Beauty Review: Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Self-Tanning Milk for Body vs Shiseido Daily Bronze Moisturizing Emulsion

Recently I’ve been using these two bronzers to give some summery color to my pale skin :-) Here are my impressions.

Promise:
Shiseido Bronze Emulsion “promotes a gradual natural bronze color and dramatic silkiness with daily use”
Estee Lauder Self Tanning Milk “dries quickly, leaves a radiant glow”, “even golden color starting in under an hour”


Packaging:
Shiseido Daily Bronze Moisturizing Emulsion comes in a pump which is super convenient. While Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Bronzer is packaged in a bottle with a screw on cap. Pump seemed much more convenient, hygienic and practical to me. I could see with time that Bronze Goddes Tanner was starting to oxidize and turn a bit brown. With Shiseido’s Bronzing Milk you can easily control the amount you want to get out by pressing it all the way down or just lightly pressing down the pump or for a bigger amount pushing it several times. It’s excellent!


Close-Up on Ingredients:
It was interesting to compare ingredient lists of the two self tanners. I remember sales girl advertising Shiseido's bronzer as having some anti-oxidant properties. I found no anti-oxidant ingredients on the list. In fact, it’s a very short ingredients list. I do see several humectants and emollients though, such as glycerin, butylene glycol, and dimethicone. There are no natural extracts and all the ingredients are just artificially created chemicals. In Bronze Goddess Bronzing Milk, on the other hand, I see a lot of natural ingredients, some truly surprising! For example it contains such exotic extracts as Spike Moss Extract, Rosemary Extract Hops Extract, Grape Seed Extract, Pomegranate Juice extract, Apricot Fruit Extract; waxes like Narcissus Poeticus Flower Wax Jasmine Flower Wax; stone powders Sunstone Powder, Amber Powder; oils Kukiu Oil, Olive Fruit Oil…
I was not going to write about ingredients in this review but when I compared the two lists I was so surprised at the huge difference and contrast that I decided to point it out… So actually Bronze Goddess Self-Tanner has a lot of anti-ageing, anti-oxidant natural ingredients. Pretty impressing!

Experience:
Texture: I liked textures of both products. None was oily or sticky. Estee Lauder Bronzer is lighter and more liquid. Shiseido’s Self Tannin Moisturizer has a more creamy texture to it which is still very light.

Fragrance: As you know self-tanners can stink but these two are stink free! Both have pleasant light fragrance to it. Bronze Goddess just as the description says has this beachy scent that your skin gets only in the sun…

*Shiseido’s Daily Bronzing Moisturizer is an axcellent product to achieve just a touch of color. It’s also a plus that you can use it on your face as well. It didn’t break me out or gave me any allergic reaction. In fact this product was dermatologically tested.

Streaks: I never got any streaks with Shiseido Tanning Emulsion.

Color: The color looked very natural. I even got a compliment from my husband after applying it for several days to my face he said I looked fresh and rested (reminding you – I have a baby who keeps me up at night!)
* Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Self-Tanning Milk for Body I would use if you really want and need to see the color. One thing I didn’t like so much was that after application my skin felt hot as if a bit burning…

Streaks: Once it gave me streaks but probably I just didn’t apply it properly. What you need to do is to blend it well and fast. It also absorbs into dry skin on the knees and elbows so make sure to apply moisturizer on these parts to make your tan more even.

Color: In terms of the natural color. It looked to me less natural than the color I got from Shiseido’s Bronzing Emulsion. But I do not remember how my suntanned skin looks :-) I have not suntanned in years :-)

Price Tag:
Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Self-Tanning Milk for Body – 26-27 USD
Shiseido Daily Bronze Moisturizing Emulsion – 36 USD

Bottom Line:
I would definitely get Shiseido’s Bronze Moisturizing Emulsion for daily use again. But for a more intensive tan I may try to look for a middle ground in terms of naturally looking color and intensity between the daily bronzer by Shiseido and Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Self-Tanning Milk.

