Miracle Product - Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover

This is another of those products that is really really hard to find in the UK and it's typical that everyone seems to rave about it. When Annabella from Skin Scrubs went back to the USA this was one of the products I asked her to bring back for me and boy am I glad I did.

You get a quite sizeable bottle of product and the instructions are simple enough: just apply to cuticle, leave for 15 seconds, push back or trim and wipe away excess product.

After using many different cuticle removing products and not finding a single one that I have liked I didn't hold many hopes for this one.

So I applied to my cuticles one at a time, left for 15 seconds and pushed them back. All I can say is I was amazed at how easy they were to remove and it didn't hurt at all. It took me around an hour to do all my nails but that was mainly due to the bad state they were in.

I have since found one retailer on eBay where you can buy this from and I have purchased it for a couple of people I know because I raved to them about how good it was.

If you want to try it just search on eBay and it should come up, it's around £4 for a bottle the same as mine.

USA nail polish swatches - Sally Hansen and Milani

As requested by the lovely Annabella who brought these back from America for me here are the swatches for the Sally Hansen and Milani polishes from my USA haul post.

Sorry that the photo above is a bit crappy, light wasn't on my side that day!

On all photos the middle two fingers have coloured polish underneath and the top and bottom nails are just the glitter polish.

Sally Hansen shades: Lady Luck and Razzle Dazzler.

Milani shade: Gems.

Out of all three polishes I think my favourite is the Milani polish, I just love the chunky glitter effect.

Are there any USA polishes that you love? I'd love to hear what you'd recommend.

A little USA haul! And a few magazine freebies!

This haul is quite exciting as it contains things that are either only available in the USA or that are hard to find here in the UK. 

Fellow blogger Annabella from Skin Scrubs was heading back to her native USA and kindly asked if I wanted anything picking up whilst she was there.

It was one of those occasions where everything you've made a mental note of wanting from there vanished from my mind but I did send her a list non the less. So what did I ask for?

Bath and Body Works mini shower gels - OK so these are described as mini's but they're not. Each bottle is 88ml which is quite sizeable. I chose fruity scents and surprisingly my favourite is the Pink Chiffon which contains some floral notes.

Organix hair macadamia oil - Some Organix products are available int he UK but over in the USA they have such a large selection of scents and products. The macadamia range, as far as I'm aware, isn't available in the UK so I asked for the styling oil.

Sally Hansen instant cuticle remover - I'd only ever seen a couple of reviews of these and both reviews were amazing. The fact it claimed to 'dissolve dry cuticles in 15 seconds' instantly made me NEED to try this.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips - these were a kind of impulse buy. They aren't available over here so I took advantage of being able to get hold of some.

EOS lip balm - everyone raves about EOS products so I thought I'd see what they were on about. The lip balms are available in the UK. 

Sally Hansen Gem Crush polish - These two colours are amazing. Pink and sparkly, what's not to like? I don't think these are available in the UK. Shades: Lady Luck and Razzle Dazzler.

Milani Jewel FX nail polish - This is a kind of dupe for Models Own Ibiza Mix and the reviews I'd seen for Milani polishes have been good so I added this to my list too! Shade: Gems.

Once again I'd like to say THANK YOU to Annabella for getting these for me and as I've already tried some of these next time she goes to the USA I might be sending her with another shopping list!

And a few more little bits are from the August magazine freebies:

Balance Me minis - Glamour

Avon mascara - Marie Clare

Ren - Red

As always link me to your haulage posts!

What I did with my Soap & Glory OOTW...

As mentioned in a previous post, here, I used my Soap and Glory OOTW from Boots as a storage bag for my new beauty products which I want to use after I've used my hoard up. I thought I'd do a quick post to show what exactly is in it.

Overview of my bag

Sanctuary goodies from another OOTW

Dead Sea Source products

Soap & Glory products:

Glad Hair Day shampoo x2

Glad Hair Day conditioner

iFoam shower gel

Butter Deluxe body butter

Heel genius foot cream

Scrub your nose in it x2

Hand Food

More Soap & Glory:

Clean Mary (mini)

Catch a Wrinkle (mini)

Flake Away scrub

Breakfast Scrub

Off Your Face wipes x3

Girligo moisturising body mist (mini)

Fab Pore mask x2

Hand Food (1 full size & 1 mini)

Clarity face soap

Clear Here moisturiser

Sexy Mother Pucker lipgloss

Naked shine shampoo

Naked Detox shampoo and conditioner

Naked Sensitive shampoo and conditioner

Naked Coco de Mer body wash

Lee Stafford grow faster mask

Lee Stafford big fat texturised hair spray

Sally Hansen kwick off nail polish remover

Bomb Cosmetics bath bombs

I'm excited to used all of these but as my challenge of my product use up post said I'm going to use up all of my 'old' products before I'm going to start on these. It's a little incentive for myself!

Did you manage to get one of these Soap & Glory bags? What are you using it for?

Haul - York

I went on a trip to York on Monday with my mum and our friend and I bought a few bits so thought I'd share them with you.

Zest - a discount make up store

I've seen and heard about this Sally Hansen nail polish remover finger dip thing from a few different blogs and had never seen it in the pound shop were other bloggers had bought it from but found it here and snapped it up! It was £1.99 but it's a huge pot. I also got a pot of Wet n Wild Ultimate Minerals powder foundation. This is an American brand which was sold in the UK in larger Boots stores but they don't do it anymore. This is in medium which I thought might be too dark for my skin but it actually makes me look like I have a slight tan and it gives a nice finish. This was £2.99, and even though it does contain parabens (naughty naughty) I would purchase it again if I found it in a shop.

Pound World

Ok I admit we went to the pound shops in York, but mainly because I was after these sparkly pipe cleaners but we ended up spending a fortune! Haven't photographed everything as that's abit boring but as well as the pipe cleaners I found packs of 10 cards which are great quality and nice and thick. These were in tall, square and mini card sizes.

Poundland

Yes another pound shop! This plastic tableware was a great buy. A pack of 2 bowls and a pack of 3 plates for £1 a pack! They did other plates, bowls and serving platters and with santa and snowmen on. These always come in handy at christmas time.

Boots

So I had £30 on my Boots points so I thought why not spend it! York Boots isn't as big as you'd imagine and their christmas range is pretty poor when you think about other stores of the same size. But I did buy some Soap and Glory products which I'd wanted to buy: Clear Here moisturiser, Clarity Face Soap, Glad Hair shampoo and Glad Hair conditioner, and they were on 3 for 2. I also got a Burts Bees pomegranate lip balm as I love the Acai Berry one which I bought a couple of weeks ago.

Cath Kidston

I love Cath Kidston products but have never bought anything as it's a little pricey for me but I got a Blackberry a couple of months ago and hadn't got round to buying a case for it so when I saw this I had to have it! It was £12 and comes in 3 different designs but I got the red rose one. I had photographed mine but the light just wasn't playing ball so borrowed an image from the Cath Kidstone website.

Have you tried any of these products, what do you think? Or are you a secret pound shop fan like me?!?! Heehee!