Dermalogica Samples & The Tanning Shop

When I am preparing to go on holiday or in need of a special beauty treatment, there is only one place I go to.  My chosen haven is The Tanning Shop in Waltham Abbey.  This shop is my chosen place purely because it's clean, the staff are incredibly friendly and they offer every treatment you could imagine. 

Run by the lovely (loud) Leily, when you walk in the door you are immediatey welcomed like you are an old friend.  It's nice that the staff appreciate you are a paying customer but also like to have a chat and a giggle, and the atmosphere is extremely relaxed - that's a very good thing if you are bricking it becuase you are about to go and have your first bikini wax!

This franchise offers lay down and stand up sunbeds, spray tan machine, on site nail technician and all the standard beauty treatments.  They also have a botox and weight loss clinic that runs once a week.

My experience of The Tanning Shop started just before I was going on holiday last year.  I wanted to book a sunbed course as I wanted to try and establish some sort of base tan before I went (I hardly EVER tan).  I went in and spoke to the super helpful beautician Jo about how easily I burn etc, and she advised me of the most cost effective sunbed course to purchase, how many minutes I should do on each occasion and how often I should have a sunbed.  She also told me the best cream for my skin - christ, she even told me in depth how the sunbed works and how it compares to the sun!  It was really encouraging that they employ staff that know in detail about the treatments and the results you will get, instead of them just being like "it's a sunbed, it'll make you brown".

Due to this I have been going there ever since for things like eyebrow waxes, sunbeds, spray tans, nail wraps and i've had 'gelish' nails on some occasions.  The service I have received has been really good, I cannot recommend The Tanning Shop Waltham Abbey enough - thanks Leily!

Anyway, back to the reason I started this post in the first place.  I have been trying to find a good skincare routine for years.  My skin is normal, maybe slightly oily in small places but pretty average, although every so often it goes really dry - I have an issue whereas my hairline gets really dry and itchy and sore and no moisturisers really seem to help.  I figured instead of scouting out lots of different moisturisers I might as well go into TTS and see if anyone could give me some advice. 

I sat down with Jo and after some input from Leily they advised me to try some Dermalogica products.  Obviously I didn't want to buy full bottles of the stuff knowing that it might not be any good for my skin (I know, god knows how i've got away with never using Dermalogica before now!) so they sent me off with lots of samples to try to see which ones worked the best for me.  See, they are HELPFUL.  It was good timing as well as when I got round to using them my skin was going through one of it's horrible dry phases.  Review of each product below:

So I started with the 'skin prep scrub'.  The first thing I noticed about this was that it smelt really funny?  I'm not sure why but I have this thing about skin products and how they should all smell clinical and fresh and this had an almost spicy smell that I wasn't expecting.  It wasn't a bad smell, it was just... weird?  Anyway, the skin prep had the same texture as an exfoliante and I assume it's just to get rid of all the impurities and dead skin cells etc on your face.  There wasn't really enough in the sample, either that or as well as having wonky lips I have a big face?  I used it and washed it off and my skin did feel smooth afterwards, which was a plus...

Next up, the 'special cleansing gel'.  After experiencing the Skin prep I was pleased to realise that this gel was odourless.  The instructions tell you to apply it to your face and lather it up - It had good coverage, easily covered my whole moon face and it was easy to lather.  It rinsed off easily and left my skin looking nice and refreshed and baby soft.  I REALLY liked this product and it soothed my scabby dry head (sexy).

Next I used the hydrating masque.  The instructions tell you to apply this all over your face and leave on for 10-15 minutes.  Again, the masque was very thick and spread easily all over my face.  It was clear so you can't see it on which was a shame as part of the fun of face masks to me is looking like an actual UNIDENTIFIABLE CREATURE when you have them on, but oh well :(  For the first 5 minutes I found this quite uncomfortable as it stung my head and around my nose a bit.  I'm not sure if this is because my skin was quite dry, but after a while it calmed down and I managed to leave it on for the full 15 minutes.  It dried and didn't stay sticky, and when I rinsed it off my skin felt AMAZING!  It was so smooth I almost wanted to whack another load on and do it again, but I only had one sample :(

I finished off my little DIY facial with the body hydrating cream.  I'm not sure if I was supposed to use this on my face or not, but it didn't say not to on the back and I felt my skin needed 'hydrating' more than anything else.  It had a nice creamy texture and left my skin feeling super supple and soft afterwards.  Yes I am aware of how rude that last sentence sounds.

All in all I was pretty impressed with the condition of my skin after all these lotions had been put on it.  If I was to go out and buy anything based on using these samples it would definitely be the special cleansing gel and the hydrating masque.  I felt the most difference after using these products and feel they went a long way to soothing the dry skin on my head.  You know when you can just FEEL a product working?

So I would just like to say thanks to the lovely Jo for talking through my skincare options, Leily and The Tanning shop for supplying me with the samples and Dermalogica for potentially giving me an answer to my skin care woes.

Next step is to find a skin care range that will enable me to eat BUCKETLOADS of chocolate and then instantly remove spots.  If you hear of any miracles let me know...