Balance Me

Following my diagnosis back in June, I've been looking for beauty products that are paraben free, if you want to know why, please follow this link. After a bit of research I've found a company called Balance Me and their products are all nasty free:

I contacted them and asked if they could send me a couple of samples, as with my very sensitive skin on chemo, I have to be super careful of how it might react.

I got home from work on Friday last week, and had a "while you were out" notification from the postie. I was able to pick the parcel up from the sorting office yesterday and excitingly it was 3 full sized products from Balance Me :)

They generously sent me:

• Moisture Rich Face Cream
• Rose Otto Body Cream
• Super Moisturising Hand Cream

I'll review the products once I've given them a proper try, but I used the hand cream last night and it was wonderful. Really rich, moisturising and not oily like some hand creams can be.

Thanks Balance Me :)

Tropic Skincare

A few weeks ago I noticed that my skin was getting very dry so I started looking for products that would be natural and nourishing.

I remembered from following Lord Sugar on Twitter that he worked with a lady that was in the Apprentice called Susan Ma who had set up her own natural skincare company called Tropic. I found Tropic Skincare on the internet and the products looked amazing. The trouble with chemo is you never know how your skin is going to react to certain products so through their contact form I sent them a brief message with a link to this blog explaining that I was undergoing chemotherapy and was looking for a few samples to try.

A day later I had a personal email back from Susan saying that they would be delighted to send me some samples to try and asked for my home address.

As you can tell from earlier blog posts from this week I've had a pretty rough time on T, so when I got home from the doctors today and saw a box outside the front door I was pretty buoyed. I got inside and opened the box, expecting to see a couple of sachets of products, so when I pulled out 3 full size products and a personal letter I was pretty blown away.

Tropic kindly sent me the following products:

• Body Love Buttercream
• Skin Revive Firming Cream
• Smoothing Cleanser

So far I've only smelt them (rather than used them) and they smell delicious, really citrus based and fresh which is just the kind of scent you need when undergoing chemo. Anything oily or chemically would just make you feel nauseous. I'm really excited to use them (I'll let you know what I think!).

Thank you very much Tropic!

Look Good Feel Better

 

Yesterday, I attended a wonderful course at Brighton Hospital called Look Good Feel Better. LGFB is a fantastic charity that helps women cancer patients in a really practical and positive way. They offer free skincare and make-up workshops, to help combat the visible side effects of cancer treatment, the idea of which is to boost confidence and wellbeing.

 

There are no two ways about it; finding out you have cancer is daunting and life-changing. The added stress of the appearance related side effects of treatment is bloody demoralising and very hard to cope with. It has serious effects on your self-esteem and confidence, at a time when having a PMA is very important, so the fact that LGFB exists is absolutely brilliant.

 

 

I turned up at the hospital, was shown into a room with 8 other ladies, and was given a gift bag (suited to my skin type and shade) filled with products donated by companies like Lancôme, Estée Lauder, Clinique, Max Factor, Dior, Rimmel & Boots No 7.  We were then taken through, (by 4 lovely volunteers) the LGFBs specially designed 12-Step Programme which covered skincare and make-up. The volunteers taught us how to cleanse, tone and moisturise properly (using the products in our gift bag), and then how to apply make up, from foundation all the way through to lipstick. At the end of workshop you get to take away your gift bag.
 

Picture of my wonderful bag of tricks

The above picture isn't that great so here's a list of the LOVELY things I got in my bag:

·        Garnier Face wipes

·        L'Oreal Cleanser

·        Rimmel Eye Make Up Remover

·        L'Oreal Toner

·        Clinique Moisturising Lotion

·        Lancôme Eye Gel

·        No 7 Primer

·        Clinique Concealer

·        No 7 Brush Foundation

·        No 7 Loose Powder

·        Max Factor Blusher

·        Lancôme Eye Make Up Brush

·        No 7 Eye Shadow Trio

·        Lancôme Eye Liner Pencil

·        Lancôme Eyebrow Pencil

·        Estée Lauder Projectionist VolumeMascara

·        Clinique Lip Liner

·        Max Factor Lipsticks x 2

·        L'Oreal Glam Shine Lip Gloss

·        50ml Dior "Miss Dior"Perfume

The 2 hours spent at the LGFB workshop were fantastic, I felt free to show my balding head (as other ladies in the group took off their wigs and head coverings) and came away feeling truly pampered. If anyone reading this is going through something similar to what I am, I would urge you to get in touch with LGFB and book onto one of their sessions. You can do so via this link.

Thank You LGFB, it was a really lovely treat