My first Graze box!

I'm not going to go into great detail about Graze as quite a lot of you will know by now. Graze is a company who send you healthy snacks through your letter box on the days you choose. You rate the snacks to your preference (Bin, try, like, love and send soon) and the people at Graze will hand pick snacks according to your ratings.

Here is a summary in picture form!

Graze say: We offer delicious, healthy, natural food; fresh fruit, delicious nuts, seeds & dried fruits, tasty crackers & olives, as well as some well deserved natural treats. Our range is completely free from artificial colourings, flavourings and preservatives and everything is hand-picked from the finest producers.

You can get your first box free using this code: K7X293M3 and your second box half price at £1.49. Each box from then is £2.99, which I can not afford on a regular basis so will only be getting a box every couple of weeks.

To receive your free box you do have to enter your bank details, but you pay per box so after you have tried your first, you can cancel all future orders and not be charged. My dad was saying 'I've had companies do this to me before, they keep taking money out.' But you don't automatically pay per week, just per box!

He was also like 'Graze could set websites up making their site sound good.' and I was like 'No dad, they have not made a fake BBC website and they have not made up blogs, and blogged for years just to tie people in.' haha!

So here is my first box:

The box comes with a leaflet, with nutritional details on the snacks you have.

Today I have: Great Fire Dragon- roasted maize, jumbo chilli maize and satay broad beans.

Pina Colada- Dried pineapple, mango and coconut - 2 of my 5 a day!

Savoury Roasted Seeds- Roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Copacabana- Brazil nuts, milk and dark chocolate buttons.

I think this is a great idea; healthy snacks suited to your needs, biodegradable and recyclable packaging and personal information.

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Freebies and samples of August

Someone asked me on Formspring if I could do a post each week of the freebies/samples I've found so you guys wouldn't miss out. I, of course said yes but this month there hasn't been many to tell you guys about and the ones you are about to see are what I ordered before the request and didn't know if the offer still applied. I will start doing weekly posts next month for sure :)

I've just received today's post, and there won't be any on Sunday or Monday so the only day left of this month is Tuesday. I may as well write this now!

Hawaiian Tropic samples and coupon. How cute is this? In a little passport layout.

BodyForm pads and coupon.

Carte Noire Cappuccino and coupon. This was yummy! So frothy! I love the smell of coffee but am not so keen on the taste so I had to add sugar.

I get most of my samples from Offeroasis.co.uk. If you don't want to miss out on new samples, sign up to their site and they will email you when there are new ones.

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I got lucky, twice! + 5 newbies in my nail polish collection.

So in the space of three days, I've won two competitions! With great prizes may I add.

So Wednesday, Sleek held a 'Get It First' competition on Facebook. You had to answer a few questions and the first 20 won something. I came second and won a 21 piece brush set and roll. This will be out in September to buy and Sleek will be announcing how much it will cost in a few weeks. Up until this year, I never used make up brushes. & now I only use a powder brush and blush brush (From ELF) so I'm excited to use these!

(The word tools is not on the roll)

The second competition I won was today. Accessorize held a RT competition on Twitter and 20 had the chance to win this:

A beautiful bandeau dress worth £30. I was one of the first to RT but I think the winners were selected randomly. 100+ people entered so I wasn't expecting to win. They announced the first 15.. nada, but my name was in the last 5!

And these are what arrived for me in the post today:

17 sent me some nail polishes. They said I could choose some colours I liked and I didn't want to be greedy so chose two: Firecracker and Sea Breeze. The light blue in the picture is the new Catwalk Couture instead of Sea Breeze. They are very similar in colour. They also sent me three more: True Blue, Ruby Dazzle and Royal Indigo. They're all gorgeous!

I gave half of my collection away the other week so was lacking an orange, navy, purple and red so I'm glad I received these colours.

As you can see, most competitions are easy to enter; you only need to click a button on Twitter! so it's definitely worth entering :)

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Going, going, gone!

I have many pictures on my computer of my animals (2 dogs, 6 cats and the 30 odd kittens they had last year!)

I've just randomly picked this one out and thought I'd show you!

This is Cleo; the baby of Mysti and the mummy of Jacks. She's two years old and a talker! When I whistle at her she goes berserk, it's like her catnip! She was grey when she was born but then turned black. I love this trio of photos, it's like a cartoon strip of her falling asleep haha.

