A Closer look: Ultrabland

Hey I'm  back and for this closer look I wanted to write about a product that I absolutely love, Ultrabland, 

Lush's hot cloth oil cleanser.

lush.com

This is great for people who have sensitive skin, in fact it was invented by one of Lush's top inventors Helen. She invented this to help people with eczema and psoriasis. It's great for acne, dry, combination or oily skin. I love it as it removes every scrap of my make up.
 It really is a wonder product!

"One of our desert island products, Ultrabland, is based on an ancient formula for cold cream. It was invented by the Roman physician Galen, and where he used a mixture of beeswax, olive oil, water and rose petals, we’re able to disperse our Turkish rose absolute in water to create rose water. This, along with almond oil, beeswax and honey, is the basis for our Ultrabland formula. This cleanser is extremely effective: the honey softens and conditions the skin, and has antiseptic properties; whilst rose water and rose absolute reduce redness and help to balance the skin." Lush.com

panda eyes

So, whats in it?

Almond oil: almond is a great carrier oil and closely resembles the skins own sebum. It's naturally full of vitamin E. The oil mixed with beeswax makes the perfect base to break down make up.

Rose water: Lush get their rose from Senir in Turkey. Rose calms the skin and helps with redness and inflammation. So it's great if you have break outs or more of a natural pink flush. This also has Rose absolute which can help with rosacea.

Honey: not only is honey hydrating but it is also anti-fungal, antibacterial and antiseptic. Lush get most of their honey from Greece. Honey is also self preserving and will help the product last longer.

Iris extract: Iris is often used for it's fragrance but in this case  iris florentina contain beneficial isoflavones which can help with irritated and inflamed skin.

It's definitely worth trying, it's an oldie but a goody and a Lush staff favourite. I couldn't do with out it!

Thank you for reading this, if you liked it then please subscribe for more blogs. you can find me on Bloglovin', Instagram and Youtube.
Do you have a favourite Lush cleanser? let me know in the comments.

love, Lucy.

Real Techniques bold metal collection.

Ok, so I know I'm late on the wagon with these but quite honestly I haven't had the cash to buy one. Just over a month ago was mine and Chris's 7 year anniversary and as a gift he bought me one! 

Squeee!

The one I opted for was the 301 flat contour brush. I've heard a lot about this brush, some people say it's amazing for contouring some love it for foundation. I just love it full stop. 

This the box it came in and if I could change one thing, it's that it's bloody hard to get into! With all RT brush sets they have a weird way of opening up. 

In other news.. it's rose gold! So pretty I love anything rose gold and copper so I'm very happy with that. 

This brush is really nice and long so you can use it to have lots of control by holding it the brush end. If you want a lighter touch than by utilising the length you can use it to add just a hint of colour where you need it. 

This brush has nice short bristles which means you can pack a lot of colour on easily with a lot of control. I love how close up to the skin you can get with this for precision contouring.

The bristles on this brush are very densely packed, this means that you can get a gorgeous airbrushed, buffed effect on the skin. Sometimes it can be hard to seamlessly join contour with the other make-up elements. Blusher, highlighter or just the base? This brush expertly smooths the colour together very well. 

The handle on the brush is nice and ergonomic buy having three sides to it. You can get a nice grip on it from lots of different angles. The bristles are super soft and have a pink ombré tinge to them.

You can get this brush from boots, it's a bit more expensive than other brushes but worth it. very well made and will definitely stand the test of time.

Thank you for reading this, if you liked it then please follow my blog on Blogger or Bloglovin'

Lucy

xx

Baking bits.

Disclaimer: I've tagged vegan and vegetarian in this post which is so obviously about bacon and cheese. Please bare with, the vegan and veggie alternatives are below. The method is the same just ignore the ingrediants and replace them with your own choice. I am not veggie or vegan but have a lot of friends who are and its nice to have options.

 

For this post I'm going to write about something a bit different- baking. 

Now, I love baking but I never get to do it because at the moment I'm living with my 'rents and the kitchen isn't huge so when an opportunity presented itself today I had no hesitations of jumping straight in. 

This week is one of those weeks where it's a week after my payday and we haven't been bothered to do any shopping yet apart from the odd meal out. The freezeer plays a bit role in this part of the month as I'm sure yours does too. Last night Chris and I realised that we actually have a morning together, which doesnt happen very often, and that we should make somthing and have breakfast date. 

