Glamglow: Thirstymud and Supermud

I have been eagerly awaiting to get my hand's on Glamglow's newest mask 'Thirstymud'.
I actually couldn't help myself and got the Supermud too since I have problematic skin. I've been hearing amazing things about both of these masks so I thought I'd give them a go since I wasn't amazed by the much raved about original Glamglow tingle and exfoliate mud mask.
I also want to try the Powermud dual cleanse, sound's pretty nifty a mask that turn's into a oil when you wash it off?! Alas it is not available in the UK just yet.
I'm seriously feeling like a Glamglowaholic right now but after these splurges I won't be buying anymore face mask's for a while!

So Thirstymud is a intense hydrating mask which can be used by both men and women. It's multi-purpose too since you can leave it on overnight and wake up with a super hydrated face or even before you get on that plane to somewhere hot and wonderful. I purchased it from M&S during a promotion however there's 30% at Look fantastic so instead of the hefty £50 it's £34.99.

Supermud is the 'clearing' mask which is supposed to be great for pore size, blackheads/whiteheads. You can also use it as spot treatment. You can get this from Look Fantastic too for £34.99 instead of  £45.00.

I'm not going into them too much as first of all I haven't used either yet, secondly I'm thinking of doing more in depth review on both. I'm incredibly excited to smother these masks over my face. Have any of you tried them? What do you think?

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Planets Align with Eclectic Eccentricity

How beautiful is this...

(Image belongs to eclecticeccentricity)

This beauty is £45 and can be purchased here. I absolutely love it more so because planets, space everything up there intrigues me. It's beautiful and so very interesting.

Now I'm trying to decide if I can wait till Christmas for this gem.

Accidents and a Mini Skincare Haul with M&S and Apivita

So after this happened to my beloved...

Which yes I am gutted about, my own fault of course. I surprise surprise will now end up spending a bomb on a beautiful new lens...I might even just start fresh and go the whole shabang and get a new body too.
Anyway, going a little off track there, I will be using my handy Iphone for pictures so sorry for the lack of quality.
I wanted to share a little Skincare haul today!
Mark's and Spencer's beauty hall is pretty amazing since they updated it and added some amazing brands from all over the world. There is so much to choose from so I'd absolutely recommend a visit or check it out online here.
Another added bonus is that they have 20% off every now and again which is a nice perk especially if you're splashing out. Sometimes they have a discovery event on (like now!) which means they give you free gifts which are normally travel size or full sized so a great way to 'discover' when you buy products.
I had a little shop during the 20% off not long ago and bought some Apivita. Which is one of my favourite ranges that they stock, the brand is all about using as much natural ingredients as they can in their products and leaving out all the nasty parabans,silicones, mineral oils etc.
Here are my purchases:

                                                                         Revitalizing Face Mask £3.00

Aqua vita moisturiser £25

Shampoo with a free conditioner £13

 Radiance serum: Free!! Because I spent a little over £40 I got this serum worth £29.50 for nothing. So along with 20% off all the prices I also got the added delight of this little gem. Love it!
Have you bought anything from the M&S beauty hall lately?

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Little trip.

Not long ago I went on a little trip with my family and we stayed in Milton Keynes which just made me nostalgic for America believe it or not. The area we were in was so nice and rather new, boulevards and trees and the way everything was set out just reminded me of California. We were within walking distance of a shopping centre so I of course ventured off.

 I wish I got more and better pictures but these will do, I of course did a little shopping and got some things I had been after some of you will have seen the picture below that I posted on my instagram (monikarr) account.

I actually managed to not spend too much, I am trying to spend less and save up for nothing in particular (except maybe a holiday to America!) and even opened a new savings account and so far it's not going too bad but all these new products that keep coming out are such temptations to a beauty junkie like me. So I only got some of the new Barry M nail art pens which I will review soon (love them) and the much talked/hyped/raved about falsies mascara from Maybelline. Have you guys tried any of these? what do you think?

Nails inc Black taxi & Floral street

I do love me some black polish and of course white is the perfect colour to go with it especially with the monochrome trend that's hot right now. Cue bold lines, graphics prints, contrasting colours, and textured leather effect polishes (which are definitely on my hit list when I next go shopping).

Today I used Black Taxi and Floral street on my nails and turned my accent finger into the infamous yin yang symbol which I'm a huge fan of.

 For someone with a huge nail polish collection I don't own a whole lot of Nails inc I think the £11 per bottle price tag puts me off but I do have to say I really enjoyed the application process, it was very opaque I only used one coat (could have done two to make it more even on some nails but not necessary). It makes life easier if your using base and top coats, in this case I just used a top coat and I'm very pleased with the results and the polishes themselves. I also love the look of the leather effect nail polishes- the edgy black or nude leather look with skull embellishments are my favourite.
What's your favourite Nails inc polish?
*I was kindly sent these to try out but of course my opinion is unbiased and honest.

