Review: Bleach London Silver Conditioner

When it comes to purple shampoo and conditioner or any other products that promise to keep bleached blonde hair from going brassy I thought I'd tried them all. So imagine my excitement when I discovered this in my local Boots! I'd heard good things about Bleach London, so was hoping it would do a good job at keeping my hair looking naturally blonde and not Simpsons-yellow.

As far as purple conditioners go it's one of the better ones, pretty much on par with my beloved Pro:Voke (which is somehow still the cheapest and the best of all the ones I've tried). The purple tint is strong enough to cover up brassiness, but subtle enough to stop your hair getting an unwanted lavender tinge. It's also nourishing enough to leave hair soft and silky, but in no way greasy or weighed down.

The only downside I can find is the packaging. Don't get me wrong, it looks really cool and edgy on the bathroom shelf, but once you're about halfway through the bottle, the thick plastic combined with the small screwtop makes it incredibly difficult to get enough product out. I would much prefer a squeezy tube! Seeing as it works just as well for me as the Pro:Voke one, but is ever so slightly more expensive, I don't think it's going to be a repurchase for me, but if you find that you don't get on with that one too well, this is well worth a shot!

Sample Summary #13

1) Shiseido | Express Soothing Eye Mask and Wrinkle Resist 24 Eye Contour Cream

Full size: £59.00 for the eye mask / £54.00 for the eye cream

Rating: 2.5/5

This was a lovely little set of samples containing one application of a stick-on undereye mask, as well as a sachet of eye cream which lasted me a good week or so. The mask was an absolute pleasure to use and felt very cooling and hydrating while I let it work. Afterwards my eyes seemed a bit perkier and depuffed, but the effect had vanished the following morning. The eye cream was incredibly rich and left a greasy film under my eyes, so I could only use it at night. Otherwise my concealer would literally just slip straight off my skin. While they were both nice products, I don't think that the exorbitant price tag is by any means justified, hence the low rating.

2) Clarins | Moisture Rich Body Lotion

Full size: £30.00

Rating: 3/5

This was really lovely and moisturising without being sticky or greasy at all. While I personally prefer my body lotions to be scented, this might hold a certain appeal to those who don't like their body products to overpower their perfume - or those who simply have a sensitive nose. Just like with the Shiseido sample above, my only problem with this is the price tag. I just wouldn't be able to justify spending £30 on a tube of this when I can get great body lotions or butters for a tenth of the price.

3) Estee Lauder | Advanced Night Repair

Full size: £48.00

Rating: 5/5

Every time I get a sample of this somewhere my eyes immediately light up. This serum is simply magical. It never looks better than when I apply this before my moisturiser every night. It's smoother, softer and skintone is more even. I swear that one day I'll invest in a full size of this, but till then I will relish every last drop of my sample.

4) Neal & Wolf | Super Shine Spray

Full size: £9.50

Rating: 4/5

I wouldn't necessarily call this an essential, but it's a nice little product to have on special occasions. It's shiny without being glittery or sparkly and has an amazing fruity scent that lingers on the hair for a fair bit after application. It doesn't weigh hair down or make it greasy as long as you're not overly generous. I'm not sure I'd purchase the full size, as it's not a product that's missing from my beauty routine, but I'll thoroughly enjoy using up the sample I've got.

5) Redken | Colour Extend Conditioner

Full size: £13.75

Rating: 4.5/5

This was such a joy to use! It instantly restored my damaged, bleached hair and made it incredibly soft. I'd even say my hair felt stronger and a bit thicker after using this, I'm absolutely amazed. I'd say it's probably a touch too intense for daily application, but if used every other wash it works a treat. This is one I want to get my hands on for the full size.

6) Suti | Cleanse Balm, Purity Balm and Foot Balm

Full size: £28 for the Cleanse Balm, £23 for the Purity Balm and £16.50 for the Foot Balm

Rating: 4/5

I didn't expect to be quite as impressed with these little balms as I am, as the samples were quite small. The Cleanse Balm only lasted for four applications, but was coincidentally also my favourite out of the bunch. It dissolved make-up in a flash and left it feeling simultaneously cleansed, soothed and nourished. This is one I'll definitely be looking into purchasing a full size of! The Purity Balm works really great to deeply moisturise the skin. I apply it on my face at night and I'm not going to lie: It turns my face into an oil slick! Come morning, however, everything has been absorbed and my skin is wonderfully plumped and softened, but as it's so rich, one application every 2-3 days is usually enough.

