Alva Naturokosmetik Exotic Shower Gel Review

Hello my lovelies! Hope you're all doing ok - very excited that it's nearly the weekend. I feel like this week has dragged on forever! Today I'm going to be bringing you a little review of this Alva Naturokosmetik Exotic shower gel that I've been trying as part of the My Pure bloggers panel.

Just incase your secondary school German isn't up to scratch, Alva are a German organic skincare brand who have been going strong since 1988. The have quite a few different ranges including skin and body care and makeup.

I decided to give the exotic shower gel a go for two reasons - 1) because I love exotic smelling showergels and 2) because we were running out of shower gel. Like everything sold on My Pure, this is free from sulphates, parabens and phthalates and the showergel itself is actually plant based.

Based on the list of ingredients, it sounds yummy enough - soothing aloe vera, skin softening glycerine and sweet orange water. However, I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag.

The shower gel itself foams up fairly nicely if you use a shower puff (don't even think of just using your hands because you're not really going to get that far) but its the smell that's really disappointed me. It just smells... odd. It's not really exotic fruit, it's just a weird slightly synthetic tropical inspired smell. Looking at the list of ingredidents, this makes sense as there are no essential oils or fruit extracts (other than the sweet orange water) listed - merely parfum, which tends to be synthetic (as opposed to perfume, which tends to be essential oil based, however I'm willing to be corrected on this if I'm wrong)

Also, the packaging is a bit of a nightmare - its got a flip top lid which stores up pools of water if you leave it on your shower shelf... also the showergel has a tendency to just run out the minute you open the lid meaning that you waste a fair bit of product every time you use it.

My overall thoughts that are whilst this isn't a bad showergel, I imagine that there are better (and cheaper) organic showergels out there.

Price: £6.50 for a mere 150ml

♥ ♥ 1/2 out of 5

Would I buy it again? No

Available from my pure

Alva Naturkosmetik Coleur Silver Eyeshadow Duo and Hot Red Lipstick Review

Hello lovelies - hope you're all ok and coping (for most of you) with the shock of being back at work. My first day back was a little crazy but that's always the way with a new term. This evening, I'm bringing you a couple of quick reviews of a couple of bits of makeup I received from My Pure recently. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with showergels and body lotions, so I chose the Hot Red lipstick and Silver eyeshadow duo. I can only photography when I'm not at work, hence artificial lighting - apologies lovelies.

Organic Lipstick in Hot Red

I chose Shade 4 which is Hot Red - a lovely, wearable orange toned matte red (which is a little deeper than the picture above would have you believe). I really like this lipstick as I'd been looking for a matte red for quite sometime and this is the perfect shade for me. It's not too bright and not too vampy - lovely! Also, despite being matte, I don't find it at all drying which is always a bonus! The only slight downside is the smell ... it has a weird floraly herby smell. I don't really like it and it puts me off wearing it which is a shame but then again, I'm uber sensitive to smells so it might not bother you as much!

£13.80 from My Pure

Organic Duo Eye-Shadow in Silver

Ahhh, I love these eyeshadows - they're beautifully pigmented, complement each other perfectly, have a good amount of staying power, are shimmery without being a glitterball on my face but they have one fatal flaw. The packaging! Arrgggh. Ok, so firstly, it's just a bit ugly... that I can sort of deal with.  I mean being aesthetically pleasing isn't the be all and end all right? But it gets worse. The actual pan holider (i.e. the bit that the eyeshadows are set into... with the dippy hole for the applicator) itself comes out... on its own. For no reason. And then it's really hard to get back into the case. Sadly, this makes it feel a little cheap and tacky. For just under £12, I expect my eyeshadow casing to stay together. So as much as I love these eyeshadows, I'm not sure if I could ever bring myself to buy any more of them. *sigh*

£11.95 from My Pure

*Disclaimer* I was sent these products for review as part of the My Pure blogger scheme.