Color Club Back to Boho : Nomadic in Nude

There's a lot of brands out there, most of them releasing special or limited edition collections, and usually I'll want one or two from this collection or that, but not all. There are a few brands, though, where I have to hide my wallet to prevent me buying everything they ever release ever - and Color Club is one of those brands. I can't decide if it's a shame that they're quite hard to get in the UK, or whether that's a blessing (for my wallet, at least) - but between TK Maxx and Ebay I seem to have amassed a nice enough collection of these little beauties in spite of the lack of 'proper' Color Club stockists over here!

Back to Boho was the 2011 Color Club autumn collection (that's fall, for those of you who are across the pond), a  shabby chic, vintage 70's styled collection that promised to bring 'Boho Glam' to your nails. Amongst the 12 was Nomadic in Nude, a pale putty nude creme that the press releases described as 'off white', though I'd say it was closer to grey-beige. I don't have a lot of nude polishes (most of them look a bit odd against my olive skin tone), but I loved the way this one looked in the bottle, so I tried it anyway.

Application - well, it's a creme. Not only that, but it's a pale creme (which for me tend to show the same application problems as pastel cremes), and kind of sheer to boot - so it was hard to get it completely even and smooth. It would have been better if I'd done three thin coats, I think - but I was impatient - instead I applied two thick coats, after which it was opaque, but a bit brush strokey. My fault more than the polish! Nonetheless, the formula was mostly nice - dried reasonably fast, went on smoothly (when I wasn't rushing it and blobbing it on too thick). I had no trouble with cuticle pooling, either. No clean up required :)

Wear was really very good indeed. It took over a week to chip and by that time there was only a small amount of tip wear despite my having spent a lot of time with my hands in water and even scrubbing things with a pot scourer!

What I liked:

The colour. It looked pretty nice even against my usually nude-hating skintone, against which most nudes tend to look too orange, or too pink. I liked how it looked almost white in some lights, grey in others, and even like pale chocolate milk at times.

The wear. It lasted forever!

What I didn't like:

It could have done with being a little more pigmented - then two thin coats would have sufficed. I dislike having to do more than two coats of polish (maybe I'm just lazy).

The formula wasn't quite as nice as some of the other Color Club polishes I've tried. It's very far from being horrible, though.

Stash or Trash?

Definitely stash. I can see me using this one as a palette cleanser, as well as a nice neutral/nude polish that doesn't make me cringe to see it against my skintone.

Body Shop Body Butter : Wild Cherry

Happy Friday! Today's review is for another Body Shop product, their ever-popular Body Butter in Wild Cherry.

 When I was a teenager Body Butters were really popular and I remember slathering myself in Mango body butter like there was no tomorrow. Almost 20 years on and the shop is still full of body butter, still in the familiar large round pots, but now with prettier labels and available in a lot more varieties than there used to be. As well as Wild Cherry, there's Olive, Cocoa Butter, Chocomania, Hemp, Moroccan Rose, Pink Grapefruit, Japanese Cherry Blossom, Sweet Pea, Vanilla, Floral Acai, Macademia, Shea, Coconut, Moringa, Satsuma, Mango, Sweet Lemon, Peach, Brazil Nut, Vitamin E, Almond, Aloe, Mango, Papaya, Blueberry and Strawberry! At £12.50 they're a little pricier than I'd normally pay for a body moisturiser but you get 200ml of product for your cash and a little bit goes a very long way, so I guess it's not too bad.

As soon as I opened the pot I noticed two things: one, it smells absolutely gorgeous. I was actually expecting an artifical, 'cherry coke' kind of black cherry scent, and that isn't the case. It smells strongly of real cherries. The scent is strong enough that you can definitely smell it on your skin long after it's applied, but not strong enough to be annoying or give you a headache. This is a plus for me. I like skin products to smell nice, but not knock out passers-by.

The other thing that I noticed was that it's a lot runnier than I'd been expecting. The Body Butters I used as a teenager were so thick as to be almost solid, and a quick squizz at some of the other varieties revealed they mostly have that same thick texture too. However, the jar does say 'for normal skin' whereas a lot of the other ones are intended for drier skin, so I figured normal=runnier.

The butter, or shall we say cream (it just doesn't seem like a butter to me when it's this fluid) has a pale pink colour, applies easily and sinks in fast. I was a little worried it wouldn't be that moisturising but my horribly dry skin on my legs slurped it up and felt wonderfully smooth afterwards. The butter leaves a slight residue on the skin which makes it feel extra moisturised, but it's not enough to feel greasy or leave marks on your clothes. It lasted a long time, too: despite my dry skin I am terrible at remembering to moisturise, yet two days later my legs still felt pleasantly nice and smooth.

What I liked:

Smells gorgeous

Lasts a long time

Absorbs quickly, yet is still very moisturising, even on very dry skin.

What I didn't like:

The price (although not appallingly expensive it's still more than I'd like to spend on a single body product)

The thickness. It wasn't buttery enough for me to think of it as an actual body butter. More like a moisturising cream in a jar.

Some people might think the scent is just a little bit too strong. I like strongly scented creams but if you prefer   less fragrant offerings, try one of the other butters as this is one of the more aromatic varieties the Body Shop sell. Some of them are strong, others a lot more subtle.

Would I use it again? Most certainly. I loved this so much that it even made me remember to moisturise my legs more often than the measly once a week or so that I normally achieve.