Babyliss Pro Professional 20 Piece Roller Set

I decided to order some hot rollers for myself recently. I have a curling iron which is cheap, made of metal, slow to warm up and absolutely not good for my hair. I thought about getting some new curling tongs for my hair as I don't enjoy my dead straight hair all the time and prefer some volume and bounce to it. I actually eyed up some in the shops here in Norway and they were 999kr - thats over £100! So I found an older model on BeautyBay.com. It was around £20. I was very impressed by the site, large selection range of all sorts and the delivery price to Norway was quite cheap in comparison to what I've paid before using other UK online shops.

Unfortunately, the delivery took 2 weeks although the site stated it would take upto 7 days. It's not their fault, Norway stopped it to make sure they could tax it on its way here. Ouch, more money gone. However, it was still cheaper then what I would have paid for in the shops.

Anyway! On to the rollers!
There are 20 rollers as stated (you can order a 30 piece model I believe) of varying shapes and sizes.

What you do is turn this baby on and leave it. (It took around 20 minutes to heat up)
Wash your hair, towel dry and once to the rollers are ready, (indicated by a marker on one of the rollers) roll them into your hair. I found putting the larger rolls on the top layer of my head and the small, tighter rollers at the bottom worked for me. You then leave them in your semi-damp hair for 20-30 minutes depending on how thick your hair is.

To keep them in place, I had some wire clips with it. They were extremely fiddly to use and I will probably go buy some plastic clips instead to hold the rollers. One downside is that the rollers got quite hot and I found it very easy to accidently touch the middle of them when applying them into my hair.

So after rolling them into my hair, this is what I look like.

So whilst, I waited for them to do their work, I got a drink and did my makeup. I found you couldn't really move around too much out of fear they would fall out - another reason I want to by plastic clips.

Anyway, I took them out after 25 minutes and the result was... messy curly hair. I had kind of an 80's look, it was very retro. I suppose if I wanted that look I could have kept it but it reminded me of my mum's hair from photos when she was young - she had a perm.

Wanting that wavy, bouncy effect with a slight curl, I brushed the curls a little bit out but not too much and ended up with this:

It was more or less what I had aimed for and I finished it off with some hairspray. It lasted around 8-10 hours afterwards before it started losing its volume.

Overall, I am happy with my purchase!

Postives:

+ Plenty of rollers and enough wire clips to hold them in place in my hair

+ The different sizes are quite good for getting varying sizes of curls.

+ No playing with a curling iron for ages, just roll them in your hair and leave them whilst you do something else. 

Negatives:

- Fiddly to use the wire clips.

- Easy to burn yourself.

- Bulky, not very viable to take abroad anywhere. 

- Takes 20 minutes to warm up whereas a good curling iron will be much quicker.

Lush Ocean Salt

Today, I recieved some more Lush Products through the post. As usual, I was delighted to be given some free samples so I will be ordering more products later on!
Anyway, one of the products I ordered was Ocean Salt. It's a facial scrub containing sea salt, coconut lime and it is vodka based I believe. I ordered a small pot of it as I only order large amounts if I know I will use the product a lot, and I found its smell similiar to that of men's aftershave. Hopefully it will encourage my fiancee to use it! (On a side note, it had a very positive effect on his acne prone skin)

the size of a small pot

The texture of the product is kind of soft and light with little grains of sea salt. I simply applied a tiny amount to my face after dampening it, rubbed it in gently and washed it off. I know some have said that the sea salt might scratch your face but its not a problem if you're not scrubbing your face furiously.

how much you get inside the pot

The result is very soft, clean, refreshed feeling skin. I can tell that if I used this too often, it will dry out my skin, but for oily or acne prone skin, I can see it being pretty good. The pot is small but a little really goes a long way with this product!

Nivea Waterlily Shower Gel

As I posted on my other blog, I went shopping earlier this week and I picked up a few new things including this shower gel. I love waterlillies and their wonderful scent so I decided to give this a go. Not sure how 'new' this is, but I had never seen it on sale before in Norway.
Without trying to point out the obvious but, I shower a lot - Norwegians or Scandinavians in general are not huge bath tub fans, they like hot showers. So I do have access to a bath tub, but most of the time I will shower in my rather small bathroom so I've been through many types of shower gels. But this one is the first one in a long time that I actually really, really like; like in the way that I would buy it again instead of the usual 'it was ok, I'll try out a different shower gel next time.'