I thought I'd show you this one too. This is Cleo and Jacks as a baby. Jacks looks adorable and Cleo looks a little stoned haha. You also have a nice view of her 'feeding devices' for Jacksy lol.

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Tick tock!

How beautiful is that?!

Working clock and the butterfly charm is an extra as it wasn't shown in the picture, but I love it!

It was around £5.50 so a complete bargain. This seller also has other cute pendants such as; binoculars, love letter, tricycle, camera, robot, mirror, scissors, sewing machine etc all for around £3/4. I'm on a spending ban but I've just seen a few I reaaaally want haha.

Here is the sellers shop: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/idealway, definitely worth taking a look!

Thank you for reading girlies :)

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eBay Purchase

I've put myself on a spending ban as I have to save up for winter clothes, Christmas, birthdays, May Ball.. and the list goes on. Fortunately I ordered a few things from eBay so my need to have new things will be served for a couple of weeks haha and from then on, I'll just order tons of samples to satisfy me wanting to buy things.

Anywhoooo I bought this necklace for £1.49! Topshop have one like this on their website for £8.50 and it doesn't even look as good.

I have a thing for owls, especially since there was this stall in town and there were real owls; from massive ones to fluffy small ones. I bought an owl teddy so the money would go to the owl sanctuary. I got a cute beanbag teddy and for a good cause!

Thank you for reading lovelies,

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Palmer's Hair Success Gro Treatment

I haven't seen this is UK stores but I know it's available on Amazon and eBay for around £4.

You get 100g of product which is a lot and will last you quite a while.

Palmer's say: "Palmer's Hair Success Gro prevents Dry, Breaking Hair, Allows Hair to Grow Longer

Palmer's Hair Success Gro Treatment with VITAMIN E and PROTEIN coats and protects the hair shaft, prevents breakage and allows hair to grow longer. Conditions and moisturizes dry scalp."

My thoughts: The colour is a light milky orange. The smell is disgusting! Like chemical marzipan.

I first put this all over my hair just like a deep conditioner but after rinsing it out twice, my hair was still greasy. I then realised just to put it over my scalp. This helped a little with the greasiness but my hair still felt heavy and dirty.

The thing is, because this is not used all over your hair, you can not feel a difference in the softness/condition like most conditioners do. So I cannot review the difference with 'Dry, breaking hair'.

Another thing that is hard to review is if the product 'Allows hair to grow longer'. Hair grows without products anyway and if this did make a significant difference, I'm not going to know because I don't measure my hair with a measuring tape.

So overall, I don't know if this product improves the condition of my hair or helps it grow but it does smell horrible and leaves my hair greasy.

I wish I could tell if this improves my hair, but as I can't, I'm not willing to have greasy, chemical marzipan smelling hair.

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Goals for 2010 progress

I think I was a wee bit ambitious this year.. either that or I've been completely lazy. I think it's a bit of both.

Here were my goals:

1. Go to a concert - I've never been to one! :(

2. Get a tan - Quite hard for a redhead but I shall succeed!

3. Learn to knit :)

4. Make my own jewellery

5. Buy some E.L.F products! - Have been meaning to for ageeess

6. Wear lip gloss - I never do as I always forget

7. Take more photos

8. Try a lot of Lush products!

9. Use a whole bar of soap - I don't use soap and when I do have soap, I only use it a few times so if I achieve this, I will be very proud of myself! Also gives me an excuse to buy Lush soaps!

10. Finish a tin of Vaseline - Never finished one!

& so far I've done number 5. I do have a few excuses though:

1. I haven't had the money .

2. Completely not my fault! Hello, I live in England!

3. Ahhh well this was my main one and I was so excited, I just never got round to it :/

8. None I'm interested in.

10. I HATE tins of lib balm and only use sticks so I don't know why this is on here.

Next year I'm only going to set myself achievable small things because I will have my A Level exams and will (Hopefully) be going off to University so I will be a busy bee.

So to sum up this post: I'm a big failure! :)

Have a good night x

B.liv by Cellnique Skincare Reviews & Free Sample

Last month I was contacted by B.liv skincare, a brand I'd never heard of before, to review a couple of products. Intrigued, I said yes. I've been using the products for a couple of weeks and can now give you my opinion.

First of all, my skin type is oily so I received products suitable for me. They offer a wide range of products suitable for every skin type.

