Weekly Purchase (till 22nd Feb 2014)

Hello hello shopaholics!! Long time no see again! But I have a valid reason this time, I have moved back to Hong Kong!! I have been trying to get myself a job since I did not pass my pharmacy conversion exam (I failed a paper out of three, sad times). So on the 7^th March I went for an interview for a pharmacy dispenser post and now I’m just waiting for their reply. Also I’m getting prepared to do something interesting, but I want to keep this a secret for now (you probably can guess what it is anyway lol).

  

So these are all that I bought in the UK just before I came back to Hong Kong.

1)      Benefit Goovy Kind- A Love make up kit 

I LOVE this!!! I got this kit from the duty free after going to Paris. In the kit there is a Bene Tint, the Porefessional Primer, 4 neutral eye shadows, 2 blushers (one of them might have been a contour colour) and the They're Real mascara. This kit basically had everything I wanted to try from Benefit so I got this for £17.50 reduced from about £ 25. For so many amazing products this is a complete BARGAIN right?  

2)    Garnier Micellar water

Micellar water~~ There are so many different types and I can never resist trying out new ones. So far I have tried 5 micellar water type of makeup removers (Bioderma, Loreal, Haruhada collagen cleansing water, B. Pure micellar water and this Garnier one). From all the videos that I have watched the main differences between all these micellar waters seem to be a) how drying they are and b) how well they remove make up. So first I never managed to find one that takes off my water proof mascara easily without some rubbing action but to me they were all good for taking off face make up. Secondly I have oily skin and I don’t normally find anything drying…so I can never tell the difference. However, I would say from all the ones, the Haruhada one does make my skin feel slightly tingly. I am not sure if that is irritation or what but there doesn’t seem to cause any redness to my skin. In terms of price, this one is a very reasonable. It was retail for £ 4.99 at Boots for 400 mL which is equivalent for about 200 uses (said on the bottle).

3)      Soap & Glory Kick Ass Concealer

Only used this once, not sure about it. The powder seemed to slip into the little lines I have underneath my eyes which from a distance isn’t noticeable but I didn’t like it. But I cannot be sure until I have used it more.

4) Soap & Glory Super Colour Fabulipstick Powdercoat Matte Lipstick in Pompom

WOW that colour, that formulation, that smell (smells like chocolate to me). I LOVE this lipstick so much it has pretty much become my go to. So first it is red lipstick but not too ‘in your face’ kind of red. There are so many ways to wear it too. When I went for my job interview I wanted to look awake but I was going for the ‘no makeup’ make up look so that I look more professional than ‘I’m going clubbing’. So I used my fingers to dap this onto my lips to give it some sheer colour. And when I was really going out I would put a thicker layer on and the matte finish is just beautiful.

5)     Rimmel London Clear Complexion powder

I have not tried this yet but I have heard that this is better for those with troublesome skin i.e. acne, excess oil etc. So I wanted to try it out.

6)      N^o 7 Instant Radiance Highlighter

Beauuuuutiful highlighter. I hate highlighters that are too white, rub off my blush/ foundation, or those with visible glitters. This highlighter is so natural and it gives a very natural glow to your skin. I found that stick/ cream highlighters seem to work better and look more natural on my skin comparing to powder highlighters. Please go and try this one out. They also do blushers in the same stick form. I wish I could get more to try out but I’m not in the country anymore…sigh.

Hope you liked this blog post, please comment below and tell me about what you have bought/ tried recently.

Love you all

Mwah Mwah Mwah

We went to PARIS for the V DAY!!!

Hello my lovely shopaholics!! Today’s post is a bit different, it is not about what I bought! Valentine’s day has come and gone for a month now… but I still want to share with you what I did for it because it might give you ideas of what to do in the next Valentine’s day? Feel free to skip reading this if you’re not interested though.

So my boyfriend took the week before Valentine’s day off so we could spend more time together before I go back to Hong Kong. And for that I planned to give him a little gift every day till Valentine’s day. For Day 1 I made him this floral bear.

 I messed up at the nose area so the bear ended up with a flat nose lol. 

It’s much easier to make than what it looks. First pick a fabric you like and then cut out the shapes you need. You will need double of everything so that you can sew the two pieces together with the stuffing in the middle (except for the feet, the back of the head and the back of the trunk).

