Sample Saturday - Pulpe De Vie Sweet Frappe Mask And Face Scrub*

If you've ever subscribed to a beauty box or you've ever bought a glossy magazine then you're bound to have a drawer full of sample sachets and mini bottles. Don't get me wrong they're fabulous for holidays and weekends away but more often than not they sit in the drawer unloved. A few days ago I found another bagful of sachets and it gave me an idea. In an attempt to use up some of my numerous sachets, and mini bottles I've decided to introduce a series called Sample Saturday.

I'm not saying it's going to be every Saturday but from now on, as regularly as possible I'm going to be doing a review of a sample from my collection. Depending on the size or the number of samples that I have, it will either be an initial impressions post or a full review. Believe me I have all different sorts of minis and samples in my drawers, so there should be a post to suit everyone.

Today's post is going to be all about something that I was sent. Sometimes as bloggers we're lucky enough to be sent full sized products, but on a lot of occasions we're sent sample sachets or minis. I'm grateful for everything that I'm sent so I was excited to be sent some samples from a new brand to me Pulpe de Vie.

Pulpe de Vie are a small French company based in the beautiful region of Provence, they produce a certified organic line of skin and body care. Their products are predominantly fruit and vegetable based and their ingredients are all purchased from local suppliers and growers. They are an all French company and all of their ingredients and packaging and products are grown and manufactured in France.

They offer a small range of skincare and body care products, ranging from body moisturisers, to facial self tanners, facial moisturisers and masks. The product I received was the yummy sounding Sucre Frappe, or in English the Sweet Frappe Face Mask and Scrub.

Designed for all skin types, this two in one product is designed to deep cleanse and exfoliate the skin. The manufacturers claim that this product will improve the skin tone and appearance of the pores, whilst at the same time leaving the skin moisturised and radiant.

This product contains 99.8% natural ingredients, 94% of which, are organic. Did you know for something to be classified as organic, only 10% of the product needs to be organic? That seems like such a small amount for me and it's definitely made me think a bit more about the concept when I'm looking at cosmetic labelling. I guess in this case though, with such a high percentage, it really shows Pulpe de Vie's commitment to using organic ingredients.

All of the ingredients in this product are easy to find both on the full sized packaging and online. This scrub and mask contains organic grapefruit oil, cucumber extract, apricot kernels, and acacia honey. It also contains vegetable glycerin, organic and fair trade sunflower oil, and emulsifiers which come from sugar.

Source 

Sounds pretty natural to me but what is it and what does it do? Well the product itself is a sort of sticky amber coloured gel, with is crammed full of tiny pieces of apricot kernel. Appearance wise it reminds me a little bit of Origins Never A Dull Moment, only slightly less scented and a bit less gritty. It has a very subtle, sweet, fruity scent and thankfully for me it doesn't smell of honey. All you do is massage the product into clean, dry skin, avoiding the delicate eye and lip areas, and your hairline unless you want your hair to be full of apricot kernels!  Despite the stickiness it is pretty easy to massage into the skin - scary pictures time!

You then leave it for about 5 minutes to let the majority of the ingredients do their thing. The mask doesn't really set but some of the gel does seem to thicken slightly. Then using a small amount of warm water, you just rub your face gently in circular motions. The consistency then turns from a gel into a creamy, milky particle packed exfoliator. The scent of the grapefruit oil also appear to be intensified with the addition of the water.

Then using a face cloth, soaked in warm water, you just wash away the remnants of the product. The apricot kernels are numerous, as you can probably see from this picture so it can take a little while to get it off, just persevere, and be gentle.

After rinsing my skin looked a little bit pink but it did actually feel really clean and smooth, as if I'd had a nice facial :)

I actually really liked the two samples that I tried but I have to say I'm not the hugest fan of using things like apricot kernels on my face. Try as manufactures might they still tend to feel a bit scratchy on the skin. Pulpe de Vie suggest that you apply a little bit of water to the skin when your first applying it if you have a sensitive skin, but if you have skin that's easily sensitised I would probably avoid this product and pretty much any other kernel containing. manual exfoliator on the market.

