GIVEAWAY: Neutrogena CC Cream

Neutrogena have very kindly sent me one of their brand new Visibly Clear Correct and Perfect CC Creams (in Medium) to give away to one of you lovely people. Yes, you!

I also have one to test for myself, which I'm looking forward to doing, as it promises to cover spots and breakout marks while helping to correct them too. It contains salicylic acid, so it's bound to do something to help.

To enter, email bianca[DOT]dee[AT]gmail[DOT]com with your name and address. And that's all! The competition will close one week from today, on March 30th, 2016, at 18.30 UK time. So get emailing and good luck :)

Beauty Byte: Massive £700 beauty giveaway!

In celebration of her birthday, renowned beauty blogger Michelle is giving away beauty products worth £700 on her blog, Thou Shalt Not Covet. You can enter here: http://thoushaltnotcovet.net/2015/06/12/my-big-birthday-giveaway-2015.

I have massive respect (and slight envy!) for people like Michelle who can actually make a living out of blogging, out of sheer passion and talent. Being a beauty journalist was always my dream, but I guess I just didn't have what it takes, or I was just unlucky. While I now gain massive fulfilment from another profession I love, it's great to know that there's still plenty of people out there willing to read and write quality content, especially as journalism (print in particular) continues its steady decline.

So get over to Michelle's blog, not only to have a chance of winning shedloads of amazing stuff, but also to keep the cause of quality journalism going.

Comparing beauty

With the arrival of the internet in virtually every home (and virtually on every phone too), consumers have become increasingly demanding as they realise the diversity of products available. Retailers have also stepped up to the plate, competing to offer the best prices and free gifts. This has also created problems for consumers: when buying online, how can you be sure that you're ordering from a genuine retailer and won't end up with a fake? How can you get the best price without wading through hundreds of web pages? And how can you know which products are right for you when shopping online, since you can't try before you buy?

the beauty biography page

Price comparison websites go some way to solving these problems, but they can't do it all. So, again, websites are needing to up their game in order to attract consumers. MyBeautyCompare is one of them, touting itself as the Match.com for beauty. It doesn't just want women to get the best price, but also to help modern, busy women find the right products for them.

New visitors to the site are invited to click on "find your beauty match", which is a button located on the web page's top left-hand corner. This leads newbies to complete the beauty biography, which asks questions about eye colour, hair type, skin concerns and more. This is quite detailed, although still quick to fill out. A few other important questions could also be asked without it taking too much more of users' time, such as body skin type or concerns (I have largely oily skin, for example, but suffer horribly with dry skin on my feet, meaning it doesn't make sense to treat my whole body as if it has the same skin type).

my recommended eye treatments

Once the beauty bio is complete, you are sent an email to activate your membership (which is free, but obligatory). Confusingly, once you have activated your membership, the "find your beauty match" button disappears. Your next step, therefore, is to select a product category in order to find your best product matches. This shows a few things: firstly, all of the products available to buy online, using MyBeautyCompare as an agent. You can narrow this down by selecting a further category on the left-hand side of the page (e.g., under 'cleansers', you can select a skin concern, such as hyperpigmentation). However, this does not mean that all of your work filling out the beauty bio at the beginning is in vain: at the top of the page are the four top products in that category, as recommended for your specific concerns. The price range of these four products is quite wide: for my skin type, for example, the four products ranged from Simple to Decleor (with prices starting at £3.80 and going as high as nearly £23). However, clicking on one of the products led to an error message, suggesting that some aspects of this site still need to be tweaked.

buy now!

When you do click on a product with a working page, though, the information is concise and has great potential, showing reviews, price comparisons (which shows the full cost of the item to you, including postage), and complementary products from the same brand as the product selected (NB not 'complimentary', as spelt on the website, which means something else entirely). While the range of retailers selling through the site perhaps need to be widened (I know for a fact that Dermalogica does not only sell through one website, for example), the whole set-up still strikes me as being very convenient: clicking the bright pink button that says 'Buy Now' takes you directly to the website offering you the price you're happiest with.

The range of products being offered is vast: there are more than 400 exfoliators (that's exfoliatOrs, not exfoliatErs, as MyBeautyCompare would have you believe!) on sale, for example. You can also narrow these numerous offerings down by price, as well as sorting them alphabetically, by ascending or descending cost, by popularity, or by those with the best reviews. There is also a completely separate category of the site for product reviews, which are written by site members, and which again are available in vast numbers and can be narrowed down by brand, key word, or even specific product. 

the homepage

This range of products can be accessed easily from the home page (or indeed any other) thanks to the chunky black toolbar at the top of the screen. The home page also offers direct links to best-selling brands (which vary from the most famous, such as Clinique, to the more niche, such as Matrix), links to latest forum posts and product reviews, and access to the site's blog, video tutorials, expert tips, offers, and treatments. These elements of the site also need to be made accessible from the main black toolbar so that users can reach them immediately from any page that they are on. Some of the homepage images appear to have been made cheaply, but other elements of the site are good: the blog in particular is clearly archived and categorised, and offers comments and hints on a range of topics of interest.

the slightly inactive forum

Finally, the site forum allows users to interact with each other on beauty-related topics. The forum seems well-organised, with members able to sort their queries by product type and category (for example, under the Hair section, there are fora for colour, styling and frizzy hair) as well as being able to chat off-topic in the Beauty Lounge. The fora in general are not highly-used currently, racking up only single-digit numbers of topics and replies in most cases. However, this will likely improve as the site racks up more users.

Any beauty addict would therefore do well to have this site bookmarked for the best hints, recommendations, and prices, so as to carry on staying on top of what's hot and where to buy it. 

