#2014BloggerChallenge | Skincare

So this is the second week of the 2014 Blogger Challenge - and a topic I'm much happier with, the last topic was fun but I'm - in general - not an inspirational or motivating person. Anyway - skincare! Gaby - the creator, if you will, of this challenge - picked this to be the second topic as it is still winter - probably never will end in Scotland - and looking after your skin - not just your face - is really quite difficult. So yah, this week over 400 bloggers will be posting their tips and tricks, products and routines on how they look after their skin - or don't... 

Like I said before this is a topic I'm much more at ease talking about, I've recently been trying really hard to look after my skin and get into some kind of routine. So far, its been going all right - but the days where I don't do it I notice a huuuge difference in how my skin looks and feels. I think I'll do this in two sections, facial care and body care stuff. That way I can sort of see where I'm going and ramble a little less. 

Facial care

Really recently I discovered what I now believe is the answer to every ones prayers. I could not use any other product - can I continue to use moisturiser - and just use this product and I think my skin would be better than it is without it. I really hope that made sense. A few weeks ago I bought myself Hydraluron - after looking at it for so so so long and reading blog post after blog post about it. I have really oily skin so I was unsure about getting it since its essentially a moisture booster. Most of the reviews I saw for this were positive and from those with dry skin - one post I read the girl said she had oily, dehydrated skin and that it worked for her. I'm now thinking thought that in some form or another everyone has dehydrated skin. I can for sure say that my skin is dehydrated - I haven't stuck to my skin care routine and my skin is disgusting, I seriously think its just down to me not using Hydraluron. I don't know what it is about it, and I can't pin point what its done for me but I just think my skin looks and feels better after using it. I've also not had a spot since I started using it. Result! 

Now, this is obvious - but cleaning your face properly is a must. Even when drunk I always make sure to give my face a good clean, it may not be squeaky clean but I do use my Bioderma to take off my makeup before I pass out. Bioderma isn't exactly the best way to wash your face though - as a quick fix or to take your makeup off before a good cleanse is fine though. I've recently been loving adoring using my Soap and Glory Peaches and Clean face wash. It doesn't foam - so if your skin doesn't like that then your good with this. It is a very creamy product, I recommend 1-2 pumps massaged over your face then wiped off with a flannel. Deep clean, check. 

Exfoliating, this isn't a must as such - especially if your using a flannel - but I would seriously recommend you do it at least twice a week. Doing this will just clear your pores out, and potentially stop horrid spots appearing. For me, I find it helps to control my oilyness as well - and that is always good. On top of these things, if you have little flaky dry patches - I get them on my nose and inbetween my eyebrows - then exfoliating will just help to get rid of that. I would recommend Soap and Glory's Scrubatomic for use 2-3 times a week. 

Moisturising - the only other step in my skin care routine now. I don't really have any tips for this apart from do it. Do not cut this step out of your routine. Use a cheap one, an expensive one - what ever works for you. Currently I'm using one that cost me about £4 - its by Simple and its their oil free one. One day I'll invest in an expensive one - but for now this one works so I'll stick to it. 

Body Care Foot Care

Body care, oh I really shouldn't give advice on this. I 99% of the time neglect to give my body more than about 10 minutes of care. The only part of my body I scrub and moisturise often is my feet. My feet are horrid - they even put me off, I'm sorry for the image I've just planted in your head. They honestly aren't awful, they are just really dry. And ever since I ran bare foot through my town to get to the train station on time - my soles have been extremely cracked and hard and dry.

Sorry about the photo, had to use an old one as lighting was bad

 So we're now going to forget our bodys and take care of our poor poor feet. They carry our entire body weight everyday - my little size 3/4 feet must feel so happy at bed time to be given a rest. I recently picked up a Joules set from Boots in the sale, and it has the best foot care stuff. The scrub and foot stone work wonderfully together to soften down skin and to help the foot lotion sink in so much easier. Also they both smell lemony. The smell lingers for awhile as well - so instead of smelling like an old sock your little peepers smell cool and zesty. 

So scrub away at your feet and drown them in foot lotion - cover your feet with socks as well, its so much more satisfying. 

I get bored of talking about body care really quickly, as you can probably tell - but I figure by the time I add the pictures - that you'll all now see - the post will be really long and adding any more of bodily care would make it crazy long. Also I never moisturise my body, I should, but I don't... 

What are your favourite skin care products?

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Joules | Fabulous Fingers and Toes set

The only part of my body - apart from my face - that I make an effort to take care of is my feet. that could be because when I was younger I got an infection in my foot that travelled up my leg - it hurt so so so much. Ever since then I have made an effort to look after my feet. My feet still don't appreciate the effort. Any sets for foot care I tend to jump at the chance to get. So when I saw this one by Joules in the Boots sale I didn't think twice at picking it up. I hadn't seen this in the store before the sale - hence why I didn't pick it up sooner.
I got this for a measly £7 (£8 without staff discount). Even if the products were rubbish, I now have a pretty box and a pack of mini nail files. I think the little pack of mini nail files was a nice little extra - and for me a much needed item. I always seem to break my nails when I'm out and never have a nail file to stop it breaking to far - I usually end up with one really short nail and the rest are long. The little nail file pack contains 6 mini nail files and are a pink and white box print - similar to the foot lotions print.

The set contains basically everything you could need to take care of you hands and feet. You get their Tantalising Toes Foot Scrub, Fabulous Feet Foot Lotion, small bar of soap, How Handy Hand Cream and a foot rock - for buffing away dead skin. Something in the tin smells really zesty - but from having a sniff at the products I can't actually figure out what it is that smells like that - I figure it has to be the soap, right?

I've had a foot rock in the past and I quite liked it - but my mum got me a PedEgg, so it got replaced. I will use the little foot rock in the bath when my skins a bit softer - it might be slightly easier to soften my skin up.

The How Handy Cream has a slight lemony scent to it - which now makes me think the zesty scent is coming from all the products. When I first used it I thought the cream would be slightly harder in consistency than it was - more body butter feeling. It just looks hard, but its not. It's a really soft, quickly absorbing cream. It instantly makes your hands feel silky soft, and it definitely has a slight lemony scent to it. The little tub contains 50ml of product - Soap and Glory's travel sized Hand Food has the same amount of product as this. I think I would prefer to carry the small tub in my bag over a small tube - it just seems more compact and like it would take up less space.
The bar of soap - now is this a body soap or just a hand soap? I think I'll keep it as just a hand soap, keep it on my sink for people to use. It has the same sort of scent as the hand cream, and is 50g of soap. I've not taken its wrapper off yet - purely down to the fact that the wrapping for it is so darn cute. The little floral pattern with the joules rabbit holding it together - I mean how could you remove that?

 I kind of love the name of this scrub - Tantalising Toes. How cool is that?! Of the times I've used this scrub I've used it with the foot stone to give my feet a good buffing - they deserve to have the living daylight buffed out of them. First few time the dry skin didn't completely go away - but the bits that were once really hard had begun to soften up.

The name of this isn't nearly as cool, but the lotion is pretty darn good - so that makes up for the lack of a cool name. Again, the same as the soap and hand cream, it has a lemony zesty scent. After using the foot scrub ( which I tried to use every other day) I applied this. Even on days that I hadn't used the scrub I applied this. I applied a good dollop onto my feet then put a pair of socks on over the top to make sure my feet got a really good moisturising.

Have you tried anything from Joules before?

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