Review: Let the Good Times Roll

If you've watched my Hawaii Haul Part II, you will know how much I love the smell of this mask. It smells like CAKE! Seriously, people. Cake.

Here's the list of ingredients:

Maize flour, Glycerine, Talc, Water, Corn Oil, Polenta, Fair Trade Organic Cinnamon Powder, Perfume (which occurs naturally in essential oils), Gardenia Extract, Popcorn.

Not only does it smell like cake (have I mentioned that yet?), it makes my skin feel so soft and smooth. I love a product that has all ingredients I can pronounce! It's got maize flour and polenta for gentle exfoliation and nourishment, corn oil to boost skin, and cinnamon to warm and stimulate your skin, leaving it refreshed. This cleanser is both scrubby and gentle, so it cleans but doesn't irritate those of us with sensitive skin.

What Lush cleansers do you love?

A Very Late November Favourites

Here is my mega-late November Favourites video. I want to say that I will do better with December Favs, but I know myself too well. It will take a Christmas miracle to get that up on time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this! Thanks for watching!

Bath Time: Bombs, Salts, and Tablets

It's this picture again! Hurray!!!

If you're not into bubbles I've got a few bath fizzy things that will make your skin soft and smell nice. One I will definitely be repurchasing is the Butterball. It's a vanilla scented bomb with chunks of cocoa butter. I recommend this if you suffer from dry skin, especially in the winter! With the Christmas season approaching, there's a lovely assortment of holiday scented things. The Bombardino is a lemon pie scented bomb, full of cocoa butter bits. I used this one last night and it was amazing! It smells great and made my skin feel so nice! The Melting Snowman, and regular Snowman are in my stockpile.

Muji bath tablets only promise to make your bath smell nice, not to benefit your skin, but they're much cheaper than Lush or the Body Shop. When I bought them I saw that Muji has a selection of bath salts. On further inspection, they all seem to be advertised at 'medicated bath salts'. I find this concerning. If anyone knows what they actually do, leave me a comment.

I know bath products are luxury items, and can be expensive. You can get two baths out of some bath bomb or bubble bar.

How do you like to enjoy your baths? Let me know what bath-time things you're loving! (A particular book, magazine, podcast, wine, tea, or Hot Toddy recipe can count as bath accessories, too). Lately I've been listening to the Savage Lovecast or Throwing Shade podcast while I soak. I highly recommend both!

Bath Time: Bubbles

So many happy baths!

On my youtube channel I've mentioned once or twice that I quite like my bathtub here, in Japan. Actually, I really like it. Okay, I totally love that thing! Now you know. Just to put everyone on the same page, Japanese-style bathtubs are a little different than Western-style tubs. In general, tubs in Japan are deeper and shorter. It's more for sitting up than lying down. Japanese people shower first, and then get in the bath to soak. A few people have told me that they have a bath every day. Although I am still definitely a shower girl (I don't have time for a bath every time I wash myself!), I have been having a lot of baths since meeting my new tub. In Canada, I would have a bath maybe three times a year. Bath covers are really common here, too. It keeps the heat in, and you can put things on it while you're in the bath, like a candle, or a book......or a glass of wine. Enough about the logistics! Time to get into the products!

My go-to bath product has been the shower gel from The Body Shop. It doubles as bubble bath and always smells amazing! Recently I've been using the Gold Fun bubble bath/shampoo/body wash from Lush. It smells like honey and toffee and makes the best bubbles that last for days! Another great thing is that you don't need very much to get a lot of bubbles. On a recent trip to Lush I picked up the vanilla scented Candy Mountain bubble bar. I've also tried and loved the Comforter bubble bar, which smells like black current. If sweet smells are not your thing I wouldn't recommend any of these, but if you are on the fence give these a sniff next time you find yourself in Lush.

Christmas Times at Lush and The Body Shop

Christmas time at Lush!

Melty snowmen are the cutest!

One of the many things I love about the Christmas season is all the special holiday scents and characters. Every year I pick up the Cranberry Joy body wash from the Body Shop. I picked up a couple regular items, too: grapeseed glossing serum for hair, and the All-in-One BB Cream. I will post a separate review for the BB cream soon. Tyler picked up a travel shampoo and conditioner set for dry hair.

I'm not sure what the names of all the bath products I got from Lush are, so I'll just describe them. First, bought two more of the little tea tree fizzing discs. I tried one in October and liked it. There are two melty snowmen which were too cute to resist! They smell like warm spices! I think the spots on them are made of cinnamon and nutmeg. I used one and got two baths out of it, and probably could have used it one more time if I really wanted to. The other snowman, wearing a red scarf has cocoa butter in it, I think. The last bath bomb looks like a little round head wearing a hat. It smells sweet, warm, and happy! Finally, I picked up the candy mountain bubble bath. I LOVE the Lush bubble baths. This one smells really sweet, which is not something I normally go for, but I really like it.

I'm a sucker for holiday bath and body stuff! I just love it! 

What do you look forward to getting around the holidays?

Fukuoka Take 2 Goodies

After a mix up that meant we didn't have all of the pieces for our bed, I took another trip to Fukuoka to remedy the situation and do a little more shopping for myself. 

In addition to Ikea, I picked a few things up from Loft, Streamcream, The Body Shop, and Lush. 

The cute old fashioned alarm clock is from Ikea. 

Lush:

Sorry I don't have the proper names for the Lush stuff. The labels are all in Japanese. Anyway, I got a cocao butter bath bomb, a bubble bath (that's the pink swirly one), gold bubble bath/shampoo that's the consistency of play dough, and a tea tree disc which I'm hoping to turn into a toner. 

Body Shop:

Aloe Vera body butter. This is pure gold and my second tub. It's great for new tattoos and I find it helps calm my armpits after shaving. They can get really itchy and irritated. (Sorry for talking about armpits). 

Honeymania eau de toilet. This smelled so great in the store I had to get it. Again, for this who don't know, I'm obsessed with honey. 

Loft:

Mary-Lou Manizer by The Balm. Great highlighter. I heard lots of good things about this. It's super pigmented and gorgeous! I'm planning on wearing it every day forever. 

Powder eyebrow expert by Suzie N.Y. I think the idea is to use each colour on a different section of your brow but I've been blending them together. This powder stays put all day long! I've never used powder on my brows before but I'm a fan!

Steamcream. It took me 20 minutes to decide on a tin and then I realized I should have bought 8 more to send home as gifts because they are so beautiful!

No more spending for a while. I'm going to post more reviews now. 

What kind of posts would you like to see?