Friday 27 February 2015

Love Lula | February Beauty Box


This month Love Lula box turned up a few weeks ago and he is what I got!


Lovea Nature | £6.49 
This smells so fresh! I haven't used this yet as I'm working my way through body washes bought for me at Christmas.

Fair Squared | £4.50
This doesn't have a very exciting scent but it is a nice hand cream, smooths in well and absorbs very quickly.

Skin Blossom | £5.95
I've been using this on off for a while, its quite nice but I haven't really formed much of an opinion on it yet.

Ren | £36 (30ml)

Madara | £6
This smells so beautiful and I'm so excite to use it !

So this is everything from this month box !

till the next time
Jeni xo



Sunday 15 February 2015

Use It Up Challenge



I know I'm not the only one out there when I say, I have too much make up, or more to the point too many of one thing. I think I have like 7 foundations on the go and my face ain't big enough to use 'em all at once!
So today as I was rummaging through my over stocked makeup bag looking for a mascara to use (I have 5 in there) I decided something has to change, I've got to economise! Having all these products open/in use at the same time means I'm not actually using anything up and I have bottles and tubes just taking up storage space, and I don't use half of it for weeks/months at a time! Not so good if you stick to use in 6 months labels, I don't, I know how shockingly awful!
So I've set myself a challenge. I picked out one foundation, one mascara, one blusher, one eyeliner...you get the jist. One of each "essential" product and gave my self a choice of 3 lipsticks and an eyeshadow pallet to keep in my makeup bag and use up! Each selection is something I've used maybe half of before switching to using something newer and more exciting.
My challenge/goal is simple use it up! No point buying more when I already have a shit load to use, plus I need to save a bit more money for grown up things like mortgages.
So tell me, would you take up the Use it Up challenge? Is there a product that you hoard? 

Jeni xo

Wednesday 11 February 2015

New Liebster Award!

Last month the beautiful and very talented Mary, of WNDRLNDS nominated/tagged me for the Liebster Award, a fun chain sort of post where you tag other bloggers to answer questions and its a great way to learn more and share more about yourself and fellow bloggers.
Last year I did a Liebster Award post so if your interested go check it out!
>>>>LIEBSTER AWARD 2014<<<<


The rules for the Liebster Ward are as follows:
  • Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you.
  • You must answer the 10 questions given to you by the person who nominated you.
  • You  must pick five nominees with under 200 followers to answer your questions.
  • You cannot nominate the person who nominated you.
  • You must inform the people you nominate that they have been nominated for the award.
But as I have already participated fully before I'm just going to answer the questions, hope thats ok with you guys! 

1. Who or what inspired you to start blogging?
YouTube inspired me and the fact that I loved trying out products and I had all these opinions and no where and no one to share them with!

2. What is the meaning behind your blog's name?
Elf's Beauty came about through my middle initials, E.F, so many people miss read it as Elf and I was struggling to come up with a good name so I thought, 'Hey Elf's Beauty!'

3. Introvert or extrovert?
Introvert, I'm so shy and quiet in person, I do eventually open up and become an extrovert but on a whole I'm pretty much a wall flower!

4. If you could change your name, what would it be?
This is quite a hard one, there's loads of names I like but when it boils down to it, I think Jeni suits me best :)

5. What is your favorite quote?
'Happy girls are the prettiest' - Audrey Hepburn. Because it doesn't matter how you look, if your happy your beauty shines through.

6. If you had to describe yourself as one animal, which animal would you be? Why?
If I could choose my animal I'd 100% be a cat, I love them, but to describe my self as an animal....I couldn't do it so I googled and ended up doing a What animal fits your personality test, turns out I'm a Wolf, part of a pack, but sometimes a loner. That's pretty much me!

7. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Work hard, enjoy life now, make a damned decision!

8. What is your favorite brand of makeup?
I try out so much that I don't find I have one that I really love, but I do currently like MUA as there products a pretty inexpensive and not too bad a quality.

