Monotheme | Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Hi there! Today’s post is about a fragrance – Monotheme White Gardenia Eau de Toilette. I’m a fan of exotic gardenia fragrances (the ones without coconut), so when I found this one, I thought I should give it a try.

This fragrance has tangerine and bergamot as top notes, gardenia as its heart note, and woods and musk as base notes. Alrighty! Onto the review!

Well, this fragrance is a huge disappointment. I knew this wouldn’t be a tropical fragrance, but I was still was hoping for a dense, creamy gardenia fragrance. Instead I got a transparent (yet strangely dusty) and soapy fragrance that’s pretty much a mix of the most random floral notes that have nothing to do with gardenias.

The fragrance smells cheaply done and quite dated, and the only thing that’s missing for it to be a total disaster is aldehydes – the synthetic stuff that many 1980s fragrance nightmares are made of. Although to be fair, the 80s had plenty of amazing perfumes which would mop the floor with a lot of what you can find in department stores now…

Anyhoo, White Gardenia is not a fragrance I can see myself wearing. I’ll give it to the first person at work who wants it. If you’re interested, Monotheme White Gardenia Eau de Toilette is available as 100ml. I paid £18 (M&S).

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Hi there! I’ve done a little shopping this month. I haven’t gone nuts, I promise. But I picked up quite a few bargains. So let me show you what I bought!

I bought 4 PS… Facial Cleansing Sponge duo packs. That’s 8 sponges for £4. The reason I stocked up is because I’ve been using one of these sponges for a few weeks now – and I love it! I also bought 2 more PS… Konjac Sponges. That’s £3 for 2 konjac sponges.

It appears that Superdrug has given up on selling reasonably priced konjac sponges which is their loss, really. They also discontinued a few other fantastic products, so I haven’t done much Superdrug shopping lately. So yeah, it really is their loss! Anyhoo, those PS… sponges are from Primark!

I don’t think I’ve ever left my local Poundworld store empty-handed. Poundworld and Bargain Buys (which is part of the Poundworld family) have awesome nail products. I bought a cute Nails Inc. glitter topper (RRP £13), a Revlon Base Coat (RRP £6.49) and a J Lo exclusive collection L’Oréal polish (RRP £4.99). I paid £1 per polish – that’s £3 in total for these 3 polishes.

I picked up 4 new Montagne Jeunesse masks – Relaxing Spa Mud Mask, Candyfloss Scrub, Sea Splash Peel Off and Blueberry Blast Mud Masque. These masks seem to be exclusive to Primark, and they were 90p each. This adds up to £3.60 for 4 face masks.

Sukin’s Purifying Facial Masque is normally £11.95 at Boots. Thanks to a Save 1/3 offer it was £7.97. However, I didn’t spend any money, I paid with points!

I picked up 3 more Montagne Jeunesse face masks (they’re £1 each at Boots). However, these were on a 3 for 2 promotion, so I paid £2 (I paid with points for these products as well!) for these 3 face masks. I also went to Poundland where I found this Imperial Leather Foamy Banana shower cream – I paid £1 for it.

I bought these 10 Essence Colour Boost nail polishes – these are supposed to be one-coaters, so I bought them all to find out if they stamp on a black base. Well, if they stamp, they’re the cheapest quality stamping polishes out there (£1.80 each). If they don’t stamp, they don’t.

I got myself 2 more Essence Out Of Space Stories nail polishes (£2 each) and 4 Essence Glamaxy top coats (£2 each). Why 4? This is a flakie topper! All in all, I paid £30 for these 16 Essence nail polishes.

When I went to Home Bargains the other day I picked up 3 promising products. Creightons Charcoal Deep Cleansing Scrub and Creightons Charcoal Detoxifying Clay Mask were 79p each, I believe (sorry, I lost the receipt). I also picked up a strawberry-flavoured kids’ toothpaste. Yes, I bought it because of the Twilight Sparkle image!

Then I went to a different Primark store where I picked up a My Little Pony Lip Balm duo for £1.50, a My Little Pony Body Mist (100ml) for £2, and another Montagne Jeunesse Sunburst Sauna mask. On the way back home I swung by Marks & Spencer – and I bought a 100ml Monotheme Il Libro Degli Agrumi Pompelmo fragrance for £22.