Firstly, my personality. I am an incredibly excitable person. At 30 years of age I still struggle to sleep the night before my birthday, and Christmas - well it is probably a good 3 nights that I am too excited to sleep through (though you will be pleased to know that I have finally out grown being too excited to sleep the night before Easter!). I just go mental knowing that there are presents in the house that I will soon get to open. But it is not just present receiving occasions that I get excited for - I get excited when I am going to get a haircut, or when I remember that my favourite TV show is on that night (for the record at the moment it is How I met Your Mother and the US version of The Office!), or even if I know that we are having something good for dinner that night! My stomach is constantly buzzing with excitement over something or other - it feels like I have a fizzed up can of Coke in there, just waiting to burst!
Coupled with my extreme case of excitism (I might have made that word up...), I am also an incredibly passionate person. I don't experience middle ground emotions such as 'like' - I either LOVE something or HATE it - there is no in between.
The final element of my personality that may explain my overly enthusiastic reviews is that I am also an incredibly laid back, easy going person. Very little phases me or gets me worked up.
So when these three elements combine it often results in a gushingly excited and positive review. My easy going nature means that I don't put overly high expectations on products - as long as they do what they are described to do, leave my skin or hair looking and feeling nice, and smell good, then I am in LOVE! And once I LOVE something my passionate side kicks in, and I just want to tell everyone about it. But then I get overly excited, develop verbal diarrhoea and out gushes an extremely enthusiastic review!
So, now that you understand me, you know to expect that a lot of my reviews will be very positive towards the product that I am reviewing. But there are some products out there that really didn't work for me. I wanted them to work, oh how badly did I want them to work. But, alas, they just were not for me. So here are some of the ones that just didn't make the cut:
Hair
- Tresemme shampoo and conditioner (can't remember which variety, though). I loved the smell of this - the chemically salon like smell but it sent my normally manageable curly hair quite wild. It was frizzy and dry and my curls lost all of their definition. I started using it soon after moving to a new area so possibly there could have been differences in the water that were responsible for my awful hair, but it was only 20 minutes away from where I previously lived so that is unlikely. And when I switched to Lush shampoo and conditioner my curls started behaving again
- John Frieda Colour Glaze This was meant to brighten up your hair colour without having to re-dye your hair - you just shampoo, condition then glaze. Colour and shine wise it made no difference to my hair. I found it hard to rinse out so it left my hair feeling a little strange - almost a bit sticky. Plus, while it didn't manage to add any colour to my hair, it did manage to add it to my bath - it stained the head rest beautifully!
Skin Care
- Paula's Choice I got Paula's book - Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me and loved it - it really is a fascinating read. So I thought that her skincare products would be amazing. But ( and this is a big 'but' for me), Paula is very anti-fragrance in her products whilst I adore beautifully fragrant products so I think my main issues were the scent of her products. I really didn't like the lack of fragrance and so this made it difficult for me to bring myself to use them. Anyway, this is what I bought:
- Skin Balancing Toner - this wasn't too bad but wasn't spectacular either. It did its job but just didn't smell overly appealing. I had to force myself to use it each day before I eventually gave up. I got the 497ml bottle and think that there is probably still around 300mls left sitting at the back of my cupboard somewhere
- Skin Balancing Daily Mattifying Lotion with SPF 15 and Antioxidants - like the toner, I really did not like the smell of this at all. I loved that it contain antioxidants and SPF but found it hard to rub in - it left my face looking quite white - as if it had zinc on.
- Joey New York - this brand must have hit Australian shores when I was in my late teens or early 20's as I remember it being promoted heavily in the magazines that I read. I ended up purchasing the following products, but was disappointed with them all:
- Pure Pores Blackhead Dissolver This was the Joey New York Product that I was most excited to try. It really sound like it was going to be the saviour to my blackhead problem that I had been searching for, for years. Unfortunately, not only did it not work, it burnt the skin on my nose. I don't have sensitive skin at all, and used this exactly as described ie I only applied it for a minute then rinsed. It tingled a bit initially on application then the tingle got stronger - but nothing to indicate any damage was being done. I removed it then later that evening noticed that my nose was bright red. Within a couple of days it completely peeled as if it had been sun burnt. Not happy, Jan.
- Egg Cream Cleanser with Egg - this smelt absolutely terrible. I don't even know how to describe it but I really could not stand the smell of it. It was a fine cleanser - non drying, cleansed well, but the awful scent lingered on my skin for ages. I ended up chucking this away as I just could not bring myself to use it. I did buy it from Rescu in its closing down sale, so perhaps I got some dodgy old stock? I guess smell a demo one if you can and if it doesn't smell awful then know that my batch was obviously rotten!!
- Lush Pied de Pepper foot lotion - OK I LOVE Lush so much, so really wanted to love all of their products - I felt disloyal, not to! But I really did not like this at all. It smelt OK - not as lovely as most Lush products, but not at all offensive but it stained my toenails and bedsheets a brownish colour. I probably should have worn an old pair of socks!
- Kenzo Flower - I absolutely adore this perfume on other people but for some reason it has a severe nuclear reaction on my skin and smells terrible. It is funny how perfume does that...funny and heart breaking at the same time!
Have you tried and of these products and had better success than I have? Are there any products that have really disappointed you?