Winter favorites: skincare

Baby, it's cold outside! Western Europe is covered underneath a blanket of snow, so what better time to choose some winter favorites?

My skin has never been so dry as now. This might come as a surprise, since my skin has always been very oily. Because of my stay in the UK, my eye skin even got so dry, that it got itchy and it was impossible for me to wear any eyeshadow (what a nightmare!). I returned to Belgium last week and my skin luckily has already recovered a bit from its dryness. Because of this weird skin issues I tried some new skincare products and ended up liking them very much:

The Vichy Normaderm Line: 

Vichy Normaderm Scrubgel

Vichy Micellaire Purifying Lotion 

Vichy Normaderm Night

These three products work so good for me! The scrub is perfect for my skin, not too drying, but rough enough for my oily T-zone. I use it every other day. I use the toner every morning and night and it feels so fresh and calming for my skin and it takes of any make-up that is still left on my skin. Then there's the night cream, which is the biggest surprise to me. Over the last six years I've tried night cream over and over again, and no night cream was good for me. They usually were too oily and I woke up with skin so oily that I reflected the sun like a mirror! The Vichy night cream dries in about two minutes after application and becomes very matte-feeling and soft. I certainly have seen an improvement on my skin. I have less blemishes and they also heal quicker. I'm a big fan of this skincare line!

Drugstore haul & review + cotton pad storage

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share some drugstore products with you that I picked up a while ago.

 

First: I wanted a new night cream since my skin tends to be really oily in the morning. I chose Oil of Olaz as a brand because I used to use the Oil of Olaz moisturizer and it worked really good. Recently I had found an extremely oil-free day cream/moisturizer (MAC - check my mac haul post!) so how impossible could it be to find a good oil-free night cream? Quite impossible, as it turns out. The first night I simply applied it and covered my face with the product. When I woke up about six hours later, my face was so incredibly oily and it stayed that way during the entire day. It was awful. The night after I applied it extremely thinly on my face. My skin was just as awfully oily as the night before, so I just decided this product did not work for me. I gave it away to my cousin (which she totally did not mind of course) and she loves it, so I'm happy she still gets some use out of it. 

Secondly: I bought these face strips, simply because it looked fun and I had used face strips before that worked miracles but that was ages ago and I totally do not remember what brand it was. Let me warn you, these don't do anything for your skin. I followed the instructions carefully and when I took them off, it had nothing on the sticky side. Usually, a big mess comes off and you know that the strips have helped. But they didn't stick, they didn't change anything at all so unfortunately they were kind of a waste of money. 

Thirdly: The labello fruity shine lipbalm. I love this! This is already the third one I bought because they make my lips so soft, so beautiful and they give off a nice berry-like color. It is my all-time favorite lipbalm.

Fourthly: I don't think these are of any particular brand. I bought them 70% off (I know right!) and they're bubble bath products in the shape of cupcakes. I'm going to give these for my friend's birthday as well (check last post). 

And lastly: how I storage my cotton pads. I have a pack of cotton pads in the bathroom, but since I take off my make-up in my room (because I'm too lazy to walk to the bathroom when it's already that late again) I have this little box of cotton pads in my nightstand. As you may notice, it's an old Ben & Jerry ice cream box. I think it's cute! Of course I washed it out very neatly after eating all of the ice cream. 

That was it for today, I hope you enjoyed reading this!

xX