Boots Star Gift: Soap & Glory Bubble Act

Boots Star Gift this week is one of the most anticipated each year, Soap & Glory. The set this year is called Bubble Act and comes specially packaged for the promotion in a beautiful tin designed by illustrator, Zuki Turner. The tin is quite different to previous boxes or bags, though still in keeping with that retro feel S&G products have.

Soap & Glory: The Whole Glam Lot

It's here, I got it! My Mum had an early hair appointment, so popped into our local Boots on the way and got me their Star Gift, the Soap & Glory The Whole Glam Lot. As I mentioned last night, it's half price for this week only, at £30 and comes in special packaging. I have details of everything inside...

Soap & Glory It's The Whole She Bang

I thought you might be interested in seeing my Soap & Glory It's The Whole She-Bang set I got yesterday, rather than stock photos. I wrote about the contents in this post the other day so shan't repeat all the details here, but it's the Star Gift of the week at Boots until Thursday.

Escentual Discount Haul

Beauty purchases have been few and far between this year with me not wearing makeup and trying to work my way through some of the ridiculous sized stash I own. I've actually managed to start and finish 3 full-sized lip products (lip balm crayons from Clinique, Dior and Clarins) which I was thoroughly impressed by! I had a mild panic after Christmas though, when I realised I only had a trickle left of my Clarins Lotus Face Oil. It quickly became integrated into my routine and I'd miss not having it, so I placed an Escentual order for more.

Haul & Swatches: Lancome GWP

This post has been neglected for so long! I ordered the stuff back in May and each week it's been 'carried over' into another week because I've not had time.  My health woes this year have been well documented, but this past week I've been struggling with motivation and fighting extreme tiredness on top of hospital appointments and having my nephews here 3 days a week.  Blogging has just been a no-go unfortunately.  I'm still completely shattered today, but have given myself a wee pep talk and the first thing to tackle was this post. There's so much editing and writing required, that's why I'm unable to post them as regularly as I used to.  Anyway enough blethering, on with the Debenhams/Lancome haul. My main only reason for buying was because they had a rather spiffy GWP, but I dithered for so long on what to get (actually I was holding out waiting for the summer collection that never happened), that the couple of things I'd wanted went out of stock. So it was back to the drawing board, as I can't leave a pretty GWP hanging!

Soap & Glory: The Yule Monty

I'd intended to write a 'warning' message yesterday regarding this set and the deal, but unfortunately didn't have time. Instead I have details of what's inside and once again, it's rather fabulous.
Every year, Soap & Glory have some sort of bumper gift pack usually costing around £60, this year it's The Yule Monty. Boots have their 'star buys' every week in the run up to Christmas and it usually includes the S&G gift and it always proves very popular. I've found myself in previous years, frantically refreshing the website at midnight and pulling all-nighters in the hope of grabbing one. Thankfully in latter years, they've been aware of it's popularity and planned for it, by adding lots of stock to all stores. My parents had noticed loads of these being displayed in my local store on Wednesday and that's when the email popped up saying it would be £27 instead of £60, so I was well prepared this time.
Mum went down for opening time this morning, grabbed one for me and was home before I'd even woken up! So it was pretty stress free for me. She said they had tonnes and this shop isn't a big one, so those bigger stores get even more stock. I checked at lunchtime and it had sold out online, so I'm not sure how long the stock lasted there.  Your best bet now is to check stores and hope they have some left.   
I've not been in Boots for ages, so haven't seen the Christmas stuff other than in the catalogue.  I've been making my way through my own supplies (from previous years) which would probably put a shop to shame! I hadn't been too enamoured with this years festive collection if I'm completely honest. Funny how the print/bags can make you want it or not!  When I saw this bag in the email though, I was like "ooooh that's lovely, why have I not wanted it before now?" Then I realised it's because this is not the Yule Monty bag that has been instore for months, it's actually a special, limited edition one designed by Jonathan Saunders! It's much prettier than the regular one I think.
And look at everything you get inside!
Every item inside is full size and the total value of the nine products is £72.50, so you're already getting a bargain at the regular price of £60.  Plus the gorgeous case for free! 
I'll run through everything individually. Starting with the two makeup items. You get Thick & Fast mascara (£10) and Sexy Mother Pucker XL (£10) lip plumping gloss in Pink Out Loud. I couldn't get an accurate photo of this gloss in the dark today, but it's a lovely warm pink.
Peaches & Clean face cleanser 200ml (£8)
Sugar Crush body wash 500ml (£6.50)
Butter Yourself body lotion 500ml (£10)
The Righteous Butter body cream 300ml (£10.50)
Heel Genius foot mask (£5.50) and Hand Food hand cream both 125ml (£5)
The Scrub Of Your Life body scrub 200ml (£7)
Plus you get some sachets of Make Yourself Youthful serum along with a skincare voucher.
Isn't that a fabulous set for £27?  I'd think you could get it off your advantage points if you had enough (I've done this in previous years).  You could also split the pack into separate gifts if you were still looking for Christmas presents.  Let me know if you managed to snag one today or if you know anywhere that still has stock to help others out!