This bear has a heart and I was inspired to do that by the shop, Build- a- bear Workshop which provides little cushion hearts to be put inside their cuddly toys while filling them up with fur. I also sprayed it with my favourite perfume.

I crave for certain food all the time (even without getting pregnant…) and that Sunday night I was craving pancakes. So on Monday we bought some pancakes, fruit and Nutella and he came over to make some omelettes with red pepper and baby corn. 

Then we pretty much just lied on the sofa and watched some movies while we were eating. We kept eating the same food throughout breakfast and lunch time lol. So that’s what we did on Day 1.

Day 2 I made something a lot easier because I was lazy lol. I basically dipped some strawberries into melted chocolate and decorated them with sprinkles.

Day 3 we booked out holiday to Paris!! We also exchanged an outfit that we picked for each other. This would be the outfit that we were going to wear in Paris on Valentine’s day.

 Left: Pleather jacket from H&M, grey jumper from Primark and ripped skinny jeans from H&M. Right: Pink leather jacket, grey t- shirt (slightly cropped and says Beau Fleur in black writings) and black coated Leigh jeans all from Topshop. Looking at these outfits now, makes me feel like a cheapo but that's because the boyfriend cheated and went over the budget of £100. I do love my outfit though. Comments for the outfits will be much appreciated!!

Day 4 we had to wake up at 4 am to get to the airport so didn’t do very much apart from packing.

Day 5 (Valentine’s day)- We got to Paris at 9:30 am. Then we took the metro to Quatre Septembre which is the closest station to our hotel. We stayed in a hotel called Ascot Opera. The reception lady was super nice and lent us an umbrella since it was raining. The room was quite small but cosy. After resting in the hotel for an hour or two we went out for lunch in an Italian restaurant near the hotel. 

After that we had a nice romantic relaxing walk to the station Tuileries. Then we took the metro to Champs Elysees!!! And I wanted to go there because they have Sephora there!! There was a specific product I wanted to get from there and it’s the Laduree Les Merveilleuses Petal Blush. However, I found it way too expensive so I didn’t buy it *sad face*. Then we also got some chocolate and I forgot to check out the name of the shop…sorry. The next stop was Arc Du Triomphe which I managed to go in for FREE because I am under 25 and have a British passport (or any EU passport will do too) so if you are visiting Paris do NOT forget to have your passport with you at all times! 

Me starring at Arc Du Triomphe...

One of the reasons why I wanted to go Paris was of course for the MACARONS!!! I went to Pierre Herme (inside Publicis Pharmacy) and queued for like half an hour for a box of seven yummy macarons.

They had this sweet heart design made with maracons potentially or Valentine's day

Then we rested on the bench outside for like 15 minutes because my knees were sore from over walking (and it’s a recurrent problem of mine) and boyfriend was having a cold so we were basically exhausted. So we decided we weren’t going to stress about what to have for dinner and McDonald’s is just on the other side of the road!! So we had a romantic dinner at McDonald’s lol I ordered a Happy Meal which came with a free DVD (we picked Shrek 4) which was so cool and they should consider doing that in other countries.

As we just left McDonald's the boyfriend walked away and bought some roses from a guy. So these were all we bought for the day. 

Day 6- DisneyLand and Disney Studio!! First ride: TOWER OF TERROR!! I have been to Disneyland and Disney Studio before but I was being a scardy cat and I skipped this ride last time. And this time I managed to try it and it was the best ride of the day!! We missed out the Nemo ride because the queue was crazy when we went the first time and there were technical problems when we went the second time then we ran out of time to go back for it *tears*.

Day 7

First attraction of the day- The Louvre. Then we took the rikshaw to the Notre Dame Cathedral

Then we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower which I haven't got a picture of because we were rushing.

