Coming up on the blog: Lancome reviews

I recently went to the pharmacy to pick up some mascara, since I am running out of the mascara I have been using for a while now. Of course, I wanted to get a Lancome mascara, since I have found that those are the best ones (at least for me and my lashes) out of the ones I have tried, so I was delighted to see that not only was there a great offer for Lancome mascaras, but for several other Lancome products too.

While I have been a fan of Lancome mascaras for quite some time, I never really tried their other products, so this was a good opportunity for me to try some other Lancome products, such as one of their foundations, an eye cream and some other stuff. So there will be quite a few Lancome reviews coming up on the blog once I have managed to give these a try.

Review: Decleor Hydra-Floral Anti-Pollution Moisturizing Gel Cream for Eyes

The area around my eyes turns really dry and bad looking during the winter, when the weather is colder. The best way to battle this is of course to use some good eye cream. However, good eye cream is not always so easy to find, especially not if you actually prefer gels, like I do. I do think I have found a pretty good one lately though, the Decleor Hydra-Floral Anti-Pollution Moisturizing Gel Cream for Eyes.

That is, I thought I had found something new, until I took a look here at the blog, and saw that I had actually reviewed this exact eye cream here already (see that review here), but the packaging on this eye cream was so different that I did not actually realize it was the same one. The reason? I had bought a salon size, which apparently looks significantly different, compared to the regular size.

But even though the Decleor Hydra-Floral Anti-Pollution Moisturizing Gel Cream for Eyes was not exactly a new discovery in the end, it is still just as good as the first time I reviewed it, so I am still glad I have this eye gel cream to help me battle my dried up area around the eyes! Especially considering how light weight it is, so it sinks in really fast, making it appropriate for use during any time of the day I feel I need it!

La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Mains Review

Every winter, my hands get incredibly dry. So dry in fact, that they crack up and bleed. A lot.

(I was considering adding a "Before" picture to this post, but decided against it, since I do not want to subject my readers to the mess that is my hands, so you will just have to take my word for them having been in a really, really bad state!)

Because of this, I have tried a lot of hand creams over the years, and while some of them have been significantly better than others, none of them really cured the problem completely.

My local pharmacy started carrying the great French drugstore brand La Roche-Posay recently (yay!!), however, and since I had been incredibly happy with the only La Roche-Posay products I had tried up until now (read my reviews of those here, in order to see why I liked them so much), I picked up not only the Effaclar Foaming Cleanser I have been using for quite some time now to clean my face, but also a new product, their Cicaplast Mains hand cream. This hand cream appealed to me since it was said to fit damaged hands. And what are my hands if not damaged?

I did not have very high hopes for the hand cream, to be honest, as I had been using other hand creams for months in order to make them less dry, and nothing seemed to help. And the first time I put some Cicaplast Mains on, I was not too thrilled either. There was no cool scent, like some other hand creams have, instead this was a very neutral product, like all other La Roche-Posay products I have tried up until now.

I also immediately felt some stinging when I put the hand cream on, which was not all that nice (later I did remember, however, that I experienced the same kind of stinging with the La Roche-Posay Substiane eye cream, so maybe this is something that a lot of La Roche-Posay products do?). In fact, my hands turned quite red, and heated up, for some reason, so I honestly started worrying that I might have had an allergic reaction to the cream or something.

I also did feel that the cream was rather greasy, and did not absorb very fast, a pet peeve of mine with hand creams.

So I basically thought the Cicaplast Mains was a waste of money, and then went to sleep, having put the cream on right before bedtime.

So imagine my surprise in the morning when I noticed a significant improvement on my hands! Nothing else had worked, even if I had applied creams multiple times a day, but the Cicaplast Mains had made my hands look pretty good! So this cream must be doing something right!

This is why I decided to put it on the next evening as well, again, right before bedtime, since the cream does make your hands very greasy, like I mentioned, so I cannot put this on when I still have other things to do. And the next morning: my hands were completely "healed"! I could not believe it! No other hand cream has ever come close to this, making me completely flabbergasted regarding how the French do this. But who cares, as long as it works, right?

I do think, however, that this hand cream has some downsides (mainly the long time it takes for it to absorb and the greasiness), so I think I would mostly recommend it for those who have severe issues with dryness etc., not just your "average hand cream user". But if your hands get really, really dry like mine, this cream can surely be a true lifesaver!