Out of all the things we had, we went for.. bacon and cheese turnovers. 

Y'know like the ones they have at Greg's but our better version. I thought it'd be fun to show you guys how I made these because they were super easy and only took a really short amount of time.

Bacon and cheese turnovers- 

10 minutes prep. 20 minutes bake.

preheat the oven gas 7/8 / 220C

makes 6.

ingredients:

Bacon, 6 rashers

Cheese, as much as you want really. I went for 6 thinish strips

Puff pastry- 1 pre rolled sheet

Spray oil 

Salt and pepper

A little milk

You also need:

A knife

2 baking sheets

Foil

A frying pan

Tongs.

So first thing's first,  if you have frozen puff, you should take it out the night before or it takes 2 hours at room temp to defrost.

 Truth time- I used a microwave as I forgot to taking it out off the freezer due to over sleeping. On the defrost setting I put it in for a minute at the time so it was soft enough to handle but not squidgy, if its too soft pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes. This took 3 minutes in my microwave.

When my dough was ready I left it on the side and got on with cooking my bacon. In a big frying pan cook the rashers until they are slightly golden but still a little soft- remember, these will be cooked further in the oven later. When they're ready, take them off the heat and allow to cool.

Cut the cheese.... into 6 thinish strips a couple of mm thick. You want them to be gooey in the middle but have some of that awesome crispy goodness on the edges. 

Unfurl the pastry sheet and cut it into 6 equal squares. These might look big but dont forget they're going to be wrapped around the filling so we need extra. 

I then lined my baking tins with foil ( to minimise washing up) and sprayed them with some baking spray to stop them sticking. There's nothing worse then trying to peel foil outta pastry. 

Time to wrap. Take your cheese and lay it diagonally onto a square of pastry, I went bottom left to upper right but really it's a personal choice that everyone has to make for themselves. Then added 1 slice of bacon on top of your cheese facing the same way, tongs are the tidiest way of transferring the bacon.

Grab your empty corners, pull to the centre and stick. They should look all cuddled up like a bug in a rug.

Place the turnovers on the baking sheet. I put three on each sheet. I then brushed them with milk and added salt and pepper. Chris loves paprika so I popped a bit on but its totally optional. 

ready for the oven!

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, 10 minutes in I had to check and swap the trays as one was on the top shelf and browning more than the other. 

While it was cooking I washed up and Chris made a nice cuppa tea.

Then I waited two minutes too long because apparently unloading the dishwasher was more importent so they were a little more golden then I'd have liked. 

these smell amazing!

You can see the cheese is nice and crispy but it was lovely and soft in the middle. I accidentally ate some before taking this pictures so unfortunately there were only the darkest ones left to take a picture. 

They went down really well, Chris managed 3 so it was deffo a winner. I'll be making these again for sure they were super easy and quick. More of an assembly job if I'm honest. 

the last two.

Above is a nicer picture of them just chilling out. I have some left over so that breakfast for tomrrow sorted too. 

 exciteted!

♥

Alternatives section

If you are veggie then the pastry I bought, which was "jus' roll", is friendly but I imagine most would be. Always remember to check your cheese is vegetarian friendly. You could add so many things to this, you could go just cheese, or give it a Florentine vibe with spinach. Of course there's Quorn bacon or Sainsburys do their own brand.

Vegans- I think Lidl and Adli's own puff is vegan so thats awesome. Violife have some amazing cheese substitutes. You can buy it at most independant stores but actually I think Tesco sell the original flavor. Then, obvs, you could go down the age old route of mushrooms or spinach but if you've tried the Cheatin' bacon rashers then I think they would be great in this because the ends would go a bit crispy just like the ones I've written about. Ocado stock Cheatin' and lots of independent vegan friendly shop will too. 

In Southampton we have a great shop called 'Rice up' which stocks lovely things and is vegan exclusive. 

You could brush the pastry with soy milk, I'm pretty sure it'll have the exact same effect. 

Thank you for reading this if you got this far, this was somthing a little different. I really love cooking and baking and am thinking about doing a few on my channel.

If you liked this then follow me! 

you can do this here on blogger or on bloglovin'.

Lucy xx