Before I went on holiday I was contacted by The Nature's Co to do a review of some of their products. On first impressions I thought it wasn't really applicable to me, but after looking deeper into some of the products they sold, I was interested.

The company is based in India and uses natural ingredients (as the name would suggest) as well as being vegan and environmental friendly. It reminded me a lot of the Indian equivalent of the Body Shop, but with quirkier and more specialised ingredients.
Now I'm not usually that fussed about a product's cruelty-free/vegan-ness but I've come across a lot of people and customers who take this seriously. What interested me was the concept of using the "five purest forms of nature", namely air, sun, forest, earth and water.
And their products are categtorised into each of these- Atmospure, Starrize, Foressence, Earthborne and Aquaspark consecutively.

After having at each range I decided that Earthborne looked the most appealing to me; the chocolate-mint lipbalm and hazelnut lip butter sounded yummy but what pulled me in the most was the oral care section where I found the "herbal clay toothpaste".
This toothpaste was no ordinary mint toothpaste, but made with Miswak, "toothache tree" (Thomar), Clove and Tea Tree. Now for those who aren't Muslim, or know about "Miswak", it's rated and recommended highly in oral hygiene, so to find this as one of the ingredients in a toothpaste was really interesting to me. My mum had also used Cloves for tooth pain, so this is a very traditional medicine-type of toothpaste that I would have loved to try. I don't think it would have tasted as nice as a standard Colgate toothpaste, but the antibacterial benefits would probably have beaten it.

Anyway, after mentioning that I was particularly interested in the lipbalms and toothpaste of the Earthborne section, I was disappointingly sent a Walnut foot scrub (of the Earthborne body range) and Lemongrass foot spray (of the Foressence range) to review:

Walnut foot scrub

I have a lot of scrubs and have tried many, so I was keen to see how this one would measure up.
Packaging: outside of the cellophane packaging, you see that it has a "know your ingredients" brown label attached by string (tying in the "nature" theme very well) to the product with information of the key ingredient in the the particular product, which I found cute and factual and quite a nice concept. This label had information about walnuts & peppermint:

The back of the product had more information on how much of the main ingredients were in 100g of the product, but no actual ingredients list unfortunately.
Key ingredients in this product include: Peppermint, peppermint extract, walnut grits, neem extract, kokum butter and made using natural hill spring water. However, at most was the walnut grits (per 100g), which was at 6%, so I wondered what the rest of the product was made up of.

The vegan and cruelty free signs are clearly stated on the packaging which is great and also the fact that it's recyclable.
Smell: On opening the product, a strong smell of wet soil/wood wafts out, which is the general scent of the product- very earthly! I couldn't personally smell the peppermint, but on applying the product on my hand you can certainly feel the tingling sensation of mint.

 spread out:

Consistency/texture: The product has a fairly creamy consistency and is cooling/tingling on the skin. It has a metallic cream sheen to it and lathers a little but not too much. I thought the granules were a little too large, but the product contains enough granules to get a decent scrub. 
Overall review: After washing off the product I noticed my feet were white! Maybe I hadn't washed the product off thoroughly enough but there was a definite white residue left on my skin which looked like dried on white facepaint, so that was a turn off, however my feet did feel smoother.
Scent-wise this isn't my sort of smell at all.. I like sweet-smelling products and this falls under earthy/fresh scents which I'm not too fond of. 

If I could give this product a rating from 1-10 it would be a 2 or 3 at best.

Lemongrass foot spray

Packaging: the packaging is very basic and simple but in a clean way, giving visibility of the product. Again, the brown "know your ingredients" label is on it, this one being about lemongrass:

Again, the back of the product only states the key ingredients, namely lemongrass oil, patchouli oil, tea tree oil and vegetable glycerin:

Smell: this product reminds me strongly of lemon and honey Lockets (the throat soothers), whilst also smelling slightly like Dettol! It definitely smells antibacterial and medicinal clean, that's for sure.
Consistency/texture: The foot spray is light and aborbs surprisingly well, so after my disappointment with the white residue from the foot scrub, this one left a much better feeling and look. It isn't at all greasy, but moisturising too.
Overall review: this product fared a lot better than the foot scrub, it absorbs well and most probably does its job in the "banishing odor and bacterial growth" department!
The scrub is sold for £6 on The Nature's Co online shop, whilst the foot spray is sold for £7, so they do ship to the UK (and other countries).
I wouldn't mind trying the lip balms (at £3 a pop), but as far as body products goes, unless it smells absolutely nice I don't think I'd go for any more!
I hope this review has been useful to you and may have introduced this brand to those who have never heard of it like myself. They have an interesting and fun theme and concept and I hope to see more of their products in the future.


