REVIEW: Konjac Sponge Puff With Added Charcoal

I don't come across many items that I instantly fall in love with but the Konjac Sponge Puff With Added Charcoal is now one of my most favourite skin care discoveries.

It came in the post yesterday after I ordered it on Monday night. I've heard a lot about them through blogs and just generally over the internet so decided I just had to buy one! I went with the sponge with added charcoal as it's supposed to be good for those with oily skin: 

"Perfect for teen skin & those with oily skin prone to spots & outbreaks. The Bamboo Charcoal contains activated carbon & various minerals that enhance absorptive ability, perfect for removing excess oil. Bamboo Charcoal is also a natural anti- oxidant  so will help fight hard-to-reach, acne-causing bacteria."

So what exactly is a Konjac sponge? 

"Eco friendly, 100% natural and made from pure plant roots Konjac is a perennial, mineral rich potato plant, originating from Japan, where it has long been used as a beauty treatment."

Basically you use it as or with your cleanser to naturally remove make-up, dirt and oil as well as gently exfoliating to reveal bright and more radiant skin.

What does it feel like?

It feel like a natural sponge but a bit different at the same time. When you use it on your face it has a slight exfoliating sensation to it. 

What are the proposed benefits? 

Benefits of The Konjac Sponge with Bamboo Charcoal:

Kills acne-causing bacteria

Deep cleans skin pores eliminating blackheads, dirt and oil

Retains the natural pH balance of your skin 

Gently exfoliates skin to create a natural glow

How do you use it?


You soak your sponge in some water until it becomes soft and squidgy. You then massage it all over your face in circular motions. You can use cleanser with it if you wish but you can use it purely on its own too. Once you're done rinse it out and hang it out to dry (it's got a handy string attached to it).   

How much does it cost? 

At present they are £5.95 and considering they can last you up to 3 months I'd definitely suggest you give it a try!

Where can I buy one from? 

You can buy them directly from Konjac's website listed here. Michelle from the company has informed me that in a couple of weeks they will be available from Harvey Nicks! How exciting! 

I'm so glad I bought one of these little wonders. Its such a nice treat to use on your face when cleansing. Personally I use my cleanser first then wash it off then use the sponge almost like a toner to make sure I've got rid of every single bit of dirt, make up and oil to make sure my skin is really clean and to give it a mild exfoliation.Head over the Konjac and buy one! 

Enjoy your day! 

Rebecca x 

Wish List Wednesday!

Last week I mentioned that from now on every Wednesday would be Wish List Wednesday where I write about the products that I'm currently lusting after. Here is this weeks edition! Enjoy!

1. No17 Magnetic Nail Varnishes (all shades!)

I did a post a few weeks ago about the new magnetic nail varnishes that no17 are releasing. Basically there are iron particles in the nail varnish and when you hover the cap (which has a magnet inside) it pulls the particles to give a really cool effect. A few other nail varnish brands have brought out similar versions but its pretty much the same formula and the same shades just in different bottles with hugely differing price tags. No17 are the cheapest so is what I will be going with! 

2. Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua Foundation 

I've heard Lisa Eldridge talk about this foundation which automatically makes me think its going to be a fabulous little product. I was so impressed with the Chanel counter when I bought my Illusion D'ombre eye shadow. The consultant explained lots of tips and tricks and even gave me a sample of one of their mascaras which I also really like and am considering buying!

3. The Japanese Skincare Revolution by Chizu Saeki

I love a good beauty book and they don't come better than the Japanese Skincare Revolution by Chizu Saeki. I've read so many good reviews about this book which is supposed to be jam packed with handy and helpful skincare tips and tricks. I mean come on, look at the woman, shes 65 and looks beyond good for her age! Japanese women are well known for their flawless beautiful skin and this book claims to share some of the secrets behind their beautiful skin. 

Here is there blurb... 

