ESPA OPTIMAL SKIN PRO SERUM | Paper Crowned

ESPA OPTIMAL SKIN PRO SERUM, RRP £48 FOR 30ML, AVAILABLE HERE.

I was treated to this as part of the Blog Yorkshire experience on the 12th of July in Leeds. The lady at the stall asked me lots of questions about my skin, and she gave me a gift bag which was filled with items for my oily skin. I did my research when I got home, and was incredibly thrilled to read that ESPA are a cruelty free company (confirmed here)!

I was a little surprised to see an oil in my little giftbag, especially as I had told her my skin had a horrible habit of being oily and disgusting but I thought I'd give it ago anyway. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. As part of a new routine (goodbye, face wipes!) I have been removing my makeup, cleansing and then giving my skin a few drops of this to my face despite my reservations about the oil.

I didn't really take notice of the changes for the first few days I admit, but I did take a long look in the mirror when I kept getting complimented on my 'glow'.. And I noticed. I don't know whether its just down to the oil itself, or whether its my new routine - or even the fact I'm taking new supplements - but my face actually looks moderately okay without foundation. The oil, even if it doesn't have anything to do with the my skin clearing, definitely has something to do with how beautiful it feels. Its soft, even the areas which did used to get dry (either side of my nose, between my eyebrows) are feeling great. It soaks into my skin really quickly and doesn't leave a nasty slicky residue after application, leaving a lovely smell behind to boot.

I don't think I can afford £43 every so often in order to replenish my supply, but the trial bottle has hardly got a dent in it and I've used it for a week so hopefully it will keep me going long enough!

Post Written by Tilly at papercrowned.com

ESPA EXFOLIATING BODY POLISH REVIEW | Katherine Rosie

ESPA are a brand I had never heard of until I attended the Blog Yorkshire event on Saturday 12th July at Revolution Bar in Leeds. I am already completely in love with the brand, so much that I emailed them to let them know how much their products work for me. While getting a skin consultation at the counter, the girls who worked there asked myself and my friend Phoebe from FlawlessFlares to chose which smell we preferred from two different cotton pads. This was to determine which goodie bag we would be receiving in relation to our skin type. Of course I was given the one for dry and sensitive skin, and in my bag was a 100ml tube of their Exfoliating Body Polish - I was shocked we weren't given the sample size and were given the full size retailing at £18.50! 

The Exfoliating Body Polish is 100% natural, along with the rest of ESPA's products. I was so pleased to hear this as it meant that I was in with a chance of not being allergic to their products. I have never been able to find an exfoliator which has worked for my skin, its so annoying how all my friends and fellow bloggers can use the Soap & Glory products all over their body and swear by them yet they just react so badly with my skin. 

This exfoliator has made it SO easy for me to false tan, which is something that never usually happens for me. I'm not at all the type of girl who can just slap on false tan and it spreads evenly over my body; usually I'm patchy, orange and end up with a huge allergic reaction all over my arms and neck. I'm still perfecting my perfect false tan routine, so I don't think you'll be seeing one for a while..but I am keen to try out more expensive false tans now I have an exfoliating product to buff and get rid of my dead skin and hopefully it won't be a waste of my money. Another thing I adore about this product is that it smells of spearmint which is gorgeous! I've always loved the scent and have chosen spearmint gum over any other flavours any day so this was a nice little incentive making me love the product even more.

The product application is so easy, you can use it with hot water like a usual exfoliator while bathing and shaving, or you can just use it on your skin and buff it completely in to reduce dry skin before moisturising (this option tends to work better for me). 

Again the Exfoliating Body Polish retails for £18.50, which is quite pricey but if you have really sensitive skin/eczema I would more than recommend this product and the price is definitely justifiable!

Have you tried any of ESPA's products? Which is your favourite exfoliator to use?

Do you have any tips for sensitive skin?

xxxx

Post Written By katherine rosie

BlogYorkshire Meetup Leeds | The Inelegant Wench

I know I promised posts about my Harry Potter party and my holiday and Rich coming home from Afghanistan, however on Saturday I went to the #BlogYorkshire meetup kindly and wonderfully organised by Carrieanne and Faith and held at Revolution in Leeds so I thought I'd better write about that first!

It was festival themed, and a very hot day, which caused me a bit of a dilemma. My usual go to festival outfit (as discussed in my Festival Tips post) is hoody, tshirt, denim shorts, black tights and wellies. I have never been to a festival when it was as warm as it was at the weekend! After much umming and aahing, and lots of variations, I finally decided to brave shorts without tights in the UK for the first time in my life and put together this outfit.

Please excuse the paleness of my legs, I was on holiday recently, with very little suncream on them - they just don't ever change colour! My Hogwarts t-shirt is from New Look tall section, denim shorts are very old Topshop ones, and my Converse are my custom ones designed by Rich for my birthday last year.

It was brilliant to see the Leeds bloggers I'm getting to know again, and to meet new faces. The addition of the lanyards with people's Twitter pictures on was genius, as I know I tend to recognise people from Twitter mostly! 

Now onto the brands, who all had made such an effort and helped to make the event truly fun!

First up was Quiz who had brought a lovely array of dresses, shoes and handbags with them for us to be dazzled by, and who held a style competition for us to have a chance to win a Quiz voucher. I took part, naturally, and lost, inevitably as I am about as far from a style blogger as you can get! I love Quiz dresses, and got to live my short girl dream putting the outfit together, as I struggle to find things in there which aren't indecently short on me.

Next up were Country Attire who gave us the most amazing goody bags, and had Hunter Wellies everywhere which I was lusting after, adding to the general festival theme of the day. They arranged a game of Hunter Croquet for us to compete to win a pair of Hunters, which was great fun, even if I was rubbish at it! 

ESPA were doing skin consultations and giving out their amazing goody bags again, trying to make everyone smell better after their festival experience perhaps?

Very generously, Pastille were offering free dash manis to bloggers, but unfortunately the queue was never ending so I didn't get to have one, even though I went to the event naked nailed just in case! The quality of the manicures was incredible from what I saw on other people, and I think I might have to visit soon to treat myself.

Allertons were there, along with Rock Pamper Scissors doing festival hair on lots of bloggers. I have been hearing a lot about them on twitter, as they seem to be taking Leeds by storm, making lots of ladies very happy! 

The stunningly gorgeous Georgina from She May Be Loved was trying out her MUA skills on us, and I very eagerly volunteered, as I am clueless at makeup as I wrote about in that post. I was after something natural that made me still feel like myself, just a bit better, and oh boy did she deliver! Georgina was delicate handed, and gave me an amazing makeover which I was still comfortable wearing, and looking good in hours later. I highly recommend her to everyone, she will make a brilliant MUA.

Even with all of the other activities going on there was a huge raffle in aid of the British Heart Foundation, with the most amazing prizes, including Hunter Wellies, Illamasqua makeup and Zatchels bags! Even though I bought lots of tickets, I was very unlucky and didn't win a thing, but it was brilliant seeing the delight on the other girls faces when they were winning their prizes. 

All in all it was a fantastic event, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The Leeds bloggers are such a lovely bunch, and I count myself very lucky to be a part of the "scene". I'm already counting down to the next meetup, whenever it may be! I will be doing a blog post on the goody bags soon, I promise!

Rachel xx

Wrote by The wonderful Rachel @ theinelegantwench.blogspot.co.uk click the Link to check her out!

Blog Yorkshire Blogger Meetup- Festival, Fun and Frollicks | Lozzy Loves Lippy

 Think I must be among the last to blog about this *raps self over knuckles* but I have just been a bit meh this week- forgive me my trespasses!

So for anyone who doesn't know- I attended a new blogger meetup on Saturday (12/07/2014) which was the first in hopefully a long succession of blogger meetups from what appears to be the beginnings of a Yorkshire blogger network and boy did I have a good time!

Gorgeous Cupcakes made by Carrieanne

The event was organised by the lovely Carrieanne from Beauties Unlocked, Faith from Music and Eyeliner and was helped by Keli from Kels Kurls. It was held in Revolution on Call Lane in Leeds (first time in there sober!) and was festival themed.

My attempt at 'festival'

Faith and Carrieanne (mentioned above)

I was typically anxious about going (stupid anxiety!) but the ladies made sure that everyone was connected on twitter, arranging a twitter chat and linking us with the brands that would be attending and sponsoring- This was really helpful as it linked me up with some people I hadn't met like Tilly from Papercrowned and that really put me at ease.

