REN, Mayblossom Balancing cleansing gel

 Formerly known as Mayblossom Balancing Cleansing Gel, this product now has a new name.

REN skincare is an American company who sells only 100% natural skincare products.  They avoid synthetic fragrance and colour, PEGS, parabens and propylene glycol.   REN is skincare as it should be: each product uses the latest hi-tech bio actives, is free from skin-unfriendly synthetic ingredients, and is gorgeously pleasurable to use.  In a world where more and more consumers are asking for natural products this is one company to try out. 

The REN website describe this product as

A balancing, antibacterial facial cleansing gel for skin that is prone to oiliness and breakouts, particularly in the T-zone.

Results:

• Removes dirt and dissolves excess sebum
• Unclogs pores
• Reduces the appearance of pore size
• Antimicrobial and antibacterial

How to use:

Gently rub between hands. Massage onto face. Rinse off with warm water.

It contains the following bio extracts:

• Flavonoids from mayblossom decongest the skin
• Salicilin from willow bark provides mild exfoliation and antimicrobiol properties to purify problem skin, reduce pore size and minimise spot formation

• Guaiazulene from blue cypress essential oil calms redness and soothes minor irritations

What it is formulated to do:
This luxurious gel works to balance the complexion, remove dirt, and dissolve excess sebum. The bio active extract of mayblossom provides skin with flavinoid nutrients as it works to decongest the skin.
What it is formulated WITHOUT:
- Parabens
- Sulfates
- Synthetic Fragrances
- Synthetic Dyes
- Petrochemicals
- Phthalates
- GMOs
- Triclosan

My experience:  I liked the smell of the gel.  It smells vaguely like a herb, plant, outside and maybe a little like weeds, but all in a good clean and natural way.  It did not feel like the product cleaned my skin.  If I used a little bit of gel, my skin still felt oily after cleaning.  Using a lot of gel improved the situation, and then my skin felt clean.  But I mean using quite a lot, about double the amount of gel I normally use.  I do not have a particularly oily skin, and found it weird that a product meant for oily skin would leave my skin feeling oily.  On the plus side, it definitely did not leave my skin dried out or feeling stiff.  Some of the reviews I saw for this mentioned that this product was great for sensitive skin and people prone to breakouts.  Since I am neither, I could probably wash my skin with dishwashing liquid and not get a reaction, I am not the person to speak to that.

I got the one I used at Red Square, but I am not sure whether they still sell it.  REN is also sold by Woolworths.  It cost around R270 for a very large bottle. 

Some reviews from Sephora and Beauty  Bulletin can be found here.

Hotel toiletries

Long, long ago when I looked at show houses on Sundays I saw a shelf in a bathroom stocked with lovely small bottles of bath oils and shampoos.  The kind of bottles you get in hotels.  I thought it looked cute and started collecting the little bottles whenever I stayed in a hotel.  (An aside:  I assume it is OK.  If I used the bottles they were always replaced the next day with new full bottles, so I assume they throw the used bottles away, thus making it OK for me to take it.  Someone, please comment and let me know if these bottles should not be removed.  I will never take something like a towel from a hotel.)

I collected these small bottles for a while, in order to also have a shelf full of pretty small bottles in my bathroom.  I never thought it looked as nice in my house as it did in that show house. 

Eventually I had so many that I started using them.  I then discovered that most of the products inside these little, cute bottles are really cheap rubbish; especially the shampoos and conditioners.   However, there were a few notable exceptions.

The first is the brand Beautiful Earth.  I received these while staying at Spier.   Which was just an amazing hotel all round. 

The range in the hotel was fairly large.  There was a shampoo (grapefruit and rosemary), conditioner (geranium and May Chang), body wash (geranium and neroli), body lotion (grapefruit and sweet orange), bath salt (grapefruit and lavender) and bath foam (rosewood and lavender) and a glycerine based soap (rose geranium and lemon) in my bathroom.  The soap was soft and delicious.  I was so sad when the tiny soap was used up and since it was so soft it did not take much.  The shampoo and body wash had a very mascular smell, which I guess made sense in a hotel where most guests would be male.  Both were just OK.  The body lotion was very thin.  The conditioner and bath foams smelled lovely.  The conditioner is amazing.  I have never before really liked a hotel conditioner (and have in fact stopped taking them home).  This conditioner is thick and really does the job. 

