Hair, Beauty & Mental Health

I've been meaning to be purchasing a new mascara for ages, after my L'Oréal False Lash Superstar ran out.Although I was really happy with the Superstar, I was seeing a lot of hype about this one and I waited a few weeks until some reviews came out about it.Boots are currently doing an offer (at the time of this post), that you get a free eye mask with any of the Miss Baby Roll Mascara's, so that sold me for my pamper days.

The packaging of this mascara is pretty cute and vibrant.Depending on the colour of the mascara you choose, the bottom half of the tube will reflect that colour, so in my case, the bottom half of the tube is black.The formula is very different from all of the previous mascara's that I've used by L'Oréal, for example the the False Lash Superstar and Volume Million Lashes.Its very very thick, and upon taking it out of the tube, a lot of the product was left on the brush.I had to put the excess amount back in the tube, because there was nooooo way that I was going to be left with spider eyes.Using the amount that was left over on the brush, I applied the "roller brush" as described by L'Oréal to my eyelashes, moving back and forth from root to tip as recommended.

I'm in love with the design of this brush and it kind of reminds me of the twister ice cream as it twirls all the way to the tip.Its a very easy applicator to put on, however you only need a very small amount to achieve voluminous eyelashes.After applying it just the once, my lashes were left with a beautiful natural looking curl, but after brushing it root to tip as recommended, it started to leave them looking a bit clumpy.This isn't really a fault with the mascara in my opinion, I probably still used a little too much and you only need the smallest amount to achieve full looking lashes.

It dries very quickly, so this might of been why it left them looking a bit clumpy as I went to re-apply another layer after about a minute.It hasn't transferred or left any dark circles under my eyes, despite touching my eyes a lot during the day.To remove this mascara, I highly recommend using the Nivea Essentials Eye Makeup Remover, which is my personal favourite to remove any strong staying powered products.For the price of £7.99, I think its very reasonably priced and I would of thought it would be around the £10-£12 mark.You can pick this mascara up from many beauty retailers, but if you want to get your hands on the beautiful, satin soft eye mask, its only available at Boots

L'Oréal has been stepping up there game recently, by not only adding more foundation shades to cater for us medium and darker skin toned folks, but now a range our curly, afro, kinky hair too.This range has been out for a little while, but its either selling out completely or the store don't stock it.I couldn't find it at my local Boots and Superdrug, so when I saw it available at Amazon, I picked it up so fast.I decided to just pick up the cleansing conditioner, along with the hair masque, because I'm perfectly happy with the current shampoo that I've got and the shampoo has been getting quite a lot of negative reviews.I owned the original Extraordinary Oil range and although my hair loved it at the beginning, it got to the point where my hair was feeling extremely yucky from the buildup after longterm use.My curls are a mixture of 3a/3b/3c

The packaging is always on point when it comes to L'Oréal, and I'm really glad that they decided to shape the bottle like the Kérestase Curl Ideal Cleansing Conditioner, that are also owned by L'Oréal.I've found with this new design that its so much easier to pump the product out, instead of shaking the bottle to get the product out like the old packaging.It was also a nuisance to stand the product on the cap, and the product had hardened, making it a mess and wasting the product (shown below).You don't have this issue with this new designed bottle, however L'Oréal have kept the same styled bottle for the other conditioner in this range, so thats something to keep in mind.The masque is the exact same design like the others which I'm glad that they've kept, because its easy to just scoop the amount of product that you want out of the pot, and screw the lid back on with zero mess.The original conditioner bottle is shown below and its grim:

I've been through a lot of conditioners, even the expensive Kérastase products as mentioned in this post, but this cleansing conditioner does such a good job for the price.Before using this product, I want to point out that I had not washed my hair properly for 2weeks, because I had the flu.I had to constantly just apply product after product to keep it moisturised and you can imagine the amount of build up that was sitting on my scalp and hair.The cleansing conditioner doesn't foam like it says on the bottle, but you can seriously feel it working its magic on the hair.In the photo above, that is just one pump, but for me, I need at least two pumps to work for the whole of my hair.Its recommended to massage onto the scalp, whilst combing or finger detangling to separate the curls.I always use my trusty Denman or Lily England paddle brush for this, as they don't tug on the hair at all.After doing that for about a minute, I washed my hair with luke warm water, which was super easy to wash out and my scalp was left feeling very clean.My hair wasn't left feeling dry or stripped and smelt so delicious.If you're not a fan of the scent from the original extraordinary oil range, you might like this one because they smell completely different and has more of a floral scent to it.I feel this cleansing conditioner can just work well on its own like a co-wash, but if you're wanting that extra hair treatment or nourishment, I would follow up with the hair masque from this range.I will be switching to this cleansing conditioner once my Kérastase runs out, because I prefer this L'Oréal one more and I'll be saving pennies.

I admit, I did try applying just a walnut sized amount on my hair, because its not gonna hurt right?but like I predicted, I needed at least another 2-3scoops for my thick curls.It recommends to then leave it on for 2-3minutes which sounded good to me, so I went to go cuddle my cats until it was time to rinse it out.This masque was incredibly easy to wash out, like it was melting away from my hair strands.My hair was not only left extremely soft with a lot of moisture and no frizz, but I had some definition going on too!I wanted to make sure that this definition was going to stay though, beause you can't have too much definition, so I applied my favourite curl product which is the Camille Rose Naturals Curl Maker.

I had such a good hair day on that day, that I was comfortable with just having my hair down and being able to take pictures for my other blog posts.My hair only got a little bit of frizz on top which is mainly my fault, because I couldn't stop touching my hair.I'm so shocked at how well these two products worked on my hair and how they left me with such great results.The prices vary between each retailer, but sell from just £1.98-£5.99 each, which is a fantastic price, especially since I've spent so much more on other brands that don't leave my hair feeling and looking this good.Although I'm intrigued to try the shampoo and conditioner from this range, I'm currently very happy with just the two of these.I think it would be interesting to see L'Oréal releasing a curl cream, oil or spray for this range like the others.

If you remember back in September this year, I went a bit crazy and purchased a lot of L'Oréal products.This product in particular has been advertised in the past month on TV and I thought now would be a good time to let you know my thoughts on it, since I've nearly been reviewing it for 2months.I've used L'Oréal hair products in the past, and with my hair type they can be hit and miss.This review in particular will be on the Extra Strong Hold Curl Créme De Mousse.

Firstly I'm going to start on the packaging itself, and like always L'Oréal really know how to make it look really pretty.Its just like the rest of the Elnett range thats a sturdy gold bottle with the little illustration on the front.It comes with a plastic nozzle at the top where the mousse comes out, which can be a little flimy at times, so you have to be careful on how much product you wish to distribute onto your hand/hair.

Before using this for the first time, I was under the impression that the product was in form of a "créme".The reason why I thought of this was because before I decided to go for either the normal or extra strong bottle, it states on the L'Oréal website, that its "The hold of a mousse, the care of a delicate cream"

After removing the security lock from the nozzle, I pressed down gently expecting a little amount of créme to come out, but to my surprise, its actually a mouuse.If I knew before purchasing that this product was going to be a mousse, I wouldn't of even got it.My hair tends to be really fussy when it comes to mousse type products, so I didn't have any high expectations for this product at all.Having it in my hand in the form of a mousse, it smelt exactly like the Elnett Hairspray, but not as strong which is a good thing for me, as the original hairspray would make me cough like crazy.I applied it to my freshly washed hair, focusing on the roots to tips, like the instructions suggested.I decided not to use a blow dryer for the last instruction because I wanted to see how well it worked on its own and I prefer to avoid using heat if possible.

This curl créme has a tremendous amount of hold and left my hair intact in a bun not for 1, not 2, but 4days!and that includes me sleeping on it as well.Frizz started to mainly show around day 3, that was mainly around the top of the bun, so because I was so impressed by it, I wanted to see what it was like with my hair down naturally.I wasn't expecting it to define my curls, because this isn't what this product is designed to do, so I applied some of my Aussie Leave In Insurance on wet hair and then applied a small amount of the mousse.My hair wasn't left stiff like I was expecting because of the hold it had when it was a bun.

This is what my hair looked like on day 3 since applying it, and you can only see minimal frizz on my 3c side and the curl that is sticking out from the back.Another positive is that it doesn't leave your hair sticky or crunchy, and if you do end up applying a little too much, just spray little bit of water onto the hair.The only negative I've found with this créme in the last two months, is that it does cause a little bit of shrinkage.My hair is actually past my elbow by looking at the picture above for reference and the picture at the end is day 2.

Out of all the products I've purchased and tried by L'Oréal, I have to say this is one of my favourites out of my collection and I'm really happy that it worked for my hair type.For reference, my hair is a mixture of 3a/3b/3c, and I decided to opt for the Extra Strong as I felt the other one just wouldn't be able to hold my hair well enough.They both retail for £5.99 and Superdrug regularly have a deal thats 2 for £9.Can also be purchased from Look Fantastic, Boots