Imperial Leather Foamburst Shower Gel - Honey & Almond and Sweet Vanilla & Cherry!

There are not many better feelings in life than being fresh out of the shower in my opinion, and so choosing a shower gel that makes you smell great, and feel as fresh as a daisy is very important to me. So, when I was given the opportunity to trial a couple of the new Imperial Leather Foamburst fragrances, I jumped at the chance, as I’ve always got on well with their products in the past.

The new fragrances each have their own genie to represent them, and with that, their own ‘personality’ which you can read up on here that reflect their individual scent.

I was sent the Sweet Vanilla/Cherry Blossom (Sebastian) and Honey & Almond (Cael) varieties to test out, and both are absolutely lovely.

The Sweet Vanilla and Cherry Blossom Foamburst is a stronger, more noticeable sweeter scent with a big hit on the cherry front to my nose. This is totally up my street as I do love a strong scent, especially when I’m not necessarily layering up on other fragrances. Great for you sweet scent lovers out there.

The Honey and Almond is a more subtle fragrance, just a nice clean and fresh scent… which I also love for a different reason; as sometimes you want your other fragrances (perfume, body lotion etc.) to do the talking, and this variety works much better in this instance, as fragrance clashes are never a good thing in my book. This is also perfect for those of you who don’t necessarily want a lot of fragrance, just a neutral, clean scent.

The thing I like about the Foamburst range is that the products really are true to their name. Literally moments after squirting out the gel, you see the gel turn white and start to foam in your hand. This makes it feel a lot more luxurious and expensive than it actually is, at £2.99 per bottle. Plus there’s something totally satisfying about seeing it foam up like this for me, is this weird? Maybe, ha!

However, this also means you don’t need to use as much product to start with, meaning it’s cost effective, and also means that it’s perfect for using not only for washing, but for shaving too – therefore saving you more money on having to buy extra products.

They say you get 40 uses from one 200ml can, which at full RRP of £2.99 per can works out at approximately 7p per shower, which is dirt cheap (pun intended). I’d agree with this, as you really don’t need to use a huge amount per wash, since the foam covers a large area, especially when used with a sponge, or flannel.

All in all, I would totally recommend this range from my experiences so far. I’m very much a luxury end of the scale kinda girl; and this, even though it doesn’t have a huge price tag or designer name, still ticks all the boxes for me on every level… so a big thumbs up here.


*In association with Imperial Leather, my views remain unaffected by this.

This post originated at www.thebeautyscoop.co.uk

Are Care Instructions for Clothes Getting Wimpy?

Now my love of fashion has been reignited since losing weight, I've been buying more clothes in general, but also because I need to, since my older ones no longer fit me (perfect excuse). It's almost as a necessity to have a lovely large wardrobe brimming with new stuff really, to accompany the hugely hectic social life that I seem to be leading; especially when I'm being snapped by cameras and not wanting to appear to be wearing the same dress at every event.

This isn't a bad thing, I'm not complaining (although my feeble attempt of a bank balance most definitely is), but what I have noticed in buying all these lovely new clothes is that the care instructions appear to have got a bit finicky and precious... overly cautious, if you will.

Many of my clothes, or clothes that I am looking at online etc now seem to be hand wash only (without appearing to be particularly delicate to me), or unable to be tumble dried... or unable to be washed OR dry cleaned like the beautiful, expensive Forever Unique gown shown in the image above, and available here, where the care instructions say:

"Do not wash, Do not dry clean, Do not spray alcohol based products directly on garments such as perfume, Hair spray etc, Spot clean only with mild detergent, Do not bleach, Do not iron on embellishments" 

WTF?! It's made from 100% Polyester - something I thought was easily washable?! If I'm paying £550 for for an item of clothing, surely a basic requirement is that it's able to be cleaned so it can be worn again?!

In years gone by, I'm sure most clothes (bar obviously delicate materials, such as wool and silk) were generally just able to be thrown in at no greater than their recommended temperatures. Am I imagining this, or is this the clothing manufacturers and brands being wimps? Have we got so used to complaining, taking things back and suchlike that they're just protecting themselves, or are these clothes, and the materials they're made from really that delicate? I mean since when did denim get so fragile that it could no longer be tumble dried - as I recently saw on a pair of jeans I own?

Now I know washing machines can be quite rough and the insides aren't perfectly smooth, and I know that tumble drying isn't brilliant for the condition of your clothing either, but surely either technology should be able to cope with cleaning/drying clothes without causing (too much) damage, or that there are precautions that could be taken to ensure clothes stay in the best condition they can?!

Messing around... I know!

It actually puts me off purchasing items of clothing if the care instructions appear to state that you have to make a trip to mars, whilst singing a song backwards and dancing on your head just to get the item clean, ha. I want to be able to wear them, enjoy them, and wash them without hassle so I can wear and enjoy them again... not feel like I should 'save for best', just because it's a chore to get them ready to wear again.

For instance, I have a few dip hem dresses (shown in the other 2 images above, from a BBQ/party I went to not long ago), made with a chiffon-type material where the care instructions clearly state 'hand wash only' and I did hand wash these dresses... ONCE! It was so tedious, I honestly felt that life was too short for that malarkey, and so I actually didn't wear them again for a while because of it.

I then wondered if the dresses were hand wash more so they didn't catch on the inside of the washing machine and get pulls in them, than for any other reason. So, I decided to do a little experiment where I put the dresses inside an old pillowcase, used a hair band to seal them inside and stuck them in the wash on a low spin, 30 degree wash. Guess what, no harm came to them!!

Now I'm not saying these care instructions don't have their uses, or are not there for a valid reason; however, I do feel like they're being applied by brands and manufacturers that are simply wimping out by basically wrapping the garment in cotton wool so they don't have to deal with returns and refunds or some other nonsense. What do you think?

This post originated at www.thebeautyscoop.co.uk