The foot balm is my least favourite, as it takes a little bit of effort to work it in, but it's still a really, really lovely product!

Review: Alberto Balsam Sunkissed Raspberry Shampoo and Conditioner

When I was at uni, loads of girls raved about Alberto Balsam - for cash strapped students it seemed to be the go-to shampoo and conditioner brand that promised good results at ridiculously low prices. Ironically, it was only recently that I decided to give them a go (hey, living in London is bloody expensive!) to see if they really were worth the student hype.
I picked up a bottle of the Sunkissed Raspberry shampoo and conditioner at £1 each from Poundworld, as that range promised to moisturise dry hair.

Both products come packaged in a squeezy tube and while they certainly don't look luxurious or expensive, it could be much worse at £1 per bottle. The smell is fairly artificial, but as it's pretty mild I find it rather inoffensive.
The shampoo is a tad sticky upon application (imagine squeezing out semi-set jelly), but gives an excellent lather and gets my hair nice and clean. The conditioner on the other hand is a tad slippy, so you have to use quite a lot, as it tends to just slip down the hair shaft.

I used this duo before bleaching my hair, so my tresses were in fairly good shape, apart from their natural dryness and a fair bit of frizz. Both the shampoo and the conditioner did alright. They sort of did the job of getting my hair clean and soft, but that's about it. No silky tresses, no bouncy locks. Just... clean hair. I know for a fact that if I used this due on my now pretty frazzled hair I would end up looking like a hay bale.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to personal priorities. If you're quite happy with the natural condition of your hair then these will do just fine, but personally, I'd rather invest in more expensive hair products that I know will look after my hair rather than just clean it. In a crunch, I'd say go for the cheap shampoo, but splurge a little on a conditioner from a more expensive brand for better results.

Birchbox April 2013

There seems to be a reoccurring theme that whenever I get a delivery, it ought to be either just as I'm about to head out for a run, or just as I'm stepping into the shower. So, naturally, this month's Birchbox arrived just as I was leaving the door and I was way too excited to just leave it, so off came my trainers and my jacket and my headphones and god knows what else.

This month's theme is "In Bloom" and considering the warm weather that's suddenly hit us yesterday and caused all the trees on my road to magically explode into pink fluffiness, it couldn't have been a better choice!

1) Gerda Spillman | Renaissance Age Serum

Full size: £69 / Sample value: £6.90

Whoops, looks like a had a little silly moment and took a picture of the back side of the sample. But don't worry, the front is fairly unspectacular, so you're not missing much. I'm feeling much less rebellious against anti ageing products these days, so even though it is minuscule, I'll happily give this serum sample a go. It smells absolutely divine, but unfortunately it's going to have to wait on the back-up shelf until I've used up my current serum. And at almost £70 for the full size it would have to be beyond amazing for me to purchase it after the sample runs out!

2) La Societe Parisienne De Savons | Savon Maya

Full size: £8.50 / Sample value: £8.50

This was the first item I spotted as I opened the drawstring bag and it got me beyond excited. Just look at how gorgeous the packaging is! Then I realised it was soap.

Now, nothing against soap, but I'm just not a person that tends to appreciate it. I use shower gel in the shower and hand wash to wash my hands. Soap is slippy, harsh on the skin and always leaves this mucky, slimy residue on the soap dish. Having said that the scent of this one is absolutely beautiful, so it would be a shame to just leave it laying around. Nevertheless, this is more of an item I'd gift to my nan instead of buying it for myself.

3) Mirenesse | Glossy Kiss

Full size: £17.50 / Sample value: £17.50

This was the other product that stood out to me right away as I opened my box this month. I've never heard of Mirenesse, but pencil lip products are having a big moment right now and I'm excited to give this one a go. It's a full sized product, so I'll be getting plenty of use out of it. The colour I got (14. Perfect Kiss) is also really, really pretty. A fire-engine red studded with a light gold shimmer, absolutely gorgeous! From a quick swatch I can see that application is soft and very glossy, so this seems to be a winner!

Random side note: I keep accidentally writing "Glossy Kill" instead of "Glossy Kiss". Just to show what's on my mind these days...