Beautiful earth claim that their products are natural and green.  They sell a lot more on their website, which is worth a look. 

The other amazing hotel was Granny Mouse.   They are in the Natal Midlands.  Although this is a smart boutique type hotel, they catered well to families and by children really enjoyed their stay.  The best touch was when both boys received a Ben 10 bathrobe.  They were so impressed.

Unfortunately Granny Mouse did not offer small bottles I could take away, but had a giant glass container of bath salts with herbs and a bottle of bath oil that smelled heavenly (lavender).  These looked home made, the kind of thing you would buy in the Midlands Meander. 

My all time favourite  I got in a Marriot hotel in the United States.  It was from Bath and Body Works. 

You could even buy the full size products from the hotel.  The product was called Aromatherapy Orange Ginger.  It came in a shampoo, conditioner and body lotion.  I have stopped taking conditioners, since I have never liked it, not even this one.  But the smell is divine and I loved using the body lotion.  Although the fragrance is called orange ginger it smells like orchids or lilies to me, especially a while after you have used it.  I would love to buy this body lotion locally.

 And just to show that I am not unique; other people have also written blogs about hotel toiletries, and they have also liked the Aromatherapy range in the Marriot.

http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/hotel%20toiletries

http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/9/10/16824/4734/hotels/HotelChatter's_Guide_to_Toiletries_%3A%3A_The_Big_Players

The most fun way to shop for perfume

I find it very hard to buy perfume.  It is such an emotional, personal and expensive purchase, with almost endless possibilities.  I tend to walk into a perfume store, smell about four perfumes, get completely overwhelmed, leave and by the evening when I have decided whether or not I like the four smells on my wrists and arms I have forgotten which is which and I basically start all over.  It just does not work for me.  For years and years my favourite perfume was something my sister gave me, since I could smell it in my own home and decide over a week or two that I actually like it.  I tended to only change my perfume when the brand was discontinued.  (Which happened.)

I think a big part of my enjoyment of rubybox lies in the fact that they normally include a perfume sample, therefore removing the need for me to choose a perfume while still having perfume to wear.  I love it when someone else narrows the choice down for me.

Which brings me to the best thing in perfume shopping:  perfume sample boxes.  I first discovered this in Sephora in the United States.  The concept is fairly innovative and brilliant.  Sephora sells a pretty box containing 10 (I think, it was long ago) perfume samples.  The samples were fairly small (1-2 ml each).  In addition to the 10 samples the box contained a voucher for a full size bottle of one of the perfumes.  Once you have used the samples and decided which one you liked most you could exchange the voucher for a full sized bottle.  The box cost approximately what the full sized bottle would cost, so in essence you received the samples for free. 

This is a marvellous gift, since I think, with 10 fragrances to choose from most people would enjoy one of the fragrances enough to want to have the full sized bottle.  The box I had contained fairly unknown (and maybe cheaper) perfumes.  I loved it.  I loved being able to choose which one to wear, I liked evaluating a perfume every day until I decided whether I liked it enough to get the full sized bottle.  I also think it was good value for money, because the samples added up to at least a ¾ bottle of perfume you essentially received for free. 

This link will take you to Sephora's description of these boxes. 

And this is their description:

This set of 10 fragrance samples includes a voucher for a full-size bottle, making it a perfect present when you're not sure what to choose. Its keepsake box opens to reveal a range of Sephora's bestselling women's fragrances that can be sampled right away. From the vivacious Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy to the sexy sophistication of Dior Addict to Life, she can try them all, chose a favourite, and then take the included voucher to a Sephora store to receive a full-size version.

