Burt's Bees Pore-Refining Mask Review

I am somewhat lazy when it comes to fussy skincare regime but sometimes when the mood strikes me, I would go to the extra mile and do weekend beauty facials with my husband. I usually do his face first and then I do mine. Since both of us have enlarged pores (I think mine is the worst!), I decided to try out Burt's Bees Pore-Refining Mask as it got great reviews over the Internet.  

Burt's Bees Pore-Refining Mask

Product Description: Burt's Bees Pore-Refining Mask with French green clay (formerly known as Green Goddess Clay Mask) deeply cleanses pores and draws out impurities while remineralizing and refining the skin's texture. An assortment of carefully selected powdered herbs stimulate, nourish and renew your complexion leaving you radiant and glowing. It is 100% natural. Warning: Your face may appear flushed after using this mask, due to increased circulation on the surface of your skin. This effect will subside in 10-20 minutes. Patch test before using.

Directions: Add enough water* to 1 tablespoon powdered mask to create a thin paste. Apply to face, avoiding the eye area, and rinse off with warm water after 5-10 minutes.

* Water can be substituted by using:

- carrot juice for mature skin

- tomato juice for troubled skin

- green tea or grapefruit juice for oily skin

Packaging: The mask comes in a clear glass jar with a grey lid. The top of the lid is imprinted with the letter Burt's and two bees which I find very simple and cute. The glass jar is boxed in a purple cardboard box made from recycled board printed with product information, directions and ingredients all around it. The jar weighs 1 oz (28 g) and it comes with a small plastic spatula.

Burt's Bees Pore-Refining Mask unboxed.

Ingredients: French green clay, bentonite (natural clay), fragrance, mentha piperita (peppermint) leaf, shavegrass herb, calendula officinalis flower, rosemarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf, salvia officinalis (sage) leaf.

List of ingredients printed on the box.

Texture: The mask has very fine, dry powdered texture in a light muddy green colour. When it is mixed with water, the fine powdery particles becomes a thin paste and the colour turns into a dark greenish muddy clay. The mask feels very cool when applied on the face. It dries quite quickly and my face felt really tight as the mask dries. The cool minty feeling stays as the mask dries on my face. The dried mask rinses off very easily with water. You know when some masks is quite hard to get off and had to be wiped a few times to clean it off but this mask just needed a light swipe with cotton pad and it's off. My skin felt cool while rinsing off with water and still felt cool afterwards for a few minutes. My skin does not feel tight but the skin around the mouth area got a bit dry so I may need to use a light moisturizer. This mask is really great in lifting off sebum from skin without striping the skin dry.

 The greenish-mud coloured powdered clay mask.

A few scoops of powdered mask.

 The dry mask mixed with water and applied thinly.

The mask in dried condition.

Scent: The mask has a nice herbal minty scent that is not too strong. There's also a tad citrusy scent too. I really love it (anything minty is great to me! Hehe..).

Verdict: I really like the tingle of mint in the product and the fact that it did not make my skin itch. I didn't find my pores to be refined because they seem to look just the same as before I use the mask. But then maybe that is because my pores are large to begin with.

I think this products has been discontinued because I could not find it anymore at Burt's Bees or Drugstore's website.

Bought mine at the price of $6.99 (RM34.54) from Drugstore with the help of sgDrugstore from Lowyat Forum.

Yves Rocher Culture Bio Awakening Cream Review

I had been trying to find the perfect moisturizer for my super oily skin because all the moisturizers I've tried so far either make my skin oilier or make me end up with milia seeds. After doing some reading on reviews, I've decided to try out Yves Rocher's Culture Bio Awakening Cream since some of the reviews did mention that this cream is also great for oily skin and have a lot of healing properties. Plus, it is certified vegan which is a good thing.

Product Description: The formula of the product is tested under dermatological supervision and the formula guaranteed by COSMEBIO label and certified by ECOCERT. It is made of 99.4% natural ingredients which 25.9% of them are organically grown. The organic botanical ingredients are green tea extract, potmarigold extract, olive leaf extract, witch hazel water, aloe vera powder, shea butter, hazelnut oil, peppermint essential oil, lavender essential oil, sweet orange essential oil, petit grain essential oil. It is fragranced with 100% natural perfume and there is no no animal extracts in the formula. The product uses ecological packaging with no instruction leaflets and no padding. The packaging is made from recycled wood chips and botanical ink printing. 

For a product to be certified by ECOCERT's standards, it must have a minimum of 95% natural ingredients and 10% of them must be organically grown. It also must contains no petrochemical extracts, silicon, paraben, or synthetic coloring.

The Awakening Cream is made with 11 organic plant extracts. It cares for your skin every day, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. It is a gentle and non-oily cream perfumed with the scent of vibrant peppermint. The cream promises to help to stimulate the senses, moisturize and protect the skin from environmental aggressors, facilitates makeup application and leaves you with a glowing complexion. Beauty benefits: perfectly moisturized, your skin is protected and your skin is radiant and glows with vitality.