4) Weleda | Skin Food

Full size: £8.95 / Sample value: £1.19

Considering what an institution Weleda has become, especially concerning natural skincare, I'm almost ashamed to say that I've never tried any of their products. Skin Food seems to be one of those cult creams, which I've heard loads and loads about and finally I get my mitts on a sample to try it for myself!

I do, however, struggle a little with multi-purpose balms like this, as I never know what to actually use them for. Give me a choice of options and I'll sit there fretting and eventually go without anything. I'm thinking of trying this on my feet, as my heels are pretty much the only dry skin area I have at the moment.

5) Green & Spring | Relaxing Conditioner

Full size: £16 / Sample Value: £2.67

I love the design of this little bottle, it's so cute! In this box you'd randomly get either the shampoo or the conditioner and I have to admit that I'm a little peeved, as I much prefer using the same brand shampoo and conditioner together. But oh well...

The scent of this is a tad strong for my tastes - you can really, REALLY smell the lavender and the rosemary that have gone into the product, but I imagine it would leave a beautiful lingering scent on the hair after washing. This is another product that will certainly get used up.

Lifestyle Extra: Birchbox | Paname Paris Mirror

Full size: £7.50 / Sample value: £7.50

Oh, c'mon. You gotta be kidding me. This is literally one of the worst compact mirrors I have ever seen in my life. It weighs about a gram and doesn't even have a lid! If I put this in my handbag it would get ruined within seconds. I don't know who they're trying to fool with the supposed £7.50 price tag, but yeah, good luck selling a mirrored badge for that price. I absolutely hate it when beauty boxes make their own shoddy tools and try to sell them as luxury beauty samples. At least Birchbox had the decency to include this as an extra instead of one of the actual five samples. But I would have much rather received a single tea bag or something, rather than this rubbish. Rant over.

So, my second Birchbox has been full of ups and downs to be honest with you. The only real highlight is the lip crayon, though I will certainly use every single product and I really like the fact that they're all brands I haven't tried before. The inclusion of two full sized products is also a bonus.

The soap on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment, even though it was one of the two full sized products and the mirror... let's no longer talk about the mirror.

The total value of this box comes in at £44.26 for those of you who are interested.

John Frieda Colour Renew Shampoo & Conditioner Review

So, a few months back, towards the end of last year I decided I needed a bit of a radical change and bleached my naturally medium-dark brown hair to become a blonde for the first time in my life. It took a total of three (!!!) bleaches until I finally achieved the result I was aiming for.
Chuffed that I'd managed to put my hair through such an ordeal without it falling out or snapping off (my hair is tough as nails, apparently), imagine how p'ed off I was when after every single wash it started turning distinctively more yellow. As it turns out, hard water can really enhance any brassiness on bleached hair and living in Southwest London the water here is so hard you could easily knock someone out with a splash of tap water. A few people recommended using a purple shampoo, so off I went to my local Boots and stocked up on the John Frieda Colour Renew Tone Correcting shampoo - and the conditioner as well, just for good measure.

To make a long story short, both of these completely failed me. The shampoo does have a distinctive  bright purple colour, whereas the conditioner is more of a lavender shade. It's recommended to use it once or twice a week to eliminate any brassiness.
After the first use, I noticed no difference whatsoever. I thought that maybe I hadn't left them on for long enough, so next time I left both the shampoo and the conditioner to work a little bit longer. Sure enough, some of the yellowness was eliminated, but instead, my hair had gone orange.

Naturally, it didn't occur to me to blame the products, but I thought it was just the water, or that the dye job had been botched somehow. So, in an attempt to get rid of the orange hue, I kept on using it more and more until one day it occurred to me to just try a regular shampoo. Lo and behold, the orangeness diminished.
As for hair conditioning properties, both the shampoo and the conditioner performed alright, though were nowhere near as nourishing as I'd expect for a product aimed at bleached (and therefore damaged) hair.
All in all a big fat thumbs down from me. If you want to eliminate yellow tones in your hair just to make it orange instead, go for it, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend these to anybody.
I've since tried a different purple and shampoo combo by Lee Stafford and they both perform brilliantly, so expect a review soon.

These retail at £5.89 each per 250ml tube. I noticed that both the shampoo and the conditioner have since been repackaged, though I don't know if they've been reformulated as well.

Do you have bleached hair, and if so, how do you care for it?

Garnier Fructis Pure Volume shampoo and conditioner

Oh, the woes of buying shampoo and conditioner. I've had some good ones, some average ones and some bad ones, but somehow all the good ones seem to be extremely expensive, so I end up sticking to cheap and (hopefully) average. The thing with this combo in particular is that I had a sample of the two to play around with before purchasing the full size and I quite liked it. For the small price tag, it would have been rude to not buy the full size!

Garnier Pure Volume shampoo and conditioner (or Heisses Volumen as it is known in Germany where I bought these two bottles) claims to contain heat activated particles that lift and strengthen your hair whenever you use heated appliances on it. It's currently available in Germany, Australia and a handful of other countries, but I couldn't find it in any UK shops yet.

This offering from Fructis does not differ an awful lot from its other ranges. Both have a fruity but fairly artificial scent. The shampoo lathers and rinses well whereas the conditioner provides a good amount of slip, but does tend to drip if you want to leave it to sink in a little longer. If you're trying to avoid sulphates, parabens and silicones then stay away because these two are bursting with those ingredients.

As for the volumising claims my little sachet sample really seemed to work. I used the shampoo followed by the conditioner, towel dried my hair, then used a hair dryer, went to bed and straightened it in the morning. And my hair really did seem to have more lift and volume than usual, with the effect lasting pretty much all day.
However, that seemed to have been a lucky one-off. As I repeated the same procedure with the full sized products they did nothing special whatsoever. I tried using them in the morning instead, drying on different temperatures, but nothing. That initial hit of volume seemed to have gone forever and once again I was left with "average". Not to mention that the 48 hour claim was completely unsubstantiated.

I don't want to give this too bad of a review, because it's not a bad product. It's just as average as most of your other drugstore brands like Pantene or Herbal Essences. However, I feel a bit let down by the fact that the sample performed so well while the full sizes just did not do what they claimed.

I paid 2,25€ each for the shampoo and the conditioner.

John Frieda Full Repair Shampoo and Conditioner Review

There were quite a few reviews of the Full Repair range floating about a while ago and as they were mainly positive I decided to give the shampoo and conditioner a go myself!

Vor einiger Zeit gab es recht viele Reviews von der Full Repair Reihe im Internet und da sie zumeist positiv ausfielen, beschloss ich, das Shampoo und die Spülung selbst auszuprobieren.

The range is quite easily available in both drugstores and supermarkets, so I could just pick these up along with my grocery shop. My hair is fairly thick but dry and the issue I have with most hair ranges is that they're either not moisturising enough or they weigh my hair down making it look flat. This range promises to deliver the perfect in-between: rich moisturisation while leaving hair somewhat alive.

Die Reihe ist gut erhältlich in Drogerien und Supermärkten, also konnte ich die bei einem meiner regelmäßigen Einkaufstrips mitnehmen. Mein Haar ist recht dick, aber trocken. Das Problem, das ich mit den meisten Haarprodukten habe, ist dass sie entweder nicht genug Feuchtigkeit spenden, oder meinem Haar jegliche Kraft rauben, sodass es völlig platt wird. Diese Reihe verspricht den perfekten Kompromiss: reichhaltige Pflege während noch etwas Leben im Haar bleibt.

Both the shampoo and conditioner come in travel friendly tubes and come in generous 250ml sizes. There's not much to say about the packaging other than that it does its job very well without looking cheap and tacky.

Sowohl das Shampoo als auch die Spülung sind in reisefreundlichen Tuben verpackt, die mit 250ml recht großzügig ausfallen. Es gibt nicht viel über die Verpackung zu sagen, außer dass sie ihren Zweck gut erfüllt ohne dabei billig auszusehen.

Both products have the same salon like smell which I find incredibly difficult to describe, so I hope you all know what I mean. The scent isn't too strong, so those with a sensitive nose should be alright to use this. Texture-wise both products are very average, with just enough slip for easy application without any dripping. They're both quite pleasant to use - the shampoo lathers well and the conditioner instantly softens my hair.

Beide Produkte haben diesen Frisörsalon-Geruch, den ich nur schwer beschreiben kann, also hoffe ich, dass ihr wisst, was ich meine. Der Geruch ist nicht allzu stark, also gut für die, die eine sensible Nase haben. Von der Konsistenz sind beide recht durchschnittlich und lassen sich gut auftragen ohne zu tropfen. Beide lassen sich angenehm auftragen - das Shampoo produziert reichlich Schaum und die Spülung macht meine Haare sofort schön weich.