It's really hard to review a skin care product in just two uses though and whilst this left my skin feeling nice and soft, it didn't have the wow factor which would make me spend £19.50 on the full sized tube. That said the two sachets that I had contained 5ml of products each so a 75ml tube would go a long way, so if your a fan of this type of product and your after something natural and predominately organic, this could be a worthwhile investment. Unfortunately I dont think that this is an investment I will be making, but I will definitely consider trying some of the other products from Pulpe de Vie in the future.

Pulpe De Vie "Sucre Frappe" Sweet Frappe Mask And Face Scrub retails at £19.50 for a 75ml tube and ia available from Absolutely Divine in the UK. They also have a very nice, website of their own which alas for me is in French. Some browsers have a translate feature on them though which I would highly recommend using because the website gives you a lot of additional information both on the brand and on the product line.

Are you a fan of facial scrubs? Leave me a comment and let me know your favourite x

(*PR Sample)

Foodie Friday - Ratatouille Pasta Bake

It's been a bit cold, and breezy over the last few days and according to the weather forecast it's set to continue at least for the next free days. Brrr, when it's cold I love comfort food and more often than not that means carbohydrates. This recipe contains one of my favourite things - pasta, Although I'm now a gluten and wheat free chick it doesn't mean that I can't enjoy a starch fest. Here it's combined with another one of my favourite things ratatouille. This traditional French and Mediterranean stew, uses all kinds of fresh vegetables, and the taste takes you right back to the med, sipping Orangina in the blazing sunshine - perfect, and exactly where you want your mind to take you at this time of year.

Ratatouille Pasta Bake 

For The Ratatouille 

2 tbsp Olive Oil

or

5-10 Sprays Fry Light Olive Oil or Garlic

3 x Cloves Garlic

2 x Onions

1 x Courgette 

1 x Aubergine

1 x Green Pepper 

1 x Red Pepper

4 x Tomatoes

1 x Tin Chopped Tomatoes 

1 tbsp Tomato Puree

Salt and Pepper To Taste 

For The Topping 

2 x Slices Bread

150g Cheese

1 x Clove Garlic

250g Dried Pasta

1. First of all the ratatouille, roughly chop the garlic, and put it into a large, cold pan, turn the ring on and cook for a minute or two.

In the meantime chop your onions into half moons. I'm using red onions but you can use what ever you have.

Add the onions and the garlic to the pan, and cook for around 5-10 minutes, till they're just starting to soften.

2. Now for your tomatoes, I don't particularly like the skin in cooked food because it can be a bit chewy so I remove it. All you do is score your tomatoes, with a sharp knife, and then pop them into a bowl of boiling water for about 5 minutes or so.

3. By this time you onions should be starting to soften and look translucent

Roughly chop your courgette into half moons and add them to your onions, and cook for a minute or two.

4.Them chop your aubergine into similar sized pieces and add it to the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes to the vegetables are starting to soften.

5. Next de-seed your peppers and chop them into similar sized pieces, add them to your pan, and cook for a few minutes.

6. Now it's time to get messy, carefully remove your tomatoes from the boiling water and give them a rinse in cold water to cool them down a bit. If you have silicone oven mitt use just to be on the safe side as they will be a bit warm. Then just peel the skin off the tomatoes, it should come off really easily.

I'm not a huge fan of the seeds, so I remove those too.

Then roughly chop the tomato flesh and add it to the pan.

7. Again cook for a minute or two then add your tinned tomatoes and a dash of water

and then add your tomato puree, and cook for at least 15-20 minutes till it's darkened, and thickened slightly and the vegetables are all soft

8. Pre heat your oven to about 180 C, and put your pasta on and cooks as per packet intstructions. I'm using gluten free penne but you can use whatever shape you like.

