Les huilettes - Mon huilette night

After a long and tiring day, we at The Amazing Blog can’t think of anything better than taking off our makeup and applying a soothing night serum. What makes  a night serum stand out for us from other skin care products is that they’re jam-packed with ingredients that nourish and brighten your skin while you sleep. We can never get enough of serums, as each one has specific properties to enhance the skin, such as anti-ageing from les huilettes we are referring to, of course, their very special mon huilette night serum. 

The brand was started in France in 2015 by two long-time friends, Pascale Gal and Claire Auzouy. Gal was a pharmacist with a degree in Aromatherapy while Auzouy had a background in luxury gastronomy. Gal desired to ‘return to a simpler beauty, essential and without sacrifice, summed up in a few principles and gestures’. The pair combined their unique experiences to start a cosmetics company that is 100 per cent natural, vegan, and botanical. Les huilettes is also committed to the environment and partnered with Up2green Reforestation, a French nonprofit organisation that helps replant fruit trees in communities affected by deforestation. 

The Mon huilette night serum is made for all skin types to smooth and enhance your skin’s suppleness. Overnight, it leaves your skin looking more radiant overnight and repairs any signs of anti-ageing such as wrinkles and skin dullness. The formula of a ‘plant synergy of essential and vegetable oils to be effective without fluff’makes the night serum stand out. Essential oils like Italian helichrysum have an anti-inflammatory benefit while myrtle and bourbon geranium have therapeutic aromatherapy effects to enhance positive well-being. Argan and avocado oils deeply moisturise and plump your skin while prickly pear cactus prevents the formation of premature wrinkles and lightens dark circles. These elements result in a light-feeling oil serum that melts evenly into your face and neck and doesn’t make you feel greasy. 

A little goes a long way, and you only need 3-5 drops per use. You should purposely but gently massage the serum into your freshly cleansed face for optimal results. However, for extra pampering and an at-home massage, we suggest you watch their serum application video here . On top of it all, rose and white flower leave a tangy and therapeutic scent on your face to relax you before bed. You can join ‘tribe of huilettes’ and amp up your night skin care routine by purchasing the mon huilette night (15ml) here for 45€

IdHair - Fiber Foam

Blowout hairstyles are back! They have been increasing in popularity for the past few years especially with the emergence of blow-dry bars. While it’s great to have smooth and sleek hair without the damage from the hot flat iron straighteners, the cost for a professional blow dry every couple weeks certainly adds up. That’s why at The Amazing Blog we’ve got into the habit to do our own home styling! To help us try and achieve salon-quality results, we’ve started using products that are specifically for blow drying. One product in particular, which is new to the UK, and has helped to give us good and lasting effects at-home blow dries is IdHair’s ELEMENTS Xclusive Blow Fiber Foam.

Inspired by their Nordic heritage, Danish brand IdHair launched the Elements Xclusive line in 2018. All products in the professional haircare and styling line are packaged in a recycled plastic bottle and are produced in IdHair’s own factory in Sweden. A part of the recently launched range, The BLOW series in the range includes products to use pre-styling before you blow dry your hair. The BLOW Fiber Foam in the series is a hair mousse that distributes fibres in your hair to add texture to hair before you blow dry. The mousse is made with ingredients derived mostly from nature and is free from gluten, sulfates, parabens and irritating perfumes. The Argan oil and other natural ingredients like blueberry extract, shea butter, rice and amethyst enriched in the mousse softens and nourishes hair while the fibres give an extra voluminous boost.

To use the IdHair ELEMENTS Xclusive Blow Fiber Foamshake and hold the bottle upside down to dispense a generous amount of the foam. Then, simply work a generous amount of mousse between your palms and evenly distribute into damp hair. Then you are ready to start blow-drying for full volumised and sleek hair. The BLOW Fiber Foam is currently not available online (coming soon) it will be priced at approximately £12.50 for a 200 ml bottle to find it at your nearest salon visit their website here.

