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!

Hello Fresh Food Subscription Box Review

In my April Love Me Beauty box I received a £25 money off voucher for Hello Fresh, a subscription box service that sends you all the ingredients you need to cook 3 or 5 meals a week from scratch. They include absolutely everything, from fresh produce down to little extras, herbs and spices, as well as detailed recipe cards with step by step instructions on how to cook your meals. While I always thought it was a brilliant idea, particularly if you're constantly faced with the trouble of figuring out what to cook, it was always the price that put me off. At £39 a week for three meals for two people, it works out at £6.50 a meal - when I do my regular shops our meals tend to work out at half of that, if not less! Without the voucher, I don't think I would have ever taken the plunge to try this service.

My first initial experience was not a positive one. Sign-up was quick and simple and I liked that you could swap over recipes that you knew you wouldn't like, so I could cater for my boyfriend's tastes, as he is an incredibly fussy eater. I was advised my box would come on Tuesday between 9 and 5 o'clock,  which was great as I was off work for the whole day, so could get my delivery and not have to do a food shop that day. Five o'clock came and no box.... Six o'clock, still no box. Eventually I gave up waiting and phoned customer service, who then told me that my box would be with me on Wednesday, as it was a bank holiday weekend - which wouldn't have been a problem, if someone had bothered to tell me. I was told by the man on the phone that they usually send out a text, but must have the wrong contact details. He didn't, however, bother with taking my contact details to check.

I got off the phone and I was fuming. Nobody messes with my food! I had to, err, make other arrangements for dinner that night (read: order a takeaway), and my box did eventually arrive early Wednesday morning.

Vegetables, baked goods, herbs and spices were packed loosely in the box while all the meat and dairy was wrapped with ice packs in a plastic bag lined with woolcool liners. I already know these from my weekly Abel and Cole deliveries and they work really great at keeping all your produce cool, so I know that even if I wasn't in all my stuff would have been fine till the evening.

These are the recipes I got in my box along with pictures of how it ended up looking when I made the meal.

Swingball Meatballs with Smoked Tomato Linguine

I made this recipe a day after receiving my box and unfortunately by that time the carrots had already managed to go mouldy! Thank goodness that I still had some carrots in my fridge that I could use, but I wasn't overly happy with my delivered vegetables not even being able to make it past the first day.
The actual dish was fairly easy to prepare, although it did require a lot more chopping than I would have liked. I tend to grate my carrot and I don't usually put celery in any of my tomato sauces, as I hate the taste of it. For the sake of following this recipe to a T, I left the celery in there and I admit that once it had cooked into the sauce it wasn't quite so bad. Unfortunately, I found the finished sauce to be quite bland, so I had to add what felt like a ton of salt and a gallon of hot sauce to improve the dish.
To be fair though, that's not something I blame Hello Fresh for, as I always have to add tons of seasoning to any shop bought ready meals and it's not really that much of a problem to add some spice to your food. The actual pasta was absolutely amazing - some of the best I've ever tried and the meatballs were very lovely as well.

Umami Burger with Rustic Chips and Rocket Salad

My boyfriend hates anything that's remotely healthy, so I had to leave out all the salad for him, but still he didn't enjoy his meal. Like I said, he's a fussy eater! I actually thought this was absolutely lovely! Adding garlic salt onto potato wedges is something I am forever going to do from now on. This is the first time I've ever used Umami paste and while it tastes absolutely revolting on its own, it did add a very special flavour to the burger. I've since also added it to mushroom sauce and it tasted absolutely divine! I think this was my favourite meal out of the three.

A Really Special Chicken Fried Rice with Pistachio and Sesame

This is the recipe I made last and by the time I'd gotten round to it (about five days after my box got delivered), the spring onions looked like they were on the brink of death and I had to throw half of them away. To further add to my annoyance, the recipe included way more chopping than I would have liked and I also found the cooking process very unnecessarily long-winded (for example: I would not usually wait for half an hour to cook chicken thighs in the oven before adding them to a stir-fry, but rather chop them up and fry them in a pan for five minutes).
I did really enjoy this dish in the end, although I had to add a lot of salt again to make it a bit less bland. As you can see on the picture above the portions on this one in particular were huge! I really struggled to finish my meal and that's even though I hadn't eaten since breakfast.

