Greetings! This is my first blog of the year 2012! Did everyone have fun over the holidays? I sure did, spending it with friends and family. Made any resolutions? I never make any as I’m sure to break them all the time. Maybe I will just concentrate on that bucketlist for now.

I managed to snag up a Laura Mercier brush set in the sales. From £67 to £33, it’s a real steal for quality brushes. It comes double ended, perfect for your travels and in a gorgeous snake skin zipper pouched.

The beauty haul has been mounting up buying things here and there I’m a bit lazy to photoshop a montage, so here’s the single photoset.

I brought 6 new yaby eyesahdows from http://themakeupartistboutique.com/ some of the colours looks similar to some MAC and Urban Decay shadows I own. Yaby does great shadows for around £2 each wonderful colourful pay off.

I was introduced to laidbare by a SA at waterloo bodystation, so far so good lets see how my skin looks in a month. I was sold my hormonal pain in the butt spots are slowly healing and my skin is looking more dewy ans supple already.

Excuse the used palette pic, I picked a metal palette as sometimes I do other people’s make up and wanted to be more hygienic by using a metal palette to mix foundations on.

China glaze is still one of my favourite premium nail polishes that I buy it last for weeks!

Eyeko graffiti eyeliner pen, I chucked this item in along with my Brandalley order, it is so much better then the MAC pen eyeliner. Let’s hope it dries out quickly.

Living nature is a New Zealand brand and is one of the first companies to produce products without the synthetic preservatives or parabeans.

Living nature makes the following promises to customers

• No Synthetic Preservatives
• No ingredients we consider potentially harmful
• No Mineral Oils
• No Irradated Ingredients
• No Herbicide or Pesticide Residues
• No Genetically Modified Ingredients
•  No Animal Ingredients
•  No Animal Testing
•  Always Use High Quantities of Bioactive Ingredients
•  Only Use Recyclable, Reusable, Reduced Packaging

The products I’m reviewing are 100% natural preservatives, fragrance and ingredients.

http://www.livingnature.com

Packaging – I thought the packaging for both the shampoo and conditioner was really interesting, in photos it looked like a cylinder, but it reality it’s a half a cylinder that’s flat on one side. The branding of the artwork is simple using only the colour black for the logo, text, the bottle is an off white colour and comes in a press top cap.

Living Nature Nourishing Shampoo – The manufacture promises to help repair and nurture dry and damaged hair. Product cost £14.99 and is 200ml/1.76 fl oz.

Active ingredients – Kumerahou and active manuka honey

Kumerahou – it has the ability to produce lather by rubbing flowers and leaves together in water. The lathering properties are deprived from natural surfactants known as saponins. The benefits are gentle cleansing and anti-microbial.

Full ingredients - Aqua (water), Decyl glucoside, Sodium lauroyl glutamate, Glycerin (vegetable glycerin), Mel (manuka honey), Coco-glucoside, Glyceryl oleate, Galactoarabinan (larch tree gum), Parfum (fragrance)*, Xanthan gum, Butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter**, Glucose, Pomaderris kumerahou flower/leaf extract, Simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil**, Triticum vulgare (wheat) germ oil, Glucose oxidase, Lactoperoxidase, Tocopherol (vitamin E). *From natural essential oils. **Certified organic.

Directions of use – Use daily if needed. Massage a small amount into wet hair working from roots to ends to clean thoroughly. Rinse with warm water and follow with Living Nature Nourishing Conditioner.

Verdict- The aroma of the shampoo is a very sweet smelling it is uplifting and fills the bathroom with the smell. The consistency of the shampoo is very runny and I have to use a ping pong size to produce lather in my hair I always shampoo my hair twice to make sure it cleans properly. It does not make your hair knotty when you shampoo. After rinsing it makes the hair immediately softer, the condition of my hair prior to using was dry and damaged and frizzy and hard to control.

Living Nature Conditioner – Same with the shampoo it promises to help repair and nurture dry and damaged hair. Product cost £14.99 for 250ml/6.76fl.oz.

Active ingredients – Active manuka honey and larch tree extract

Full ingredients - Aqua (water), Simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil**, Cetearyl olivate (from olive oil), Sorbitan olivate (from olive oil), Pentaclethra macroloba (pracaxi fruit) seed oil**, Sucrose cocoate (from coconut & sugar beet), Persea gratissima (avocado) oil, Cetyl Palmitate (from olive oil), Sorbitan Palmitate (from olive oil), Galactoarabinan (larch tree gum), Glycerin (vegetable glycerin), Triticum vulgare (wheat) germ oil, Parfum (natural fragrance)*, Glucose (plant sugar), Caryocar brasiliense (pequi) fruit oil, Cetearyl alcohol (from coconut & palm oil), Mel (manuka honey), Glucose oxidase (from milk), Lactoperoxidase (from milk), Tocopherol (vitamin E). * Component of natural essential oils ** Certified organic

Directions of use – Smooth through wet hair from roots to ends after cleansing with Living nature nourishing shampoo. Leave for a few minutes, then rinse well with warm water.

Verdict – The consistency of the conditioner is very light weight, almost like a moisturiser creamy texture. The smell is really strong very similar to Japanese sake I wanted to gag the first time I used this product. As weeks went passed I was use to smell, it detangles my hair nicely.

After washing my hair and blowing drying it straight.

Final verdict –

Both products work well in harmony with one and the other, my hair texture has improved dramatically, usually after washing my hair my hair would be very thick even after blow drying. Using these products helped smooth the hair cuticles nicely and helped with my frizzy hair. It really did help nourish my dry and damaged hair. Usually I have noticed when I used natural and SLS free hair products my hair tends to become greasy after 2 days; this wasn’t the case with Living nature. There was a time when I didn’t wash my hair for 3-4 days and my hair wasn’t visibly greasy but as soon as I washed my hair the water was filthy. The only thing this shampoo didn’t really give me was shine; sometimes I would use some Tara Smith base serum for some shine in my hair. I really enjoyed using Living Natural hair care products but the price tag puts me off for £14.99 for a bottle, means I need to spend £30 for the duo. I have been using this for around 3 weeks and have already used half the bottle up.

Living nature products is available from mypure

I was one of the lucky 25 people who won a little wonder brush from Spornette international. I’m a huge fan of the Porcupine G-36 brush, which is made of natural boar and nylon bristles, the brush helps bring out the natural shine in my hair and makes it softer.

Today I will be showing you my love for the little wonder brush, I’m demonstrating how it easily back comb and smooth my hair.

(This is my hair it looks quite flat had it cut 2 days ago)

The little wonder is made up of tourmaline bristles for conditioning and pure boar for styling. Usually I would spray some Samy fat hair spray to add particles for my hair to be backcombed. With the little wonder I didn’t need it, and i could create the beehive with no problem. The brush also doubled up as a smoothing brush which is a bonus. In my opinion this makes a brilliant brush for teasing with very little effort. As you can see in my photo’s my hair looked more volumised and I didn’t even use hair spray.

Now the sad part is that Spornette brushes is not available in the UK, I brought my G-36 on ebay for around £6-7. The little wonder should be around £4.

http://www.spornette.com