Never Again – The Ultimate Beauty Duds – Part 4

Hi there! Over the past few months I did a couple of posts about beauty products that I think are useless. Those posts were quite popular, so here’s Part 4 of The Ultimate Beauty Duds. 🙂

MUA MakeUp Academy Matte Lipstick Lilac Belle

MUA’s matte lippies are probably the worst matte lippies out there. I’ve read a few positive reviews (?), but I can only guess the reviewers never had a decent matte lippie to compare MUA’s offerings with. Or they never actually tried the lippie. Or they found it rubbishy too, but didn’t want to be negative because they got the lippie for free. Who knows?

Now why is this lipstick so horrible? Well, this lipstick is very waxy. It’s almost impossible to apply it properly, it’s poorly pigmented and it’s drying. And because it’s so difficult to apply, my lippie broke off the first time I’ve used it. Rubbish!

Pantene Breakage Defence Hair Strength Tonic

This stuff scared me! I tried it, I got scared, then I binned the product! I thought of giving the product away – but I didn’t want anyone else to be scared by this truly binworthy product.

Superdrug Simply Pure Refreshing Toner For Sensitive Skin &
I Love… Cherry Almond Sparkle Refreshing Body Spritzer

Superdrug’s Simply Pure toner for sensitive skin isn’t very effective. As if this weren’t enough, this toner gave me an unpleasant skin reaction. I’m now using it to clean my nail art stampers! 🙂 I Love…’s Cherry Almond Sparkle smells like bread. Not a great fragrance, eh?

John Frieda Forever Smooth Shampoo, Conditioner, Anti-Frizz Primer

I’ve never used John Frieda hair products before – and thanks to these samples I can safely say that I won’t be using John Frieda hair products again. Complete rubbish!

Superdrug Moisturising Cocoa Butter Body Lotion
Yardley Invigorating Blue Orchid Body Lotion &
Pacifica Indian Coconut Nectar Body Butter

I can make this one short – these 3 moisturisers didn’t smell great at all. And Pacifica’s Indian Coconut Body Butter is the worst smell I’ve ever came across in a moisturiser. These 3 products were used as foot lotions.

Superdrug Clearly Youthful SPF 15 Skin Balancing Moisturiser

It’s impossible to apply this cream without causing it to ball up. The only way to use the product at all is to use it as a targeted treatment. But again, you can’t rub it into your skin. Major fail!

Pantene Volume & Body Shampoo & Conditioner

The shampoo wasn’t completely horrible. However, the conditioner was rubbish. It failed to detangle my hair, and it didn’t feel conditioning at all. As if this weren’t enough, the conditioner also flattened my hair. Bye-bye Pantene Volume & Body hair products. You won’t be missed!

Have you tried any of these products? Which products have you hated recently? Feel free to get in touch via the comments. And thanks for stopping by!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Pantene Pro-V Volume & Body Shampoo & Conditioner

Hi there! Today’s post is about Pantene’s Pro-V Volume & Body Shampoo & Conditioner. I’ve had mixed experiences with Pantene products this year (and actually last year too). But I’ve never tried these two products before, so I wanted to give them a try.

Let’s start with the shampoo. I like that the shampoo is clear. I’m bored of creamy white shampoos (who isn’t…), so this one gets an (imaginary) extra star for being clear. I also like the fragrance – it’s not very special, but it’s definitely pleasant. I think this shampoo cleanses my scalp and my hair reasonably, and it doesn’t make my hair look or feel greasy after 24 hours. That’s nice. However, this shampoo doesn’t make my hair feel soft.

Sure, most hair products that promise more volume aren’t softening, and I understand that this is how they (claim to) achieve the actual volume, but I like my hair to feel soft. Still, this is a decent shampoo, and I think it would work well on oily hair.

The conditioner isn’t great. It’s not very conditioning, and it doesn’t detangle my hair well. Again, I appreciate that this is a product feature, and not a design flaw. However, how am I supposed to achieve more volume if  I have to use a handful of conditioner just to detangle my hair?

Looking at other Pantene products, I think this conditioner is definitely better than the Youth Protect conditioner and the Colour Protect & Volume conditioner. But it’s not working well with my hair type (= curly, although I think my hair is transitioning to wavy due to its length) and because of this it actually flattens my hair. 😦 But I’m sure this conditioner will work much better for ladies with straight hair.

I’ll continue to use these two products on homeworking days and stay-at-home weekends. But I don’t think that I’ll buy these two products again once they’re finished.

Pantene Pro-V Volume & Body Shampoo is available as 400ml for £3.99. Pantene Pro-V Volume & Body Conditioner is available as 360ml for £3.99. I got these two on a half price deal.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde