LENGLING Parfum Munich - No 9 Wunderwind Extrait de Parfum

A scent can immediately change your mood, bringing good memories back or creating new and exciting ones. Finding that one and only fragrance that encompasses your style, personality and suits each season - is a case of trial and error. This is why we at The Amazing Blog love exploring new fragrances. It’s always so interesting to see how each person’s skin interacts, together with the different perceptions we have of the same fragrance. For these reasons, we were thrilled to receive the deliciously summery No 9 Wunderwind Extrait de Parfum from LENGLING MUNICH. 

LENGLING Parfum Munich was founded by partners Ursula and Christian Lengling in Germany in 2014, launching with their first collection a series of seven scents ‘Extraits de Sentiment’. They use only the finest ingredients inspired by the purest forms of nature, all of which are hand-poured into each bottle. They combine elegance with sustainability by making sure that their formulations are vegan. The silver Isar pebble design found on their hand-polished perfume stopper is the heart of their inspiration, this pebble originates from Isartal (south of Munich) where many people use it as a lucky charm or for meditation. Their fragrances are based on two ingredients that contrast (i.e. are opposites) but also complement each other. They like to call these their ‘LENG’ and ‘LING’ notes. As they say, opposites attract, and with combinations like raw cedar and soft vanilla or dark leather notes mixed with candyfloss, the fragrances used in each bottle are a juxtapose designed to stimulate the senses.  As Ursula Lengling says, “…they will touch you in the place where memories reside and feelings collide. In your heart." The collections are ‘Extrait de Parfum’ not to be confused with ‘Eau de Parfum’.  The fundamental difference between the two is that the Extrait has the highest concentration of fragrance compounds, lasting the longest and with the strongest sillage (lingering in the air). Whereas, the Eau de Parfum has the second-highest concentration and is the one most commonly used by fragrance houses. The Extrait de Parfum will offer a closer-to-the-skin performance, becoming a more intimate scent offering a rate of concentration sometimes lasting up to 24 hours or longer.

No 9 - Wunderwind Extrait de Parfum is a bold and sensational scent launched by LENGLING in 2018. This fragrance won a Dufstars Award for 2018, (the German Oscars of perfumes). Their award was for Best Artistic Independent German Perfume. Which when we learned this, it gave us even more of a curiosity to try this exceptional unisex fragrance. The LENG notes here mirror a ‘shady pine tree grove’ with pine needles absolute, honey, rosemary, thyme absolute and resiny incense. Whereas the LING notes here are a ‘sunny sea’ with sea breeze tones, floral ozone notes, lemon, musk and watermelon. When we closed our eyes and spritzed, it transported us back to summer holidays, Greek islands, wandering through the pine and lemon groves to the beach where it meets the warm salty foaming sea. This for us, was deliciously citrus fresh with a hint of spice. Thyme and rosemary are the Mediterranean herbs that gently waft together with the honey and soft musk as the base notes. They say that it is to: “Let it all go and fly free. Wunderwind.” Wunderwind loosely translated means ‘wonderful wind’ and we think that this will truly awaken the senses and evoke treasured memories of Mediterranean holidays...if you are looking for an extraordinary, fresh and individual new summer fragrance, this is the one to buy. To purchase see here, 50ml for £180.85 

Clockface Beauty – Beard Oil Ho Leaf & Bergamot

They say ‘time is measured in days, weeks and beards’ and with this yo-yo-ing lockdown, it feels like I’ve been cultivating one for months! Yet again, this presents another perfect opportunity to put those girls at The Amazing Blog through their paces, to search out a natural, super-gentle and great smelling beard oil for me. Not an easy task as my skin is quite sensitive and when washing my face, which is now quite often, it becomes a little sore and sensitive. This time, they introduced me to one of their favourite organic skincare brands Clockface Beauty who has created a fantastic grooming range from cleanser, masks to shave balms and oils. They kindly sent us their award-winning Ho Leaf & Bergamot Beard Oil which I couldn’t wait to try. If the brand sounds familiar to you, it probably because you’ve read our feature on their Foot & Leg Scrub and Balm here.

Sarah Thomas founded Clockface Beauty with the help of her mother, Karen. During her pregnancy, Sarah found there to be a noticeable lack of transparency on beauty product labelling. So this is where the Clockface Beauty story began where she and her mother decided to create their brand of natural, organic, cruelty-free and vegan skincare. This luxurious and natural skincare also offers products without artificial chemicals or synthetic fragrances.