9. While your waiting for your pasta and ratatouille to cook, it's time to make your topping, you could just cover it in grated cheese but I personally love a crispy breadcrumb topping. You can do this by hand if your were desperate but I just put the bread, a roughly chopped clove of garlic and the cheese into a food processor

and then zapped it, until it's all combined and crumb like.

10. When your pastas done, drain it and mix half of your ratatouille into it

Then pour it into a large baking dish, I'm using my lasagne dish here x

Then top it with the rest of the ratatouille 

and your cheesy, garlic breadcrumbs.

11. Put it in the top shelf of the oven for around 20 - 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and the breadcrumbs are golden brown. How long it takes depends on your oven so keep an eye on it.

Voila - you could easily get 4-6 servings out of this recipe, but it will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, all you need to do is thoroughly reheat it in the oven to keep the topping crisp or the microwave for speed.

Of course the ratatouille recipe would be great served with just plain pasta, rice or a jacket potato rather than making it into a bake. You could also add some herbs or chilli, or even a bit of red wine to pimp it up a bit. Whatever you do though, I would at least try making the ratatouille portion of this recipe. It's a really happy recipe, the colours are so bright and cheerful, and the fresh, taste makes you think of summer, even when it's cold outside x Hope you enjoy x Happy Eating x 

Skincare On A Budget With The Tesco Pro Formula Hot Cloth Cleanser* And Radiance Toner

I'm not a snob when it comes to skincare, rather than choose products by their price tag I use what works for me. My current skin care routine involves products priced between £1 and £60 and I'm a firm believer that great products can be found at all price points.

I know some people wouldn't dream of buying skincare in the supermarket but things are changing. More and more supermarket lines are formulated with the same care and scientific knowledge as their high priced cousins. Yes the packaging may be a bit more basic and not quite as glamorous but it's the product inside that matters. 

Last years saw the launch of Tesco's Pro Formula range, a selection of skincare, men's grooming products and haircare designed to achieve real results on a budget.

The skin care range features a wide range of products, catering to all different skin types for dry and sensitive, to oily and combination. The range which appealed to be most was the Pro Formula Radiance line which is specially designed for normal to combination skin, with a focus on anti-ageing. All the products in this particular are full of green tea extract and Vitamin E to tackle the first signs of ageing. A few months ago now I was kindly sent one of the stars of the range to try, the Pro Formula Radiance Hot Cloth Cleanser.

Containing green tea and vitamin E, the cleanser comes boxed, and in a pretty, utilitarian style green, silver and white, squeezy tube.

Inside the box you also get a small, but useful, soft, muslin cloth.

Like a lot of the other hot cloth style cleansers on the market, this one is white in colour, and has a rich creamy texture, and fresh scent.

For those of you that aren't familiar with this type of cleanser, all you do is massage it over your dry face, and remove it with a warm, damp muslin cloth or even a flannel, You can also use it on the eyes to remove eye make up.

Here's a scary picture of me removing the make up look that you saw yesterday. A little bit early for Halloween but it's going to get  a lot worse before this post is out lol.

This cleanser has absolutely no problem at all with removing both light and heavy make up. The combination of the warm, damp muslin and this hot cloth cleanser means that your make up just seem to melt, making everything from long wear foundation to waterproof mascara just disappear in a flash.

Not pleasant the cloth is it? but it just shows after numerous rinses just how much make up it had to deal with. I do sometimes do a double cleanse when I'm removing my make up but with this I didn't need to.

Apologies for the slightly scary, barefaced after pictures, but these pictures show my face immediately after I've removed the cleanser. The skin looks clean and clear, but it isn't overtly pink or inflamed looking. Obviously we don't have feel a vision so you can't feel my skin but it feels super smooth and moisturised, probably down to the hydrating ingredients and the exfoliating properties of the cloth and the cleanser.