Last attraction of the day- Charles De Gaulle airport. We had a 12 hour tour. Wait, what?! Oh yeah we slept in the airport for the night. This is because we had some technical problems with the flight tickets…someone made a little mistake lol. So we changed our ticket for the next morning. At that time it was NOT fun because I was having some bad ass period pain but I ran out of pain killers (luckily I did have pads) so I was in pain, cold and had nowhere to sleep properly. So of course I ended up arguing with the boyfriend (I can’t even remember why we did, but now I think it's just because I was feeling so unwell but couldn't sleep) and I started crying. Some airport security walked by and thought I was being ‘bullied’ by the boyfriend and that calmed me down straight away because I didn't want him to get into trouble for nothing. Then we both fell asleep. As we woke up something went missing!!! So before we fell asleep I had my hat (the one I was wearing in that Arc Du Triomphe picture) on the bench with the boyfriend’s headphones in it and they were stolen when we were asleep. I know you will say that’s so silly you should have watched your stuff etc. but we were so exhausted both physically and mentally. Another thing I want to mention is that the airport toilets were not very nice in a sense that they only had iced cold water from the sink (I have only been to two toilets in the airport so maybe other toilets do have warm water?). I would say try not to sleep in Charles De Gaulle airport if you can.

Now looking back the whole experience makes me laugh. It started off being a romantic fun holiday but now I would never forget about it because of that special night lol

Another thing about the trip was that we didn’t check in any luggage and as a result I didn’t manage to pick up any beauty products. I am still very sad about that but that could only mean one thing…I need to go back to Paris next time with a large check- in luggage.

So that’s what we have done for Valentine’s day. Hope you enjoyed it!

Love you all,

Mwah Mwah Mwah

Weekly Purchase 3rd Feb 2014- 13th Feb 2014

HELLO shopaholics!! Late again I know... to be honest I was having one of those moments thinking why am I writing when there's no one is reading really...but that's of course silly so I am doing this now lol

Here is all I bought:

At the background it is the alphabet primark bags and I picked the letter 'S' for my name Shelly and also this blog Shopaholic anonymous *excitment* It was £1.50 

Then from left to right:

(1) Pukka vanilla chai tea

I fell in love with the spiciness of chai tea and this is AMAZING. It was around £2.50 from Wholefoods.

(2) Jewelry stand

Doesn't this look beautiful. I have been searching for some kind of cake stand thingy to store/ present my jewelries. I found one from Next Home for £24.99. It was so pretty but I refused to pay that money for something I didn't really need. So I kept searching and found this amazing one from TK Maxx for £ 6.99. Although it is smaller than the one from Next, for the price and quality it was just a BARGAIN! They also have other similar designs for the same price, if you are interested you should really go check them out before they are all gone!

(3) Hawaiian Ruby Guava perfume roll- on by Pacifica 

Ages ago I watched a video and heard about roll- on perfumes from Wholefoods. So I went to check them out and bought this one for £12.99. This smells very sweet and like guava as it's named. Roll- on perfumes are so handy to store in handbags for touch- ups.

(4) Batiste mini dry shampoo in sassy and darling Wild

Just thought I needed a travel size one to go into my bag. Thing about my Korean and somtimes Chinese cuisines is sometimes after the meal your clothes and hair can smell like the food you have just eaten and your hair can become quite greasy. So dry shampoo can be useful then.

I didn't buy very much recently and that's because I have checked my bank account. It looked horrible!! No income but lots of spending!! So that's why I have become a lot more 'controlled'. But don't worry guys, I will find a job and money to bring you better and more interesting weekly purchase. 

Hope that wasn't too boring. By the way I am going to PARIS for Valentines day woohoooooo!! Trust me I have had so many horrible Valentines days, single or not. And finally I can have this day celebrated in the most romantic city in the world. I will let you guys know what I bought from Paris when I am back!!

Love you all, 

Mwah Mwah Mwah

Ombre hair time!!! Review: Loreal Paris Preference wild ombre (brush on dip dye) colour No. 3

Hello my lovely shopaholics!! I dip dyed my hair!! Actually it's not that exciting I have done this before...with the same Loreal kit (Loreal Paris Preference wild ombre)...but I am doing it again. This is because I bought the shade number 1 for brown hair last time I ombre/ dip dyed it and it turned out quite ginger so I wanted to try it again with a lighter shade number 3 which is meant to be for those with dark blonde hair. So I hoped it would turn out lighter. By the way I purchased my kit from Savers which costed a fiver.

So here it is. The kit contains:
The followings were labelled with the number on the packaging
(1) Lightening powder
(2) Developer cream
(3) Lightening cream
(4) Conditioning shampoo
Also contains a pair of black plastic gloves, a brush to brush on the dye and instructions to use the product.