Oh hello Nike x Liberty floral High roll blazers

How lovely are these? Now I love heels but also flats just as much. Nike who collaborated with Liberty hence the cute classic purple pepper floral print on these blazers. I look forward to rocking these. I managed to get them in a sale too, happy times.

 What are your favourite flats?

Pur minerals All that pops Lip Gloss Sticks review.

Jumbo lipbalm/lipstick/lipgloss type things are seriously everywhere and along with the Revlon Just bitten balm stains I have been loving these Pur minerals 'Lip gloss stick collection' since I got them around December last year. I feel like this lovely American brand isn't as well known in England but that's because it wasn't available here until it hit the shelves in Marks & Spencer's beauty departments.
This set has four satin finish colours in a jumbo retractable pencil.

 So we have a hot pink called 'Shocked', the darkest plum colour is 'Desired' the bright red is 'Amped' and lastly the nude is 'Tickled'. Pretty pigmented colours which are buildable too so you can go for softer or bold looks.
And here's a picture with the flash on so you can see the glossyness...

It cost me £24 for this set although there was also an offer on at M&S so I got it even cheaper. It's not available on their site at the moment unfortunately but I'm pretty sure many of the stores still have this set. I think it's a steal because normally just one of these lip gloss sticks cost £16.00 so for an extra £8.00 your getting 3 more!
Overall I'm a definite fan, I'm not a huge fan of lip gloss but these are the perfect texture, they feel more like a glossy lipstick. I find them moisturising, they taste fruity (a pleasant surprise!) the pigmentation is great and I feel like for what they are they last a good amount of time on your lips especially the darker colours such as 'Desired' which is one of my favourites along with the hot pink!
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Lush Sunnyside Bubble Bar Review

Lush is my favourite place for gorgeously smelling things. My favourite thing's to get are normally the bubble bars, my favourite is The Comforter which I mentioned here.
The Sunnyside bubble bar is covered in gold glitter and costs £3.65 and it smell's pretty lovely. I wouldn't have picked this up myself as I'm not a fan of glitter in products but as it's Andrea's fave I of course had to try it and fyi the glitter is rather fine.

It's not a overpowering smell but you can definitely smell the 'sweet wild orange' in the bar, there is also lemon and tangerine in it. Crumbled into a hot running bath it just smells devine.

 This bubble bar left me with ton's of bubbles a slight shimmer in the water as the glitter is really fine (lots of glitter left once the bath was drained) and I don't remember the smell lingering around for too long which is unfortunate as I love it!
Maybe next time I'll crumble more into my bath as I only used a small amount but overall I loved this bar!
What is your favourite bubble bar?
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Bath and Body Works Candle Haul

Well I guess it's not a proper haul as these Bath and Body Work's candles were sent to me by Andrea in our latest swap which you can watch the unboxing of on my youtube channel here and read in my last post here.

I have wanted to try some of these babies for so long, there raved about by American bloggers/you tubers all the time. I normally burn the pricey Yankee Candles which smell gorgeous before you burn them and when you burn them too but it can get expensive. I notice that a lot of candles will smell gorgeous but when you actually burn them...nothing!
So I have Cotton (smells like clean cotton by Yankee candles), Sun Tan, Leaves, Salted Caramel, coconut water (I love coconut smells) Cinnamon Sugared Donut, Pumpkin Cupcake, Sweet cinnamon Pumpkin and Pumpkin Caramel Latte.. Most of these smell like something I would happily eat.

So far I have only burnt this little baby, it's one of the mini's, you can't tell so much in the pictures but their tiny. I'd say there wasn't much of a scent throw (my room unfortunately didn't smell of Cinnamon Sugared Donuts) but I have a feeling this is the case because it's a 'mini'. But they did burn well, I'm looking forward to trying the rest.. I have faith in them!
What's your favourite smelly candle?
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My USA swap unboxing haul - Chanel, Bath and Body works, Tarte, Too faced..

So this has to be the longest swap ever, Andrea who lives in the wonderful place called America and myself in rainy (or should I say snowy?) England took forever (atleast 6 months) collecting things for each other and behold this is what the lovely lady sent me. From Wet n Wild, Tarte, NYX to Bath and body works, Lush, Chanel...

Seriously so many goodies, we both made unboxing videos on our you tube channels check out mine here and Andrea's here and feel free to click subscribe if you want :D.
Anyway's I love doing swap's, especially with this lady..it's so much fun and I'm incredibly grateful that our paths crossed (thanks to the beautiful world of internet) and I now consider her as one of my good friends.

So many cool products right? you can have a look at what she sent me when we did a swap last year in my post here.
What product would you like to try the most? I love everything but I'm the most excited about Tarte!
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My favourite: Exfoliator - Caudalie Deep Cleansing Exfoliator

The Caudalie Deep Cleansing Exfoliator has to be my absolute favourite exfoliator that I have come across so far. In the past I have used St Ives Apricot scrub and Clean and Clear's exfoliating daily wash both of which I liked oh and Soap and Glory's 'Greatest scrub of all' which was okay.