"The Japanese Skincare Revolution is the first guide for women of all ages and races who want to have beautiful skin, and don t want to spend lots of money on cosmetics and treatments to achieve it. This book is a distillation of renowned aesthetician Chizu Saeki s most essential techniques. In it, readers will be introduced to the lotion mask a moisturizing treatment for keeping skin fresh and lustrous; hand techniques for toning the muscles of the face; lymph massages for draining toxins and improving blood flow; natural, no-nonsense remedies for wrinkles, sagging, oiliness, pimples and blackheads; warm care and cool care for soothing the mind and body; water massages to energize the skin; and much, much more. Throughout the book, Saeki calls on the reader to use their own hands to touch and treat their face, and their own eyes to judge what their skin needs. By following her advice, readers will discover that it s possible to have beautiful skin at any age without spending a fortune. The revolutionary ideas presented in this volume have won the approval of skin doctors within Japan and out. The Japanese Skincare Revolution is Saeki s best-selling skincare title, and her first to be translated into English."

Sounds good yes?

4. Urban Decay Naked Palette 

Yeah, I know, I can't believe I don't have one of these either. I've wanted one forever and always tell myself to put it on my birthday/christmas list but always forget! This year I've made a proper note of it and hopefully someone (ahem boyf!) will get it for me this Christmas! 


Hope you enjoyed this post! Have a good day! 


Rebecca x

Pamper Me!

Do you ever have those moments where everything is going wrong and NOTHING seems to be going right? 

Well, yesterday I had one of those days and the only thing  I wanted to do was have a massive pampering sesh to make myself feel better. I wanted the whole shab-bang: manicure, pedicure, hair treatment, body scrub, BUBBLES BUBBLES BUBBLES, face mask, facial steam and anything else I could possibly think of and I thought people might be interested in my 'make myself feel better' routine so here goes... 

SET THE SCENE

Buy yourself some flowers/tidy your room/bathroom/light some candles/get some incense burning/do whatever you think to turn your space into a blissful pampering boudior.

This is my ginger and lime salt scrub! 

HAIR TREATMENT

Before you do anything else do this first so it can penetrate your hair whilst your doing everything else. Take some extra virgin olive oil and mix it with some drops of essential oil (I LOVE frangipani) and then put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds so it's hot but not hot enoug hto burn yourself (be careful with this, you don't want a burnt head!) Then pour a bit of the oil between your hands and run it all over your hair. Keep doing this until you've used all of your oil and really massage it deep into your scalp. Wrap your hair in a towel (pop it in the dryer for 5 minutes for an extra treat) then secure it and leave it on whilst you carry on with everything else.

 

MANICURE/PEDICURE 

Start off by removing all traces of all nail varnish then file them to your desired shape. Put some cuticle remover on them. I use a marvala one I got from the Boots discounted section for like a quid but its really good! Put your hands/feet in a bowl of warm water (try pouring a drop of milk in there to nourish the nails) and leave to soak for ten minutes. Gently push your cuticles back with an orange stick and trim them if necessary. Were going to leave painting them til very last as we don't want any chips or smudges!

FACIAL

Remove any make up you might have on and follow my ultimate DIY facial  post. You don't have to follow this you could just pop a face mask on but don't do it whilst your in the bath (the face mask won't work to its full effect).

WASH YOUR HAIR 

Remove your hair towel and jump in the shower. Wash your hair twice to remove all the excess hot oil treatment then condition like you usually would. I'm a huge fan of John Freda miracle treatment and Aussie's 3 minute miricle. Using one of these deep conditioners with the hot oil treatment will definitely leave you with super silky locks. 

SCRUB 

Scrub is purely a name, not an instruction. So many people use a scrub the wrong way and really rub it into their skin so much that it actually damages the top layer of epidermis. I'm using my Invigorating Ginger & Lime Salt Scrub  which will be available for sale very, very soon! Massage it into damp skin in circular motions focusing on the particularly hard areas so your elbows, knees, ankles etc. Rinse the scrub off and pat your skin dry and massage the excess oil into the skin.

FINISH OFF YOUR HAIR

Towel dry your hair and to give an even bigger moisture injection rub a small amount of sweet almond oil between your hands and rub it through your hair. Leave it to dry naturally. 

BATH TIME! 

You don't have to do this step but I like to think its the best bit! Run yourself a warm bath! For tips and tricks on what to add to your bath you might want to check out my post on how to turn your bathroom into a spa! Soak for a good 20 minutes then pat your skin dry and slather in moisturiser. I'm using one of my own concoctions that will soon be available for sale! 