Get your freckles out!

Before and after photos; two weeks apart.

I was going to do full face photos but they didn't really show anything. I had a couple of blemishes but even without the products, they would have gone in a few weeks. I was most concerned with the blackheads around my nose and they would show me improvement. Sadly, the photos do not show me improvement. The after photo actually looks worse but you have to ignore the blemishes. The blackhead issue has slightly improved, but not a great deal.

Lets talk about the products:

Squeaky Clean Cleansing Gel (Click to go to the website/more information on the product.)

"This ultra-gentle exfoliating cleansing gel added with micro-beads helps you kick out impurities and remove excessive oil. The cleanser lets you say ‘hi” to clean pores and “bye” to those heads by making blackheads and whiteheads removal simple."

The formula of this product is a green gel with teeny tiny micro beads. To me, it smells like herbs/mint; not something I particularly like as I prefer sweet/fruity scents but the smell of a product will not put me off using it. The good thing though is that the smell is refreshing and instantly awakens you.

I love that this is a 2 in 1 product; cleansing and exfoliating at the same time. The micro beads are gentle and do not irritate the skin. My skin feels refreshingly cleansed afterwards.

Oil Leviate

"Infused with potassium azeloyl diglycinate and grapefruit extract, this mattifying gel perfectly regulates your sebum secretion, helping your skin feel less oily and in need of attention. Its fast absorption and weightless gel texture ensures a healthy and quenched face."

The formula for this is a clear gel with little scent.

Again, I love that this is a 2 in 1 product; mattifying and moisturising at the same time. Afterwards my face feels slightly tight (But I've always love that haha), clean and hydrated. This will also last quite a long time as two small pumps are needed for your entire face.

Overall, I like both products, especially the Oil Leviate and there are no negative points.

Price:

The prices are in USD and as currency exchange rates are always changing, I can not give you an accurate price in GBP. Squeaky Clean is 25USD and Oil Leviate is 35USD (Around 15 and 25 pounds).

This blog is called Affordable Treats and obviously these are not affordable, so the question is, are they worth it?

In my personal opinion, I think you can buy a cheaper skincare routine which give similar results. There are a lot of oil reducing products on the market so you should be able to find something.

The photos above don't show great results but I do think they have made my skin slightly better. But then again, most skincare routines will show improvements. I just think I need to extract all the blackheads first and then these products will help prevent future ones.

Would you like a free 3ml sample of Oil Leviate? This is for the first 50 readers.

All you have to do is email your full name and shipping address to fbfreesample@blivskin.com with the subject affordabletreats.blogspot.com.

You can also send your blog's URL and may stand a chance to do a product review.

Hurry as this is only available for a week!

Thank you for reading,

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Collection 2000 Bronze Glow Face & Body Bronzer

£3-4

I was instantly attracted to this product by the packaging, embossed sun design, and size. You get 19g of product which is huge! Natural Collection's Bronzer is 10g, so this is nearly double the amount.

But sadly, I was a little disappointed. It's slightly too orange and shimmery.

It's definitely too discoball-esque for your body.

Also, I don't know whether the shade is too light, but there isn't a whole lot of colour pay off. I think it's just the shade of the product (& the ton of shimmer) as the colour is the same shade as my freckles!

Wow, it sounds like I have slated this product pretty bad! It's not awful, I love everything about it except the product haha, I would just prefer it to be more of a brown shade and slightly matte, after all, it's meant to be used for your body aswell.

It's such a shame as I absolutely adore Collection 2000 products.

Another point is that this product isn't unique as it's very similar to their Shimmering Mosaic powder. That product I like, and that's because it's marketed for giving you shimmer. You know what you're getting with it. This product has the word 'Glow' in the name and to me, 'Glow' and 'Shimmer' are completely different.

Now how many times have I said the word 'Shimmer' or 'Shimmery' in this post? haha too much I tell you!

Thank you for reading :)

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NYC Browser Brush-on Brow Powder with Grooming Wax and Tweezers

^ Now that's a mouthful!

I bought mine on eBay for £2 and the shade I chose was Brunette.

The brush is firm but am going to purchase a longer one just for convienience.

The powder is.. well a powder? It does it's job haha and the wax keeps your brows in place nicely.