You can see in the second picture that my eyes also look fine. I'm not a huge fan of using cream, or balm cleansers on my eyes but used gently this product dissolved yesterdays long wear eye look with very few problems, leaving my eyes feeling clean and not at all sore, runny or irritated.

It's sometimes seen as quite an old fashioned thing to include a toner in your skincare routine and with this cleanser it's probably not essential but I love how clean and fresh they leave my skin. I was after a new toner so having tried the cleanser I decided to try the corresponding toner, the Pro Formula Radiance Toner For Normal / Combination Skin.

Like the hot cloth cleanser it contains a combination of green tea and vitamin E, to leave the skin soothed and refreshed.

Packaged in fairly plain bottle in the same colours as the cleanser, it has a flip top cap, and is clear in colour and has the same fresh, clean, cucumber / green tea scent

It feels cooling and refreshing on the skin but it seem to take a little while to absorb. The skin is left feeling clean and revitalised. There is a bit of alcohol in this toner so if you have a drier skin this probably isn't for you but personally my skin was left feeling very comfortable, with no excess dryness, redness or irration.

I have to say that these two items have really surprised me. The hot cloth cleanser easily compares to some I've tried from higher end brands, and the toner is really good value, and feels pleasant on the skin. The prices for the Pro Formula Radiance are superb with everything priced between £1 and £5, and the range includes several different cleansers, wipes, moisturisers and even BB creams, so it's definitely worth a look in your local branch of Tesco if your on a budget. The Pro Formula Radiance Hot Cloth Cleanser retails at £5 for 150ml and the Pro Formula Radiance Toner retails at just £2.00 for 200ml, so you really are getting value for money. Are you a fan of supermarket beauty products? I'd love to hear you thoughts x

(*PR Sample)

Achieving A Healthy Glow All Year Round With Benefit The Bronze Of Champions Total Bronze Kit

With the howling winds and rain we've had over the last 24 hours or so, Summer really does seem like a lifetime away now. The clocks go back at the weekend and we know what that means, longer nights, shorter days and less sunshine.

I can honestly say that I don't mind the change in seasons, I hate the rain, the wind and the snow, but I love the freshness and crispness of the air. The fresh air gives the skin a really healthy glow, but in the depths of winter when you spend so much time indoors and out of natural daylight, your skin can start to look pale, and almost peaky looking. In the winter time I probably use more blusher, bronzer and cheek colours than I do at any other time of year, not only to help shape my face but also to give my skin a much needed healthy appearance. I guess that's why I make no apologies for reviewing a perceived "summer" product now. So many of us need a bit of a glow all year round, and this kit will give us that no matter what the season.

Benefit's The Bronze Of Champions Total Bronze Kit For Eyes Lips And Cheeks, to give it, it's full title is one of those boxed collections for which Benefit are so famous. Ideal gifts and travel companions, these kits also give you an opportunity to try some of their most famous products, for a fraction of the price that the full sizes would cost.

The kit comes boxed and is the familiar almost book style, cardboard packaging, which can be reused as a jewellery or trinket box when the products have gone. It features a large mirror in the lid, and a tips and tricks booklet , with suggestions on how to use the products and a step by step guide to create a make up look using all of the products inside.

So, what's in it? As you would expect from the name, this kit is all about the bronze, but don't think in your face bronze, some of the shades are actually quite neutral. First of all you get a 3.2g Creaseless Cream Shadow / Liner in Bikini-Tini, you also get a 1.2g Longwear Powder Shadow in Thanks A Latte and 3g mini They're Real Mascara. Face wise you get a 3g Hoola Bronzer and a mini cheek brush to apply it with. You also get a little 2.5g Watt's Up Cream Highlighter, and you also get 1 lip product, a 6.5ml Ultra Plush Hoola Lip Gloss.

