Product's I'm loving: Nuxe Reve de Miel Ultra Nourishing Lip Balm

This lip balm has to be one of my favourites, Nuxe in my opinion is a great French skincare brand. It come's in a glass jar with 15g of product at the cost of £9.50 available at M&S.
It's smell is like terry's chocolate orange without the chocolate (mmm).
The texture is thick and smooth so a little go's a long way and has a clear non-greasy matte kind of finish which to me make's it a unique lip balm and great for under lipstick. It feels like it really is nourishing and sinking into your lips rather than just coating them with a film of moisture.
It contains Shea butter, honey, grapefruit essence and plant oil, very natural and free of mineral oil and parabens.
Overall I think it does the job well in nourishing your lips and leaving them feeling moisturised and I'd recommend it to those after a good and effective lip balm.
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Chemicals in beauty products..Parabens, Sulfates, Silicones

So I just thought I'd briefly talk about some of the most common chemicals found in beauty products nowadays and why there supposed to be bad for you. I think being aware of them is important and I do recommend for you guys to research into it some more and make an informed decision on products you use. Just type in the word and there's literally tons of information.
With all these ingredients/chemicals as one would expect there is research and information 'for' and 'against' the use of these ingredients in beauty products. I am simply sharing information I have learned and come across over time.
This is going to be long but hopefully informative for you guys!

Sulphates- Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS/SLES)
Sulphates are used as cleansing and foaming agents therefore can be found in shampoo, toothpaste, shower gel and other washing products.
Why are they bad?
Sulphates/Sulfates are surface active agents (surficants) which dissolve dirt and allow it to stay liquid so it can be washed away but also boost foam and lather. They are effective in cleaning but the issue with it is that it can over strip the hair. This isn't great for coloured or chemically treated hair as it will strip away what's been put into the hair.
In general as it's so harsh it can strip the hairs natural oils and leave you with dry and limp hair. For some people it can also irritate the scalp.

Silicones
 In a beauty product, mainly hair products anything ending in 'cone' tends to be a silicone. Silicones are one of those controversial ingredients. You can find them mainly in conditioners, serums/oils and sometimes shampoos too. Many products that claim to give you 'smoothe' and 'frizz free' hair will more than likely have silicones in them. Yes they do a great job at making your hair feel nice and smooth but silicones work by basically coating and sealing off your hair giving you a 'quick fix' but in the long run they don't really fix your hair at all.

Silicones are not water soluble either so they can build up on your hair if you use silicone based products continuously. If you think about every time you use a product with silicone in your adding a layer on to your hair. This stops other products from penetrating your hair (such as pure oils/treatments) and in the long run cause your hair to become dry and brittle.

However if you use a clarifying shampoo (they remove build-up and impurities) once or twice a week or maybe even less (depends on how much product containing silicone you use on your hair and how frequently) this will strip the silicones off.
But again clarifying shampoos contain sulphates which are harsh and strip your hair therefore using it sparingly is better and deep conditioning your hair after would be good.

Parabens
These are a class of man made chemicals used in products as preservatives so they last longer and to fight bacteria and fungus from growing. They are cheap to manufacture and can be found in a lot of products. In the ingredients anything ending in paraben such as 'Butylparaben' is what you need to look for.
Why are they bad?
There has been studies about parabens some saying it's not harmful as it's used in small quantities but other studies have found they can irritate the skin and eyes, a link with parabens and cancer also has been identified. As Parabens cannot be broken down the worry is that it can build up which will then become harmful.
How you may wonder? Well Parabens can mimic a hormone called estrogen which is known to play a role in breast cancer. Parbens have also been found in breast tumors by researchers .

Mineral Oil
Again a common ingredients in beauty products (eg Vaseline, baby oil, make up) it's apparently more expensive to dispose mineral oil than purchase it. It comes from crude oil/petroleum and coats the skin like cling film making it a good barrier. It can slow down the loss of moisture making it an effective ingredient.
Why it's rumoured to be bad?
Well just thinking about it, if it coats the skin and works like a barrier than it means nothing can get in or out and it can be debated whether that is a good or bad thing. But it is said that it inhibits the natural immune barrier stopping the skin from 'breathing' blocking pores and  preventing absorption of natural moisture/nutrition. This can also then play a role in acne and blemishes and the renewal of cells promoting premature ageing and the removal of toxins. You can read some more about it here.

However it is said that mineral oil used in beauty products is highly refined and purified making it safe to use and a thin layer slows down the loss of moisture from the skin. There is a ton of debate about this ingredients you can read some things here and here in defence.

I'm personally not too alarmed about this ingredients as when I was researching about mineral oils in beauty products it was hard to find any solid research/studies which found mineral oil is proven to be bad.

