Beauty - Inspired Living SA

Sultans Gold Argan Oil from Lushberry

Winter is definitely the season, when it can be very easy to neglect your skin, especially when it is covered in layers of clothing but it is vital to maintain good moisturising habits, regardless of the season.

My daily routine includes using a body cream or body butter, either once or twice daily and if I feel my skin requires extra hydration, I use a vitamin E or tissue oil.

I was recently asked to review products from the Sultans Gold Argan Oil range, which is available from the fab new online store Lushberry.

The three products I was given to review are: Sultans Gold Luxurious Body Oil with Argan, Sultans Gold Pure Argan Oil and the Sultans Gold Luxurious Body Lotion with Argan.

Argan oil, known as Liquid Gold has been used for centuries, by the women of the Berber tribe in Morocco, to help rejuvenate their skin and nourish hair and nails. All Sultans Gold Argan oil products are produced in Morocco under the strictest quality conditions by an accredited ISO 9001 manufacturer.

Sultans Gold Argan Oil is said to combat the premature ageing process of the skin. It has also had great success in the reversal of signs of ageing, by helping to regenerate skin cells. Argan Oil also promotes skin elasticity, which helps to prevent stretch marks and cures the discoloration of the skin resulting from stretch marks. It can also strengthen weak or brittle nails.

Sultans Gold Luxurious Body Oil with Argan~ Argan Oil is combined with Jojoba and Sweet Almond Oil, which are easily absorbed into the skin and is suitable for daily use. This sensual oil is delicately scented with the orange blossom of Morocco and will help keep your skin moist and hydrated by reducing evaporation. This is a perfect treatment for sensitive skin, it will improve marks and scarring and has excellent anti ageing properties.

One of the benefits of this body oil is that it can be used as a supplement to Sultans Gold Luxurious Body Lotion to increase both its richness and its effectiveness. I have found the Body Oil particularly effective after my recent trip to Thailand, as the heat and frequent swimming left my skin exceptionally dry.

Sultans Gold Pure Argan Oil ~ This 100% Organic Oil is rich in vitamin E and can be used on your skin, hair and nails. I have being using as a cuticle oil and it works beautifully to keep your cutiles wonderfully soft! I have tried using it on my hair before styling but found it a bit too oily for my hair, which is very fine.

Sultans Gold Luxurious Body Lotion with Argan Oil ~ Is suitable for all skin types. It is light in texture and is easily absorbed into your skin, to provide total hydration. It is rich in vitamin E which improves the elasticity of your skin and slows down the ageing process and helps to prevent stretch marks.

I absolutely love this body lotion, which is light and none greasy but still suitably moisturising. It leaves your skin smooth and silky and the fragrance is heavenly.

To find out more about these and other great products visit the Lushberry website by clicking here.

Beauty, Beauty Products

MAC Trends Spring Summer 2013

Just before my trip to Thailand, I attended a MAC Trends Spring Summer 2013(SS2013) event, which I enjoyed immensely! Unfortunately I did not have time to write about it before I left for my travels but I had to share it with you!

I learnt a few new tips and beauty tricks to use in my makeup routine and I hope you will find it helpful as well, especially when looking at choosing colours for the season ahead.

The morning started out rather wet and cold but we were greated with steaming muggs of coffee or yummy hot chocolate, which was the perfect way to warm up! We were also treated to a variety of eats, giving us a chance to mingle and meet some of the other beauty lovlies.

We were then given the heads up on beauty trends around the globe by the lovely Michelle-Lee Collins. She introduced us to the key elements for MAC Trends Spring Summer 2013.

The most significant trend for SS2013 is a move to minimalism, where ease and edge become one, a season when the key beauty notion is one of simplicity.

Michelle then explored the various trends for the season, highlighting the properties of each one, demonstrating each look on one of the gorgeous MAC models.

The purity of a perfectly pared back skin (SIG-NATURE). A languid wash of colour (NU-ANCE) that takes in shades of highly pigmented pastels from turquoise and lemon to silver and translucently dark metallics. A monochromatic Bedouin bronze, blurred on the eyes and bone structure (PURI-TAN). An easy graphicism of purist colour blocked on lids or lips (SCI-CHEDELIC). There’s a delicacy to beauty this season that speaks to the way women really want to look in the here and now, a time when subtle, fresh and confident feel more appropriate than hard, sexy or powerful.

