Elastin

Friday Favourites: Eye Products

We’ve almost finished our first working week of the year, and that means only one thing: it’s time for our Friday Favourites! At The Amazing Blog, we have to admit that we’re pretty lax when it comes to eye care. While we all agree that having a sparkle in our eyes is important, the constant strains of staring at a screen, working late nights, or even applying eye makeup, can take their toll. Today we present our recent finds that have helped us to look a little more awake - and ready to take on a New Year!.

Let’s start with Mitomo, a brand that provide high-quality beauty and health care products, all of which contain ingredients sourced in Japan. Their Eye Masks serve you with natural moisture, giving a unique treatment to the under eye region. We tried both the Snail + EGF Gold Mask and the Gold + Bee Venom Mask (both of which sounded very intriguing), and we were more than pleasantly surprised with the results.

The Eye & Nasolabial Mask with Snail Extract and EGF helps to regenerate damaged cells, both under the eyes, and around the nose, with natural components that improve your overall skin condition. The use of Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) helps to regenerate new cells, encouraging your under eye area to look brighter and smoother. On the other hand, the Anti-wrinkle Eye Mask with Gold and Bee Venom does exactly what it suggests, helping to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. By promoting the production of collagen and elastin, this mask helps to create a radiant glow, deeply moisturising the area and promoting skin elasticity. Both masks are best applied for 20-30 minutes, and to make the most of the ingredients, the excess should be gently patted into the skin. You can buy each pack seperately for £3.29, the Snail and EGF mask here or the Gold and Bee Venom here. Alternatively each mask is available in a pack of 10 for £29.61.

Our second step for perfect eye care is Elizabeth Grant’s Supreme Cell Vitality Victory Eye Serum . We’ve reviewed Elizabeth Grant’s products before, namely her Suprême Cell Vitality Neck Creme. We were therefore keen to try an eyecare product, hoping it would prove equally moisturising and luxury. We were not disappointed!

The Supreme Cell Vitality Victory Eye Cream is a lifting and energising serum for the delicate eye area, perfectly suitable for all skin types. Inducing anti-ageing effects, it contains natural actives to reduce the appearance of under-eye puffiness, creating tighter feeling skin, while making the eye-area look more youthful. Leaving your skin plumped and nourished thanks to Elizabeth Grant’s own innovation Torricelumn, vitality is produced in a bottle, and dark shadows are reduced. To apply, pat a small amount around your eye area both morning and at night. Containing CoQ10, this product also promotes collagen renewal, revitalising your under eye area. To purchase your own 30ml bottle for $70, click here.

Now our under eyes are suitably moisturised, it’s time to turn to our eyelashes. We discovered Apraise, a brand providing an exclusive collection of professional eyelash and eyebrow products. They particularly specialise in water resistant and smudge proof tints, but have equally turned their hand to lashcare. This is the area that interested us most, with the use of Optiplex growth technology. We tried their Power Serum, a product promising thicker and stronger eyelashes in just 15 days. We were keen to put this to the test!

This serum contains active ingredients that stimulate hair follicles, leading to fuller and stronger lashes and brows. All too often, similar products do nothing but moisturise your eyelashes, and although this is no bad thing, we were pleased to find that this Power Serum has real (and visible) results. By reducing the loss of eyelashes, your lashes look healthy and full, and as it is packaged like conventional mascara, it is simple to apply. Apply a thin coat over your lashes and brows twice a day (mornings and evenings) and you won’t have to wait long for baffling results! To try this product for yourself, visit the Amazon website here, where you will find the Power Serum available for £9.99.

Last but not least, nothing completes an eye look quite like a good coating of mascara. On our quest to find a new favourite, we discovered the brand Lavera, and were keen to try their Powerful Lashes product. Lavera provide certified natural cosmetics, with the use of high quality ingredients, packaging and production processes, so we were keen to see whether their mascara would live up to the high performance ethos.

The Powerful Lashes mascara is organic and vegan, leaving your lashes looking fuller and longer. Unlike many mascaras, this formula is multi-purpose, giving your eyelashes the benefit of a volumised, defined and lengthened look. Additionally, thanks to the rubber brush, our natural curl is held, catching each lash seperately, giving optimum volume without clumping. Being ophthalmologically tested, this product is also suitable for contact lense wearers, and thanks to the dermatological testing, you can be safe in the knowledge that your eyes will not react to the ingredients. There’s nothing worse than streaming panda eyes! To purchase Powerful Lashes, visit the Lavera website here where you will find it available for £14.90.

