Liz Earle Love! And some others...

You would've thought that spending all her time on the Isle of Wight making natural skin care products that Liz Earle might be a bit nutty. Well, she's a genius and anyone who has used, or even smelt her Instant Boost Skin Tonic will already know this!

It smells like...freshness. Well, roses and cucumber, but it really does smell so delicious. Now, I only have the bottle at the moment, but hopefully I'll be getting the spritzer soon. You can pop that one in the fridge and when it's mega, sticky hot it's so nice to spray on your face and decollete. It's really cooling! 

As for it's skin benefits, it contains organic Aloe Vera juice along with some cucumber extract and chamomile so it's extremely soothing and vitamin E to help protect the skin. I just can't get enough of the stuff! All you've got to do is basically use it like any other toner. So use your makeup remover, cleanser and then the tonic. Just load up a cotton pad and sweep it across your face and you will instantly feel it cooling and soothing your skin! 

Another amazing Liz Earle product is the Cleanse & Polish, I haven't got a picture of this one as it's not with me at the moment! I'm suffering with withdrawal symptoms...

Anyway, Cleanse & Polish is literally a cleansing face wash, it comes in a pump bottle or a tube and it smells so luffly because of the rosemary and chamomile extracts! It's all natural but still has the ability to get rid of waterproof mascara gently as well as other makeup residue. When you purchase the larger bottles/pumps of Cleanse & Polish you are supplied with a couple of pure muslin clothes. These gently exfoliate the skin while you take off the cleanser. 

I'm very much an advocate for cheap skincare, but it has to work. I'd rather spend £20 on something that's going to work, than £2.50 on something that's going to irritate my skin. 

I really can't give both of these products enough praise, even though they are a little bit expensive... (Cleanse & Polish 100ml £11, Skin Tonic 200ml £11) They are definitely worth it! I've had Tonic since February and there's still a bit left, so it lasts pretty well too. 

So if you've got an extra £22 hanging around somewhere... OK, none of us really have that at the moment, but they really are worth the investment even just for the smell! 

Enough of the Liz Earle. Lets move onto something that I'm not so keen on. 

We're moving house in a couple of weeks, and we nipped to Asda the other day to have a look at a kettle and get some milk or something... and I decided to try out the Asda Essential Care Sensitive skincare range. So I bought, a cleanser, what I thought was a toner but actually turned out to be just an eye makeup remover and a moisturiser.  Although my skin isn't REALLY sensitive I find that using heavier products e.g really thick moisturisers that my face gets a little bit angry. 

They were really, REALLY cheap. The cleanser and eye makeup remover were £1.83 each, and the moisturiser was £2.23. I was quite excited about trying something different to be honest, I was stuck in the rut of Superdrug Chamomile makeup remover and cleanser, Nivea Young toner and Neutrogena Oil Free moisturiser. 

When I first arrived home and had a look at the products I noticed that even though they are supposed to be un-scented, they actually had a no smell smell. Which I know makes no sense, it was almost chemical but not. Just as if someone had tried their hardest to make it not smell.... not nice. The moisturiser was especially bad for this. 

The eye makeup remover did it's job well, it's the consistency of water (thus me thinking it was toner) So a little bit went quite a long way. The cleanser didn't really do that much, it wouldn't remove any left over makeup that I'd missed, just pushed it around on my face for a little while. But the worst of the bunch was definitely the moisturiser. I pop moisturiser into the palm of my hands and rub together slightly to distribute it before applying it to my face, and It was gone as soon as I touched my hands together. So I had to apply it to my face with just my fingers. It did nothing at all, just sat on my skin and created this horrible almost sticky layer, although eventually after about 2 Min's of strenuous rubbing I did manage to get it into some of my dry bits. 

So overall I was a bit disappointed with my Asda purchase! Although their cotton pads with Aloe Vera are good?! 

My Advice: Flock to the Isle of Wight to kiss Liz Earle, or just buy from her website... www.lizearle.com. Don't buy Asda Essential Care if your skin is even ever so slightly high maintenance, and go listen to Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should Have Come Over.

Bye

x