FINISH OFF YOUR NAILS

Wipe the nails with a cotton wool pad soaked in nail varnish remover. It's so important to put a base coat on first as it not only makes a nice canvas for your to apply your nail colour but it also smoothes out any ridges and makes the polish last longer without chipping. Wait for it to dry then apply two coats of your nail colour followed by a top coat then put a drop of sweet almond oil on your cuticles and leave to soak in. 

I really liked writing this post so I hope you enjoy reading it and it prompts you to lock yourself in the bathroom and treat yourself! Enjoy the rest of your day! 

Rebecca x

Be Beautiful Body Care - VERY Exciting News!

Many of you will know that I'm currently in the process of designing my own line of body products and I thought I'd share a bit more about it and talk about how I'm getting on with it etc. 

Through writing my blog, writing for a few magazines and generally being quite involved in the beauty industry I've come across a lot of information regarding skincare formulation and to be honest, a lot of it made me quite angry. It still shocks me how unregulated the beauty industry is which is what prompted me to develop my own products. So many companies say they are natural and organic when in fact they only have ONE natural or organic product plus a truck load of chemicals. Case in point - Nivea's new 'natural range'.  

For the past 6 months now I have been in my kitchen every day making lotions and potions to get my products exactly how I want them to be. That is, free from synthetics, free from parabens, free from unnatural preservatives and using the finest natural ingredients wherever possible. Our skin can absorb some of what we put onto it which makes me think 'do I really want a load of chemicals whizzing around my body?'  

My first product that is going to be launched soon is my Invigorating Ginger & Lime Salt Scrub. You'll notice I did a post on a similar recipe a few months ago. I have since massively improved this original recipe to develop it into a product that can be used for personal and day spa/salon use. As you can probably tell from its name, its got the most luxurious, finest and delicious smelling lime and ginger essential oils to make it smell absolutely divine. It also doubles up at a moisturiser as a very thin layer of oil is left over once you've scrubbed away which you can then massage in to leave your body looking and feeling silky smooth and soft!

Here is the blurb (this feels so weird writing it about my own product!)...

"A luxurious body treat designed to revive and invigorate. Made with energising ginger, refreshing lime and therapeutic dead sea salts to reveal brighter, more radiant skin."

The ginger and lime scrub has been safety approved and can now legally be sold in the UK & EU. My graphic designer sent over the label design today (do you like it?! It's at the top of the post!) but I've just included it from the front. The thick black line is to represent the scrub container lid!

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed having a sneak peak at the upcoming product. Eventually I want to have 4 'moods' to the products. So the scrub will come in invigorating (ginger and lime), romantic (frangipani and jasmine), balancing (grapefruit and lemon) and comforting (lavender and roman chamomile) scents. I don't really like the name 'romantic' so if anyone has any suggestions for this smell please leave a comment below - all your feedback is greatly appreciated. I then want to add bath salts, facial oils, body butters and lotions to the range in each of the 'moods' too.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend! Thank you for all the lovely tweets yesterday about my time in A&E, I feel absolutely fine now, just a tad groggy from the drugs! One other thing, a lot of people have said they've had trouble voting in the cosmo awards. Simply type your email address is (registered or not) and it should take you straight through to the voting categories - I'm under best new beauty blog.  Let me know what you think about Be Beautiful Body Care by leaving me a comment below :) 

Rebecca x

Be Beautiful Re-Vamped

If you've clicked on be beautiful today you'll have noticed a few things have changed and that the whole site has had a bit of a re-vamp so I thought I'd let you all know exactly what's changed...

First up you might notice that the header has changed a bit. I'm still thinking about changing the font but for now I've just got rid of the tag line to make the first impression look a bit cleaner and smarter.  

The blue background has now gone too. I loved the print but I get bored very easily so decided to go with a plain white background and have made the whole blog wider to fill the screen more. 

The pages at the top of the page that were under the title have moved to the side now (don't worry, all the same pages are still there, just in a different location!)

What else? Hmm... Oh yes! I've started to put together a little list of top websites as you scroll down the page. I get a lot of emails asking me about where do I find the ingredients and supplies for my DIY beauty recipes so I thought I'd compile a list of the best and cheapest suppliers I know of. Sharing the knowledge and all that!

A new feature is soon going to be appearing on Be Beautiful - the Wednesday Wish List! The Beauty Wish List post turned out to be really quite popular so from now on, every Wednesday I will doing a compilation of the all the new beauty products that have emerged on to the market (as well as some golden oldies) that I'm lusting after! 

Finally, I'm considering switching from blogger to word press or maybe another hosting site, I just think blogger is a bit too restricting sometimes and I've heard very good things about word press. So watch this space! Another change is that in a couple of week www.bebeautifulblog.org will be changing to www.bebeautifulblog.co.uk. I've been wanting a .co.uk for a while now and this one has just become free so I snapped it up! Again, watch this space! Don't worry if you've got it booked marked at .org for now as it will automatically redirect you to the new site once I've set it up. 

Anyway, hope this post wasn't too boring! I wasn't really up to doing anything too creative today as I've been in bed for most of it. Those of you that follow me on Twitter will know that I spent last night in A+E (FYI: Morphine is the shit). I'm fine now but I'm just absolutely shattered and I'm not sure if I'll get round to a creative post tomorrow so I might reserve my energies and do a brilliant one on Monday when I'm feeling better! Have a lovely day/weekend! 

Rebecca x

Autumn Make Up Trend Watch: The Exaggerated Eye Crease

Flicking through this months Red and Vogue plus a couple of other magazines I noticed a lot of the makeup on the models in the adverts had an exaggerated eye crease. Basically the crease of the eye was either extended to change the eye shape or the natural crease was heavily defined. Eyes were paired with dewy skin and sculpted cheek bones to perfect the look. I took a few pictures so you can see what I mean...

LOUIS VUITTON

Love these adverts by Louis Vuitton and I think the make up featured in them could quite easily be translated to an everyday look. 

CHANEL

Anyone else thinking black swan? Too much for a wearable look but definitely a good demonstration of make up artistry! 

TOPSHOP

Sorry this one is super blurry! I don't know why it was doing that! Anyway, a nice evening look I think! 

JITROIS

Again, very similar to the Louis Vuitton adverts. A less exaggerated version could easily be worn during the day. 

Whilst I was taking the pictures for this post Scat, my jet-black cat was being a right pain trying to get my attention whilst walking all over the magazines, I think he thought he ought to appear in this post so here he is! 

Spotted any other autumn make up trends? Seen any looks from London Fashion Week you think are interesting? Let me know by leaving a comment below. I read every single one of them! :) Rebecca x

REVIEW: Chanel Illusion D'Ombre Long Wear Luminous Eyeshadow RRP: £22

I've finally got one! I went to the Trafford Centre on Sunday with my mum for the afternoon and nipped into Boots as she had some vouchers to spend she got for her birthday. I'd not actually seen the illusion d'ombres in real life (I'd only seen lovely swatches and reviews) and I can honestly say they definitely lived up the hype. They are so beautiful to use and are wonderfully pigmented! 

So first things first! Here's the blurb...

"This intensely shimmering long-wear eyeshadow offers true versatility. An innovative gel texture that is both soft and cushiony allows it to be worn as eyeshadow or eyeliner. Includes a specially designed shadow/liner brush, developed specifically for this unique formula."

They come in 6 different shades (yes, I wanted them all) but chose 'epatant' which is a a lovely mushroomy sparkle colour with an olive undertone - trust me it's divine! Other shades include fantasme (an ice white shimmer), emerveille (a soft peachy colour with a hint of brown), illusionare (next on my wish list and also happens to be out of stock at most counters at the moment.! A smokey mauve purple colour), mirifique (a dark black with hints of silver shimmer) and finally ebloui (a burgundy brown colours with lovely red/brown undertones). 

And le price? 

Yes, I know, at £22 a pop they are by no means affordable to most people but personally I think it's totally worth it. Read on to find out why! 

How do they apply?

A small brush is included in with the shadow. It's a decent little brush but I still prefer to use one my others depending on what I want to do with it i.e. use it as an all over shade or if I'm using it as an eyeliner. They apply beautifully due to their consistency. 

What's the texture like?

I wouldn't really call it an eye shadow at all in the powder sense. It's a cream gel that's super easy and smooth to apply. It's a bit mousse like too. 

Do they last? 

On myself with no primer they lasted a good 12 hours with no creasing. They stayed application perfect for the whole day! Fabulous! 

All in all a fabulous little product. Despite its price tag I can't think of any other downsides to this little wonder so it gets full 10/10. The other colours are most definitely on my wish list for Christmas! Is it too early to be making Christmas lists?! ;)


Rebecca x