Competition: Deep Heat Muscle Rescue

Overdone it at the gym? Done something amazing like the Race For Life? Or just had a hard day at work? To help, you can win one of three Deep Heat Muscle Rescue kits, which include the neck/shoulder cream and the bath soak.

You know how much I like products that are both utilitarian and luxurious. These ones do both as well. The cream contains vanilla to relax the senses and rosemary to relax your muscles, and the convenient sponge applicator gives a gentle massage during application.

The bath soak, equally, combines aromatherapeutic orange and patchouli with healing rosemary to relax your aching body.

To celebrate Deep Heat Muscle Rescue, Mentholatum, the Deep Heat muscle experts, are offering three product sets. To enter, answer the following question and email your answer to soprano_seraph[AT]hotmail[DOT]com:

Which official rescue person wears a red uniform?

·         Policeman

·         Life Guard

·         Doctor

You have until 23:59, British Summer Time, on August 13th 2013 to enter. Good luck :) 

And the winner of the fake tan tights giveaway is...

STEFANIE HURRELL

Congratulations Stefanie! Please leave a comment below, or email me via soprano_seraph[AT]hotmail[DOT]com with your address so that I can send you your fake tan tights. Well done :)

WIN a pair of fake tan tights

Yep, you heard me right. FAKE TAN TIGHTS.

Thanks to my friends at TIGHTSPLEASE, I'm giving away a pair of these (in medium):

In short, they're for people who've tried every fake tan method in the book: sunbeds, spray tans, lotions, sprays...and been disappointed with the lot of them.

Equally, they're for people who've never forayed into the fake tanning scene before and fancy giving it a go. 

Either way, they should be simple to use and give satisfying results. Put the tights on and massage your legs (they do provide a pair of plastic gloves too in case of staining, but there shouldn't be any), and when you take the tights off, you should be left with a gorgeous even tan. Once you've used the tights, they can be washed and kept as a normal pair of sheer 8 denier tights for you to wear all year round.

They're worth £10 and I have a pair to give away.

For your chance to win, comment on this post. It's just that easy!

The competition's deadline has now been extended and will run until August 11th 2012 (23:59 UK time), and the winner will be announced on August 12th 2012. Good luck!!

All packed and with nowhere to go?

SPONSORED CONTENT

Suffering from the British downpours? Watching friends swan off on their holidays? Feeling even more sucky because the British rain is making your hair frizzy? 

Look no further: Perfumesclub.co.uk are hoping to not only fulfil your holiday hopes but also to sort your hair out with their latest prize draw. To boot, you can be sure you'll also be smelling sweet this year thanks to their other prizes: there are fifty £10 vouchers up for grabs to spend on the perfume site, as well as 100 Travalo refillable atomizer bottles to give away.

But those aren't even the main prizes, oh no! I hear you screaming "but what about my hair?!" The second prize is a pair of GHD hair straighteners (the Peacock model; available in green, blue or purple), ensuring you'll be the envy of your friends for free. The first prize is even better, though: a 2-night trip to Mallorca for two, including travel and accommodation expenses.

Any UK resident can enter via the Perfumes Club website, with winners being announced in October. It is so easy to enter (I just have) and who wouldn't want a free holiday in the Mallorcan sun? (Or GHDs, or vouchers, or perfume...)

And when you've entered the competition, you should take a look around the Perfumes Club site while you're there. As well as selling perfume, they also sell aftershaves and other products for men, and offer highly tailored search options on makeup and tanning products, which allow you to search by price, brand, age, required SPF, skin type, and more. The products are heavily discounted and are from end-of-line ranges by brands such as Shiseido, Piz Buin, and Clarins. In addition, you can consult their own blog, get advice from their resident beautician, use their gift finder, and watch videos. I'll definitely be bookmarking for my future purchases. Until then, though, I'll be sitting back and waiting to see if I won anything. Winning stuff rules :)

Almost got enough for that Crème de la Mer hamper you've had your eye on...?

Sponsored Post

Or maybe not? With the David Linley Keepsake Box and its Crème de la Mer contents retailing at a bank-busting £795, it's enough to make any beauty lover's credit card cry. But all of your luxury beauty dreams (and indeed any other) may be about to come true thanks to Paypal, who are offering you the chance to win £40,000. It's the equivalent of a year's salary for some, and all you have to do to enter is to shop with Paypal in order to automatically receive a ticket for the draw. So what would you do with £40,000? Would you head straight for the Bond No 9, Chantecaille and Crème de la Mer counters? Would you spend it on a series of pampering facials at top class spas around the world? Or finally get that liposuction you've always wanted? It's easy to see how £40,000 could quickly go on making you look and feel more beautiful.

Then there's always the possibility of making yourself feel more beautiful from the inside out: spending the money on fun times with friends and family is another good place to start.

Perhaps best of all, this draw is weekly, so you have plenty of chances to win, as the more times you buy, the more opportunities you get to be in with a shout at the cash. Find out more at www.paypal.co.uk/win

So feel free to start shopping with Paypal - and fantasising about what you'd do with the money. Five links to get you started:

http://www.reviveskincare.com/store/home.jsp (RéVive Skincare)

http://www.cledepeau-beaute.com/ (Clé de Peau Beauté)

http://www.laprairie.com (La Prairie)

http://www.chantecaille.com (Chantecaille)

http://www.cremedelamer.com (Crème de la Mer)

 

Enter now for your chance to win!

And don't forget to check out the terms and conditions: https://www.paypal-marketing.co.uk/win/terms/

 

Good luck!

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