On arrival we were treated to lanyards with our twitter pics, blog names and names on them along with a very festivaly wristband which I thought was so cool and such a good idea and the lovely people at House of Fraser provided us with mini goody bags featuring brands like Dior and Elizabeth Arden

House of Fraser Goody Bags

In attendance, alongside us bloggers, were some lovely brands:

Allertons Salon, who offered quick hairdos;

ESPA, who offered skincare consultations using our olfactory system (sniffing) and giving beautiful goody bags;

Quiz who gave us really cool dress shaped biscuits;

Country Attire who gave us a really cool festival themed canvas goodie bag containing festival essentials like lipbalm and sunglasses;

Wynsors Shoes who gave us a lovely foot themed goodie bag with nail decals and gel cushions and

The absolutely gorgeous Erene from Pastille was offering dash manicures and I had to jump in first, technically before the event started- oops!

At this point i've noticed lots of words so some pics are in order!

My Gorgeous Dash Mani From Pastille- mind my sausage fingers

The Dream- A table of dress shaped biscuits Country Attire's Stand.

Jenna From Hepcat Blogs getting her nails done

Fruit and Sweeties

The gorgeous Georgina from She Might be Loved was on hand to give makeovers to the lucky few, her debut of this kind of thing- she did very well!

Georgina's Kit In addition to the cupcakes and biscuits, we had some snacks from Urban Fruit and Jelly Belly which went down a storm (what diet? lol)

As well as the brands that attended, we had lots of brands donate prizes for the draw in aid of British Heart foundation like Illamasqua, W7 etc. And although I didn't win, I was really happy for others (yeah right! lol) who did!

Prizes for the Draw

We had some fun and games along the way with a recreation of a challenge I have seen on Youtube- where Sally from Wheeling Along 24, Ellie from Miss Ellyre and Hayley from Teaparty Beauty were blindfolded and had to transfer cotton balls from one bowl to another (on their head) with a spoon. As you can imagine it was very fun to watch.

Sally having a go at the cotton wool challenge I cannot believe that on my first edit of this post I forgot to mention the actual Blog Yorkshire goodiebags, they were huge! We were truely spoilt! was fun getting all this home on the bus! Probably the worst Pic ever on a blog lol!

 There were so many other things on the day and as I was trying to vlog and also enjoy myself, I didn't take as many pics as I would have liked.

The event was so well organised, it went by so quickly but at the same time wasn't so Jam packed that we had no time to mingle! It was so lovely to meet so many people with the same interests as me, to meet people I had chatted to on twitter and see people I had met before. Really, it makes me feel like I'm part of something, a community, for the first time since I moved to Leeds 2 years ago.

So thanks so much to Carrieanne, Faith and Keli, to those who were so lovely (all of you) and I so look forward to many more!

This Post was wrote by Lozzy @ lozzyloveslippy.co.uk please go and check her OOTDs and Reviews out.

Blog Yorkshire July Meet | Kels Kurls

Yesterday it was finally time for Blog Yorkshire's first event at Revolution in Leeds.

I've been helping Carrieanne from Beauties unlocked and Faith from Music and Eyeliner out with the planning and other little bits and bats for the past six weeks and it was fab to see it all come together yesterday. It couldn't have gone any better.

I'm not going to go into too much detail as this could end up being a very long post but I've included all the best bits for you below including the goody bags!

Brands that attended on the day were, Espa, Pastille Beauty Bar, Country Attire, Quiz, Wynsors Shoes, House of Fraser, Allertons & Georgina Grogan from shemightbeloved.com doing makeovers - click on the links to find out more! I may have forgotten some there but forgive me, it was a very fast day!

Towards the bottom are just a few general shots i got throughout the day, i'm no photographer haha.

Enjoy!

I have no idea where i'm going to put all this stuff, let alone use it all! We were absolutely spoilt by all the brands that offered products for the goody bags.

Little goody bags were available as you walked into the venue from House of Fraser. Mine included the above which are all amazing. Chuffed!

Country Attire were one of my fave's that attended and their goody bags were so cute!

Espa - I had never heard of Espa before but was lured into their beautiful little area. We were asked to pick out a scent we were drawn to and apparently the scent you choose is what your skin needs. The scent i picked was for combination/oily skin and just look at all the goodys ready for me to try! I'm really excited to use these so i'll be doing another review on this little lot when i've got more to say.