Packaging: As mentioned in the product description, the Awakening Cream comes packaged in recycled cardboard box. The ingredients and instructions are printed all around and also inside of the box in place of the usual paper leaflets found in beauty products. The bottle is made of white opaque glass with a plastic pump and clear orange cap. The pump head can be twisted open. The products weighs 50ml. I find that the glass bottle quite heavy. Overall, the whole packaging looks like a no-nonsense product to me.

 The bottle of Culture Bio Awakening Cream.

The pump head.

The pump head detached from the bottle.

Ingredients: aqua, hamamelis virginiana water, glycerin, alcohol, tribehenin, cetyl alcohol, corylus avellan nut oil, butyrospermum parkii butter, cococaprylate/caprate, caprylic/capric triglyceride, behenyl alcohol, sucrose cocoate, sorbita stearate, myristyl alcohol, talc, camellia sinensis extract, olea europaea leaf extract, calendula officinalis extract, myristyl glucoside, xantham gum, sodium benzoate, dehydroacetic acid, sorbic acid, limonene, arginine, aloe barbadensis extract, juniperus virginiana oil, citrus aurantium dulcis oil, citric acid, citrus aurantium amara oil, mentha piperita oil, lavandula angustifolia oil, citrus nobilis oil, linalool, geraniol.

The ingredients printed on the box.

Texture: The cream has a liquified lotion-like texture and is quite runny. It is easy to apply but it needs to massaged in to help it gets absorbed into the skin. By doing so, the cream gets absorbed faster. It feels slightly cool when applied but the cooling sensation dissipates after a few seconds.

 A small blob of the cream.

Spreading the cream on my skin.

Smell: The scent of the cream is what put me off the most. It smelled nothing minty but more like a mix of herbs. When I applied it on my hands the scent was bearable but when I applied it on my face, the scent became quite overwhelming and I really cannot bear the scent.

Verdict: This Awakening Cream really moisturizes the skin very well but it felt quite oily on my skin when applied. Under just 1 hour my skin is shiny with oiliness! I ended up washing the cream off since it did not help control my oil glands but it seem to stimulate them even more. This moisturizer might be great for those with drier or normal skin but for me with overactive oil glands, I don't think it's the best moisturizer. Nope, I am definitely not going to repurchase and going to return it the first chance I get.

You can check out more information on Culture Bio product from Yves Rocher website.

I bought my bottle at RM95 @ Alamanda's Yves Rocher store.

Bloom Colour Card For Lips (Natural Delight) Review

Hi peeps! I am back! Finally I have some time to sit in front on my laptop and catch up with long overdue reviews and boy I do have a lot of them! I have been on a lippie kick for some time now and I cannot seem to shake the craze yet. It has been digging a hole in my pocket! Huhu.. Anyways, let get on with a review on Bloom Colour Card for lips which I purchased sometime end of last year. 

Bloom Colour Card For Lips comes boxed in a pretty cardboard box with a window. The palette itself is credit card-sized and it contains six universally wearable shades. It is said to be lightly flavoured with vanilla and mandarin essential oils. The palette is very slim and easy to carry around in handbags/purses. It opens by sliding the top lid upwards. There is no mirror attached to the palette but there is a lip brush supplied to use as an applicator.

 The lip palette unboxed.

 The slim credit card sized palette.

Ingredients: ethylhexyl palmitate, beeswax (cera alba), euphorbia cerifera (Candelilla) wax (Candelilla cera), copernicia cerifera (carnauba) wax (cera carnauba), lanolin, caprylic/capric tryglyceride, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil, tocopheryl acetate, shea butter glycerides, fragrance (parfum), limonene, sodium methylparaben, sodium proplparaben, [may contain +/-:, Red 6 Lake (CI 15850), Red 7 Lake (CI 15850), Blue I Lake (CI 42090), Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140), Mica (CI 77019), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77801)].

Texture: The texture of the lippies in the palette are not too soft nor too hard. They are just somewhere in between lipstick and gloss. They are very pigmented except the pink shimmery one which goes on a bit clear. Each of the shade felt kind of sticky on the lips. The lippies does not glide smoothly when applied, but once it has settled and adjusted to body temperature, the lip colour felt a little bit more moisturizing and less sticky. Over time, I almost feel like wearing a lip gloss. In terms of scent, despite being described to smell like vanilla and mandarin essential oils, I wasn't able to detect any of vanilla scent at all but there is slight hint of orange scent.

The shades are a bit warmer in real life compared to the swatches below:

 

Verdict: Overall, this lip palette is just so-so in my opinion and they felt like most lippies out there. The shades are very nice but they are a bit too pigmented for my liking. In the swatches they looked mostly neutral and pinkish but on the lips they are much more pigmented and warmer. I guess I am not going to repurchase this.

I purchased this lip palette for RM45 at a Shins outlet @ Mines Shopping Fair.