Sadly, I do not live close to a Sephora any more.  Imagine my utter delight when I found exactly the same idea in Foschini.  For R355 or R595 you got around 12 samples of perfume.  The cheaper box had celebrity fragrances and was meant for a teenage market and the more expensive one had international favourites such as CK, Estee Lauder and Kenzo. 

This description comes straight from the Foschini website:

From top:
Celebrity fragrance box for her: R355
Designer fragrance box for him: R500
Designer fragrance box for her: R595

HOW IT WORKS:
Step 1: Purchase the fragrance gift box. Step 2: Sample the fragrances and choose your favourite. Step 3: Bring the voucher into Foschini and redeem it for your full-sized fragrance, specified on the voucher. Receive a FREE bonus voucher inside - save up to R100 off your next purchase.

I got the Celebrity box.  It contained:

Christina Aquilera, Royal Desire

Britney Spears, Radiance

Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton, Tease

Shakira

Katy Perry, Purrs

Rihanna, Reb'l Fleur

Jennifer Lopez, Love and Glamour

Paris Hilton, Heiress

JLO, Glow

Avrin Lavigne, Forbidden Rose

Queen Latifah, Queen

I liked quite a few of these:  JLO Glow was fresh and grassy, Heiress was light and fresh and quite complex.  I got the Queen in the full size.  It is a heavy, sweet oriental smell.  I like it for winter and evening and when you want to feel sultry.

What do you think of these boxes?  Would you buy one?  Have you seen them anywhere else in South Africa?  Please leave a comment and let me know.



What is the Rubybox worth

I subscribe to rubybox.  I have explained, briefly, what it is in a previous post.    This post also explains it well.

You could also read about it here, here and here.

In trying to decide whether I wanted to subscribe to Rubybox I would have loved to have the information I am giving in this post.  I hope it helps someone.  Please let me know whether it does.

I am a little bit of a numbers geek and I calculated the value of each of the Rubyboxes.  I am slightly embarrassed to say so. 

Also because I am a bit of a science geek, I need to give my methodology.   I used the prices and sizes given for the full size item on the little card given with the Rubybox to calculate the price per mL of the full size product and then used the size of the sample given to calculate to total value of the sample.  This was not always possible, because a few samples (sachets) had no size given, but most did and I think my estimates of the sizes are fairly accurate where not supplied.   I used the prices given by Rubybox.  I guess it could be possible to find some of the products cheaper somewhere else or on sale.  I did see one of the products on special at DisChem for a lower price, but let's ignore that for now.   I did not add any value for the packaging, labour on their side or the cost of the courier.  Rubybox varied the content of the box some (most?) months and I only calculated the value of the box I received, but I assume they would try and send out boxes of equal value, if not identical products.  Some (most?) boxes came with discount vouchers at online stores, but since I have not used one of them (yet?) I did not add the value of the vouchers.  I guess the vouchers could have been worth an additional R50 some months. 

Thus:  The value of the products only (excluding vouchers).

Month	Value
February	277
March	217
April	262
May	251
June	251
July	181

The value of the box has always been more than the R100 you pay for the box.  And if you factor in that courier cost is, I guess, at least R30 then you do get a fairly good deal.  I do not think I would order the box if the value was less than R200, since you need to factor in that you might receive products you would never use.  So in my view getting product worth more than R100 makes up for the fact that there might be some products I do not want or does not suit me.  So far I have not had anything in the boxes I would definitely never use.  One thing that is true is that some of the boxes were only  worth the money because of the full size products included. 

Perfume samples are usually worth between R20 and R30.  Some of the samples were really expensive.  The 5mL sized Lancome youth activating concentrate I got in the first box was worth R100.  (Since a full size sample of 30 mL costs R600, and we received 5 ml.)   Just because it looks small does not mean it is not worth a lot of money. 

I have seen people all over the internet complaining that Rubybox is not worth the money, since they include only small samples.  Here is one.   I would argue that these people are wrong.  Small samples could be worth a lot of money.

For me the value of the sample lies a little bit in the packaging.  Some perfumes came in sachets, and since these are so hard to use and store without spilling, it should be worth less.  Samples coming in decent tubes (the majority) are a lot nicer.