Cute little goody bags from Wynsors shoes were given out as well. I'll certainly get my use out of all these! 

This Post was wrote by Keli @ kelskurls.blogspot.co.uk

Go check out her amazing beauty blog and her journey to tame her lion like mane. 

Our 1st Event | Carrieanne Beauties Unlocked

So the about 6 weeks ago I decided I would do my 1st bloggers meet. I asked around and decided on Leeds as the destination. My hat goes off to anyone who has organised meets in the past I didn't realise how much hard work goes into them.

Before I even tweeted about the meet I knew what I wanted to do. I have been to lots of meets in the past in which I had hardly spoke to people because I didn't know who they were until I got home later that night to see people on twitter talking about the event and I didn't even know they were there. I knew I wanted to have someway of reconising people by their twitter pictures as Lets be honest not many of us look like ours, I know mine is always a highly edited one that I when I have changed it that much it finally doesn't look an ounce like me anymore and I think wow I look ok! 

I came up with the lanyard Idea and thought a festival theme would fit right in with this so off I went with the planning. I would like to say a big thank you to Keli at Kels Kurls for making them from my not so amazing prototypes. 

I went to see a few venues and decided on Revolution Call Lane. I then got contacting all the brands and I have to say I was blown away by the response I got. Then 5 weeks ago I got talking to Faith from musicandeyeliner and over a Starbucks coffee Blog Yorkshire was born. 

The day came around quick and my house began filling up with boxes. Faith was also busy calling PR companies which led to some amazing brands coming on the day. 

On the day I struggled down stairs with the 44 Goodie bags and got my partner to squeeze them all into our car along with lots of prizes for the Charity Raffle.  Me and Faith was at the venue for just after 10.30 and started the preparation closely followed by Keli. 

The day was Amazing I just wish I had more time to mingle. I stood on front greeting everyone and giving them their lanyard and Blog Yorkshire wrist band in true festival style. House of Fraser  also provided little goodie bags which were fantastic which were giving on arrival too.

We started the day off with a little Introdution and then let everyone go visit the brands.

Snacks were provided by Jelly Belly and Urban Fruit. Faith PR also sent some mouth watering Macaroons. We also provided Jugs of fruit infused water and I made some Vanilla/lemon and choc/vanilla cupcakes. 

We played the cotton Ball Challenge which was sponsored by The City Rack a fashion-forward on-line retail store selling clothing at affordable prices.

Espa did a little introduction to the brand followed by skincare consultations and hand massages. I have to say I am in love with their products and was so happy to have them as part of the day as our Skincare brand.  The girls were so helpful and approachable and was giving out their own generous goodie bags (I will do a follow up post on this).

Pastile Nail Bar were offering speedy Mani's and I was guttered I didnt get chance to get my own but I won a £20 gift voucher in the Charity Raffle so will be getting one soon. 

Country Attire bought endless amounts of fun to the day with a game of Welly Croquet with the chance to win a Pair of Hunter Wellies (ooooo). The also gave out the most amazing Festival theme goodie bags.

Quiz Clothing came and did a style challenge giving people the chance to win a £50 voucher. What a brilliant prize and the beautiful Rebecca from http://queenbeady.com/ won this. 

Allertons where also there on the day doing festival and dry hairstyle and Tom from Rock Pamper Scissors was giving out amazing advise. 

The very beautiful Georgina Grogan from shemightbeloved.com was giving beautiful makeover throughout the day and people left her table feeling very happy.

Last but not least were Wynsor Shoes who provided the cutest goodie bags I especially liked the little dibdab lolly in the shape of a foot. The foot cushion will also come in good use for nights out as I always forget to buy these. 

We ended the day with a Charity Raffle in aid of the British Heart foundation and I am very chuffed to say we raised £159 with the raffle and my Sky Dive!! 

I would like to thank all the brands for making the day special and Faith and Keli for helping me make it possible. 

Carrieanne xx

I blog over at Beauties Unlocked on Beauty and Lifestyle feel free to pop by and say hello 

Due to me been very busy I had help with photography throughout the day so credit goes to Keli at Kels Kurls and Pete from Plus One Magazine for some of the pictures.