As with so many of their products, the Ho Leaf & Bergamot Beard Oil has ingredients that are 99% organic. I used this Beard Oil first thing on my freshly washed beard, massaging it in to help nurture not only my hair follicles but skin too. The result was that my whiskers felt softer and my skin soothed and hydrated. A few drops of this Beard Oil go a long way, it absorbed quickly leaving me with a very pleasant fresh and subtle aroma. Light in consistency, it’s versatile enough to use on all beard lengths and skin types. The key ingredients of bergamot have antibacterial benefits helping to reduce skin irritation, oiliness, acne, psoriasis and eczema. Whereas the frankincense here has anti-ageing properties that protect the skin cells while reducing the blemishes and shrinking the pores. The carrier oils are jojoba which stimulates the hair growth and apricot kernel gives a toning and slight tightening effect to the skin. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the ho leaf here is mildly antiseptic, stimulating and known to also be an aphrodisiac! All in all, this Beard Oil feels cooling and healing, so if you too have a newly acquired beard that is giving you some grief, look no further. To purchase the 30ml Clockface Beard Oil for £22 here.

Budslife – CBD Patches

The girls at The Amazing Blog are big fans of all things CBD and have finally persuaded me to try some. What harm can there be, I thought, only good things can come from the wonderous hemp plant. I think I would be right in saying that many of us have been feeling a little stressed with the possibility of yet another lockdown and the current uncertainty – so something to potentially ‘take the edge off’ was most welcome. I didn’t want to take any of the sublingual CBD (I’m not good at ingesting things that taste a bit strange!) So they found me the perfect solution with some rather innovative skin patches – yes, patches! They’re the newly launched CBD patches by Budslife which are scent-free, flavourless and easy to use – just unpeel and stick it onto clean skin – et voila!

Budslife founder Shaun Williams came up with the CBD patches concept at the time when his daughter was going to university. She was about to face new challenges all alone, and that’s when her stress and anxiety kicked in. Instead of taking pills and medications, Shaun came up with the idea to create these CBD patches, which helped her cope to feel more relaxed and focused; which is when he realised that many others could also benefit from these CBD patches. 

These CBD patches come in a box with two silver foil sachets (eight patches to the sachet). Budslife sources their Full-Spectrum and 0% THC CBD from Holland, which is then impregnated into the patches which are made up of pressure-sensitive medical glue and penetration enhancers (antioxidant, hydrocarbon C5 / C9 and copolymer). The patches have a slow release of over 8-10 hours with each patch being infused with 16g of CBD. They are designed to release safe and measured levels of CBD throughout the time of wearing. Conveniently this could be night or day (I preferred to stick my patch on at night) where they are absorbed trans-dermally. This is thought to be quicker to get than into the bloodstream than through sublingual application. I have to be honest and say the 16mg patch was not enough for me and so I was advised to double up with 2 x patches = 32mg. Which BTW is perfectly safe. I believe that Budslife is about to launch the next range with 32mg and a 64mg range of patches. Upping the CBD dose did make a difference to me, I would say not immediately but accumulatively; by night 3, I was feeling more relaxed despite having had a rather stressful day. So if like me, you dislike the taste of hemp, but are curious to try CBD, then these are definitely for you, a box of 16 patches is £14.99 here.

Ting Tang - Dry Wash Shampoo

Do you wash your hair every day? I don't! When I mentioned this to the team at The Amazing Blog – there was a gasp of horror from a few. Did you know that by washing your hair every day it strips the scalp natural oils and microbiomes leaving the hair looking dull, lifeless and brittle? This is why I’ve been a fan of dry shampoo between washes. Not only does it give my fine hair more volume and body, but it also freshens it up and is a lifesaver when I've got a full-on day. So, when I learned about an entirely new type of 'anytime anywhere' foam-based Dry Wash Shampoo - Ting Tang, I knew I had to try it!

First let's meet the creator of Ting Tang, Purdey who was working in banking before she decided to quit and pursue her career as a trapeze artist. However, her secret dream had always been running a business of her own. Her daughter gave her the inspiration when she developed an aversion to water, which led her to create this clever Dry Wash Shampoo.  Despite having had the idea from a toddler, this is a gender-neutral product that and can be enjoyed by people of all ages, with or without toddlers of their own. Not forgetting to mention, that this start-up company even won a BBC One's award on the programme The Customer Is Always Right being selected as the customers’ favourite.

This Ting Tang Dry Wash Shampoo is unlike any traditional or dry shampoo, for that matter. It is a foam-based fragrance-free product that actually cleans! I find that most dry shampoos do offer volume but also mask the dirt and tend to leave a residue of heavy scent. With Ting Tang, I found it easy to apply with about 3 or 4 pumps of foam on my hair, massaging it through from the roots to ends, then towel-drying. Followed by a quick blast of the hairdryer and I styled my hair as usual – start to finish it took all of about 8 minutes. What I like about Ting Tang, is that it washes and cleans the hair with no fragrance or stickiness, as I'd first imagined. It's the ideal size for travelling at 100ml, and can easily be slipped into a carry-on for a long haul flight where it’s perfect for a quick refresh.  This will not only be loved by your hair, but also by the planet as it's fully recyclable, vegan, gluten and cruelty-free - they even offer a refill pack for the bottle!  NB: We reviewed the Ting Tang Tots, but they told us that ingredients are the same as the adult version. Give you dry shampoo the elbow and try this instead. You can purchase your Ting Tang Dry Wash Shampoo 100ml here for only £8.49.