Review: CK One Shock for Her Shower Gel

It's time to review a shower gel again!

This time, I'll tackle CK One's Shock for Her shower gel, and let me start this review by saying that I generally tend to love Calvin Klein scents (I am a huge fan of the regular CK One, for instance). And this scent is nice, too. However, I don't think it is as memorable as some other Calvin Klein scents I have had the pleasure of trying before.

This shower gel is really nice to use after you do sports, let's say and want to smell really fresh and clean. I can somehow imagine this in gym locker rooms quite easily.

For me, however, the CK One Shock for Her is just too boring of a scent, so I don't think I will be getting the actual scent, but I am still happy I gave it a try and I will definitely be using the rest of this after workouts!

Review: Roses de Chloe shower gel

Another shower gel review, that is actually really a scent review (like the previous 2 as well), since I got these shower gels mostly to get acquainted with the scents, in order to figure out if I should buy the perfumes or not.
This time, I will tell you what I thought of Chloe's Roses de Chloe.

And to sum it up (because why beat around the bush too much, am I right?): I pretty much loved it! I do love rose scents, after all, and I knew from previous experiences that I would probably like Chloe scents, too. (My sister has been wearing one of their scents for years, I believe, and it smells divine!)

But I was surprised how gentle and pretty this scent seemed. This makes it perfect for every day use, and for dates, if you ask me, and that's a pretty versatile scent, isn't it?

The bottle is just as pretty too, and I assume the actual perfume bottle would be even prettier, so I love the packaging too. The only complaint I have is that the scent doesn't stay for very long, but this is a common issue with shower gels, and does not necessarily reflect on the perfume, I think, so I think I will still be getting the perfume too.

Review: Gucci Premiere Shower Gel

Another shower gel I had the pleasure of trying recently was the Gucci Premiere one. I actually had had no previous experiences with Gucci perfumes or scents, until I gave this shower gel a try, so I didn't really know what to expect, but I can say that this rather heavy and luxurious scent definitely embodies the brand Gucci for me. It smells Italian, sexy and expensive, somehow.

The packaging is also very Gucci-esque, due to the pattern on the box, but even though the bottle is gold colored, I do think it looks a bit cheap due to the plastic it is made of. I would assume, however, that this is not the case if you get the actual perfume, but the shower gel packaging could definitely be reworked a bit, in order to feel more luxurious.

Some of the notes in the scent are said to be vintage champagne, orange blossom, musk, white flowers and leather (how fitting for a company that is so known for their leather products as Gucci is, right?), making this what I would definitely call an evening scent, for people who go to all kinds of fancy events in my mind.

I must admit, however, that this is not really my type of scent, as I am more of a light and fresh scent kind of a girl. So this scent did turn out a bit too heavy for my taste. It just doesn't fit me, I guess. I would probably like this scent on others, though, so its definitely not a matter of the Gucci Premiere not being a nice scent, because it totally is, just not a scent that fits me so well.

Due to this, I would probably not buy the Gucci Premiere shower gel again, nor will I be getting the perfume, but I am still glad I gave this a try. I did learn, after all, that as luxurious as Gucci scents are, they are not really what I look for in a scent. Good to know!

Review: Dolce & Gabbana Rose The One Shower Gel

A while ago, my to go to online store for all things beauty related - Strawberrynet - had a sale on a lot of stuff, including shower gels, so I decided to stock up on some, both because I actually needed new shower gels, but also because I think shower gels is an inexpensive way to get to know new scents, that you are not so familiar with, for a fraction of the cost it would cost to get the perfume itself. One of the shower gels I got during this promotion was Dolce & Gabbana's Rose The One shower gel. And I must say this was a very nice shower gel to try!

Now the gel itself is not anything spectacular. It's a normal shower gel, with a normal, yet working, texture and form. The bottle looks okay, but not like anything too fancy (which is actually something I would expect from a Dolce & Gabbana shower gel, so that is a bit of a downside, I guess), but the thing that sets this showergel apart from others is definitely the scent! It is just lovely in every possible way.

Of course the scent is rose based, as you might have guessed by the name already, but this is not your run of the mill rose scent. There is something very unique and beautiful about this scent, that is actually a bit hard to put into words.

But if I were to try, I would say this scent is both elegant and classy, yet a timeless scent at the same time. Definitely a winner in my book, and I do believe I shall be purchasing the actual perfume as well. So my shower gel experiment was off to a very good start!