You certainly can't fault Hello Fresh on portion sizes. They are very generous and filling and although I had to add extra seasoning to pretty much all of my meals, I found them to be rather tasty in general. My boyfriend didn't enjoy any of them, but as I said, he's an extremely fussy eater who won't touch anything that's not meat, bread or cheese. Overall, the quality of the ingredients was top-notch, apart from the vegetables. For a box that's meant to last all week to include vegetables that go mouldy after a day is really not acceptable.

I think my biggest peeve with the box is the price. £13 a day for two people is just extortionate considering you've still got to do all the cooking yourself. Even if I was shopping in Waitrose or Marks & Spencer's every day I'm pretty sure I could feed us both for less than that. Hello Fresh did include a card with my box detailing how a comparable shop would be more expensive in pretty much every supermarket, but I just find that very hard to believe. Add to that my experience of rather poor customer service and you can see why I cancelled pretty much as soon as I got my box and won't be looking to resubscribe anytime soon. While I still think it's a great idea, the value for money just isn't there with this box.

Book review: The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods

Title: The Genius of Dogs

Author: Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods

Price: £8.99

Type: Non-fiction, Pop-Science

Pages: 282

It was while browsing a WH Smith before getting on a long train journey that I picked up my very first pop-science book. I'm usually much more drawn to fiction than to non-fiction, but the title just drew me in somehow. Every dog owner in the world will be able to tell you that dogs are lot more clever than what we give them credit for and I was hoping to gain a better insight into what goes on in my little puppy's mind from reading this book.

From the very first page I was hooked. The book is divided into three parts: The first one explores how dogs evolved from wolves, became domesticated and developed the kind of intelligence they are showing today. The second part shows the findings of some experiments that detail exactly in which ways dogs can be considered to be a genius and in which disciplines they can, let's say, be a little silly. Finally, the third part, labelled "Your Dog" delves into different breeds and how to train your genius dog.

I found the first part to be incredibly fascinating. I always wondered what had happened thousands of years ago, for a wild and pretty aggressive animal like the wolf to slowly but surely become man's best friend. Turns out that it's highly likely that it wasn't us domesticating dogs, but more that dogs domesticated themselves, seeing a chance of obtaining easy food and shelter in return for guarding their shared territory and helping humans in hunts. The book is full of facts and figures, but it is written in such a light and entertaining fashion, that it reads like a breeze without being at all overwhelming.

The second part dragged for me a little bit, as it detailed a ton of experiments which to be honest didn't show anything I didn't already know having owned three dogs already. We know that dogs react to pointing gestures and verbal commands, but I guess if you ever needed scientific proof of that, then that's where you get it.

The final part of the book was where I got quite frustrated. From the titles of the chapters I expected some practical insight into how I can best train my dog by tapping into the particular way her mind works. Turns out, it was nothing like that. The authors basically concluded that all races are equally intelligent and that dogs are really great. They did make a reference to their website, which offers exactly what I'd been hoping from the last chapter of this book... for a small fee of $38 a month. Needless to say, I felt cheated and a little scammed. A terrible end to what had started out as a great book.

Because I enjoyed the first part so much, but was a bit annoyed by the other two parts, it's quite difficult to give this book an overall rating. To be fair, my disappointment stems mainly from going into the book expecting some practical advice. As I mentioned above, this is the first pop-science book I've ever bought or read, so if all books in the genre are like this, then it's my expectations that were wrong. I'd probably say that if you're interested in dogs, then this is a book worth borrowing or renting from the library... but not to spend money on.

Love Me Beauty Box May 14

Just like last month, Love Me Beauty's menu choices for May didn't get me particularly excited, either. But seeing as I did end up positively surprised last time around, I opted against skipping the month and chose the third Edition, as I found that one the most appealing. I'll be honest from the start and say that there was no element of positive surprise when I opened this box and for the first time since the very start of my subscription (almost a year ago!) I feel disappointed with the contents of my box.