Alternatives
In general it's hard to avoid many of these ingredients as it's used in a lot of mainstream, cheap and generic products. However there is alternatives, they may cost a little more but they exist! Personally in general I have started using more natural products as I just think why not? It's surely going to do less harm than any normal products right?

There is a ton of sulfate free/ low sulfate products on the market. For instance at the moment I am using Liz Earle's shampoo which contains no sulphates, it may not foam as much but it still works just as well! More 'natural' brands will use natural ingredients that do the same thing (in terms of cleaning) but in a less harsh way using alternative ingredients.
Again you can find products without silicones too and pure oils rather than 'Morrocanoil' and 'Macadamia oil' which tend to be full of silicones.

TRESemme 'Naturals' shampoo is low in sulfates and the conditioner is silicone free, Australian Native Botanicals, Tara Smith are just a few haircare brands which are free of the naughty chemicals. Also Apivita, Liz Earle, Nuxe and Korres are some more natural skincare/beauty brands that are free of ingredients that are not supposed to be good for us.

Some of my more 'natural' skin and hare care products
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This is why you shouldn't keep old or expired make up...

...Because bacteria starts growing in it and it turns pretty nasty as you can see the white mould type  produce in my MAC concealer tube. I should have thrown it away a while ago but because I had so much product left I didn't but I have learned my lesson! I can only imagine the kind of infections and skin break outs it could cause!

...and the winner is

Congratulations to Kerys for winning the Sleek Mattes palette and thank you to everyone else for entering, I'll be having more giveaway's in the future! Please email/twitter DM me with your address!

Also some of you may have noticed my new layout and blog name, what do you think? I'm still unsure on the name but better than Moonshine!
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Sigma Make Me Classy Brush Set Initial Thoughts/Review

I had been lusting after these Sigma Make me Classy brushes for so long, especially after seeing you tubers being sent them and talking about how wonderful they are. Although almost £100 seems a little too much to me for make-up brushes but I went for it and bought some. After all it works out cheaper than buying individual MAC brushes right?

 You know when you have wanted something for so long and then you finally get it and every aspect of it excites you? haha this happened to me as sad as that may be. The packaging is really nice and I even got a free travel sized blending brush with the kit. There was also a leaflet which tells you what each brush is for and what it's made out of.

This set comes with a mixture of brushes in the sense that some are natural hair bristles whilst others are synthetic. Seven of the 12 brushes were natural bristles. I already own one Sigma brush which I actually love (Flat top synthetic kabuki F80).

 Most the brushes I own are synthetic with the exception of some of my MAC ones. But I thought I'd give this kit a try regardless as I had read natural hair brushes are better for powder application and I use a powder foundation most the time.

Initial thoughts
Let's start with the positives..
-Pretty packaging and inside the box everything was packaged well, most of the brushes came with plastic 'shields' as you can see in a picture above.
-They come in a very handy case which is perfect to travel with, turns into two great brush holders for when your using them and also when you pop the lid on it's a cleaner storage solution.
-The brushes themselves are very soft and dense.
-You get a good range of brushes.

Now the not so positives...
Although before I start I do want to mention I didn't actually use these brushes on my face as I wanted to wash them first but after washing them I didn't want to use them at all.

-After playing with the brushes, just touching/feeling them I noticed a couple of the natural hair brushes (mainly F30 and F40 the powder and contour brushes) had an incredibly strong and disgusting smell..I can't even describe it but I found it incredibly off putting. Even after washing them the smell was just as bad.
- I also noticed with the natural bristle brushes, before washing, during and even after...Shedding!! Already?! Okay I understand there can be a few loose hairs but I did experience a lot of shedding.So this made me wonder if some of these brushes are shedding already...it will only get worse right..

So overall although these brushes have some good positives the negatives even though my issue is mainly with the natural brushes really put me off. In comparison to my natural hair MAC brushes (which barley shed and don't smell) the sigma brushes loose. Although for the prices and the amount of brushes you get Sigma is of course better value compared to MAC.

I was considering getting the 'Mr Bunny' kit which is all synthetic brushes which I know I would be happier with but I decided not to as I feel there is better and cheaper (and easier obtainable in the UK) brushes out there compared to Sigma such as Real Techniques, EcoTools, even ELF and I have also heard a lot about Crown brushes too.
I didn't end up keeping the brushes so I can't make a fair comment on performance but I have read a huge amount of reviews where people have had to deal with the  handle becoming loose and eventually the brush end falling off the handle. Even reading the comments people left on the gorgeous Rissross's instagram picture makes me feel glad I didn't keep these brushes!

Do you own any Sigma? What do you think?
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