Boots No7 Beautiful Skin Cleansing Brush

I do not have perfect skin by any stretch of the imagination. It's a lot better than it used to be, but I still get breakouts on a regular basis, and I am still very prone to acne and blackheads if I don't use a good facial scrub at least a couple of times a week. I've often been frustrated by scrubs which weren't... scrubby enough, if you know what I mean:  exfoliating 'grains' that are too sparse or insufficiently abrasive to make the scrub worthwhile. Not that I want to actually sandpaper my face, you understand, but I do want an exfoliator to actually exfoliate my face or what's the point? It's probably no surprise, therefore, that I've been coveting the famous Clarisonic skin brush for quite a while now. However, I just couldn't justify spending ~£150 on something just to clean my face!

About a month ago I was walking through Boots when something caught my eye: the No7 Beautiful Skin Cleansing brush.This little marvel is Boots No7's answer to the famous Clarisonic, but at a much more purse-friendly price of £25 (I got it for £15, as they were offering it at a reduced introductory price at the time, but even full price it's a fraction of what the Clarisonic costs). I wasn't expecting miracles at that price but just had to try it anyway, so it jumped into my basket and came home with me.

For your £25 you get the brush, with one head, and a set of batteries. They also sell replacement heads at £8 for two; pretty good value since I can't see the head needing to be replaced very often anyway. I've been using mine almost daily for a month now and it still looks brand new. (The batteries are still going strong, too).

The brush is a good size and has densely packed bristles; they are stiff enough to give your face a really good scrub, but soft enough that they still feel soft on your skin. Unlike the Clarisonic, which oscillates from side to side in a more obvious scrubbing motion, this brush turns continuously in one direction. I was worried this might feel abrasive on the skin, or else make it less effective at exfoliating, but I needn't have been concerned: as long as you move the brush in little circles while you're cleansing, the end result is just the same. The motor has two speeds: I have used both. I prefer the slower one for daily use (this would be the better speed for sensitive skin, too) and the fast one is great for a really, really thorough clean!

The box suggests that you should use either No7 Melting Gel Cleanser, or No7 Foaming Cleanser, however I have neither of these products and instead decided to test the brush out with a range of other cleansers to see how it fared. Over the last three weeks I have used the brush with Nivea Visage Refreshing 2 in 1 Cleanser and Toner, Nivea Visage Daily Essentials Gently Cleansing Cream Wash, African Black Soap, Garnier Skin Natuals Pure Anti-Blackhead Deep Pore Wash, and Superdrug Vitamin E Hot Cloth Cleanser. All of them have given good results, although I noticed that my skin felt a lot cleaner and more effectively exfoliated with the non creamy facial wash and the black soap than it did with the more creamy cleansers. Having said that, the brush also feels much more abrasive when used with non-creamy, foaming products, so these would be better for sensitive skin. 

 The verdict: after three weeks of using this brush, I am very, very pleased with the results. I have not been transformed into a magical goddess of skin perfection, but then again I wasn't expecting that anyway. But my skin is softer, smoother, and cleaner than it has felt in ages. My make up applies more smoothly, too, and the blemishes on my cheeks seem to be fading, along with the stubborn blackheads on my nose that just. won't. go. One major plus is that I have had a LOT fewer breakouts since using this brush, too - just one spot in the three weeks of testing, whereas normally I get at least one or two per week (the one spot I did get was right at that time of the month when most girls are pretty much guaranteed to get breakouts anyway, so I wasn't really surprised when it appeared. It's a brush, not a miracle).

Studded Buckle Boots - Peacocks

Remember how I told you I have great new equipment for taking pictures now? I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath to see the awesomeness but unfortunately, since we are rearranging half the house right now, awesomeness is a bit tricky to arrange. So for today I have had to settle for a crumpled sheet on the stairs to show you these boots I picked up in Peacocks this week! (You'll have to ignore the creases. I can't find the iron anywhere. Le sigh). Peacocks used to have absolutely massive cheap January sales but since they were bought out by the Edinburgh Woollen Mill they have changed, and in my local branch at least there was only a tiny amount of sale stuff (which wasn't even that cheap either, gone are the days you could go in there and get 20 tops for £3 each). I almost walked out of there empty handed but then I spotted these boots.

Aren't they cute! I love the trend for studded clothing, but they can sometimes be hard to wear on an everyday occasion (like to the office, with jeans) without looking like you'd be more at home on a motorbike, dancing to industrial music or maybe hanging out in a fetish club! These boots have small studs on the toes, just enough to look good, without being too in-your-face spiky. I also love the buckled ankles!

They were originally supposed to be £30 but I got them in the sale for £14, bargain! They're really comfy to wear too and thanks to the zips on the inside, they're easy to put on and take off.

What bargains have you found in the sales this year?

17 Fast Finish : Fury

It's August already! If you're in the UK you'll already know about the loooong rainy spell we had (OK so it was more like a biblical flood), followed by one measly week of actual summer sunshine. That was last week, and it didn't last - we're already back to rain :( It is in honour of the rain's return that I show you today's polish - Fury, by Boots 17. Mainly because if that one week is all the summer we get, I will be furious!!

Now I'm not going to lie. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with 17 polishes. They have some gorgeous colours, but the formula on every 17 polish I have tried before has kind of sucked - especially with the 'Fast Finish' polishes, which seem to take FOREVER to dry. However, I saw this colour, and I liked it so much I figured it would be worth another try. Armed with quick-drying topcoat, I dived in.

In the bottle, Fury is a rich antique gold with a subtle green duochrome shift. Once on the nail, you mostly lose the duochrome effect, although it retains a sort of green 'hint' to the gold, it's not very easy to see the two colours separately. Depending on the light, it's either the same sort of antique gold you see in the bottle and on this picture here, or else it's more of a coppery bronze colour like in the picture below.

Application wasn't as bad as I expected, although patience was required and I had to do a couple of fingers twice. You need to let each coat dry completely (I used two coats here) before adding the next or you get horrible brush marks and the polish underneath smudges. You also need to apply the polish quite thickly for it to look smooth, which can make it a bit of a pain getting a nice cuticle line. Finally, you'll need a lot of time, or a quick drying topcoat (I used Orly Sec 'N' Dry), because it may say Fast Finish on the bottle but frankly Slow Finish would have been a much better name. It's worth persevering though because the end result is actually a really nice colour and finish which wore surprisingly well. In these pictures I have already been wearing Fury for three days and the tipwear is only just starting to show.

What I liked about Fury:

It's a gorgeous colour, quite unusual - there's a lot of gold/green duochromes out there already but this one is more of a bronze/green.
It wore well - no tipwear until the end of the 3rd day.

What I didn't like about Fury:

It takes forever to dry
It needs very careful application to look good.

Bin it or Keep it?

Keep, because I like the colour so much - but if I found a dupe with a better formula then I would probably ditch this one and keep the dupe instead.