So let's go over my pro's of this shower gel:

+ It leaves a very refreshing floral scent and I'm used to a lot of shower gels smelling divine but leave no lingering scent on your skin. 

+ It feels good on the skin; its not overly watery, its actually a gel. 

+ And finally, it really soothes my legs after shaving. 

Con's:

- A little more pricey than other shower gels.

- Boyfriend keeps using it.

It's Raining Men Shower Gel

 

Note: This is a Valentine's Limited Edition Product!

Heralded as the shower gel version of 'Honey I washed the Kids Soap', it boasts fragrences of Honey and Lotus flowers. I ordered a small bottle of this to test and must admit, I was curious to see if it was as good as the much loved soap. I must say I am a little disappointed. The fragrence was very sweet and the smell of honey was a bit overwhelming. It works beautifully well on your skin however, leaving it deviously soft and sweet. It also was very nice upon using it on my hair with leaving it clean and slightly scented.

I wouldn't say this is like the soap at all although the scent is similiar to it. I would probably not by this one again and stick to the soap instead, but I would recommend it to anyone who loves honey scented products and of course, sweet scents.

Love Birds Soap

 

Note: This is a Valentine's Limited Edition Product!

When ordering this soap, remember that you recieve a random piece from the cheese wheel style soap they have in the shops, so the little patterns ontop of the soap you recieve will vary greatly! 

Described as a Vanilla and Jasmine soap, the smell is in fact, very mild in comparison to other Lush soaps. I was unable to detect any vanilla scent within the soap, which was a little disappointing as I was hoping it would smell a bit sweeter. Instead, it has a rather floral scent from the overpowering jasmine.

The soap itself is very creamy. It lathers up extremely well and leaves your skin very soft and moisturised. I enjoyed showering with it as it did have a very good effect on my body, particularly dry areas. 

I wouldn't class this as my favourite soap due to the smell, but very worthwhile picking up during the Valentine's period for softer skin.

Magic Mushroom Bubble Bar

 

Note: This is a Valentine's Limited Edition Product!

This is a very cute product, obviously trying to look like little toadstools. This bubble bar is a blend of two aromas. The red part is a fruity strawberry and the white is a sweet vanilla aroma. I actually found the scent wasn't too strong on its own. As per usual, you crumble the bubble bar under running water to get lots of frothy bubbles. This one turned my bath into a pinkish colour combined with touch a warm orange. There were plenty of bubbles and I could imagine it being very romantic for Valentines if combined with floating candles and rose petals. (In actual fact it was Valentine's day when I used it but as I live in Norway, they don't care too much for the day.)

I actually found the smell a little disappointing. It was very subtle and I could not detect the strawberry scent too well.

But it did make the water very softening and moisturising so this one is definately something you would want to treat yourself or your partner to on Valentine's day.

Big Shampoo

Ahhhh, Big Shampoo. This is definately is one of my favourites. I found the smell very refreshing with a slight cirtus hint but some may find its not for them; my mother-in-law was a bit shocked at how it looked and smelt!
I was actually quite wary of buying this, as the tub is not that big and I doubted if it would be my money's worth as it is quite expensive for a shampoo. However, a very kind lady at lush took a tiny sample into my hand and showed me how it lathers up under water.
I was quite amazed at how much it lathered with only a small amount. I bought a tub and used it later that day and only had to use about a teaspoon's worth to cover my hair. The results were very volumised, bouncy and clean hair. This is one of those shampoos of where you can rub your hair whilst still wet and get the 'squeaky clean' sound. I didn't bother with conditioner, the lime juice gave my hair a lovely shine.

Now, despite my very pleasing results, there is a few things I have learnt about this shampoo. First off, regular use can do more bad then good. The sea salt seemed to dry my hair at the ends, leaving them a bit tangled and split and it tend to be quite harsh with regular use. I came to the conclusion that Big is probably best used for special occasions or once/twice a week on my hair, using conditioner if used more then once that week.

A very nice buy regardless as this will certainly give you the bouncy volume for whatever occasion you want it for.