This shade is slightly too dark for me. I was apprehensive to order Blonde as my hair is nowhere near to being Blonde but I just have (£2 again) as the powder is still a brown.

The perfect shade for me would be a golden brown as I have brown eyebrows but warm tones of brown (I have Auburn hair; basically brown with golden sheens of orange and red - Go ginge!)

This is great for achieving natural looking brows and it has a bargain-ness price tag!

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My wee ELF wishlist!

Mineral Booster - Large £5

Small Angled Brush - £3.50. I think this would be great to use with my eyebrow powder.

Shimmering Facial Whip in Lilac Petal - £1.50. A dupe for Benefit's Moon Beam (Some reviews even say it is better. That doesn't surprise me as I don't rate benefit products.)

That is it! I'm a simple one me.

I'm a wee bit strapped for cash at the moment (Like always) so I can not even afford these little beauts! :(

xo

The Body Shop Double Ended Blackhead Remover

Price: £3

Review may have been seen on The Body Shop's website. This is because I wrote the review on the website!

I have seen a few reviews where people have said this is not suitable for black heads around your nose as even the small end is too big. I couldn't disagree more. You don't just use this product to get one blackhead at a time, you can 'scrape' it across the area with a lot of small blackheads and it extracts them all at the same time. This product does the same as using your fingers but with this you can get more in a short space of time. I'm not going to lie, you have to press and scrape hard which hurts, but no pain no gain right! & If you're gross like me, you will feel satisfied when seeing all the rubbish you've collected haha. But as I say, the small end does work on tiny blackheads around the nose, it just gets more than one at a time.

Would I recommend? Yes :)

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Foundation Virgin

I don't think this is worthy of a post but I'm bored and feel like typing!

The only time I use foundation, is around my eyes as I use it more like a concealer. This is why foundation lasts me agesss; It took two years for me to use up my Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse.

I think I look stupid with a full face of foundation. While many others look better, I think I look fake. I like my rosy uneven complexion! haha

As I've only used the Dream Matte Mousse foundation in my entire life, I've decided to get another and venture out; liquid foundation!

I want to try Maybelline's Satin Liquid foundation, or Collection 2000's Lasting Perfection (My sister has it and really likes it.)

As I'm a cheap skate, I've bid on a Maybelline one on eBay haha. I probably won't get it as Ivory seems to be a popular colour, but it's worth a try!

What foundation do you use and reccomend?

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Thinking of purchasing from Eyeko?

Click the picture to go to Eyeko.com

Please use my ambassador code to receive a free gift; not only will you receive this but you will really be helping me out and I will be extremely grateful.

Thank you :)

x

Simple Eye Make-Up Remover Pads

Price: £3-4

Simple say:

Simple Cleansing Eye Make-Up Remover Pads will remove all eye make-up even waterproof mascara and won't sting or irritate your eyes.

My thoughts:

These are so cute! They fit in the palm of your hand. If you're lazy like me then these are great; I just can not be bothered to put eye make up remover onto a cotton wool pad haha. These already have the product soaked in the pads so you just pop one out and off you go. They have just enough product on and remove waterproof mascara well.

You could use a normal cleansing wipe but as these are designed to use on your eyes, they do not irritate the skin.

Each pack contains 30 pads which should last you a couple of weeks (If on average you use 2 a day)

I couldn't really tell a difference between the normal and brightening pack, both do the same job.

Would I recommend? If you're lazy then yes :)

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Simple Radiance Brightening Moisturiser Review

Price: £4-7 depending on the store you purchase from. Superdrug is cheaper than Boots.

Simple claim:

"When your skin's happy and glowing, you feel healthier and happier too! Our Brightening Moisturiser SPF10 is a perfect blend of active ingredients and light reflecting particles to protect, condition and illuminate your skin throughout the day. Perfect for even sensitive skin."

My thoughts:

The cream is thick, sinks into my skin well and leaves it feeling deeply moisturised, but this isn't a product suitable for me. My cheeks are a normal skin type, meaning they're not dry, oily or blemish prone, and because of this, the product looks great on my cheeks. The product is however, another story on my T-zone. My T-zone is oily and this moisturiser highlights that.

It does give you a glow/shine doing exactly what it claims but is not suitable for oily skin types.

I think this product would be great for people with dryer skin.

Overall - It's a good product, but not if you have oily skin as it will highlight this. A great product for dull/dry skin.

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