There is a definite move away from hard lines, which is key for SS2013. Seamlessly humid finishes, over powdering is out with more of a natural “glow”. Cream colours prevail, with radiant complexions and balanced brows, which tend to dominate the face less than last season. Over tweezed brows are a thing of the past and more natural “fluffed-up” brows are in, forming the cornerstone to every look.

“Sig-nature”~

The look is naturally perfected, super polished skin which, beautifully rich. Skin is highly reflective with a marble-like, alabaster-like quality.” Mineralized Moisture SPF 15 Foundation, is used to delicately shape and bring skin to life with the most subtle, sensitive techniques. Skin-identical pigments are used around the eye.

Lips are neutral, translucently balmed or with just the slightest touch of lipstick, to perfectly heighten the natural tone. Soft lines, no hard contours…hazes and haloes of light.

Brows frame your look, with no mascara. This sounds a little scary at first – using no mascara but I have tried it during the day and I am liking the softer look you can achieve, by using only eye shadow and liner.

Nu-ance ~

Beauty has had a “palette cleanse” in its most literal sense this season, as clean, popping pastels express a modern romance with paler colour. Think Turquiose, Lilac, Lemon, Mint, Aqua, Apple and Peach — shades pulled from heightened nature, from seascapes to sunsets. A natural base with pops of colour.

Flashes of silver and cold metallic FEEL FRESHLY FUTURISTIC. A nod to the 60s in placement — embrace a rounded eye shape. The new view on smoky: A TRANSPARENT WASH of depth invariably with a metallic sheen. Flat matte is less relevant than buffed-in creamy tints this season.

I am really loving this trend I love using colour on my eyes especially in the evening. This is a fun way to create a bit of drama without being OTT!

Sci-chedelic

Op-art colour with refined drama, confidently committed and effortlessly cool, never bourgeois or overstated. Colours are bold and applied with conviction! Vivid colours are worn on a base of lightness and luminescence. Eyes are fierce with bold pops of colour on the lips.

“Poetic with a twist of something edgy, so gutsy and punk it’s chic.”

Even the red lip becomes part of a contemporary colour story, thanks to modern matte textures and pops of hyper-bright pigment. Lip lines are less harsh with a feeling of “colouring outside the lines”.

This look is quite dramatic and probably not suited to everyday wear but experimenting with certain of these elements, can be great for creating more drama, for a night out on the town!

Puri-tan~
A puritan, gently applied, gleaming makeup, with a “sun-kissed” glow. Features are brought out in a palette of desert shades, with sepia eye-tones, transparently tinted in washes of cream colour, adding a sophisticated monochrome feel to the face. Think Bronze, Wheat and Golden Honey-Beige tones, giving a buffed and burnished feel. Within this palette there is a sophisticated return to the smoky eye, which is more effortless and transparent.

It’s about using tan-relevant shades to accent the eyes and add warmth to the face in molten, softly metallic textures.

I learnt so much from this event – one of the key things Michelle pointed out was not not conform to historical beauty norms, try different approaches and have fun with it! A great tip, from Michelle, which I have being using, is to apply colour below the bottom lash line which opens up the eye so much more.

Thanks to the team at MAC for a wonderful morning and a great goodie bag!

Beauty, Beauty Products

Nanoblur and Hydraluron Review

A while back I was invited to attend the launch of nanoblur™ in South Africa but unfortunately I was sick 🙁 and could not make the launch! I did however receive the products to review, which is awesome because I was really keen to try them, especially the nanoblur™

nanoblur™, is the award winning product from Indeed Laboratories™ , it is said to be the ultimate instant skin perfecting cream, which provides high definition ready skin in seconds. In essence it is Photoshop in a tube, transforming your skin, minimising the signs of aging, smoothing and softening the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, crow’s feet, enlarged pores, uneven texture and tone while mattifying the skin.

It “blurs” the lines if you like, which after a certain age can be most beneficial!

“nanoblur™ is by far the most innovative correction cream on the market”, says Dr Nowell Solish, Toronto-based cosmetic dermatologist and co-director of the University of Toronto’s Dermatologic Surgery. “It delivers real results that are evident on the skin in a matter of seconds.”

The instant skin perfecting cream is a phenomenon in the UK, where every 9 seconds* a woman chooses nanoblur™ in the hopes of achieving high definition ready skin.

The product was originally developed for on-camera talent to smooth out HD visible skin imperfections previously not detectable with traditional cameras. Formulated with advanced optical prism technology, nanoblur’s™ ground-breaking formula changes the way light is reflected off skin. Once applied, micro-prisms diffuse light in a multitude of directions, creating a “blurring” effect on the skin similar to an air-brushed photo. Photo artists use techniques in digital retouching to make their subjects’ skin look perfect. nanoblur ™ does the same thing, but in real life.