We'll start off by looking at the eye products. The first product in the kit is the Creaseless Cream Shadow / Liner in Bikini -Tini. I'm a huge, huge fan of these products and Skinny Jeans is easily one of my most used eyeshadows of all time. Bikini-Tini is a gorgeous, shimmery, creamy, champagne colour, it's fab on it own but it works equally well as a base. This one like all of the shades I've tried in this line wears incredibly well.

The next item is the Longwear Shadow in Thanks A Latte. This must be one of Benefit's most popular colours by far, as it appears in at least two other boxed kits, and I can see why. It looks a tad grey in the palette but it's actually a beautiful, shimmery, taupe brown. It's soft and very pigmented, and purely based on this one I honestly don't understand why Benefit powder shadows don't get more love

I'm not going to review They're Real here, I'm still a little bit undecided as up until now I've only used the sample sized ones. Once I've had a chance to try the full sized version I'll put a review post up for you x 

Next up the cheek products and the biggie Hoola Bronzer. I already own the full size of this and I have to say it always scared the hell out of me. It's a matte bronzer with virtually no orange in it but I always thought it was just a bit too dark to work on my pale, pink, skin. I thought about selling but instead I asked Benefit UK's head make up artist Lisa Potter Dixon, via twitter the best way to apply it. Her answer wasn't complicated - in a 3 and E motion, hitting just under your cheek bones to contour, and do you know what? the lady was right. The little brush supplied in this kit is just a scaled down version of the normal box o' powders brush, and it does the job perfectly. The pigmentation is immense and you need a very light hand to avoid overdoing, but I've just been apply it and blending it out with another blush to give me a face a bit of contour and a bit of colour.

The next product in the kit was a new one to me, and something I'd been wanting to try for a while Watt's Up. This is a shimmery, iridescent, champagne highlighter in a stick. It's really creamy, and easy to blend. I've mainly been using it on the top of my cheek bones and on my brown bone to provide a bit of light and a bit of a glow.

The final product in the kit is a mini Hoola Ultra Plush Lip Gloss. Despite the very brown appearance in the tube, this is a proper nude gloss. There is a little bit of colour and sheen to it but it looks quite sheer on the lips. I have a few of these glosses and by and large I'm pretty impressed. Unlike a lot of lip glosses they aren't sticky in the slightest, and they actually feel quite moisturising on the lips. I also love the almost peach and apricot fruity taste and scent.

The tips and tricks leaflet gives you a step by step guide to a really easy and quick make up look using the products in the kit. It's really easy to follow and the result is a really pretty, natural look, that will work equally well in the summer or in the winter. My pictures alas aren't the best, thanks to the autumnal weather but I hope at least they give you some idea. Apart from my foundation, concealer and powder, every thing else is from this kit.

This photo is probably the worst of the bunch which is a shame, but I just want to give you an idea of the eye look that you can create with this kit. You just blend the creaseless cream shadow all over the lid, adding a touch of the powder shadow into the crease and the outer corners, before finishing with a slick of mascara and a bit of the Watt's Up Highlighter on the brow bone. This has been one of my go to eye looks over the last few weeks, it's a nice natural look that's ideal for any occasion. You could of course alter the look by using a little bit of Hoola Bronzer on the lid too.

Despite it's summery theme and imagery, this kit really does prove that being bronzed and glowy isn't just for summer. If I had been abroad this year this kit would definitely have came with me but by the same note I won't be shoving it to the back of the drawer when the snow starts to fall. The shades are very neutral and can easily be worn from season to season, even Hoola bronzer, if you apply it with a more delicate hand. This kit was a gift and to be honest it wouldn't have been something that I would have considered purchasing myself but now I have it, I'm not saying I couldn't live without it but it's been a very useful addition to my make up collection and I can definitely see myself buying Watt's Up in a larger size.

Benefit kits aren't the cheapest and this one is no exception at £26.50 but if you want to try a few products without shelling up for the full sizes kits like this are well worth it and make fab gifts. Are you a Benefit fan? Leave me a comment and let me know your favourite Benefit product x