By Sarah London's Organic Hair Oil

We're sure we're not alone in admitting that we spend our early mornings armed with a hairdryer (and other hot hair styling tools…) Whether we're going for a straight or curly style, we're no strangers to using a little heat to tame our tresses at The Amazing Blog; and while our hair looks well groomed, we do struggle with the inevitability of dry and damaged ends. From this issue emerged a quest to bring the shine back, bringing vegan brand, By Sarah London, into the frame. They introduced their Organic Hair Oil to us, and this has been our newfound way of injecting some much need moisture, and we couldn't wait to share this with you all!

By Sarah London is a natural and organic brand, providing products that demonstrate full transparency concerning ingredient choices. From humble beginnings, this brand emerged when founders Sarah and Lauren took on the challenge of soothing Lauren's skin while recovering from leukaemia. Their plant-based goal has since developed into a full range of hair care, body care and skincare products that promote conscious living and natural wellbeing simultaneously.

We tried their Organic Hair Oil, a 98% organic and 100% natural product, without the use of artificial ingredients, essential oils or fragrance. Instead, this gem of a find contains Argan oil, sea buckthorn oil and Vitamin E, actively working to prevent thinning of your tresses, and preventing the split ends often associated with the use of heat treatment. Having used this for a few weeks, we can confirm our hair looks and feels both stronger and softer, and with a pretty and recyclable glass bottle - it looks great on any dressing table too. The oil is also unscented, and is a nice addition in the market of heavily fragrance hair oils. To use, add 1-2 drops to clean, damp hair before blow-drying - or, we were also pleased to discover, this oil can be used before air drying your hair (with no sticky residue - bonus!)

To bring the shine back to your hair, visit the By Sarah London website here, where you'll find the 20ml bottle available for £21.50, a little goes a long way!.

Friday Favourites: Body Care Products

When The Amazing Blog did a quick beauty poll amongst some friends, it seems that body care products are something frequently overlooked. We all take great care to moisturise our faces, but what about our poor hard-working bodies? Today we have reviewed some of our #amazingfinds for the body, which we hope will tempt even the most sceptical or lackadaisical among you.

Let’s begin with Lavera, a brand that we know and love (see here for more). Lavera never fails to live up to our expectations with their 100% certified organic ingredients, all of which are dermatologically proven, vegan and with all the free-froms. We like a good multi-tasker and with their Firming Body Milk we have found just that. Not only does it help to moisturise, but it also works to firm up the skin too. Lavera claims that when used every day, there will be a noticeable difference in your skin texture within two weeks – quite a claim, but one we can justify! Gently fragranced, the use of key ingredients, organic green coffee bean and green tea, help to stimulate the skin, for a soft and smooth finish. On the other hand, the use of rosemary and grape help to leave skin feeling silky-soft. It is lightweight to use and absorbs quickly, thankfully leaving no sticky residue. They suggest exfoliating first (Lavera has a rather lovely Smoothing Body Scrub) and applying daily. Whether you’re looking for body firming or not, we really liked the fragrance, feel and texture. Sensibly priced at £10.95 for a 200ml tube , it is available here.

Next, we have CeraVe’s Moisturising Cream, an impressive hyaluronic acid and ceramide based barrier cream, suitable for use on both the body and face, and gentle enough for eczema-prone skin. What are ceramides, I hear you ask; they are lipids that not only help to form the skin’s barrier and retain moisture but also protect against environmental pollution. This body moisturiser is particularly suitable for anyone with dry or very dry sensitive skin. CeraVe is a US brand developed in tandem with dermatologists, they have over 70 products to offer and what makes their product unique is their revolutionary delivery system: MultiVesicular Emulsion Technology (MVE). This technology releases moisturising ingredients over a 24 hour period, layer by layer, to help keep skin soft all day long. Ingredients are not natural, but they are fragrance free, non-comedogenic and hypoallergenic. CeraVe are also quick to point out that they have received more Seal of Acceptance awards from the National Eczema Association than any other brand, which makes them a very tried and tested brand. Available from Boots or Superdrug, this is an economical product, £8.50 for 177ml.

