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Skincare Saturday: Nivea Urban Skin Detox Range
Trying out new Nivea skincare products get me excited because I’ve found that the brand always seems to satisfy my skin. Nivea has recently launched their Urban Skin Detox range, and right off the bat I was loving the updated packaging. It not only has their staple navy blue, but also bright pops of green for a little extra pizzazz. The intent of this range is to defend your skin against pollution, stress and other aggressors while maintaining moisture.
The first item I tried out as the 3-in-1 Clay Cleanser. This isn’t just a normal cleanser though, it actually has small exfoliating bits in the mix. Interestingly, Nivea says that this can be used as a mask, but I really only ever found myself using it as my morning face wash. I found the texture to be quite thick once you squeezed it out of the tube, but spread very easily onto the skin. The little scrubby bits in the product are quite tiny and very spaced out. They worked well to exfoliate my face, but it was more of a gentle scrub than a deep, down cleanser (which is fine! Makes it good for daily use.). I love, LOVE the smell of this – it’s fresh, and clean without any real hint of that clay (which I don’t love the scent of traditionally).
With this range they’ve also released two masks – a Purifying Clay Mask and a Mattifying Peel-Off Mask.
I love any kind of peel off mask, so I was keen to try this one, although I must say that the idea of a mattifying peel off mask was a bit odd to me. The mask uses organic green tea and black rice and forms a peel-off film that removes dead skin cells and refines the appearance of pores. While I did find my face looked slightly more matte after removing this mask, I didn’t notice any long lasting matte effects on my face. I did find that this mask dried down much faster than most peel off masks I’ve used in the past which is much appreciated.
I had a lot of fun with the Purifying Clay Mask! This one smells delightful and gave me an immediate tingly feeling as soon as it made contact with my skin. I really like when I can FEEL like skincare is working, so a mask with a tingle effect brings me great joy. What surprised me about this one was that they encourage you to wear it for only about 5 minutes. That’s some fast masking!
The products I ended up using the most were definitely the Night Gel and Day Moisturizers. Both come in a tub and have quite a gelatinous cream texture.
The Day Moisturizer… wow… you need so little product with this one. I found if I over-applied the product I would get a little bit of balling up on my face. So apply this sparingly because it spreads out very easily and you need very, very little to cover your entire face. I found that this one left me with a bit of dewy glow even after a few hours of application.
The Night Gel Moisturizer was definitely my favourite. It’s a touch thicker than the day moisturizer, but not excessively gloppy. It was fantastic for applying at bedtime because it was super hydrating without being too thick. There’s nothing I dislike more than putting on a super heavy moisturizer and then having my face stick to my pillow at night. This one was glorious!
In short, the whole Nivea Urban Skin Detox range is a lot of fun and quite effective. For me, my top picks were the Purifying Clay Mask, the Night Gel Moisturizer and the Clay Cleanser. I love that the products had a new fresh scent for Nivea, and that they easily incorporated into my usual skincare routine.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
Stila Little White Lies Liquid Eye Shadows (Review & Swatches)
I am an absolute sucker for all of the liquid Stila eyeshadows. The Glitter & Glow Liquid Eye Shadows are some of my most favourite products in my makeup collection! So when I saw that Stila was releasing their Little White Lies collection I was super excited because not only does it add more fun colours to the Stila liquid shadow range, but it also incorporates something new – an ivory duochrome shift!
The theme behind this range is that each shade appears to be a white/ivory type colour, but each shade shifts to a different luminescent shade depending on how the light hits your eye. Worth noting though is that these are shimmer liquid shadows, and not glitters. I know glitter isn’t in the name, but I’m so used to the Glitter & Glows that I just assume everything Stila puts out is chockful of glitter!
As with all of the other Stila liquid shadows, these come with a paddle foot applicator for easy application. While I found that application with the paddle foot is quite good (as with all of the others), I did find that with the light nature of these shadows that applying them with the paddle foot was great, but I often wanted to blend out the edge with a fluffier brush.
I’ve shown a slightly off focus shot for the swatch photo so that you can see how the shift looks. If I photograph them straight on they mostly just look ivory or a toned-down shade. I do find that Lilac Legend and Fuchsia Fiction are very, very similar in tone. They’re a bit different in a swatch, but on the eyes they come across very similarly.
Stila Little White Lies Liquid Eye Shadow – on eyes
For this look I put Lilac Legend on the inner corner of my eye. I love applying these in this manner because it adds a special pop of brightness and luminosity to an otherwise singular colour eyeshadow look.
Mint Myth is my favourite out of the three I tried for this post. In this eye look I applied it over my bare eyelid on the inner corner, and then I layered it on top of eyeshadow on the middle of my lid. You can see how it takes on a different shift of colour depending on what the liquid shadow is over.
Fuchsia Fiction was an interesting shade. I saw a lot of blue in the shadow (even though it’s quite pink), and when it’s layered over top of a bit of red it definitely goes stronger in pink with a lot of icy blue reflects.
Final Thoughts
As with all of the other Stila Liquid Eye Shadows… these are a knockout! I love these so, so much. The duochrome reflect with a white-ivory base is absolutely beautiful. I do wish these were straight up glitters, but that’s because I’m always dying for new liquid glitters. As it is, these are a lot of fun to play with and perform as good as all of my other Stila liquid shadows – they stay put all day and apply beautifully. Love!
Two of the liquid eyeshadows were sent to me for consideration, I purchased the third one. Post contains affiliate links.