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Holiday Saviours

Hello my lovely followers!!
As you may have noticed, I've been away and not blogging! For those of you who follow my twitter, you'll know I was away on holiday to Morocco for my sister in laws wedding.
The wedding was amazing, once the pics are sorted I'll try add the bridal look(s) I did for this traditional Moroccan wedding.

The weather was extremely hot- 35-45°C and although I managed to catch a decent tan, I did suffer with heat rash. My skin felt awful, my face felt dry and unsmooth.. it was a horrible feeling!

I did however have a few saviours, which I will share with you now.
First and foremost, something that helped my skin feel alive and un-dry despite the heat rash: 
Evian Brumisateur (brew-meez-ah-tour) aka Evian facial spray

In my last job I used to sell these and didn't really understand why people would buy this instead of just chucking a bottle of Evian over themselves, but this holiday taught me its use.
I'd acquired one through some event or other (probably the Vitality show this year) and whilst at the beach where I wasn't able to frequently access non-salty water, this spray helped my skin feel absolutely fantastic and relieved from drying out in the heat and salty air. I sprayed my face a good couple times, and the difference between chucking a bottle of evian on my face and spraying this little beaut was the sheer fact that it doesnt drip and is a fine mist as opposed to liquid on the face. It also beats cream as it doesn't interfere with any concealer/makeup I may have worn and Evian actually claim that it sets makeup.
Although a bit pricey (£3.50 for 50ml, £6.95 for 150ml) the 50ml was perfect for the plane journey and handbag to the beach and lasted throughout the 11 days of the holiday (with not so frequent use and only for the face).

My second holiday favourite was the 
Palmers Cocoa Butter with SPF 15

I actually took a bottle of this on my honeymoon last year to Dubai as I loved the smell.. and still do, so I had to buy another bottle for this holiday. It smells like the chocolate bit of Neopolitan ice cream and I love the fact you still get the creaminess of normal cocoa butter but with a bit of SPF.

Another SPF product, albeit not very high, was the 
Banana Boat Tanning Oil SPF 6

This came in particularly good use at the beach as its water resistant and went well with sand that stuck to the feet/legs/body parts too, creating an oily exfoliator which made the skin smooth. It obviously also enhances your tan a lot; my arms are actually a lovely golden colour that I've always tried to achieve in the hottest Summer days in London but failed miserably. This product also smells unbelievably gorgeous too (yes I have a slight addiction to sweet smelling products!).


Makeup wise, my summer/holiday essentials were:
UDPP in Sin; 

It gives a nice sheen to the eyes, natural and non creasing even in extremely hot weather.
UD razorsharp powder: 

This helped my face stay matte rather than dripping with unsightly sweat and was well used at the wedding especially as it makes skin look flawless and feel smooth.
UD Cannonball mascara: 

A MUST for holidays that include any kind of contact with water or moisture.. it withstood salty sea water in the eyes, pool water, showers and sweat. Needless to say this became my ultimate warrior mascara this holiday.. and the only one I used!
Sleek blush in Pan Tao: 

This blush went perfect with my tan, the coral/peach colour made my tan look tons better, so I loved it!
Sleek Pout Polishes: 

 

I took at least 3 different colours: Raspberry Souffle, Pink Cadillac and Electro Peach; Raspberry Souffle being the one most used. It actually stained my lips out in the sun, meaning that I had a lovely purple-pink stain on my lips that even the Pixi Lip Blush couldn't achieve. Also the fact that they contain SPF 15 makes it perfect for (slightly) protecting lips from burning =)

So there you have most of my highly recommended Summer essentials/ holiday saviours, for anyone that either lives in a really hot country or is planning to go on holiday and wants to know what products may be useful for such climates.

I hope this post is useful, do let me know if there are any other Summer/holiday essentials you'd recommend or can't live without, especially if they smell nice ;)

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