There you have it - our newfound products for a New Year eyecare routine. Give them a try, and be sure to let us know how you get on!

White and Green Tea Exfoliators and Moisturisers - Ceremony

Here at The Amazing Blog, we have discovered the power of tea, and no, we’re not talking about the boost a late afternoon cup gives you. We were recently introduced to Ceremony, a brand that uses the highest quality Japanese tea as the cornerstone of their skincare products. Ceremony skincare blends the ancient philosophy of Japanese tea ceremonies with modern aesthetics and science to create a fantastic product that will leave you feeling pampered all day long.

Ceremony’s skin range is divided into their white tea and green tea products which really help to harness the individual benefits of the teas. Green tea has been shown to help treat acne, improve complexion and maintain youthful skin, making it perfect for oily skin types. White tea has been proven to reduce puffiness, prevent sun damage and is even known to help to avoid wrinkles as it aids in protecting the collagen and elastin in the skin.

We were lucky enough to try both the green tea and white tea versions of Ceremony’s moisturiser and exfoliator. Peach seed powder is used as the basis for both of the exfoliators. This is an excellent alternative to micro-beads which can damage the skin and harm the environment. The green tea scrub really helped to keep breakouts down due in part to the chamomile extract in the product. Both moisturisers gave the skin a new radiance, and our complexions flourished when used daily, in part due to the shea butter! We would recommend the green tea products for those with oily and combination skin, and we would recommend the white tea products for normal to dry skin types.

The green tea exfoliator can be purchased here for £17.50, and the moisturiser for £18.50 here

The white tea exfoliator can be purchased here for £18.50, and moisturiser for £20.50 here

You've got snail!

Snails, well  you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Personally, I love them  gently sauted in garlic butter , served on a bed of rocket with some warm squidgey white bread to soak up the juices– yum!  But I’m not talking snails to eat here but 80% snail secretions specifically formulated to not only enhance the complexion but to heal scar tissue. Snail secretions! I hear you exclaim. And this is the moment that I quickly point out that there are lots of other beauty ‘ick’ factors and snail cream is only the latest addition to a long line of recent bizarre ‘nature derived’ ingredients: Chicken bone marrow (moisturisers), bird faeces (spa treatments), beetles (lipstick) and even whale vomit (perfume). Now there is quite a story and science behind snail secretions and the Elicina snail cream (or caracol cream at it is also known) is a natural hypoallergenic skin cream with proven properties that regenerate, heal and protect human skin. It’s made from the secretion of the Chilean earth snail, the Helix Aspersa Muller Snail.  Elicina was discovered and formulated accidentally when the Bascuñán family of Santiago, Chile started farming the Chilean earth snail (the Helix Aspersa Muller snail) for the French export market.  They noticed that when they scratched themselves handling the snail cages that their wounds would heal quickly, older scars were diminished and how soft their hands were after farming snails all day.  The cream has taken 15 years to develop and the University of Chile did further analysis at independent laboratories where they concluded that these snail excretions consisted of these key ingredients: Allantoin which regenerates healthy cells and stimulates healthy tissue formation, Collagen and Elastin which gives body tissue firmness and strength, Glycolic Acid which both exfoliates and moisturises and finally a cocktail of Vitamins A,C,& E. The Bascuñán family patented the process of milking these Chilean earth snails of their secretions; and they are quick to point out that no snails are harmed during this process (!)

Elicina fell under my radar when I was looking for something to help rid me of a small new-ish  keloid scar in a rather prominent position on my decolletage.  I read how it is safe to use Elicina cream after surgery, on skin grafts, on burns or any area of the skin that has been damaged.  So I’ve just started applying Elicina snail cream twice a day to the scar in hope that it’ll start to diminish… It really is very pleasant to use, so much so I’ve even tried it under my moisturiser (recommended to help diminish wrinkles!)  It is odourless, creamy in texture and not in the least bit ‘snail-y’. My scar is very slightly smoother (only day 2) let’s see what happen by day 10.  How thrilled I’ll be if my scar echoes this little boy Gregory’s scar recovery.

Elicina Original snail cream is £39.95 for 40g and available here.