The water-based formula can easily fit into your daily skin care routine and should be applied on top of liquid makeup, or underneath powder make-up. It does dry quite quickly so you need to be quick with your application if you are applying it over foundation. If you have dry skin then you can blend nanoblur™ with your moisturiser. It is also formulated without the use of parabens or sodium lauryl sulphate, which is kinder to your skin.

It is not a primer, which is meant to be applied underneath your foundation and to prepare the skin for better makeup application, it is formulated to smooth out imperfections that makeup cannot. It is free of colour and thus perfect for both men and women.

I definitely think that this product delivers what it promises but it is probably not something I would use everyday. It is something which I would use if I was attending an event or a function, especially if I knew that I would have to be “photo-ready”.

nanoblur™ retails for R299,99 and is available from selected Clicks stores nationwide.

The second product which I am reviewing is the hydraluron™ serum. I did recieve four products to review, including the nanoblur ™ but I have used this one the most. I was really keen to see the effect it had on my skin!

It is a new product on the market also by Indeed Laboratories™, it is a moisture boosting serum, which starts where your moisturiser stops. It contains the world’s purest hyaluronic acid, hydraluron™, acts as a hydrator that ultimately rescues your skin. The result is a better hydrated, more radiant, youthful and plumped up skin.

I have found that my skin has been so dry especially in the cold winter weather and this serum has worked wonders!

Most of us know that dehydration can lead to premature ageing, yet despite our best efforts, with constant seasonal and outdoor changes in temperature, we may still find our skin feeling parched and visibly lacking in moisture.

So whar benefits does hydraluron™ have on the skin? With continued use, hydraluron™ increases the skin’s ability to retain moisture over time. What’s more, hydraluron™ uses the world’s first hyaluronic acid that is 100% free from animal-derived raw materials and organic-solvent remnants. Ensuring your skin is being nourished with the purest and kindest ingredients for maximum skin benefits. It also provides below surface hydration, so while not a substitute for topical moisturising creams, with continued use it is shown to reduce the amount of topical moisturisers needed to maintain ideal skin hydration.

The product was inspired by Swiss hydration treatments, whereby injectable hydration treatments used by Swiss clinics, are applied by means of a fine needle, which supplies hundreds of microinjections of hyaluronic acid into the skin. The hydraluron™ serum is a less invasive, much more affordable treatment that can be incorporated into any daily routine. Along with the purest hyaluronic acid from the Netherlands, hydraluron ™ also contains a bio-engineered strain of marine red algae, a rich source of minerals with a content found to be more nutrient rich than that of plants grown on land. Marine red algae controls and stimulate skin turn over by allowing the hyaluronic acid to enter even deeper into the skin, a method inspired by Switzerland’s leading skincare clinics.

What is Hyaluronic Acid? It is an incredible hydration ingredient, which holds up to 1,000 times its weight in water. It is a jelly like substance, which is naturally found in the body, lying in the connective tissue of the body i.e. your joints, cartilage and deeper layers of the skin. It absorbs water like a sponge to give skin fullness and plumpness, qualities we constantly strive for as we age. Hyaluronic acid is found in abundance in young skin. As we age, the body produces less of it, which can lead to dry skin, filled with lines and wrinkles.

As someone with aging skin I have found this serum to be amazing and the results have been visible even after a few applications. To apply you simply smooth a small amount over cleansed skin before applying other creams or moisturisers. I use it morning and evening after I have cleansed my skin. This is definitely a product which I would buy again and make a part of my daily skin care regime.

hydraluron™ (30ml) will be available from 25 June 2013 from selected Clicks stores nationwide and will retail for R399,99.

Beauty

Fab Finds Born Lippy

This weeks fab finds are all about soft luscious lips! Winter weather can play havoc with your skin and more particularly your lips. Lips can easily become dry and chapped, which is why it is important to take that extra care during the winter months and pamper them a bit more than usual 🙂

These are a few of the products I am trying out at the moment:

LUSH Bubblegum Lip Scrub is great for getting rid of dead skin cells and after you have scrubbed your lips, with this delicious smelling scrub you simply lick it off! Yes it is edible – awesome don’t you think!

I have been looking for a Lip Balm to carry in my makeup bag and found this great one at Wellness Warehouse. It is by Oh-lief and I love the fact that it is completely natural. It is not at all sticky and can easily be worn under your lipstick or gloss.