Neither of these products quite delivered on the claim I mentioned above. They are very moisturising, yes, but they certainly weighed my hair down - a lot! I tried using them separately and I noticed that the conditioner isn't so bad, but the shampoo is the real offender here. I don't use any other hair products with these, no oils, sprays or styling products, as that would just be overkill, but my hair just doesn't feel nice afterwards. If I blowdry it it goes limp, but if I air dry it it gets downright greasy - and that's straight after washing!!
Everyone with very, very dry and frazzled hair: This is for you. I have seriously never tried a hair product this rich and that includes any deep conditioner or hair oil I've ever laid my hands upon. Everyone with oily or fine hair: Run. Do not touch this, ever. For those with normal or just dry, but not extremely dry hair you might be able to make this work if you use it sparingly, but I'd definitely not recommend it for everyday use.

Keines von den beiden hält jedoch seine Versprechungen ein. Sie sind zwar sehr reichhaltig, aber nicht ohne meine Haare zu beschweren! Ich hab sie mal einzeln ausprobiert und stellte fest, dass die Spülung nicht so schlimm ist, aber der Bösewicht ist das Shampoo. Ich benutze keine anderen Haarprodukte mit diesen beiden, also keine Öle, Sprays oder Stylingprodukte, weil das einfach der totale Overkill wäre. Wenn ich meine Haare hiernach föhne, werden sie platt und leblos, aber wenn ich sie an der Luft trockne, werden sie sogar richtig fettig - und das gleich nach dem Waschen!!
Alle von euch, die sehr, sehr trockenes und sprödes Haar haben: Diese zwei sind richtig für euch. Ich habe noch nie im Leben so ein reichhaltiges Haarprodukt getestet und damit meine ich auch jegliche Haarkuren und -öle, die ich jemals angefasst habe. Alle, die fettiges oder feines Haar haben: Lauft. Fasst diese Produkte ja nie an. Diejenigen, die normales oder "nur" trockenes und nicht extrem trockenes Haar haben, könnten mit ihnen zurechtkommen, wenn man sie nur ab und zu verwendet, aber auf keinen Fall würde ich dazu raten, sie täglich zu verwenden.

These cost £5.69 each, but at the time of writing Boots are running an offer where you can get them both for £7.50.

Beide Produkte kosten jeweils 7.99€ aber zurzeit kann man sie im Rossmann zum halben Preis mit jeweils 3.99€ bekommen.

Hair Saving Superheroes

First of all, sorry about the long absence and lack of posting. I've got loads and loads of ideas for posts, from reviews to NOTDs and possibly a few tutorials thrown in as well, but unfortunately time is incredibly short at the moment. I'm quite literally working day and night, so I haven't got a lot of energy in the time I do have for posting. Hopefully that will change soon enough.

This post is about a few things that have absolutely transformed my hair from a frizzy, limp mess into something a lot more acceptable. A few years back I used to dye my hair black, but then got bored of it and wanted to go back to my natural hair colour (a darkish brown), so had it bleached out. This was pretty much death for my hair - I had it cut quite short afterwards, but it was only about five months ago that the last bit of bleached hair was chopped off. It didn't get much better afterwards either, though. My hair is naturally quite dry, but over the summer it somehow managed to be frizzy, damaged and greasy at the same time.
Even my boyfriend and parents started commenting on the terrible condition of my hair (if anyone else dared to I probably would have killed them, haha). I just didn't know what to do with it.

The first thing that really made a difference in the condition of my hair was a keratin supplement. My mum got me some as she was taking it for her weak nails and thought it would be good for mine as well. I didn't notice any difference in my nails, but boy did it transform my hair! It completely got rid of the limpness and balanced it out, so it wasn't greasy at the roots and frayed at the tips. I tried a couple and they all worked fine, but I would like to issue a word of warning: It worked like a dream for me, but some people produce enough keratin as it is and too much of it can cause horrible course hair and thick skin. I have now stopped taking it and will continue using a box every other month or so.