Apparently Not The Big Escentual Haul

So I got all excited by the previous haul post and it took me weeks to work through all those photos and swatches. Then at the weekend, I place a sneaky Escentual haul, which turned out to be even more mega than the last one! I started off checking out their great deals on French pharmacy brands and trying to find a worthy replacement for my beloved Lancome Baume Eclat cleanser. Then this happened....
The parcel arrived yesterday where I promptly realised I'd bought an entire French pharmacy, oh yeah!  I started reading customer reviews on the site and it led to me checking out one thing after another.  Hopeful cleansers waiting to audition for the role of 'best makeup remover ever' are Dior Instant Gentle Cleansing Oil, Dior Gentle Cleansing Milk, Vichy One Step Cleanser and Avene Cleanance Gel.   
In the 'up to 1/3 off' deal were these water sprays.  Now I want to review all of these products at a later stage, I literally just took these photos when I opened the package yesterday, so haven't had time to try anything.  However, I used Vichy Thermal Spa Water Spray as a teenager and was amazed by it.  Now that my skin is misbehaving acne wise and that the gel my doctor gave me has left my face stinging, burning and flaking in places, I'm hoping these miracle waters will fix me right up!  As well as the Vichy one, I ordered Avene Thermale Spring Water and La Roche-Posay Thermal Spring Water.  Reading reviews led me to also try out the La Roche-Posay Effaclar K and Effaclar Duo moisturisers which apparently work wonders on acne prone skin.   
Another item I tried years ago was Clarins Energizing Emulsion for tired legs.  When I worked after-school on the perfume counter and had been a hectic day, I'd rub this into my legs on my break to refresh and soothe.  One of the great things about it is that it can be used over stockings (which was perfect for work).  It absorbs immediately, there's no waiting a fortnight for it to dry like body lotion.  I've recently had to increase my pain medication as my body has been aching more than usual, so I've already delved into this last night for my aching legs.

Finally, I picked up a few more makeup items.  I'd had the Clarins Joli Rouge (724 Simply Nude) and Dior Addict Extreme (316 Incognito) lipsticks on my wishlist for a while, but upon searching images for something else, I discovered the lovely Stila Long Wear Lip Color in In The Nude.  I also got the wonderful limited edition Stila After Glow Lip Color in Electric Pink for a friend.  These lip crayons actually glow under UV light, how cool is that?  I was going to get one for myself, despite the fact I doubt I would ever be under UV light (!), but I'd bought so many other things that I'll maybe get it next time.  I'm also in love with the Guerlain Maxi Lash mascara I tried a sample of recently, so will be picking one of those up next time too.  I'll have swatches of these items up soon and will get my second part of the other huge beauty haul up this week.