My favourite find is definitely this MAC Lipglass, in Fresh Air, it is a lovely subtle pink – very pretty! You could wear it over pink lipstick or on it own for a more natural look. It contains Jojoba Oil to help soften and condition the lips.

For more Beauty Inspired posts please click here…

Beauty

Mama Mio Royal Baby Shower

Last week two of my readers were treated to a magical morning of pampering, fit for royalty! Unfortunately I was unable to attend and I must admit I was a bit envious of the amazing morning that awaited the ladies!

Baby bumps, Mama Mio brand ambassadors and bloggers came together for a Royal Baby Shower at the magnificent, Langaro Lifestyle Centre in Camps Bay on Saturday. As a tribute to mum-to-be Kate Middleton, (but more so as an excuse to give a handful of wonderful women a dose of the royal treatment), there were plenty pampering treatments, canapés, cupcakes and brimming gift bags to go around.

Janine Janse van Rensburg, the Managing Director at Poise Brands in South Africa welcomed the morning’s guests, with a short introduction to the Mama Mio brand. The Mama Mio movement started eight years ago in London, by four women who decided to create a range of products that they themselves would want to use. Through this very personal and heartfelt approach they like to think of themselves as activists in skincare, and set out to wow the world one woman at a time. Their goal is simple, to help all women feel great in their birthday suits, no matter what the birthday.

There could be no setting more fitted to such a regal affair, than Langaro. The space is as beautifully majestic as it is intimate, and attention to the smallest detail is as important as the sacred energy of the whole. Complete with deluxe treatment rooms, a yoga studio opening onto a tranquil courtyard and a personal-styling fashion-studio; it’s a place of limitless indulgence. And, as if that’s not enough, Langaro takes care of each and every guest with a sense of individualized attention, a true testament to their mantra ‘Become the Ultimate You’.

As the bubbly flowed, guests were treated to manicures, pedicures, hair consultations and in typical baby shower style, games! “The Most Absurd Royal Baby Name” provided a great deal of laughs, and everything from food to flowers served as inspiration. It was Elizabeth Bishop’s masterpiece, “Ophelia-Flarrety Chamomile of Cambridge” which deservedly stole the prize in the end.

Robyn Britz took the prize for “Guess the Little One”, displaying her uncanny ability to match-up guests baby photos with their present day selves, and Liz Frasco, Camilla Corder (All Dolled Up) and Chereen Gibson (For the Beauty of It) displayed their first-rate knowledge of the Princess of Cambridge herself, in the “Kate Middleton Trivia Game”.

In amongst all the fun and games, red velvet cupcakes and trendy nail colours, there was a sense that Mama Mio is more than just a skincare product to many of these women. That, whether it is the Clean Slate Cleanser that keeps their skin radiant, or the Get Waisted Body Shaper that helped them get back into their skinny jeans after having a baby, it’s the essence of the brand that they really feel an affinity with. This ‘essence’ is the fact that Mama Mio uses no nasty chemicals or ingredients, is rich in high quality formulations and the products deliver on their promises. This is the Mama Mio mission, to let women around the world know that their bodies deserve the best possible care. That their beauty ritual is about nurturing and cherishing the skin they were born in and that true beauty emanates from the inside, out. Yes, a prince, a crown and a castle sound like every woman’s fairytale dream, but you don’t need to be a royal heir to feel like a princess everyday!

This is what one of my readers had to say about the morning:

We arrived on Saturday after getting a little lost in the rain and were greeted by such sunny smiling faces! I almost forgot about the rain pouring down outside. At the brand new Wellness Centre – Langaro the staff are amazing, as well as the owners and we were all greeted with a selection of sparkling wine and choices of tea, coffee & juices.We were then welcomed by Julie, who is the South African representative for Mama Mio, she outlined the plan for the morning, which consisted of an express Mani, Pedi and an amazing hair consultation. After being divided into groups of 3 we all went off to our different activities – I can not express how completely at home and welcome everyone involved made us feel, constantly bringing us refreshments and a sly cupcake or two 😉 We also got the chance to be properly introduced to the amazing products, which Mama Mio offer and got to learn a thing or two…my favourite is definitely the ” Tummy Rub Butter ” it smells great and doesn’t leave your skin feeling oily. I also just adore the names of all the Mama Mio products, they are such fun and really quirky.

A big thank you to Mama Mio and Langaro Lifestyle Studio, for a fab morning of wonderful pampering, tasty treats, generous goodie bags and most of all -making my “moms-to-be” feel like royalty for a day! 🙂