Our third body moisturiser is from the award-winning British brand PHB (Pure Handmade British) Ethical Beauty which is stuffed to the gunnels with delicious superfoods. This 2-in-1 Hand & Body Moisturiser has had us all cooing and oohing. We’ve been long-standing fans of PHB Ethical Beauty and have reviewed several of their products (and we hope many more) - see here. So when given the opportunity to try their new Hand & Body Moisturiser – we leapt at the chance! This brand is very special with 20% of their profits going to The OneLove Foundation (founded by PHB Ethical Beauty in 2015). All their products are made with ethically harvested and responsibly sourced ingredients that are 100% natural, vegan, cruelty-free and alcohol-free (Halal certified). They call this a “no-nonsense moisturiser” and we couldn’t agree more. It absorbs quickly and comes with a list of simple, natural and certified organic ingredients that perform; it feeds the skin with a pure and powerful blend of mango, shea butter, apricot and pumpkin seeds – we love both the fragrance and simplicity. It is available on the PHB website here for £16.60, in a 150ml recyclable tube.

Our final discovery are Liquid Body Washes from Fil Blanc (meaning “white thread” in French), perhaps best known for their high-quality Hammam Turkish cotton towelling (we have our eye on their multi-coloured hand woven bath robe). The brand’s inspiration is taken from Mediterranean luxury living, with a touch of bohemia thrown in. Fil Blanc is based in historical St. Nicholas Market at the Exchange Hall, Bristol where they started three years ago. All products are sourced or designed by the founder Gulsum Gok. She very kindly sent us two of their body washes Relaxing and Orange & Jasmine. All body washes are 99% natural with a 81.98 % organic base, also vegan, cruelty and paraben free. Again they come with a very simple list of ingredients: Relaxing is made with essential oils of geranium, lavender, orange and ylang-ylang; whereas Orange & Jasmine has only these. Both contain honey and aloe vera with an Argan oil base. At a reasonably priced £12 for 259ml you can purchase both here, or alternatively make a visit to their Bristol HQ.

Now there is no excuse not to implement a little body pampering!

London Beard Company's Eastern Spice Beard Oil

With us boys at The Amazing Blog embracing the current mood for cultivating an individualistic style through our facial fuzz, it was only a matter of time before we started to search for products that cater to these follicle matters. Enter the London Beard Company! Although a relatively young label, they have navigated an incredibly successful path to grooming outlets across the land, including that most celebrated of department stores, Fortnum & Mason, as well as winning an award from the prestigious Beauty Shortlist for The Best Beard Oil of 2017.

Clearly the London Beard Company are doing something right, with an ever-increasing band of followers keen to lavish some serious attention. And while it may not be breaking news that this is a highly lucrative and competitive market, it is perhaps interesting to note the devotion of The London Beard Company to the beard and male grooming market. The well-groomed man about town is now just as likely to spend as much time and money on perfecting their beard as they have in the past on their hair, so it’s no surprise that The London Beard Company’s products have become ever popular.

With products that not only nurturing our follicles, but also our skin too, we tried their Eastern Spice Oil. Like their other oils, this has a base of olive and argan oils - with the use of 100% natural ingredients, with well documented beneficial properties for the skin. With an evocative mix of clementine and clove, this oil has a warmth akin to this cold time of the year, yet still has a light consistency, with a sweet aroma. For a medium beard, 2-3 pipette drops are recommended, but naturally, with a fuller and more bushy crop, you may require slightly more. For 30ml, we are looking at £17.99, but a little does go a long way! Widely available through stockists across the country, you can also check out the London Beard Co. website here to purchase the Eastern Spice Beard Oil from their online shop.