Everyone loves good customer service!

Let me tell you a story. Are we sitting comfortably? Great, I'll begin.

Once upon a time there was a young woman, let's call her Emily, and she and her husband had decided to take a mini break with some friends. Away they trotted, bags packed, full of eager excitement! They arrived at their destenation to find a grand and glorious Georgian vicarage which was on par with a National Trust property. They unpacked their bags and got ready to get into their beds. The room was cold, and they hadn't the energy to light the wood fire. As Emily unpacked her bag, she experienced a great feeling of tragedy. It was all wet! How could this be? And so the hunt for the culprit began ....

To cut a long story short, I went through my bag and discovered that the brand new bottle of Amie Bright Eyes Very Gentle Eye Make Up Remover that I'd bought and reviewed before I went away (as in bought on the Friday, taken away on the Sunday.. it had been in my possession for around 48 hours) and leaked everywhere. I had about a quarter of a bottle left :( Was it because I was clumsy and didn't put the lid on properly? No, I checked every lid before I packed it. Had it exploded due to heavy bags on to of it? Nope, my bag was with me all the time. The issue was its lid.

The lid was one of the split sorts - press one side down and the other pops up and has a hole for the product to come out. Only this had no locking mechanism and required very little pressure to make it move :(

Anyway, my mother brought me up to believe that one person complaining can make life better for a lot of other people in the long run, and not wanting you all to end up with soggy PJs when you go on your holidays, I did just that. The lady who responded to my email was SO lovely. Incredibly sweet and very sincere. Amie have in fact changed the lid of this product to the more standard flip-top lid with a little hole for squeezing out product. Win! It's much nicer. They also went me a little sachet of the Spring Clean mask (get the feeling that might be one of their new products that they're trying to get out there) which I decided to give to my very lovely PA.

Anyway, I believe that good customer service should always be shared. Have you experienced any good customer service recently? What's the best you've ever received?

P.S. I'll update with pictures when I get a new XD card this weekend :D

*Disclaimer* This product wasn't sent to me by PR to review, but by customer services as a replacement for something I bought with my hard earned cash which was faulty.

Amie Spring Clean Cooling Clay Mask Review

My skin profile:
My skin is primarily dry, flaky and sensitive, with a bit of oiliness on my t-zone but not really anything to write home about. I have fairly big pores on the bottom half of my nose and on my cheeks. My skin is naturally a bit dull and grey with redness across my cheeks and nose. It has a tendency to go mental at the slightest thing product wise.

The blurb:

Spring Clean Cooling Clay Mask is a wonderfully refreshing deep-cleansing treatment that draws out deep-seated dirt and impurities while soaking up excess oil. It is excellent for cleansing and helping prevent blemishes. The harmonising natural active fruit and botanical ingredients in Spring Clean work with your skin, not against it.

The key ingredients:
French white clay - absorbs dirt/toxins/impurities and gets rid of excess oil (not sure if it's important that it's French, or if that's just to make it sound a little more sophisticated)
Zinc Oxide - Antibacterial/helps to clear and prevent blemishes
Lime Butter - soothes, softens, tones and helps shrink pores
Organic Peppermint - refreshes, cools, soothes

Initial Impression:
Very cute packaging. This range is aimed at "young skin" - not sure if I count as young, but never mind. Lovely delicate green colour and very fresh smelling. Have to admit, there was something a little off putting about the smell for some reason (I think it smelt a little antiseptic to me on first smell), but having had it on my face, I'd say it's a pleasant fresh and zingy scent.

Application:
Easy to apply, needed 2 biggish pea sized blobs to do my whole face. Smooths on nicely, not left with any uncovered patches, unlike some masks I've used recently (yes I'm looking at you BB Seaweed).

The mask itself:
I'm going to be honest, I was expecting full blown stinging agony. I had visions of trying to find anything nice to say beyond "It smells good". I'm generally a bit unsure about clay based cleansers and things aimed at removing excess oil. Stinging and burning have been common themes for me with these sort of masks *coughOriginsClearImprovementcough*. The mask does tingle slightly whilst it's on, but I think that its definitely more on the side of cooling tingle than stinging. As it dries, it felt a little tight, but again not really uncomfortable.