So the way I used it was I poured powder (1) into developer cream (2) and then squeezed the lightening cream (3) into (2) as well. Then give it a good shake to mix well. After that, gloves on and apply the mixed dye onto the brush. I divided my hair into two with a middle parting in the front and back (see picture below). The instructions suggested to start brushing on the hair from behind at ear level all the way down. Since my hair is quite long and I didn't want to have so much blonde, I started on the last 3-4 inches on my hair and kind of worked my way up instead of down.

Here is what my hair was like when I was dying it. And if you have long hair like mine, an old t-shirt is necessary. Do not try the sainsburys bag method I've shown in my earlier blog (if you don't know what this is it is basically me creating a cape with sainsburys bags to stop hair dye getting onto my clothes. Pathetic I know lol)

I reapplied the dye as they dry out and I also checked whether my desired colour has developed by washing off the dye on a small strand of hair. I waited for about 40 minutes but the dyed parts still look gingery. Then my sister said 'they said it works better if you keep it moist, so maybe cover it with foil or something?'. So I went to my beloved cling film again (again you can see why I love cling film in my first post). I waited for another 10- 15 minutes or so and went to rinse off the dye and washed my hair with the conditioning shampoo (4) provided in the kit. According to the instructions this is how you should look when you rinse your hair...

And the cling film managed to keep the hair moist with the dye but maybe the dye has been applied for too long and it stopped working. I ended up with quite gingery hair but less so comparing to when I used a darker shade before. Also the ombre/ dip dye effect was much more obvious. 

I was pleased with the results. A few problems were that a few strands of my hair was a lot lighter but that could be because I used cling film at the end and some the dye worked better at some parts. Also my ends are quite dry after that. I want to repeat this process to achieve a lighter colour so that I can play with the wash off dye from Bleach London. Work/ job interviews shall start soon and in Hong Kong light hair colour means I won't get a job I want. But I am planning to hide the light part of my hair with a hair donut (twist it all into the donut so that only the darker hair shows on the bun). This is also why ombre/ dip dye is fun!! We all like to hide some secrets..

Overall Loreal Paris ombre kits are so easy to use, they come so many different shades of blonde and colours ( red, purple etc). I highly recommend them to those who want to achieve an ombre/ dip dye effect at home.

That's it for this review, hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. See y' all soon.

Love you all

Mwah Mwah Mwah

Weekly Purchase 27th Jan 2014- 2nd Feb 2014

Hello my beautiful shopaholics!!! Happy lunar/ Chinese new year!! So far I have almost never been on time for my weekly purchase, however I really enjoy sharing with you guys what I have bought and it makes me so happy to just put a blog post up…I’m weird I know lol. I actually have to do my job applications but I’d rather do a blog post. It feels like I am talking to you guys even though I haven’t had a single comment yet but I know you are reading and that makes me so happy. Thank you so much for reading my blog guys. Love you all <3

Okay let’s see how naughty I have been this week. (the two envelopes are 'red pockets'. In Chinese New Year, relatives who are married would give these out to those who are not married and this is how it can get very embarrassing when you stay unmarried for a LONG time...and it has money inside!!) 

 I went onto fragrance direct!! (they also have their own youtube channel, check it out here!) This website is O.M.G!!! If you didn’t know about it I suggest you go and check it out NOW!! It is such an amazing website. So far I have never purchased anything from any outlet websites before because I wasn’t sure whether they are safe or trustworthy. I first discovered this website from one of my favourite youtubers, Becca Rose and from her experience it felt like this is a website I can trust (she's amazing, check out her fragrance direct haul here if you are interested). Although the website is called fragrance direct, it doesn’t only sell perfumes. It sells all kind of beauty products from make up to nail polish to skin care to hair products etc. This website has crazy deals for drug store products and some high ends products. So I went onto the website to see if they had those things that I have always wanted to get but didn’t quite want to spend that much money on. And WOW they did have almost everything I wanted to get but in a much cheaper price! Check them out:

(1) Perfumes

Lolita Lempicka L’ Eau en Blanc Eau de Parfum 30mL (about £19 from£30)

First please take a look at this bottle. It is just beautiful!! And the fact that the bottle is made of frosted glass just made it even better (I like frosted glass so much but I don’t know why…). To spray the perfume you press down the stalk of the apple. I honestly haven’t seen any other perfume bottle with such an amazing design. Then the smell, hmm it didn’t smell as elegant as it looked. It smells very nice but all I could smell was baby powder. 