Beauty Talk: Skin Care By Age: 20s - Laying The Foundation

Just as everything in our life skin care should be age appropriate. Skin needs differ at various stages of our life. In your twenties it is mostly about prevention measures and controlling breakouts, in your 30s it is often about sensitivity, in forties, you deal with lines, sun spots, skin dullness and in 50s you face loss of firmness. I have researched skin care and skin issues by age before but decided to revisit this subject to remind myself some things I should be doing now and what I should look out for in the future.

Let’s start with the 20s. Here is when you can lay a great foundation for your skin’s beauty and health. You don’t have to do much nor invest a lot into skin care. Just follow a regular skin care routine correct for your skin type, i.e. cleanse and moisturize daily, exfoliate as often as advisable for your skin type. Don’t forget to protect your skin from the destroying UV rays. You will be so glad when you are in your late 40s and you don’t have any sun spots unlike your sun damage oblivious friends of the same age.
Here are a couple more tips:
• Get into good beauty habits from early on

Wear sunscreen protecting your skin from UVA and UVB
• Though temptation is great, do not use solariums : nice sun tan for a month comes alongside prematurely aged (i.e wrinkled) skin.
• Do not sleep in your makeup no matter how wild and late the night is.
• Drink plenty of water, keep to a healthy diet, and please, exercise – staying fit has done so much good for my skin!
• Do not overuse or abuse skin care products, use products appropriate for your age – you don’t want to start intensive anti-aging treatments now – what will you do when you are in your 50s?
• When fighting acne, do not be too aggressive on your skin. Too much cleansing and peelings will only aggravate the problem
• And one last thing: Trust me, you look GREAT! (even with a couple pimples!) Enjoy your young firm skin and fresh bright complexion!

To be continued...

The Blonde is Back

Big news! My natural-looking-highlighted-hair days are over… I went blonde again! Just couldn’t stand looking at myself in the mirror any more… One day I just felt bursting with deisre to have lighter… brighter… blonder hair… So what do I do? I just call up local (quite prestigious and expensive) salon and make an appointment to dye my hair. Why didn’t I go to my usual hairdresser? The answer is because I was wondering “what’s out there” and if “I am missing out on something” … So I come to that well-known salon and say that I want to go a couple shades lighter, I don’t need to have it extremely white but PLEASE, no yellow or orangey color. No, of course not! In an hour I am staring at my yellowish head of hair. So I say: “It’s yellow and I specifically asked you to please do something so that it’s not yellow” (Well, I say it more diplomatically of course.) 30 minutes later I am staring at my bluish hair… (Damn!) It will come out in 2 washes I am told, and after paying (I had to pay for that!!) off I go hoping the blue color is not too obvious.

In a couple weeks the orangey hair is back and I am dialing my hairdresser to get an appointment. I lie to her saying that I decided to go blonde but could not reach her… sigh… Have you ever lied to your hairdresser? Not so easy if you have her mobile and her home numbers…

Even though I am stuck now dying my roots, dealing with the orangey pigment and my husband’s constant inquiries as to why I go to hairdresser’s every couple weeks, I still don’t regret becoming blonde again. Good to be back! Blonde rules! *wink*

Beauty Shopping: Shopping in Brussels, Belgium

Traveling on business and for pleasure to Brussels a week ago I was looking forward to doing some shopping! Our hotel was right next to Grand Place so I did not get to shop at the world famous Avenue Louise...sigh... No time for long taxi rides…In fact in the end I am not even sure what the name of the street I was shopping at was … there were numerous brand names Zara, Sisley, Pimpkie, well known sores like H&M, C&A, Hema and of course beauty stores like internationally known ICI Paris XL plus some local beauty supply stores. The latter ones often have effective but unavailable in other countries products... one can discover some treasures there.