Pure Anada - Delicate Compact Palette & Sweet Stillness Nail Polish

At The Amazing Blog, we think there is nothing better than having a new selection of make-up to experiment with to cheer us all up! Particularly, when it has a range of beautifully subtle daytime shades of blush and eye colours. We’re talking about Pure Anada and today we’ve bringing you another of our #amazingfinds with the Delicate Compact Palette and their softest pink Sweet Stillness Nail Polish. 

If you want to know why we’ve chosen to review Pure Anada a Canadian beauty brand, then see our other feature here. Let’s do a quick recap of their inspiring story behind this brand. Growing up in a eco-household, Candace Grenier, founder of Pure Anada, already had a vast knowledge of what proper nutrition should be and the importance of what the body needs. Passionate about making things for herself, she decided in 2003 to make her home and environmental as holistic as possible, discarding anything chemical. She went on to create a line of ‘natural, safer alternatives to mainstream cosmetics’ homecare, skincare and make-up which is where this success story began. These products are ethical, i.e. no discrimination or child labour is ever involved in the processing of making her raw materials. With clean formulations free from common allergens and ingredients that are naturally sourced, and everything is made in their certified organic labs in Manitoba. Their products are also cruelty-free, mainly vegan and certified with the Leaping Bunny programme. We found these at their UK retailer Live in The Light, so it’s a big thank you to them for sending us these products for review. We’re big fans of this online retailer and recommend a visit to their website as they also share our ethos in promoting holistic and environmentally friendly brands.  

Today we want to talk about Pure Anada’s Delicate Compact Palette and Sweet Stillness Nail Polish.  First things first, the Delicate Compact Palette’s colours are discreet, natural and gave us an effortless no make-up look. The pale rosy pink blush named Sweet Pea pairs perfectly with four eye-shadow colours: The satin luxurious taupe/grey that shifts to a shimmering pink called Haunt, a velvet taupe/mauve titled Macchiato, an iridescent champagne blush named Darling, and finally a matte ballet slipper pink Water Lily. If these moreish colours don’t swipe you off of your feet, then perhaps their win with the Sweet Pea blush at The 2020 Beauty Bible Awards here will. The packaging is recyclable with a pretty floral designed outer box and metallic foil etched cardboard inner palette, that also comes with a mirror inside. It only contains all-natural formulas comprised of pressed mineral pigments and jojoba oil for softness. The jojoba oil keeps the texture silky and smooth and most importantly, non-greasy.  Apart from the colours and natural formulas what we particularly like about this make-up is its cost-effectiveness. Unlike most palettes, this one is refillable! When finished, you can buy the individual colours and pop them right back into each of the magnetic slots in palette. Best of all,  the coverage is sheer but buildable and the blusher promises a demi-matte fresh healthy glow to the face and that’s exactly what it delivered. This is for us a smart investment with its natural everyday colours and is available for £29.95, you can find it here.  

Moving on to the Sweet Stillness Nail Polish which is from a range of twenty long-lasting colours. This Sweet Stillness is a pale rose pink non-toxic nail polish. More importantly, it is free of the five most toxic ingredients which are usually found in regular nail polish. The three most toxic ingredients being dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde, and toluene. They are followed by another two which are formaldehyde resin and camphor.  If you wish to know how toxic they are, here’s a quick explanation:  The dibutyl phthalate, or otherwise called the plasticizer, is used to provide sheen. It has a carcinogen effect and can cause thyroid problems and is often linked to hormone changes. Formaldehyde used to harden the nails, is also carcinogen when inhaled and while it’s evaporating can sometimes cause allergic reactions if it comes in contact with your skin. The toluene used to give a smooth finish and keep a uniform colour can cause eyes, lung, and throat irritation when inhaled and can also affect the central nervous system. The formaldehyde resin used to strengthen the nails is a skin allergen and remains active for up to three days after your nail polish dries, and can cause dermatitis. Finally, camphor, which used to be a treatment for cold or flu, is now chemically manufactured and can have a serious side effect when ingested. When exposed in large doses, primarily through inhalation, it’s known to cause irritation, nausea, dizziness, and headaches, it is therefore highly toxic! Quickly added the formulas in the Sweet Stillness Nail Polish are solvent-based and not water-based, but this is long-lasting and a more durable option than water-based.  We’d also advise applying it with their Super Base Coat and the Free Topcoat. You can find Pure Anada’s Sweet Stillness Nail Polish here for £8.95.