Burberry body Eau de Parfum 35mL (about £25 from £41)

The bottle is orgasmic. If the Lolita Lempicka perfume were a teenage girl, this perfume is a sexy, young woman. I never owned any Burberry products before and this perfume just makes me feel a million-dollars. I am so bad at describing anything and describing a scent in English makes it almost impossible to understand for other people so if you want to know what this perfume smells like please checkout this link. *apologies and bows* 

(2) Nail polish (From left to right. Revlon, 99p each; Sally Hansen £1.49)

To be honest I didn’t quite like the texture of the Revlon nail enamel. It is abit too watery and it’s never enough with a single layer. However, it was 99p each and they had colours I wanted so I bought a few. I have never had a Sally Hansen nail polish but I always hear people talking about it so I picked one up. From the shades of the nail polish I noticed I am really hoping for the sun and a warm breeze. But as we all know this ain’t gonna happen in England anytime soon! I am going to wear these nail polish and pretend it’s warm outside. The shades I got were from left to right, sweet tart, blue lagoon, minted and go bananas.

(3)       Revlon Colorstay Foundation (£6.99 from £12.99, in the shade sand beige) 

I can’t even remember how long I have been using the Bourjois Healthy mix serum foundation. It never really managed to cover my acne scars/ marks completely even right after putting on makeup but somehow I just never thought about changing it. One day I went out to London quite early and I had a birthday party/ dinner to attend to that evening. Half way through the day I realized my makeup has almost disappeared on my face. The hyper-pigmentation left by my old friend acne had been uncovered, my whole face was like a giant grease ball, my under eye areas were so dark from my revealed dark circles and also smudged mascara/ eyeliner. Then I realized I need to do something about it. First, clearly my foundation was not lasting long enough for someone with such horrible skin like myself. I needed something with better coverage and a more matte finish. I heard about this Colourstay foundation from my sister. I have never tried using hers but it always looks nice on her and she has been re- purchasing it. So I have decided to pick it up. First impression was great, it definitely has higher coverage than the healthy mix foundation and my skin seemed to stay matte for longer. I know this foundation has been out on the market for ages and many people have reviewed it but I would still love to show you guys if I like it when I have used it more, because it might be useful for those we have similar skin problems (acne scars/ marks, large pores, dark circles, oil- dripping face, pretty much anything you can think of and I can see wrinkles being on my list in about 3 years time...I wana cry now). 

The following products are from elsewhere. 

(4)       Bobbi Brown corrector (£18.50, in the shade peach bisque)

So as mentioned above, I also have problems with my dark circles. My face is just problematic in general, sigh~ Bobbi Brown is currently offering free delivery with any online purchase and when you spend over £ 50 you will get to choose 3 amazing samples. My plan was to get two lipsticks and a corrector online to get the three samples. But HA! I was a good girl I stopped myself with the lipsticks… because I got stuck with picking the right shade of the corrector. So I went in the store to get matched to the right shade. It was my first time trying on high end makeup in store and the experience was great! I highly recommend going in store to try the products on before investing your money on these high end makeup. This is because first it’s free, second you don’t want to waste your money getting something expensive if you don’t end up liking it and third it’s free…lol 

(5)       Candles

Chupa Chups candle in strawberry and cream (£1 from poundland)

This candle smells exactly like the lollie and it brings back so many childhood memories whenever I burn it. Mum used to get me Chupa Chups when I was being a ‘good girl’. As a child I used to believe strawberry was a beautiful food for girls only and pink was a colour for princesses. So my favourite flavor was strawberry and cream. What was yours? 

Yankee candles (49g, £1 each from Asda)

From left to right, the scent was white linen and lace, stony cove, vanilla frosting, sweet pea and pink honeysuckle. I have always enjoyed scents from Yankee candles and I don’t really know where I can get them in Hong Kong apart from on the internet. So I have decided to stock up. These small candles are great because they are light and they surprisingly claimed to burn for up to 15 hours. 

These are all I bought for this week. I hope you like this post and it has inspired you to go shopping. 

