With the wedding only a few short months away I’ve been trying to get my hair, skin and nails into good condition so I can be the best version of me for those all important wedding photos.
Ever since having the children, and all those long sleepless nights, my complexion has been quite dull. I suffer from dark circles under my eyes, hardly helped by regularly burning the candle at both ends, and my blemish prone skin also manages to be both red and greyish at the same time.
On my birthday, during my Boots beauty haul I was considering blowing my budget on an Estée Lauder product that promised to improve radiance but in the end my inner bargain hunter decided to shop around and I came across the Botanics range.
Priced at just £2.50 each, the four products I bought came in at just £5 using the buy one get one free promotion that was running (I’ve posted about money saving tips in Boots before). The products I bought were the All Bright Radiance Balm, Radiance Concentrate Serum, Purifying Face Scrub and Refreshing Eye Roll-On.
I love the simple, fairly feminine packaging for these products. My favourite being the serum in its cute little bottle with built in applicator. I’ve been using the four products together over the past week and so far my complexion remains fairly dull, but I do think there has been a slight improvement. Most noticeably my under eye circles appear to have lightened a little, and my eyes do seem to be less puffy despite having had less sleep than normal this week with Ed and two of the kids having been poorly.
Having used expensive products in the past and being disappointed (touché eclat I’m looking at you), I love that this totally purse friendly brand seems to do the trick, or at least make some improvement.
The products are fairly small (the serum is only 25ml, the balm 50ml), so I’m sure they won’t last that long with regular use, but when they cost so little I’m happy to restock regularly if the results continue.
The Radiance balm itself is my least favourite product. Unlike the designer product I shunned for it, it doesn’t give skin a sheeny glow but instead makes me look a bit sweaty with some glitter thrown in to the mix. I don’t think it’s necessarily doing much for my complexion and it comes out annoyingly fast which means product is often wasted, so I probably wouldn’t buy this one again.
In contrast, the serum does actually seem to be doing something. I’ve been using it in place of my facial oil, mainly because it was running out, and my skin feels like it’s had a good drink after I’ve applied it. The jury is out on whether it can live up to its promise of radiant, glowing skin in two weeks, as I’m still a few days off of this, but I do think it’s a worthwhile item to have in your beauty kit.
The eye roll on feels nice and cool on application, especially to tired, overworked eyes, so even if it didn’t work to brighten and tighten, at £2.50 I would still see it as a nice little treat for my eyes.
As for the Face scrub I haven’t been using a facial wash at all lately (I know, I’m awful), so I can’t really compare, but this one leaves me feeling like I’ve washed away the impurities of the day, isn’t too harsh on my sensitive skin and I’ve enjoyed adding it to my nightly skincare regime.
An added bonus of the range, although I’ll be honest, not one I usually look out for, is that it uses natural ingredients. Hibiscus is apparently nature’s brightness booster, and is present in all the products. The range is also formulated without parabens and claims to test on people in favour of animals.
I really like this range and I’m hoping with regular use I can brighten up my skin and feel more confident for the wedding.