My second little saviour is this Iron Style & Hold Spray by TRESemme, for £4.80. I know a lot of people hate this product, but there's a reason for that. It says on the bottle that you can use it on wet/damp hair as well as on dry hair.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER use this on dry hair before using heated styling devices. It will leave your hair sticky and crunchy and makes styling extremely difficult.
However, if you use it on wet hair before blow drying it's a completely different story. I use a few spritzes all around and then massage it into towel dried hair before getting my hair dryer out and the end result is lovely and smooth. As it's also a styling spray I don't need any hair spray afterwards unless I'm doing an updo or curling my hair (which I don't do often). A really great product if used on wet hair.

Sorry about the grainy-ness in these pictures - I had to take them late at night and ramp the ISO on my camera way up

This is just love in a bottle. I cannot even begin to describe how much I love these two bottles of heaven. The Ojon Damage Reverse shampoo costs £20 and the conditioner retails at £21.50. I got these for free at a special John Lewis event and as they're quite on the pricey side I would have never usually bought them, but OH MY GOD.
After the first wash I was unsure, the second wash was a bit better and then from the third wash onwards I was completely hooked. It's like this product has taken my hair off and replaced it with something much nicer. It's so soft I just want to stroke it all the time. It's smooth but not so slick that it won't react to styling. It's never been so shiny no matter how much oil, serum or shine spray I put over it.  And the day after washing it only gets better! I'm so in love with this, so even though the price tag does hurt a little bit I will be repurchasing this whenever my hair needs a little pick-me-up.
Of course it's meant for very, very dry hair, so if yours tends to be a bit oily this is probably way too heavy for you, but anyone else who just gets course and frizzy and dry hair this really is a miracle worker. It does exactly what it says on the tin: it really does reverse the damage my hair has suffered in all this time.

Naturally, I'm still not completely satisfied with my hair, as I feel that it could do with a little bit more volume now that it's all silky and smooth. But I'm pretty sure that's nothing that can't be fixed with some heated rollers, the right products and even the odd bit of backcombing. If you have any recommendations for products that would push up the volume on my hair without making it all dry and frizzy again, please leave them in the comment box below, as I'd love to hear about them!

Glossybox September - Tried and Tested

A few weeks ago I finally decided to jump onto the Glossybox bandwagon. Glossybox is a monthly service that sends you five luxury samples in a box so you can try out new brands and products from the comfort of your own home without having to commit to a full size and the price tag it may carry. It costs £10,00 for the box itself plus post and packaging, which is £2,95 in my case. You can currently cancel at any time.
I subscribed thinking I'd get my first box delivered next month, but they still had some left from September and it arrived within three days despite the fact it ended up at the wrong address at first. (The address on the label was correct by the way, so it was the post's mistake.)
I've now had enough time to try out all of the samples that I got, so here's my honest opinion on them. I forgot to take pictures of the packaging, which is absolutely gorgeous, but then there's loads of those out there already, so shouldn't be too hard to find if you haven't seen it yet. Also, apologies for the quality of some of the images. I injured my arm a while ago and holding a heavy camera is difficult at the best of times. Anyway, let's start with the first product on the list:

The first sample I got was a 10ml tube of GreenPeople's Day Solution which retails at £13.95 for a full-size, 50ml product. The size of the sample is decent, as I've still got a little bit left. The cream itself is 94% organic and can be used on all skin types. It has a delicate scent of chamomile and a dense, but light texture, a little bit like Vichy's Normaderm.
Now, I have rather normal skin which gets a bit oily on the t-zone in summer but dries out a little in winter. I only break up if I seriously neglect my skin, for example if I don't take my make-up off before bed. However, I've had a bit of a skin nightmare lately, as I kept getting impurities that never fully broke out. Instead, they formed lots of tiny little lumps under my skin which drove me completely mad.
After using this for a couple of days the lumps disappeared and my skin cleared up. I'm not entirely sure if that's because this moisturiser is amazing or whether it's because my previous one was awful. Either way, it sorted out my skin and makes it feel all lush and wonderful, so I am considering buying the full-size product. Being mostly organic is also a bonus, but unfortunately it doesn't have a built in SPF, so you'd have to wear a separate one on top.

