards a certain skin type:

• normal to dry skin: Yes To Carrots line
• sensitive skin: Yes To Cucumbers line
• oily or acne prone skin: Yes To Tomatoes line
• fine lines and wrinkles: Yes To Blueberries line
• uneven skin: Yes To Grapefruit line

Belgian drugstores have carried the Yes To Carrots, Cucumbers and Tomatoes line for a while, and since I've heard so many good things on the Cucumbers' towelettes I decided to give these wipes a try.

Yes To Cucumbers towelettes

I've been trying them for over half a year and I have to admit I really liked them in the beginning. Now it leaved a tingling feeling on my face which I prefer not to have.
It does sooth my skin and it does takes off my make up or cleanses my skin, but I don't think I'll be repurchasing them anymore.

I would like to try out the towelettes from the Yes To Tomatoes line since that skin care line is towards oily skin, and since you can fry some french fries on my forehead I think the Tomatoes will do my skin good :)

Have you given any products of the Yes To line a shot before? If so, which one?

Review Vichy Aqualia Thermal

Hi beautifoes! :)

I'll be doing a short review on a moisturizer today. I've been using this moisturizer for the past couple of months and since the summer's just a few weeks ahead of us, I thought it would be appropriate to review this baby.

I'd like a few minutes of your time to tell you something about the following moisturizer:

Vichy Aqualia Thermal moisturizer

It says that this is for those with sensitive skin among us. It will hydrate your skin for about 48 hours and it's paraben-free. I've chosen this because it's for normal to combination skin.

Does this measure up to what it claims?

Yes, it moisturizes my skin. Whether it lasts for 48 hours, is quite difficult to say since I do wash my skin every morning and evening... I guess I'll never be able to properly review the 48 hours hydration.
I have to admit that it does feel quite light, I don't feel anything heavy laying on top of my skin and your skin does sucks up all the moisturizer it can :) Next to that, it doesn't leave any grease on my skin, which is always nice since I have a super oily skin.

A good thing about this is that you don't need a lot to moisturize your face. Always good to have your money's worth, since the tube contains 40ml. 

Overall, I do prefer something which leaves my skin matte, so as I do like using this and I will use this all up, I will not be repurchasing this goodie.

Maybe this is good for those who are looking for a typical moisturizer without any specials needs?

Review: Clinique dramatically different moisturizing gel

Hi there!

Thanks for stopping by and give your eyeballs a treat by reading this review.
I'm sure you've heard of the Clinique dramatically different moisturizing gel. If you haven't, you're probably a beauty newb who's trying to find decent moisturizer.

Before I start of rambling about this product, let me tell you something a little bit more about my skin.
As I hit puberty I had horrible skin (acne which left my face filled with acne scars..boooooo!). After having the worst skin period ever, my skin started too clear up with occasional break outs during that time of the month!
Nowadays I have a combination skin, meaning oily T-zone with normal cheeks but with dry patches here and there. If that's not a combination skin, then I'm absolutely clueless!

When buying a moisturizer, I mostly lean towards using a gel. Not only gives it a more cooling effect, gel is the only form of moisturizer that can handle my oily skin.

Let's go back to the product, shall we?

After using up myAquasource Moisturizing Skin Care Gel cream by Biotherm, I wanted something new since my skin got used to the Biotherm.

I've read so many reviews on the Clinique moisturizing gel, so I thought I'd give this one a go.

Clinique dramatically different moiturizing gel

• 125 ml (4.2 fl.oz.)
• combination oily to oily skin
• comes with a pump
• fragrance free

When I first started using this, I didn't really like it. It was kind of harsh on my skin, didn't moisturize enough having me to re-apply a second coat after 5 minutes, ...

I will use this bottle up, but I won't be repurchasing it.
I'm not sure whether this moisturizer is a bit too rough on my skin, but I do know my skin didn't really appreciate this Clinique product.

I'm already eying another moisturizer and cannot wait for it to give that one a try!
If you're interested in knowing which one I'm going to use, please leave a comment :)

Have a wonderful day you beauty lovers!