The Body Shop Body Butter Duo

This is a bit of a late review, as I've actually had this body butter since Christmas - but I re-discovered it the other day and couldn't help a post! The Body Shop Body Butter Duo (£13.00) is a half and half product - with one half for dry skin and one half for normal skin. I love this concept, as I suffer with dry areas around my knees and elbows, but like to have a normal product for my legs.

I have to say, I absolutely love the dry-skin side, which has a much more moisturizer look to it than the usual body butters - the texture is a lot more creamy and easier to spread. As usual with the Body Shop body butters they soak in easily and are very moisturising. The scent is described as Acai Floral - Acai being a type of palm-like plant grown in hot countries, with sweet smelling berries. The scent is amazing - floral without being overpowering, and is a gorgeous girly fragrance. I also have a thing for the packaging, and love the divider down the middle..

In short, I love this stuff! (hence why half of it has been used before I even got to take a photo..)

A Little Dutch Adventure

This week, I've been lucky enough to be treated to a few days in Amsterdam with my parents: shopping, sights and lots of yummy food! I've only ever been to Holland a few times when I was younger, so it was lovely to sample everything it had to offer. We saw some beautiful sights and I rather fell in love with all the narrow gabled houses and winding canals - as well as the gorgeous dutch and indonesian food! I picked a few of my favourite photos to show you a little sample of what I've been up to.

Hope everyone's been enjoying their half term!

OVERHYPED: Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Scrub

It feels like everybody and their mother-in-law has been posting about this recently (I hope that's the phrase, I'm not great at remembering so bear with), and even though I've probably read enough to burst, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and review it anyway. The Soap & Glory Sugar Crush Body Scrub has received ridiculous amounts of attention from all over the blogosphere which in my opinion is mainly due to its mentions in Zoella's videos and blog - which I know a lot of bloggers, including myself, drool over with jealousy.

However, I don't know if it's just the rainy cold weather making me a total grumps, or this just hasn't lived up to the expectations! I'm a total sucker for believing products can be miracle workers and cure every problem I have ever encountered in my beauty regime, so maybe I need to bring my beauty brain back down to Earth - either that or every one else is using a different product!

Don't get me wrong, this product does what it says on the tin (or tub, whatever) - it works well as a body scrub exfoliator, but I just don't understand the hype.

For starters, I think the actual product is not very enticing by it's appearance - sure, the outside packaging is totally gorgeous and beautiful, as with every Soap&Glory product, but the actual scrub has a horrible gloopy consistancy that you have to scoop out - I end up feeling more like I'm rubbing cat sick into my legs than anything else (sorry for the mental image there guys). Secondly, the major hype selling point for this stuff is its scent, supposedly brown sugar and lime. I have to say.. I hate it! I don't know if it's too sweet for me, but I usually love sweet smelling stuff, but this just smelt weird to me..

So to sum all that ranting up, basically as a product, yes this works well to exfoliate skin. However once you get past that to the smell and appearance, I really don't like it - and I'm disappointed in Soap&Glory, this is the first time they have failed me!

I'm not saying don't buy this by any accounts - because the millions of reviews out there raving about this shows that the smell is to lots of peoples tastes! But my advice would definitely be to go into a Boots or wherever, have a cheeky open of the container and give it a good smell before you decide you like it - because £8.00 is a lot of money to waste on an exfoliator you'll have to apply with a noseplug on!

Body Shop - 'so people still shop there?!'

Some of you may have noticed by now that I may have a little (okay, quite large) thing for the Body Shop. I'm not sure what it is that draws me in every time I pass - the crisp, bright shop windows, the simple yet pretty packaging, the fact that you somehow feel you're contributing to world happiness every time you spend money there, but over the last year or so I've managed to develop quite a collection of all their products. A friend of mine saw me using one of their brushes last week, and exclaimed 'wait, so people actually still shop there?!'.. either I'm very out of fashion and it's now a shop for old ladies, or people just don't know how amazing all their products are (I'm hoping for the second one..)

Either way, I wanted to put together a little post on all my favourite products just to show people how good everything they do is!

Camomile Waterproof Eye Make-up Remover
Ok so I've started big - (you know what they say, go hard or go home) with one of my favourite ever products. I've used this eye makeup remover for about 6 months now and I can honestly say that will never change- I love this stuff! I have it in two varieties, a cleansing lotion and a water based liquid, and swap between these depending on my mood and how overboard I've gone with eye makeup that day! They are both used by applying to a cotton pad and wiping over both eyes - and one cotton pad soaked will easily do both eyes (without eyeshadow), which is fab and means they last ages! If it's an eye shadow day, I'll use one pad for each eye, but it still comes off a treat and my morning panda eyes are no more. These are also really gentle on eyes and won't sting or irritate.

Pink Grapefruit Shower Gel
How could I do a post without mentioning the infamous Body Shop shower gels?! If you've never heard about these, then my god - get off this laptop/mobile/ ipad (for the fancy people) and go buy some! In my house my mum will buy different scents of this and circulate them round in the bathroom, but this Pink Grapefruit is definitely the best. They smell absolutely amazing, and last on your skin - I quite often get compliments on my body spray, and have to reply 'oh no, that's just because I showered this morning'! They also come in massive pump bottles, which makes them better value for money, and I find it means I use a lot less, so they last longer.

Foundation and Blush Brushes
Something that a lot of people don't know about with Body Shop is that they also have a large range of makeup and makeup brushes/sponges. Though I haven't got round to picking up any makeup, I own two of their brushes and love them! I have the foundation brush (top) and the blusher brush (bottom). I don't use the foundation brush much, as I've since been converted to my real techniques stippling brush, but it's good for carefully placing highlighter on my cheekbones! I use the blusher brush every single day - for blush, bronzer and sometimes even powder. What I love about these brushes is that they are just ridiculously soft - it's heaven touching the end of these and everyone I've shown has said the same!

Facial Buffer
This was one of the gorgeous Body Shop surprises I got in my stocking this year, and is just heavenly - I use it when I'm exfoliating my face as a facial buffer, and it's lovely to give a really intense exfoliation - as well as meaning you don't get that itchy scratchy tingly feeling on your fingers from rubbing in the exfoliation beads!

White Musk Libertine Solid Perfume
Another stocking filler, this solid perfume is great for popping in your handbag or makeup bag for a quick top up. It smells gorgeous - even rivaling the smell of some of the Lush ones! Although the container can be tricky to get the product out of, the smell is so worth it!


So that's a round up of my favourites - check out my Body Shop Gift Set Review post and my Body Shop Lipbalm Review for more Body Shop goodies - I'm also planning a review for my new face mask I have from there, which should be going up shortly!