1) Nail Girls | Nail Polish in "Nude Pink"

Full size: £13.50

This is probably my favourite product in this month's box. After getting rid of all the polishes in my collection that had become crusty and/or separated, I was left with a gaping hole in the "soft pinks" compartment, which this nail polish will fill nicely. I've never heard of the brand Nail Girls before, but I'm more than happy to give them a go. The brush is nice and wide and upon first inspection the polish seems to be nice and thick and non streaky. This product was featured in all three Editions.

2) Raw Skincare | Natural Lip balm in "Rescue Me"

Full size: £2.98

I didn't really fancy the mint or the ginger lip balm that was available in the other Editions (they're both tastes and smells that I don't really like), so I went for the deeply moisturising option instead. I always manage to lose my lip balms, so I'm happy to have another one to keep me going for a bit, especially seeing as Raw Skincare is yet another brand that's completely new to me. It has that typical natural lip balm texture, which is a little waxy and grainy, though it's fine once you've had a little bit of time to get used to it. I like that it's non-greasy, but I'm not sure it would really manage to rescue my lips if they were as dry as they get in winter, as it doesn't really feel all that moisturising.

3) GO Stationery | Pocket Notebook Set in "Meadow Bird"

Full size: £5.00

This product has actually genuinely annoyed me this month. While it's a nice design and I'm sure I'll find a way of using all three of the little notebooks, they just do not belong in a beauty box. I've always said that I like it when subscription services think outside the box a little bit, like when they included vitamin supplements for skin and hair, but this is just a step too far. If I wanted a notebook I'd go to WH Smith or Paperchase and I'd get myself a notebook. It's got nothing to do with beauty and is just a completely random space filler in this month's box.

4) Suti | Trial Pack in Cleanse Balm, Purity Balm and Fabulous Foot Balm

Half a trial pack / Value: £3.25

On to the next disappointment. I was really looking forward to trying this pack of three balms, but my excitement diminished when I saw the size of the samples. They're just so tiny! I reckon I'll get about 2-3 applications out of each, which isn't really enough to judge a product's efficacy. Suti actually sell this trial pack on their website, but on there it comes with two face oils and a moisturiser as well, so I feel a little cheated out of half of the products, especially as it's advertised as being the full trial pack on the card that came with my box. To be honest with you, I probably would have preferred to just have one larger sample than those three tiny little ones.

5) Tea Pigs | Tea in "Super Fruit"

3 Tea Envelopes / Value: £1.95

This is another product I'm really annoyed with this month. It's not the first time I've seen tea in beauty boxes and while I can see the connection if you're going for a "health and beauty from within" angle, it's okay if it pops up as an extra - but not if it's considered to be one of my beauty samples! Granted, I've wanted to try some Teapigs tea for a while, so I'm happy to finally have some to try, but I would have much preferred to have another cosmetic product in my box instead.

Total value: £26.68

This month's box gets a big fat, thumbs down from me. I can deal with the minuscule balm samples, but having not one but two products in my box that are completely unrelated to beauty has really annoyed me. Thankfully I'm really looking forward to using the nail polish once my nails have healed up a little bit, so that alone has made this box worth it for me. I guess we've been really spoilt with Love Me Beauty boxes over the last year. Every month there would be three to four full sized products and almost all of them were absolute hits, so it was only a matter of time before they started to not live up to their high standards. Box value has also been steadily decreasing over time and while I'm not one to only demand super high-end samples (not that I could afford to buy the products anyway), I do feel like I'm getting less bang for my buck lately. I really hope that Love Me Beauty will be back on form again next month.

NOTD: Rimmel Green Grass

It's been a while since I last did a nail post, mainly due to the fact that my nails have been incredibly weak and brittle lately and I didn't feel like drawing attention to all my snapped off finger nails by painting them any bright colours. Maybe it's time to get myself a bottle of Nail Envy to build them back up a little?

Either way, spring has officially sprung and that means there's no more reasons to hold back the pastels and the brights.

Rimmel polishes are highly underrated in my honest opinion. Their brushes are nice and wide which makes painting your nails a breeze and the formula requires no more than one coat on the darker shades and two coats on the lighter ones.

What I like in particular about this bright green shade is that it's quite a unique shade you won't find very often. Greens tend to be either very dark, or light and milky, but this is a really bright, in-your-face variation that just screams happiness and spring.