Actually I was looking for some brands not available where I am currently living like Payot and La Mer. But funny enough they were not available in Brussels either. I was told that La Mer can be purchased in Waterloo… out of all places…
So I ended up buying some products for the skin around the eyes:
Shiseido Benefiance Pure Retinol Instant Treatment Eye Mask (instant treatment that is actually mostly for wrinkles and circles but I love the smoothing effect on the skin and it does help to reduce puffiness)
Hydra Patch by Phabel Paris with plant extracts (it promises to re-moisturize and reduce fine lines, these are pads based on gel, I am not a big fan of those though some do give a good effect)
Puffy Eye Reducer Pads by L’Action Cosmetique (those are pads soaked in moisturizing ingredients, they come in a shape of a leaf which is cute, but they leave an unpleasant sticky residue on your skin – huge minus!)
Out of the products mentioned above I will write a full review on Shiseido’s masks, they are really worth it…

Brussels is a fun place! Unfortunately not enough time and opportunities to explore the city but had a chance to enjoy mussels, Belgium fries, waffles and of course world famous Belgina chocolates!

Beauty Radar: Sunscreens For Sensitive Skin

So what's on my beauty radar this month?

I am always looking for a sun screen specially developed for sensitive skin. Or even better a moisturizer for sensitive skin with high (at least 30) sun screen built into it. The latter seems to be extremely rare… However, here are a couple products protecting sensitive skin from the damaging sun rays that I recently came across

Neutrogena Healthy Defense Daily Moisturizer SPF 50 for sensitive skin 100% naturally-sourced ingredients, gentle, non-greasy, fragrance-free.


Coppertone Sensitive Skin Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50 – with Zinc Oxide, gentle, non-irritating formula


Hawaiian Tropic Sensitive Skin Stick Sunscreen SPF 50 – lightweight, hypoallergenic, oil-free – sounds like a nice conveniently packaged sunscreen! By the way they have a whole sunscreen line dedicated to sensitive skin! This is the first time I find anything like this!

Have you tried any of these? Know of more sunscreens for sensitive skin? Let me know!!!

Dove Deodorant Giveaway Winner

Sorry for the delay with announcing a winner for Dove Deodorant giveaway that ended actually last month on 20 june. Sorry sorry - been extremely busy! The lucky winner is Bryanna Pavlish! Congratulations! She must have received her prize by now! Hope Bryanna is enjoying it as much as I do :-)

Beauty Review: Arbonne Re 9 Advanced Line

Usually I don’t do samples reviews. I have so many full size products waiting for reviews that I have no time to test and write about sample sized products. But this time I made an exclusion. I was contacted by Kellie, Arbonne Consultant. She sounded very excited about the new Arbonne line called Re 9 Advanced and wanted to know my opinion about it. in addition , I have heard soooo much about Arbonne, I was very very curious to finally try it out.

Well let me start by telling you that I was pretty impressed. When you see results in a matter of couple days you cannot but be pretty impressed. But let’s take it step by step. Here are the products I tested:

Smoothing Facial Cleanser
Regenerating Toner
Intensive Renewal Serum
Corrective Eye Cream
Restorative Day Cream SPF 20
Restorative Night Cream

A couple quick words about each product:
Smoothing Facial Cleanser – light consistency, you need a bit to cleanse the whole face, but too much, could make your skin feel a bit dry
Regenerating Toner – pleasant refreshing fluid
Intensive Renewal Serum – light consistency, non oily, quickly absorbs into the skin
Restorative Day Cream SPF 20 – light creamy texture, quickly absorbs, immediately makes skin soft and smooth
Restorative Night Cream – having quite thick texture, it surprisingly absorbs in no time at all and feels very comfortable on the skin. Amazing!
Corrective Eye Cream – medium thick texture, absorbs quickly, moisturizes skin very well and seems to help reduce puffiness - Yay!

After using the Re 9 Advanced line for 2 days I could already see good results: skin looked fresher and firmer, complexion was brighter. Also I noticed that my eye puffiness was much reduced. However I had some sensitivity issues... I would get this burning sensation on my skin. As Kellie explained, what I was feeling was Vitamin C working on my skin. I agree, it could be the Vitamin C to blame for the burning sensation, however this could mean that people with sensitive skin won’t tolerate soem of the produst in Re 9 Advanced very well. Otherwise my impression of Arbonne products from this experience is very very good!

Disclaimer: Author of this blog received samples of the products for a review.