 

The second product was not a sample, but an actual full-sized brow and eye palette by HD Brows which retails at £19.95! I'm not going to lie: seeing this product in other people's boxes is one of the reasons I signed up for Glossybox in the first place. This one's called Foxy and apparently there are others, but I could not find any on HD Brows' website. Rather, you have to call a hotline if you want any product information or if you want to order one of these yourself.
Some people's palettes came in a box and padded with bubble wrap to protect it, but mine unfortunately didn't and the outer casing was a little bit scratched as a result. The inside was fine, however, and that's all that matters. There are four eye and brow powders, which are called from left to right: Nude, Carbon, Warm Brown and Ash Brown. As you can see the colours are very, very densely pigmented and matte. I use Ash Brown on my eye brows which gives a lovely amount of definition without making my whole face look scary. I also use a short, flat brush on Carbon and use it as an eye liner and it has the most amazing deep colour. These powders cling on to hair like nothing else and after a long day they still cling on to my eyebrows and eyelashes for dear life.
I tried using the other two as eyeshadows, but unfortunately both creased after about four hours of wear and they're not such amazing colours that I'd use a primer underneath. It also said that Nude could be used as a highlighter, but as I'm quite pale (I'm a MAC NC15), it was actually darker than my natural skin tone, so that didn't quite work out. All in all it's a lovely product and though I'm not sure I would have bought it in a shop it certainly meant I got my money's worth with this month's box.

Another organic product was The Green Balm by MOA. It doesn't say how much was in the sample, but it was teeny tiny, so I'm guessing about 5ml if not less. This is meant to be an all over skin "miracle product" that helps pretty much anything. It has a waxy texture in the pot, but melts into an oil on your skin. It smells noticeably of tea tree oil, which is one of its main ingredients.
I can't really say much about this product, as I haven't had any skin "emergencies" as of yet - I tend to get those as the temperatures get closer to zero degrees. I've used it on my lips and it felt really lovely and nourishing and I've also put little bits on other parts of my skin and it feels a lot like Eight Hour Cream by Elizabeth Arden. I'm thinking about buying a full sized pot of this as I've just run out of Eight Hour Cream (boyfriend keeps stealing it!) and this product costs less than half at £9.99 for 50ml. This is the one with lots of potential, but I'm just not too sure about it yet.

This one's a little bit of a joke - a 1.5ml perfume sample, like one of those you'd get in a department store without even having to buy anything, or with your weekly magazine if you're a subscriber. Then again, as it's perfume you either like it and wear it or you don't like it - in which case you haven't got much use for a sample no matter how big it is.
The scent is a bit weird in that I can't quite figure out who it's aimed at. It smells very, very sweet and rich at first and then descends into warm and spicy undertones. It reminds me of sweet, mulled wine and Christmas markets. It's far too musky and spicy for a younger audience, whereas I'd imagine that more mature women will find it too sweet and sickly. Personally I don't mind it, but as opposed to other perfumes I haven't received any compliments while I was wearing it and certainly won't be purchasing the full size.

The final sample were four little sachets of Rahua Shampoo and Conditioner. Again, something you'd find in a magazine sometimes, but at least you got two of each and they were actually filled rather generously, so that there was enough in each sachet for longer hair as well. AND they put it in a pretty little tulle bag.
This one's by far the most difficult for me. The first time I used it I HATED it and the second time I loved it. I think it might be because I didn't manage to get all the product out of the sachet the first time round and there simply wasn't enough there for my hair, whereas the second time I used some scissors to cut it up lengthways and got every last drop.
This is another product that boasts organic and 100% natural ingredients. As a result, the shampoo does. not. lather. at. all. It will still get your hair so clean it actually squeaks when you wash it out (no, really, it does squeak), so it's great for people who use a lot of styling products because it will get them out without a problem. The conditioner then made my hair the softest and shiniest it's been in ages (that was the second time I used it, mind you). I did, however, notice that both products made me shed a lot more hair than usual, which was a little bit worrying.
It seems that if you use a generous amount these two products are absolutely amazing. My hair is so soft I want to touch it all the time, it smells gorgeous and I could easily skip the shine serum that I usually use after styling. Here's the problem though: A full bottle of shampoo (275ml) retails at £26 whereas the same size bottle of conditioner will set you back £27.50. Even with the discount you get on the card that comes with the Glossybox that's still way too expensive considering I get through a bottle of shampoo and conditioner each month. If you've got the budget then go for it, because these are really fantastic products, but I think I'll be sticking with my trusted Pantene for a while.