This one was introduced to me by my friend Andrea and I had wanted to try it, it turned out I had a sample of this from when I did a swap with my friend who live's in Paris so I was super excited to try it.
Once I did I fell in love it.

Why? you may ask.
Well let's have a more in depth look into the product:
-Contains micro-particles to deep cleanse and unclog pores
-Grape pulp to soften and moisturise
-Menthol extract to leave you feeling refreshed.
-Free from Parabens, Sulphates and other nasties.

The texture was pretty unique compared to the other exfoliators I have used in the past, a whipped and more fine gritty texture which didn't feel too harsh but definitely felt like it did a fantastic job at deep cleaning my skin and gettinf rid of dead skin cells.
My skin felt smooth, refreshed and very clean after using this exfoliator which tick's all the boxes for me. The scent is light but nice I'm thinking grapefruit and something sweet. I overall just loved how it felt on my skin - the feeling of something working as your using it!

A few downsides however:
-The price 60ml for £18.00 is rather pricey. I bought it for slightly less as there was an offer on sites like feelunique who have 10% off this product at the moment.
- Although it's free of some nasties Polyethylene is second on the ingredients list which I didn't pay attention to till now. Polyethylene is plastic, it's what 'exfoliates' and gives that gritty/beady texture in a lot of skin care products and is also found in many other cosmetic products like mascara and powders. It's hard to avoid but there is of course talk on side effects of this ingredients which you can read about here, Skin Deep site and various other sites.

Overall I love this product and it is a favourite regardless of the downsides but I do wish it was more natural than it seems, maybe a more natural exfoliating ingredient like sugar rather than Polyethylene. Personally I'll still use it but be careful of avoiding it if I have broken or irritated skin and use it less frequently than I would have.

What's your favourite exfoliator?
Look out for my post on natural exfoliators!
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A Perfume I'm enjoying: Liz Earle Botanical Essence No15

Yep girlies I'm still here, I've been lost somewhere between work, family issues and the gym and just haven't felt like blogging for a while but oh how I've missed it.

So I love my perfumes, I have around four at the moment all of which I like using in rotation, I'll be blogging about all of them eventually. One of them is Liz Earle's Eau De Parfum Botanical Essence No15 which I kindly got sent to me sometime last year.

Some Facts:
-It's described as ..' a fresh spicy oriental scent. This clean, sexy and addictive eau de parfum is synonymous with feeling seductive and elegant.'

- 90% of the ingredients comes from sustainably sourced natural ingredients which is always great to hear.
- 50ml for £47.00
- Some of the 15 notes are Bergamot, Virginian Cederwood and Patchouli.

What do I think of it? (and my mum!)
I literally just sprayed some before I wrote this blog, my mum came upstairs and in the hallway mentioned how gorgeous something smells. She actually stole it off me as she loved the smell, I guess we kinda share it now.
It's definitely a strong scent (which you can smell for quiet sometime after spraying) it has a fresh undertone along with the spicy oriental notes.
It's different to anything I own, I normally go for either fresh and sometimes citrus scents or something sweet, fruity and floral but having said that I do enjoy this perfume I feel like it's my more 'mature' smell.
The packaging is really nice too, something very different to other perfumes, the front has pictures of all the different notes and on the inside it also tells you a lot about the perfume and the names of the notes that are in it.
Overall I like it and would suggest getting a sample or trying it out at the store, I think it would make a great mothers day present too!

What's your favourite perfume?

Cybercandy - American goodness.

As many of you may know I'm a huge lover of America and of course there's certain things we just cannot get here in little old England. This is why a Cybercandy order happened, for those of you who don't know, cybercandy sell food products from all over the world including thing's like Lucky Charms, Reece's and Hershey's.
I wanted to get my friend a little Christmas treat and myself too so I ordered a couple of Tru Blood drinks as we are both huge fans of the TV series True Blood so I thought it'd be a cool quirky little present. Plus 'friends don't let friends drink friends'!
The bottles are made out of glass and are great replications of what you'd see in the series. I've not drunk mine yet but I'm pretty sure they will taste great (and nothing like blood haha...more blood orange!).

I also got some pop tarts as my favourite flavour Hot Fudge Sundae isn't sold here. I'm pretty sure it was this flavour I tried once upon a time when I took part in Camp America and fell in love with! We'll soon find out. I ordered a pack of 2 but got an extra one...not sure if this was an accident or generosity but I thank you Cybercandy!
The service overall was pretty good, I even received text messages about delivery and when I'd be expecting my parcel with options to change the delivery day which was nice.
Everything was packaged very well, bubble wrapped and poptarts bedded in their own little box. I loved the big box everything was in too with a super cool Mr Cybercandy Robot.
I'd recommend this company for sure if you are after some yummy goodness that you can't get in your country, they have gift boxes too which would make unique Christmas presents.

<3

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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