Love you all

Mwah Mwah Mwah

Weekly purchase 13/01/2014- 19/01/2014

Hello my beautiful shopaholics!! Sorry for the delay of my weekly purchase. I thought about many excuses as to why I haven't put a new post up on Sunday as I said before but the reason is really just because I was caught up with other things in life...Anyways I am back now <3 

Presenting to you all~~ my weekly purchase TA DAAAAA

(1) Barry M matte nail paints (from left to right) in Burgundy crush, Espresso and Vanilla.

The colours look amazing on the nails and they work best with two coats. However, because of the matte formula I couldn't put some of my normal top coat on and so they chipped quite severely in about two days. 

(2) Ren Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask

After watching many many 2013 favorites and top 10 masks tags on Youtube, I decided that I have to try out the Ren Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask. Many people who have used this said it was like a miracle product and their skin felt so soft and 'renewed' after using it. I have been suffering from acne problems since puberty and although I am lucky enough to not very deep scarings, I still suffer from hyper- pigmentation (red/ purple marks left after the spots are healed). So I really hoped this mask would lift up those marks and give my skin another chance. So far I have only used this twice so I will review how it helps my acne marks in a later time. All I know at the moment is that the mask smells amazing like apricot jam and it didn’t feel irritating on the skin.

(3) Nuxe Reve de Miel lip balm. 

Again another purchase triggered by many 2013 favourites videos. There seemed to be a bit of controversy as to whether this product is worth the hype. To me, this product was not a miracle product. My lips are not very dry anyway but sometimes when I wear matte lipsticks the colours can appear a bit patchy on the lips. This lip balm did not help with that (even after scrubbing my lips and then used this lip balm). However, it felt so velvety on the lips which I really enjoyed and I have not experienced any drug store product with this texture. In conclusion I found it a nice product to have but in terms of moisturising my lips I believe drug store lip balms should do just as well.

(4) Topshop Lip Bullet (in Bewitched)

I have always enjoyed make up products from Topshop. Recently I have been enjoying very dark lip colours and so far this lip bullet from Topshop is the darkest one. I was quite surprised because the colour appeared quite sheer on the lips and it required at least two layers to develop an opaque dark purple colour. I guess it will work better with a lip liner which I don't actually own any and am currently looking into them.

(5) Revlon colourburst matte balm (in 210 unapologetic) and lacquer balm (in 135 provocateur)

                           

My favourite drug store lip products have always been those made by Revlon. I fell in love with their lip butter, super lustrous lip gloss and colourburst balm stain. Since I have known about the matte balm and lacquer balm being released in the states, I have been dying to get my hands on them. As I moved to Hong Kong I have been really into korean make up and the poor Revlon balms have been forgotten. Now that I am in the UK again, I am back to my routine visits to Boots and Superdrug weekly and my cravings for Revlon lip products reminded me about the balms!  I was so close to paying extra to get them online and then the magic happened, they finally appeared in the UK!! (Somehow I never thought about finding out when they were gonna be released in the UK…). I had no idea when they were actually released in the UK but it was the first time I found them in my local area last Saturday (18/01/2014). I bought one matte and one lacquer balm just to try out for now. 

(6) Love and Toast Persimmon Plum body lotion

                                             

To me there is never too many body lotions and perfumes. Smelling nice should be the goal for life for all girls!! I have first heard about the Love and Toast brand on facebook through a famous Taiwanese model. At the time it looked like something I could only get online so I left it. Then one day when I went ‘treasure hunting’ in TK Maxx I found a few Love and Toast products including this body lotion I bought. This body lotion smells fantastic. It has a fresh floral scent. When applying it to the skin, it appeared very thick at first but as I rubbed it in it was absorbed very quickly leaving the skin moisturised and smooth. I would really recommend this product to those who hate the sticky feeling some lotions can leave on the skin. Looking at the ingredients in this product made me love it even more. This product is full of plant goodness such as sunflower seed oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, soyabean oil, shea butter, green tea leaf extract and Kumquat extract. It is a blend of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants specially for those with dry skin. On top of that, it contains no nasty chemicals such as parabens, mineral oils, sulphates etc. And finally it was reduced from its retail price of £12.99 to £3.99!! The only problem was that it was hard to squeeze the lotion out of the packaging, but that didn't really bother me. Love and Toasts products are also available from Debenhams, so I guess I will be going there next...

