I'm a big fan of the Emerald Street daily emails from the team behind Stylist Magazine. Last week, Emerald Street teamed up with John Lewis for a "Beauty in the Spotlight" event which a friend and I headed to after work. For £10 we got an amazing goodie bag (I was genuinely impressed with the amount of products that had been crammed in to it!) and £10 off our purchases that evening. After browsing all the counters I settled on a Topshop blusher and lipstick (reviews to come). The Topshop range is perfect for affordable, high quality products and as I'm still supposedly on a spending ban this meant I only spent an extra £4.
The goodie bag:

I'm going to have fun trying out all of these! I've wanted to try Elemis and Ren products for a while so this is a great way to see what the products are like without splashing out on a full size. Pretty impressed with the NARS eyeshadow trio, too! I'll be reviewing some of the products in future posts.
One of the products I looked at at the event was Abi O tan. The creator of the tan was at the event, she was lovely (and not remotely orange) and explained her range to my friend and I. There is a tan for "English Rose" skins which contains less DHA (the ingredient in fake tan that develops to give the colour) than traditional fake tan and promises no biscuit-y fake tan smell. For darker skins there is a shimmer product with a low percentage of DHA to enhance already tanned skin and help even out skintone. I was tempted to purchase the tan but at £26 I would have felt a little guilty at spending so much. Luckily, there was a sample in the giftbag:

I've been using this since the event and I love it. I've dabbled with fake tans and "Holiday Skin" type products in the past but detest the smell of the products and even the ones designed for light skin make me go slightly orange.
The formula of the Abi 0 tan is a gel-cream which feels light on my skin, it sinks in quickly and has no smell on application nor while it develops. The cream has a slight shimmer so you could put it on in the morning and have it develop throughout the day or just apply it in the evening for it to develop overnight as I have been doing. After two applications my skin no longer glows white in bright sunlight and I have the colour that I would usually have after a two week summer holiday. I didn't exfoliate or moisturise before applying this and I had no streaks of patches of uneven tan the next morning.
I'd definitely recommend this to fellow "English Roses". I'd never go for a full on TOWIE tan but I do like how this makes me look healthier and takes the edge of my pallor. I've never really appreciated before how much of a confidence boost a tan can be, I feel like I've just come back from a holiday (the nice weather in London has definitely helped with this!) and I'm definitely going to spend that £26 when the sample runs out.
Are you a fake tan fan?
The goodie bag:
I'm going to have fun trying out all of these! I've wanted to try Elemis and Ren products for a while so this is a great way to see what the products are like without splashing out on a full size. Pretty impressed with the NARS eyeshadow trio, too! I'll be reviewing some of the products in future posts.
One of the products I looked at at the event was Abi O tan. The creator of the tan was at the event, she was lovely (and not remotely orange) and explained her range to my friend and I. There is a tan for "English Rose" skins which contains less DHA (the ingredient in fake tan that develops to give the colour) than traditional fake tan and promises no biscuit-y fake tan smell. For darker skins there is a shimmer product with a low percentage of DHA to enhance already tanned skin and help even out skintone. I was tempted to purchase the tan but at £26 I would have felt a little guilty at spending so much. Luckily, there was a sample in the giftbag:
I've been using this since the event and I love it. I've dabbled with fake tans and "Holiday Skin" type products in the past but detest the smell of the products and even the ones designed for light skin make me go slightly orange.
The formula of the Abi 0 tan is a gel-cream which feels light on my skin, it sinks in quickly and has no smell on application nor while it develops. The cream has a slight shimmer so you could put it on in the morning and have it develop throughout the day or just apply it in the evening for it to develop overnight as I have been doing. After two applications my skin no longer glows white in bright sunlight and I have the colour that I would usually have after a two week summer holiday. I didn't exfoliate or moisturise before applying this and I had no streaks of patches of uneven tan the next morning.
I'd definitely recommend this to fellow "English Roses". I'd never go for a full on TOWIE tan but I do like how this makes me look healthier and takes the edge of my pallor. I've never really appreciated before how much of a confidence boost a tan can be, I feel like I've just come back from a holiday (the nice weather in London has definitely helped with this!) and I'm definitely going to spend that £26 when the sample runs out.
Are you a fake tan fan?