Hero Beauty Product - Eve Lom Intense Hydration Serum

I wish I had more than a small sample of this.

Image via www.sephora.com

It's one of those products that really worked for me right from the start.  

It feels more like a gel than a regular serum - clear in colour, thicker and slightly sticky in the way that gels often are.  I applied just like a regular serum by smoothing it over the face.  As it dried, I could feel it tightening.  For someone like me who has a droopy, jowly face this is a Good Thing.

I'd been through a tough stretch at work & my complexion was feeling particularly parched.  I can safely say that after applying this serum just once, my face felt noticeably less dry.  Not completely re-hydrated, because that would be impossible after just one application but that tight feeling you get with dry skin had subsided to easier levels.  

The sample only had three applications in it but even so, people started commenting on how good I was looking.

I found it worked best if I exfoliated my face first.

Beauty review - Jo Malone Wild Fig & Cassis candle.

There's certainly an impressive ritual to buying a Jo Malone candle.

The sales assistant will theatrically wrap the candle in black tissue paper then gently seat it in a posh black and cream box, spray some more sheets of black tissue paper with Jo Malone's latest fragrance, (in my case, Earl Grey & Cucumber), stuff the scented tissue paper around the candle in the box, put a cream ribbon around the box, put the box in one of those terribly chic Jo Malone carrier bags and put yet more scented tissue paper into the carrier bag around the box. The whole thing reminded me of that scene in Love Actually where Rowan Atkinson wrapped Alan Rickman's illicit purchase for his fancy woman.

After all that effort at presentation, I was very disappointed at how insipid the (extremely expensive) candle actually was.  If you stuck your nose on the candle and had a good sniff, it did smell gorgeous but the problem was, when you burnt it, the scent was very faint.  You could hardly smell it at all.  To be honest, I've had better results from a Yankee candle.  Occasionally, if I'd burnt it for a long time, like three hours, you could start to smell something but even then it didn't linger.  

Quite frankly, it was a waste of £39.