Hope you have enjoyed my weekly purchase post and have been inspired to do some more shopping. See you next week (more like this week...)

Love you all

Mwah Mwah Mwah

Review: ColourB4 Hair Colour Remover (Extra Strength)

Hello my beautiful shopaholics!! Since we are all smart shopaholics, it is important to spend our money wisely on products that work.

So today I am gonna review the ColourB4 Hair Colour Remover for you guys.

A bit of background on why I wanted to remove my hair colour. I naturally have very dark brown hair (I am Chinese) and I have been colouring it to a lighter brown for about 6 years (in a salon or at home using the Liese bubble hair colour). Recently, I have been wanting to be slightly more adventurous and dying my hair different colour like a dark red/ purple etc. I know many people have told me because my hair is too dark I have to bleach it in order for those colours to show up, however we all know how damaging that is to our hair. So I kinda ignored it and dyed it anyway. First time I went for a dark plumy red (by John Frieda). The result was that the colour did show up in my roots but it was very faint on the dyed part of my hair. After a few washes the purple in my roots was more obvious and I loved that colour. However the dyed part of my hair had gone back to the light brown as it was. Then I have also tried some other hair dye in similar colour but the light brown part of my hair have always failed to take up the red dye

So I thought if I could remove the light brown dye on my hair and then dye it dark red, the red dye should work like how it did on my roots. I started doing some research on the internet and found that there is a product that can remove hair dye and that is the ColourB4 hair colour remover. Before buying it, I watched some review videos and it seemed to work quite well. Still there were a few problems that I thought about. First it was meant for people with naturally light hair colour e.g. blonde, who have dyed it to a darker colour e.g. brown. However, in my case I was trying to remove brown hair dye from my naturally dark brown hair. Secondly, I have dyed my hair so many times, the dye build up is probably impossible to remove? I could not find any reviews of the product on those who were removing a dye lighter than their natural hair colour (but that could only be it’s not meant to be for that purpose…). The theory behind how this product work:

‘Colour B4 shrinks the artificial dye molecules embedded within the hair, enabling you to simply wash them away. Colour B4 does not affect your natural hair colour, meaning the result following use is the shade which lay beneath your artificial colour.’

This told me it should work regardless to the original colour of your hair? Please comment below and let me know if I have completely misunderstood that lol. And also I went for the extra strength one because I believe the dye build up in my hair must be pretty bad...However, there was a normal strength one, another one for those who frequently uses hair colourant at home and also one for removing more vibrant colours like red. 

So I thought I would give it a go. It was retailed for £11.99 but it was on offer from SuperDrug for £9.99 (after Christmas), BARGAIN!

Inside the box there were three bottles labeled A, B and C 

Here is how I used it (I just followed the instructions given in the box)

Step1: Pour A into B.

Step2: Apply to dry hair then wrap the hair in cling film as demonstrated below…That’s because it is very important to keep the hair warm in order to let the product works on the hair.

Step3: Spend 60 minutes of your life with cling film on your head lol (30 minutes for the normal strength)

Step4: Rinse off the product with warm water for 5- 10 minutes (It’s important to rinse thoroughly to allow the shrunken dye particles to leave your hair)

Step5: Apply half of the contents in bottle C, lather up and leave in for a minute

Step6: Rinse it off for 5- 10 minutes

Step7: Apply the other half of bottle C and shampoo how you normally would.

The hair colour removing process can be repeated up to three times.

Here is the final result…it became slightly less obvious at where the darker roots meet the lighter hair? However it was not a miracle product for me.

I would not repeat the process because it smells so so so so bad like rotten eggs!! And that smell stayed in my hair for at least two days…The process was quite complicated and the recommended rinsing time was actually very long that I ran out of hot water in the shower. It’s like 10 degrees in England so I did not enjoy the cold shower. The good things were that it didn’t damage my hair at all as it claimed (no bleach no ammonia) and it was so fun wearing a Sainsbury’s bag cape and having cling film wrapped around my head.

Overall it’s like I didn’t do anything to my hair except made it smelled like rotten eggs for two days. However, this could just be because it's not meant for people with naturally dark hair trying to remove a lighter coloured dye or the dye build up in my hair was just way too much. Hope you found this review useful. Please comment below or chat to me about this product or anything else.

Love you all

Mwah Mwah Mwah~~