Christmas Gift Guide For Her: Under £20

Hello Readers,

I've decided that I wanted to do a few Christmas Gift Guides this year in order to help inspire those of you who are struggling on what to buy for loved ones this year. Christmas is fast approaching and if you're anything like me you haven't bought any gifts yet and the panic is beginning to sink in. My first gift guide will be for Females, so this could be for your mum, friends, sister, girlfriend etc! I decided to keep everything under £20 so that way it's both affordable and reasonable.

 

1. Rabbit Novelty Hot Water Bottle - Amazon - £6.99
With the cold weather upon us a hot water bottle can never go a miss. Especially one as cute as this! (Unintentional rhyme oops)

2. Kylie Minogue Darling Perfume 50ml - Fragrance Direct - £8.95
I think when it comes to getting people fragrances at Christmas, some of the cheaper ones are often over looked as they're automatically judged as being not as great. I've had this one twice and love it! It's such a beautiful girly smell and is a great bargain!

3. Pug Mug - River Island - £8.00
It's a Pug. Need I say more?

4. Real Techniques Starter Kit - Amazon - £18.24

Real Techniques are a fantastic brand and I highly recommend their brushes. I don't know a single girl who wouldn't be happy at the sight of these on Christmas day! This is one of the sets that I don't have so I'm pretty eager to get my hands on this myself.

 

5. Cath Kidston Assorted Tea Mugs - Cath Kidston - £20
Cath Kidston is the ultimate source of all things super cute and quintessentially British. These assorted mugs are no exception! 

6. Soap and Glory Relaxstation Gift Set - Boots - £20
Soap and Glory sets are classic gifts to receive at Christmas time, they're a great brand and offer some amazing gift sets at this time of year. All girls love them!

 

7. Red and White Penguin Briefs - New Look - £2.99

Okay so I don't know if this is maybe pushing the boundaries a bit here on what is TMI but I love getting new pants! I don't know what it is, I just love getting them, especially cute novelty ones like these. Obviously this isn't the sort of thing you want to be buying your mum but maybe this would be a nice treat for someone haha!

 

That's all for this post, I hope this has been somewhat helpful to some of you.

I hope you're all well!



Review: Soap and Glory Hot Cloth Cleanser.

Hello readers! Welcome to my first real post on my blog. I wasn't sure what exactly to kick off with first but in the end I decided to start nice and simple with a review. I hope any of you reading this find this somewhat helpful and please do not be offended if you do not agree with the comments I have made regarding this product. It's all just a matter of opinion!

I personally do not really use any Soap and Glory products, nor have I really experimented with them that much. It's not because I have something against the brand, it's just simply because it's a brand that I've never really delved into for some reason.

Recently, I've found that I'm really trying to get into skincare and I'm attempting to sort out a skincare routine that I'll stick to. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to taking off my makeup so I need something that's simple, quick and effortless.

After reading a review on the Hot Cloth Cleanser, I decided to buy it and give it a try. It retails for about £10 (I think) which is probably the most expensive skincare item I have purchased so far. The Soap and Glory Hot Cloth Cleanser gives you 100ml of product which isn't too bad and it comes with a muslin cloth. I was persuaded in to buying this product when I read that it's supposed to be a pretty good dupe for the Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish which is around the £15 mark and gives you the same amount of product as the Soap and Glory cleanser. (100ml)

 

 

I've heard wonderful things about the Liz Earle Cleanser so I figured why not save myself a bit of money and try out Soap and glory's dupe of it.

My first impression of this product was that it does have a very strong lavender scent. Now to some people this will be quite off putting and to others it won't bother them. The cleanser contains panthenol, natural sweet almond, orange and lavender essential oils, but the only scent you notice is the lavender. The strong scent made me concerned about just how much lavender oils were in this product and how my skin would react to this.

I used this product for about 10 days. At first I really did enjoy the product, it made my skin feel really, really soft and it completely removed any excess makeup that was left after using makeup wipes. However, after a few days of using it I found that my skin was getting worse. (This post is going to get a bit gross now guys, just a warning) My skin wasn't particularly bad before hand, but this product seemed to have irritated my skin and caused me to have a mini break out on the left side of my face. I continued to use the cleanser after this breakout thinking that it was bringing out all the impurities in my skin in order to completely cleanse it. However, my skin continued to only worsen and I decided to stop using the product.

Since then I have been battling with my skin to get it back to it's normal condition. I STILL have a spot left on my cheek that I have been battling to get rid of for about 3 weeks now. I've used a bunch of products on it and only this week has it started to go down in size and is beginning to disappear.

 

I used the Soap and Glory Hot Cloth Cleanser correctly so I doubt that it was an error on my part for the bad reaction that I had with this product. Perhaps it's just too rich to use as a daily product? Maybe just using it 2-3 times a week would be better? I personally think that the scented product was just too heavy for my skin, possibly too much lavender oil in the cleanser? I'm not really sure exactly what it was that made my skin react the way it did but I have not used the product since and probably will never touch it again in fear that my skin will react badly again.

So, my summary of this product is;

- It does leave your skin feeling really soft after using it.
- It also leaves you feeling refreshed and that you skin is completely makeup free.

- It has a lovely scent.

HOWEVER...

- The scent will be a little overpowering to some people.

- As it is a heavily scented product, there's a higher chance of your skin reacting badly to it.

- There's not a lot of product if you wanted to use this daily.

As you can see from this photograph I've included, I have used quite a bit of the product already.
(Sorry for not including the muslin cloth in the photo by the way)


So, have you tried the Soap and Glory Hot Cloth Cleanser? What are your views on the product?
I'd love to hear!

 

 

Paige.