9. What are your tips for new bloggers?
Blog for you. Don't try to be something your not and have fun with it!

10. Where do you see yourself in 50 years?
I'll be 76 so hopefully retired and relaxing happily married for a million years and with some grandbabies.

11. What is the best post you've written?
I think one of my fave posts what my BATTLE OF THE BRANDS I had so much fun doing the post and I think it was so interesting in terms of looking at cheap vs expensive, I definatly want to explore more of these types of post, I have a concealer one I've wanted to do for a while so maybe soon that will be up!

I hope you've enjoyed reading my answers its always fun doing these sorts of posts, its like doing an imaginary interview and I get to share more about me! Have a great day!

Jeni xo

Review | J.R Liggett's Shampoo Bar

Happy February!
Sorry for the lack of post's recently, I launched a new blog JENI WREN all about my birding exploits and have been spending most of my days off watching anime and drawing recently, so again sorry for the neglect, but I'm back and as motivated as ever!

Todays post is a review of the J.R Liggett's shampoo bar. If you read my last post you'll know I quit no poo, it wasn't really my bag and you know thats ok, I'm currently really happy with the quality of my hair at the moment on regular shampoo and conditioner and it seems to be growing really long now! (yay!) but I still wanted to review this bar and let anyone wanting to try it, know what to expect,




Information

Brand | J. R Liggett's
Product | Old Fashioned Shampoo Bar Virgin Coconut and Argan Oil
Size | 3.5 oz / 99g
Price | £8.99
Purchased from | Amazon
Made in | Doesn't say
Would I re-purchase | no



Ingredients 

Olive oil, Coconut oil, Castor oil, fresh pure New Hampshire spring water, sodium hydroxide (a binder), Organic Virgin Coconut oil, Organic Argan Oil and Vitamin E added, with natural Coconut fragrance.

First look at the ingredients list every thing looks really good, it mostly just nutritious oils and spring water. As for the natural Coconut fragrance, I wouldn't say I could actually pick that up, it smelt just of unscented soap.



The bar its self is tiny and very hard and square, so the first few times I used it, it was with difficulty. It was hard to roll the bar around in my hands to get a lather going because the square edges wouldn't allow for roll-ability. But after a few washes it did begin to take on a rounder shape and use was much easier. 
I found the easiest way to use it was to get a good amount of product on to my hands to start with before applying it to my hair. Surprisingly enough this lathers extremely well even with a lack of a lathering agent. I would focus all my lathering just on my scalp and leaving the ends of my hair alone. 
After rinsing this out of my hair will feel super, squeaky clean  and  it does feel very very different than it would do with regular shampoo.
A lot of reviews I read said that people gave up using this pretty much straight away, as they were used to brushing out their hair once it was washed and found they couldn't get a brush through their wet hair. Which would be very true I feel had I tried to actually comb my hair, I did run my fingers through my hair and it does have an odd sticky feeling and feels snaggy. But my advice is, if you do try this bar DO NOT BRUSH YOUR HAIR WHEN IT IS WET! Leave it till its mostly dried then brush and I promise it will be fine.

After my first wash with this my hair was horrendous and stringy and gross. But after approximately 3-4 washes everything evened out and my hair was fine. While using this I did notice that I had an awful lot of build up on my combs and brushes but no poo forums said that was normal and its just your hair sort of detoxing. I didn't use a conditioner but followed with an ACV rinse and over the course of my months use my hair did eventually start to feel softer.



I used this for just over a month and in that time, the molecular structure of my shampoo bar changed, it went from looking like shampoo bar to a weird sticky, jelly mess, which I later found out was due to storage. As this bar is oil based, after use it really needs to dry out. Forum advice said to use a wooden soap dish and leave it to air dry well other wise it will turn to a sticky, unfortunate mess like mine. It still worked okish but kept falling apart with more use. 

Hope you found this review helpful if your planning on trying this out. Just remember that its not normal shampoo and there is an adjustment period where your hair does look shit for a while till it gets used to what you are doing.

Jeni xo