The result:
So after 10 minutes on and a quick wash off with warm water, what did I think? Wow. I'm really shocked by how much I like this product! My skin looks brighter, feels really, really soft (like, softer than it does with any of my normal "moisturising" creamy masks) and just feels generally clean! It's still got that slight tingle going on, but it's quite nice actually. The oilier bits of my nose seem a little less oily too. It's not made much difference to my pore size, and the blocked pores on the end of my nose aren't much different either, but I never see how any mask is going to sort that sort of thing out. I'm genuinely impressed!

Price: £4.95
Availiable from: According to the Press Release, Boots and next.co.uk, although I just looked on next.co.uk and they don't seem to stock this particular Amie product at the moment.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ out of 5
Would I buy it again: Definitely. It's rare that I find a face mask that actually works with my skin, so this is a keeper.

*This product was sent to me for review purposes by a PR company. However, I promise a 100% genuine review, no thoughts barred* <---- Also, I was genuinely shocked that my little blog got asked to review something by a PR company.

Friday Haul

I've been off work sick for the last few days (which is one of the things that saw me finally starting a beauty blog), so when I went into town, I was swatching my way through Boots and Superdrug like a woman posessed! Anyway, in the end I was reasonably restrained (read as "I was too scared to buy all the pretty lipsticks I saw because I'm convinced I never look good in lip colour") and ended up with this tiny haul from Superdrug:

 

Left to right: Revlon Contour/Shader Brush, Rimmel Professional Eyebrow Pencil in 004 Black Brown, Sleek Palette in Storm and Amie Bright Eyes Very Gentle Eye Make-up Remover.

Shader Brush:

I've been eyeing this up for a few weeks as I've never had a brush like this before - just the fairly bog standard flat ones. So far, I'm not quite sure what I think about it - it's been shedding a fair bit and the brush itself seems really big (I have quite a small distance from crease to brow and this basically seems to fill it!). However, I also know that I probably just need to practice a bit more so I'm not going to discount it just yet!

Eyebrow Pencil:

As you'll have noticed, I have hideous eyebrows. I have spent my entire life hating them. My right eyebrow hair doesn't grow across like normal people's ... it grows up. Like Patrick Moore's. Only sparser. I'd look like a silly mare if I got rid of them all together (Polish/Spanish blood in me = strong brow looks best), so I invested in this nifty little pencil. The thing that sold it to me? It has an eyebrow brush as part of the lid. Genius! I am loving this! Used in in my most recent FOTD (see below) and I think it makes a fair bit of difference. I'm probably a bit crap at applying it but hey ho!

Sleek Storm Palette:

I've watch a gazillion youtube videos and read an abundance of blogs about Sleek so I took the plunge and went for the Storm. I was going to go for sunset, but I a)chickened out and b)wanted to add a few more neutrals to my collection (I have a rainbow of colours on their way from Fyrinnae and I'm planning on getting the Alice in Wonderland Book of Shadows when it comes out). Still need to play with this but so far I love it :) [ETA: Even the lighter colours seem well pigmented and the FOTD I did using mainly this palette (see below) lasted out all day/night until bed at midnight! Very impressed.]

 

 

  

Amie Eye make-up Remover:

Yum! Something none greasy, nice to bunnies (I know, I know, I'm a bad lady for buying Rimmel Eyebrow Pencils) and in pretty packaging. Oh, and it works!! I got this to replace my quite honestly horrendous Boots Expert Sensitive Gentle Eye Make Up Remover Lotion which a)didn't remove my eye make up and b)required an excessive amount of cleansing to get rid of the oil slick it left behind. This, however, works like a dream ,so thank you to Get Lippie and Oxford Jasmine for their reviews of this as they convinced me to give eye makeup remover another chance :)