Never Again – The Ultimate Beauty Duds – Part 2

Hi there! A few weeks ago I did a post about beauty products that I think are useless. That post proved to be popular, so here’s part 2 of The Ultimate Beauty Duds! Enjoy!

Positively Fruity Body Lotions – Smells Like Sunny Strawberries, Smells Like Wild Cherries & Smells Like Tropical Showers

These body lotions were a total letdown. The tubes looked really cute, and the fragrances sounded nice. But these lotions were extemely poorly fragranced. Seriously, I could hardly smell anything at all. 😦

Boots Naked Colour Shampoo & Conditioner

These two hair products are two of the worst I’ve ever tried. The shampoo doesn’t lather up properly (it’s SLS-free), and the conditioner doesn’t condition at all. I think it anti-conditions, and it made me lose about five times as much hair as I’d normally lose in the shower. Complete rubbish!

Poundland Make-Up: Make Up Gallery Colour Story Eyeshadows &
Olay Regenerist Luminous Dark Circle Correcting Eye Swirl

I was so excited when Poundland launched its own make-up line. We were promised foundations, powders, blushes, lip gloss, eyeshadows, lipsticks and other make-up basics for £1 per item. I ended up with one lipstick (the only wearable shade), one nail polish (glitter) and three eyeshadows. The eyeshadows are rubbish. They’re chalky, they’re not well pigmented, and they’re not buildable at all. Definitely the worst eyeshadows I’ve ever tried.

If you read my blog regularly, you know I’m a total Olay nut. So whilst I usually find Olay products excellent, this eye swirl disappointed me. I didn’t see any improvement in my fiine lines or my dark circles. And whilst the shimmer particles in this eye cream reflect light and can make dark circles invisible, this effect is only temporary, and it’s gone as soon as you cleanse your face. Another problem is that eye cream is too rich. I couldn’t use it under my make-up, so I could only use this eye cream on homeworking days (= when I don’t wear make-up). Not what I wanted or expected…

Maybelline Colour Sensational Popsticks 040 Crystal Pink, 060 Citrus Slice, 080 Cherry Pop

These Maybelline pop sticks were awful. They were supposed to be lip balms, but they weren’t hydrating at all. They felt super waxy, and they smelled like plastic… I binned these a long time ago!

Body Fantasies Kissing In The Rain & Pink Sweet Pea Fantasy Fragrance Body Sprays

I really hated these body sprays. Kissing In The Rain smells like gym locker + wet dog. Pink Sweet Pea Fantasy smells… sour. Just the thought of these ‘fragrances’ makes me gag…

Yves Rocher Complete Anti-Age Global Serum &
Clarins Double Serum – Complete Age Control Concentrate

This Yves Rocher serum made my skin feel sensationally dry. Clarins’ serum didn’t do anything at all for me. Well, it made my pores look bigger, but that’s not what it was supposed to do…

Garnier Ultimate Blends The Silky Smoother Shampoo & Conditioner

Whilst these two hair care products smell absolutely delicious, there was nothing else that I liked about them. The shampoo turned my hair into a knotty and unflexible mess which the conditioner couldn’t take care of. Double-conditioning, sometimes even triple-conditioning, was a daily must… I think I finished the big 400ml conditioner in around ten days. Shocking, I know! By the way, these two products seem to disappear from the supermarket and drugstore shelves. So I guess I’m not the only one who was underwhelmed by these products.

100% Vegan & Cruelty-Free – Superdrug Clearly Youthful Blemish Treatment Gel

This product did the opposite of what it was supposed to. The spots that I “treated” with this product took even longer to heal!

So, this was the second edition of The Ultimate Beauty Duds. I’m not saying that no one could ever like any of these products (some of them are still around). It’s just that I found them to be awful. But if you like any of these products, that’s good for you.

Any beauty duds you’d like to tell me about? Feel free to let me know. And thanks for reading!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Boots Naked Colour Shampoo & Conditioner

Hi there! I’m currently working my way through my seemingly endless stash of toiletries and I’ve found a shampoo and conditioner combo which I bought a while ago: Naked Colour.

These two products are 97% natural and they are SLS free. As such the shampoo doesn’t produce much of a lather unless you use a handful of product. This didn’t impress me at all because my hair is long and curly and if there’s no lather, I can’t cleanse my scalp and my hair properly.

I also didn’t like the scent – ginger and cinnamon – which I’d describe as very spicy and even a little boozy. This means that, after rinsing, my hair didn’t feel or smell very clean. On top of that my hair felt heavy and completely unflexible and unelastic. 😦 Not good. At all.

So I reached for the conditioner. On the back of the bottle it says that using plenty is recommended (yeah, right…). Well, I used about twice as much as I usually would and it wasn’t enough. I used another handful of product, but that didn’t do the job either. Then another handful… and it still wasn’t enough. I gave up.

Then I rinsed my hair with water, gently ‘combing’ through it with my fingers – but my hands got stuck in the knotty mess that the conditioner turned my hair into. I tried to remove as many knots (yes, proper knots) as possible without pulling, but nothing helped. And despite not being able to get rid of the knots, I lost about five times as much hair as usual. Horror!

I then used a small amount of my trusted Herbal Essences conditioner, thus removing the knots gently and giving my hair its elasticity, flexibility and softness back. I lost even more hair, but the knots had to go…

The worst thing is that I remembered that I had already used this shampoo and conditioner combo a few years ago. Back then I hated these products just as much and I had to throw them out (= I gave them away…). If I’d had a blog to track my shopping back then, I wouldn’t have bought Naked Colour shampoo and conditioner again.

Naked is a brand that is exclusive to Boots. Whilst I think that Boots’ own brands are generally very good, Naked Colour has left me disappointed. If you want to try these products nonetheless, Naked shampoos and conditioners are available for £4.39 each.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde