Never Again – The Ultimate Beauty Duds – Part 1

Hi there! I’ve tried and tested countless products. Most of them were good, some were great, and some were disappointing. So I thought I’d share some of my least favourite products with you! 🙂

Naturtint Shampoo & Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream

Naturtint… oh dear! The shampoo was tolerable, but the ‘protective cream’ was the worst thing that ever happened to my hair in all my life. Honestly, the ‘protective cream’ scared me big time. I thought it ruined my hair. Thanks to L’Oréal I managed to restore my hair to its pre-Naturtint state!

MUA Matte Lipstick Wild Berry

This is an awful matte lipstick from MUA. It feels waxy, sticky and drying. And it’s a nightmare to apply because of the thick and waxy texture. On top of that, the colour doesn’t transfer well onto lips. Rubbish.

Original Source Skin Quench Pineapple & Coconut Oil, Peach & Apricot Oil, Watermelon & Jojoba Oil

The Pineapple & Coconut Oil shower gel smelled like… almost nothing. It was very, very faint. But this shower gel didn’t smell great anyway, so I didn’t miss out on anything. The Peach & Apricot Oil shower gel was horrible. It smelled like furniture polish. I’m not surprised this one was discontinued quickly. The Watermelon & Jojoba Oil shower gel was the winner of the three – because it smelled OK. Still, the scent wasn’t special at all and it was very faint.

B. Pure Sensitive Micellar Cleansing Wipes

These micellar wipes from Superdrug made my face tingle in an unpleasant way, and they’re definitely not suitable for use around the eyes. Another thing that annoyed me was the sticky film these wipes left behind. Why Superdrug thinks these wipes could replace a face wash and a toner, I don’t know.

NYC Skin Matching Foundation 685 Fair &
Miss Sporty Morning Baby BB Cream 001 Nude Radiance

NYC’s foundation doesn’t blend. At all. Any attempt to blend it into your skin will cause the product to flake. I tried different moisturisers and different beauty tools, but this foundation was impossible to work with. No surprise it’s been discontinued.

Miss Sporty’s BB Cream didn’t cover up any skin imperfections. It highlighted them! Simple redness turned into shiny redness. Also, this BB cream made my skin look orange. And on top of that, it balled up!

Rimmel Colour Rush Trio Eye Shadow 760 Elements

This Rimmel eyeshadow compact disappointed me big time because the eyeshadows are incredibly poorly pigmented. I usually find Rimmel products excellent, but this compact is a joke. The swatch says it all. And yes, that almost unrecognisable thing on the right is a swatch.

Gliss Oil Nutritive Shampoo & Conditioner

These two Gliss products did smell amazing. But they made my hair feel and look greasy within hours after washing it. Not good. The conditioner is one of the worst I’ve ever had. It robbed my hair of its elasticity and flexibility, and I had to double-condition after each wash because detangling my hair was the new ‘Mission Impossible’. Fortunately the conditioner only lasted 7 days (yes, this means I emptied the bottle in 7 days).

Sweet Snuggles Chocolate Vanilla Hand Cream & FCUK Pure Bodyspray

I really hated this hand cream. I used it once and it moisturised my hands well. But it had the most sickly sweet vanilla scent I’ve ever had the misfortune of smelling.

The FCUK fragrance annoyed me just as much. The strong white pepper note reminded me too much of the raw meat smell at the butcher’s. And the drydown was all about violet and, again, sickly sweet vanilla. I just couldn’t stomach smelling these two products so they had to go.

This was the first edition of The Ultimate Beauty Duds! Part 2 is coming soon!

By the way, I’m not saying that no one could ever like these products (some of them are probably still around). So if you do like any of these products, that’s good for you.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Empties – May 2016

Hi there! Last month’s empties post was really fun, so I collected this month’s empty stuff too. Now here’s what I used up in May 2016.

1 (no photo) 3 Superdrug Dead Sea Purifying Clay Masks & 3 Superdrug Fruit Sorbet Antioxidant Peel-Off Masks – I really love these face masks and I’ll repurchase them again. Sorry, there’s no photo but I didn’t want to keep the empty (and sticky) sachets.

2 Herbal Essences Shimmering Colour Conditioner – this stuff is amazing! I rejoiced when Herbal Essences reintroduced two of their Rainforest Flowers shampoo and conditioner combos in 2013. Unfortunately these products were discontinued again. 😦 I don’t know why – the products are excellent! I have a few more back-up bottles and I’ll do a proper review soon. 🙂 In the meantime, check out my post about the Herbal Essences Classics products – if you’ve never tried them, you really should do it now because they’re the best shampoos and conditioners out there!

3 Classics Nail Polish Remover – I’ve been buying this nail polish remover for years. It’s effective. It doesn’t dry out my nails. It’s cheap (£1 for 400ml). It’s simply great! And this product is made by a UK-based company and it’s not tested on animals. Repurchase? Absolutely!

4 Superdrug Cocoa Butter & Vanilla Body Lotion – a really nice body lotion that smells lovely and moisturises my skin nicely. Good quality, good price. Repurchase? Yes!

5 Olay Total Effects Radiance Enhancing Cream Wash – an amazing face wash! It exfoliates gently – but at the same time it’s creamy. It’s brilliant for dry skin! Too bad this product has been dicontinued.

6 L’Oréal Elvive Colour Protect Conditioner – one of the best conditioners out there, second only to Herbal Essences’ Classics conditioners. Repurchase? Yes! (In case you’re wondering what happened to the shampoo – as soon as I’ve used up a conditioner, my husband will finish the matching shampoo.)

7 Palmolive Oriental Beauty Sophisticated – a really nice shower gel, refreshing and not too harsh on dry skin. And it smells like a mix of tea and flowers. Nice! The product has been discontinued, so I can’t repurchase it. If it were still available, I’d buy it again.

8 L’Eau Par Kenzo Ice Pour Femme (50ml) – a fresh summer fragrance (which I’ll review properly in a few days). This one was a limited edition from a few years ago. But I wouldn’t repurchase it if it were still available – because it no longer tickles my fancy.

9 Kirstie Allsopp Lansdowne Rose Shower Gel – a gentle and pleasant rose-scented shower gel. Perfect in combination with Flower Pharm’s Wild Rose body butter. If it weren’t discontinued, I’d probably buy it again.

10 Yung Haircare Deep Conditioner – this one’s a cheap product from a German drugstore. I bought it years ago (!) but left it untouched until a few months ago. It’s an okayish deep conditioner, nothing special. I wouldn’t repurchase it.

11 Black eyeliner pencil – not sure which brand this is, but I liked this eyeliner pencil. Good quality. Comparable to Essence.

12 Superdrug Animal Mad Lip Balm – I used up one of these last month – and I’ve now used up another one. This lip balm was part of a limited edition set from last autumn so I can’t repurchase it.

13 Thierry Mugler Alien EDP sample – I love Thierry Mugler’s Alien. I’ve got a full size Alien EDP, but whenever there’s an Alien sample in a glossy mag, I’ll use it! Awesome stuff!

14 Boots No 7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum – I have no idea how old the bottle was when I finally opened it. I used this serum a few years ago when it was introduced. But I never opened the second bottle – until a few months ago. I’ve now been using this serum on and off – and I actually still like it a lot. I’ll give the current version of the product a try and then I’ll report back. 🙂

15 Naturtint Shampoo & Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream samples – I didn’t like these products. I’d probably use the shampoo if nothing else was available. But I wouldn’t use the protective cream again if you paid me. My last post explains it all…

16 NSPA Raspberry Body Butter – a rich body butter with the pleasant scent of juicy raspberries. I think this body butter smells a lot more natural than some of the considerably more expensive raspberry-scented body butters out there. And it’s only £3. Repurchase? Most likely – as soon as I crave raspberries again.

So this is what I emptied / used up in May 2016. I really enjoyed writing this post – so I’ll definitely make monthly empties a permanent feature. 🙂 Oh, and I’m really proud of myself for using up an eyeliner pencil before losing it. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by! I hope June 2016 will be an awesome month for all of us.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

I wouldn’t recommend… Naturtint Shampoo & Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream

Hi there! About two months ago I got two Naturtint samples – Naturtint Shampoo and Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream. The shampoo claims to moisturise and to strengthen hair, while the protective cream claims to condition hair and to protect it from breakage.

As I said, these two bottles are sample sizes. They don’t state how much product is in them. But I compared the size of the bottles with similarly-sized mini bottles I’ve got. And I think these are 40ml bottles. Now let’s get to the products!

Naturtint Shampoo was nothing special. It was very runny, it hardly smelled of anything and it didn’t lather up well. It cleansed my hair and my scalp OK. But I’d prefer a supermarket own-brand shampoo any day. I used this shampoo four times only (that’s what I got out of the small bottle), but I’m satisfied I don’t need to buy a full-size bottle for myself.

Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream wasn’t great at all. It looked like a regular conditioner. But as soon as it touched my hair, it shrunk to a weird soapy nothingness (I had to use up the entire bottle in one go). The product felt very drying and uncomfortable. And I didn’t even try to detangle my hair. But I left the product on for two minutes as per the instructions on the bottle and then I rinsed it out.

What happened then? I slathered my hair in L’Oréal’s deep conditioner to restore it to its pre-Naturtint state. That’s because after rinsing out the Naturtint, my hair was a dry, straw-like mess with zero elasticity. It was horrible. I didn’t even know it was possible that my hair could feel like this! This Naturtint product is, without question, the worst I’ve ever used on my hair – it even beats the Naked Colour conditioner (which I think was rubbish).

Honestly, I don’t know what this product is good for. It’s not only not conditioning, it felt like it’s anti-conditioning. And what purpose does it really serve when you need a deep conditioner to restore your hair to normal after using this product?

I wouldn’t recommend these Naturtint products. However, if you’re interested, the full-size bottles (150 ml) are available for between £5 and £10 each (depending on where you shop).

Mrs Strawberry Blonde