Korres Pomegranate Tonic Lotion, First-Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads,Shiseido White Lucency Night Recovery Cream, Korres White Tea Fluid Gel Cleanser
Also pictured: Caudalie Polyphenol C15 Overnight Detox Oil sample, Lady Gaga Eau De Gaga De Parfum samples - both complimentary from feelunique.com
I should preface this by saying that this is neither an advertorial nor a sponsored post. Like my last entry, which was heavy on links to Escentual.com, I really just want to pass on my experiences and the good deals I managed to find online from some of my favourite online retailers. This started life as your average haul/shopping post, but it inadvertently turned into something of a review for the websites themselves, so enjoy!!
A couple of weeks ago I found myself online shopping. Which should surprise absolutely nobody, because if online shopping was an Olympic sport I would definitely be holding records and a Platinum medal. My initial reasoning for said online shopping was completely altruistic - I wanted to see if I could get my aunt's favourite perfume (well, cologne as she wears a lot of men's scents) for Christmas. Don't worry, she knows I'm buying it.
This foray into fragrance found me on an old favourite, allbeauty.com (formerly CheapSmells), as they had the fragrance I needed for a very very reasonable price - which again isn't a surprise as in my experience they almost always have the best deals on any fragrance I've been looking for and which they stocked. Pleased that I’d hit the proverbial jackpot, I added the perfume to my shopping basket and then proceeded to peruse the rest of the website. It had admittedly been a good couple of years since I’d made a purchase from them (I’d been getting my fragrance from Duty Free stores overseas when I’d been on vacation) so I wanted to see what they had available. I’ve also been on the hunt for the old original Polo in the green bottle by Ralph Lauren for my grandfather, as it’s getting more and more difficult to find now that the new Polo scents seem to be saturating the market everywhere instead now. I don’t know if the original has actually been discontinued now? I hope not! Anyway, allbeauty did have the Polo Green in stock, and cheap too (the 59ml size EDT retails at £45.00 but they’re selling it for £36.25 right now which is an amazing 19% off!). Unfortunately for me, they didn’t have the larger size in stock, but it didn’t stop me from looking around to buy a little ‘Christmas’ treat for myself.
Okay, time for a little aside. I have to confess that this is entirely how I operate. It’s October and I started my Christmas shopping around three weeks ago. And when I do my Christmas shopping online I almost always wind up buying a treat or two for myself as well. I call it buying Christmas presents for myself but I’m sure you know as well as I do that I’m going to tear open and use those babies as soon as they reach my house. And that I probably would have bought things for myself even if I weren’t Christmas shopping at the same time. But that’s how I wind up justifying the extra purchases to myself haha.
Anyway, this is what I bought from allbeauty!
Korres White Tea Fluid Gel Cleanser, Shiseido White Lucency Recovery Night Cream
I’ve been on the hunt for a night cream for a while now, and while I was looking around the website I found that they had a certain one that’s been on my Want To Try list for… three years? Maybe longer actually Easily since the last time I went to Canada, as I very nearly bought it from Sephora last time I was at home visiting my family. From allbeauty the price for the Shiseido White Lucency Recovery Night Cream was £35.00, which was a whopping 36% off the RRP of £54.50. I couldn’t pass up a deal like that, so it swiftly found its way into my cart.
The only product I’ve tried from this line before was the foaming cleanser, which I absolutely loved even if it was maybe a little drying on me. Since then I’ve wanted to try the whole range, but I didn’t see the point in splurging for the day and night mousturiser from the White Lucency line right now, as it would have been a tragic waste of the pricey Chanel day cream I just repurchased a couple of weeks ago. I’ll not do a full review just yet, as I’ve only just started using it, but it does seem to be decently hydrating and feels very nice on my skin. I’m happy with this purchase, I just wish it came in a slightly bigger tub for the price. Although again, I can’t complain too much as I saved just shy of £20!
I don’t even remember how this wound up in my cart, I just remember seeing it and immediately needing it - Korres' White Tea Fluid Gel Cleanser. I love a good flavoured latte as much as the next girl, but truth be told I’m more of a tea addict than anything else. Up until recently I kept a fancy glass looseleaf teapot with matching glass cup and saucer on my desk at work to enjoy a variety of different teas – my favourite being the jasmine green tea pearls, or a nice cup of lightly sweetened white tea. So you can probably see why this cleanser appealed to me. It cost £15 which I don't believe was on sale, but is still very reasonable if it gets along with my skin well.
I don’t have much firsthand experience with Korres as a brand, but I’ve heard good things about their skincare from numerous friends and other bloggers in the webosphere. The one product I have tried is their lip butters, which I absolutely love. Korres products are touted to be natural and containing less chemicals than many other brands, which also appealed to me. So the cleanser has now replaced my usual Clinique gel cleanser. Again, a full review of this will come later when I’ve had a chance to use it for a while and see how it gets along with my skin, but my first thought after using it was that my skin immediately didn’t feel quite as dry and tight as it does when I use the Clinique cleanser – even though the Clinique is for Skin Type 2 which is a dry skin type. Very weird! I’ll see how I get along with this one. I just wish it came with a pump top as I feel like it’s going to slip and I’ll drop it when I pick it up with wet hands.
I’ve been doing some reading up on chemical exfoliation lately, as physical scrubs just aren’t really cutting it for me. I still have clogged pores all up in there, I still get flaky patches and, most tragic of all, I’m almost out of the only facial exfoliator that I’ve ever felt worked well enough on my skin (MAC’s sadly discontinued Microfine Refinisher, RIP and let us say a brief word of mourning over its loss). From my research, I knew that I wanted to incorporate both an AHA and BHA into my routine – with a Beta-Hydroxy Acid in the morning and an Alpha-Hydroxy Acid at night (as AHA’s can increase photosensitivity and I wouldn’t like to put it on my face just before walking outside, sunscreen or no). Several reviews made me convinced that the FAB Facial Radiance Pads were the AHA I wanted to try, containing both Glycolic Acid and Lactic Acid. The pads are convenient to store and to use, and I’ve heard very good things about their effectiveness as well. And I mean, with £10 off I really couldn’t go wrong!
In order to make use of the discount code, I needed to spend over £25 – and at £20.50 the pads didn’t take me above that threshold on their own. So I had a look around and settled on the Korres Pomegranate Tonic Lotion for £14.00 – which also helpfully contains Salicylic Acid and therefore fits the bill for the BHA toner I’ve been looking for. This is a pretty standard toner to be honest – after cleansing, you put some on a cotton pad and wipe over your face before you apply your moisturiser. I’ll be using this one in the morning, and hopefully the BHA will help unclog my pores over time. It has to be a damn sight better than the no-toner I’ve been using recently, anyway – I had to nix my Clinique 3-step toner as although it’s meant to be formulated for dry skin, it feels like pure alcohol and completely strips my skin when I use it. So far I’ve used it a couple of times and I like the way it feels, but time will be the deciding factor as to whether this becomes a staple of my skincare routing or I wind up BHA hunting again in a couple months’ time.
Just a note on feelunique’s services, since I went a bit more indepth about allbeauty already. First and foremost, I find that while they do have some items available cheaper than alternative retailers, they do sell primarily around RRP - however I find their customer service is well worth the fact that it's not a "everything on super-sale all of the time" website. Although having said that, their promotions and discount codes are really quite frequent, so I really think you'll be able to find a great deal basically any time you want to take a look. Plus another little added bonus is that you can select samples when checking out as well, which I think is a nice little extra touch you don't get at a lot of beauty retailers.
Samples from feelunique.com
Again though it was feelunique's service that really made an impression on me. When I placed my order, they were doing some revamp work which meant that orders weren’t being processed for a few days. So I placed my order on Saturday night and it was processed closer to mid-week than the next working day. However this was all very clear up front when I made my order, so was not at all a problem – it would have been very irritating to place an order and then for it to not be dispatched without any word of an update as to why. I really appreciated the proactive approach here for the customers. And then even after that, I received an email later on offering a 10% discount code as an “apology for the delay.” I mean really, how sweet is that? Completely unnecessary, but feelunique is very clearly a website that cares about its customers and strives to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction. Just from my initial order I would have been a repeat customer anyway, as I was happy with the service at that point and they have a wide range available online which includes things that I’ve struggled to find elsewhere here in the UK. But things like this really make a difference, you know? So thank you!
Until next time!
XOXOX
