nu³ - The Nutrition Experts

Although my Instagram feed tends to be full of junk, I'm actually really into health food. I've often mentioned my expensive trips to Holland & Barrett to stock up on chia seeds, supplements & natural beauty products. As much as I love that store their stock is often quite limited. Like almost every other shop on the UK high street, if you're looking for something specific you're probably better off looking online. For example protein powders are something I always buy online because they're much cheaper and there's loads more types & flavours available. I buy from quite a few different health & nutrition websites. I was recently introduced to nu³. They're a German based company who specialise in organic/natural beauty, food & fitness products. As well as having a huge range of products, they also have a live chat feature so you can get free advice from industry experts. nu³ are currently a leading supplier of supplements throughout Europe. To celebrate the recent launch of their UK e-store, they sent me a few different products to try out.

Coconut water is one of my very favourite drinks. It's incredibly refreshing & is the perfect thing to rehydrate you after a workout. I'd never tried Kulau Pure Coconut Water* before but it tastes really great. I often take a carton with me to the gym but if I'm at home I love using coconut water as a smoothie base. For a really quick & nutritious but also delicious smoothie I blend together a carton of coconut water, one banana & a cup of frozen blueberries. It's super easy and really good for you.

I drink Yogi Tea nearly every night. Their Cinnamon & Chocolate teas are firm favourites of mine. They're really good at curbing sugar cravings after dinner & are very calming before bed. Bright Mood* is a new flavour to me but I liked the sound of it's mood enhancing properties. It's flavoured with cinnamon, hops, orange peel, cardamom, fennel, licorice, basil & lavender. The tea bags smell pretty horrid but the taste is a lot more palatable.

I'm a big fan of Burt's Bees so I was excited to try their Hand Salve*. I love Burt's Bees hand products especially their Beeswax & Banana Hand Creme and Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme. This product is a rich balm that would be perfect for anyone with really dry hands & it's extremely effective on cuticles too. It has a gorgeous lavender & rosemary scent to keep your hands smelling lovely all day long.

Weleda are a natural & organic skincare brand. They also create holistic remedies & homeopathic medicine which I think is really cool. I've tried a couple of their products before & really rate their baby range. Weleda Skin Food* is an incredibly thick face & body cream. This is one of Weleda’s oldest products & was originally formulated in 1926. It often pops up backstage at London Fashion Week. It's quite hard to spread so it's best used on really dry patches such as elbows, knees & feet. It's very moisturising & calms any irritation. It features plant extracts of viola, chamomile & calendula to soothe the skin & restore smoothness. It also contains pansy extract which is well known for it's antiseptic properties. I really like this product & apparently Adele loves it too!

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Love Me Beauty Box October 2013

Love Me Beauty Box* - £10 + £2.95 Delivery

Last month's Love Me Beauty box (previously BeautecoBox) was definitely an exciting one with four full sized products and just one sample. Love Me Beauty provide you with three different boxes to choose from which sets them apart from any other beauty box on the market. I was really looking forward to trying out some Lord & Berry products for the first time and the inclusion of a full sized bottle of eye makeup remover meant that I decided to opt for menu 3.

Balm Balm Indulge Bath & Shower Oil
I've made a conscious effort to have more baths than showers recently because there's just so many lovely bath salts, oils, bombs etc. out there. I love the NEOM bath oils so I had high hopes for this one & it smells gorgeous. It contains essential oils of ylang ylang, patchouli, & clary sage so the scent is quite a deep & musky floral one. It is incredibly relaxing and this little bottle lasted for 3 baths. A very indulgent organic bathtime treat. You can also pop some on a flannel for use in the shower or dab a drop on your pulse points for some instant relaxation.

Weleda Millet Nourishing Shampoo
This millet shampoo contains macadamia nut oil, extracts of organic millet husks and sage to gently cleanse and nourish your hair. Weleda are known for their natural eco-friendly products. This shampoo is SLS free and features extract of grapefruit & peppermint. The smell is kinda like minty porridge, which I have to admit I like haha. This was the sample of the box so the tube was a little bit small for my hair. I used it on Chloe instead and it made her hair really shiny. She has really frizzy curly hair so it didn't do much for the condition of it but it works as a gentle shampoo suitable for the whole family. However the full size bottle costs £9 so I can't see myself repurchasing it.

Amie Bright Eyes
I've tried a few Amie products now & they're a great choice if you want good skincare on a budget. I recently ran out of Bioderma so this product is one of the main reasons I chose this particular box. This eye makeup remover is very gentle and doesn't make my eyes sting at all. It features meadow cornflower, chamomile, grape water & cucumber to cleanse whilst soothing & refreshing the eye area at the same time. It is oil-free so there's no horrible greasiness afterwards. It manages to remove my normal eye makeup really well but it completely failed when I tried to get off the Lord & Berry waterproof products. For that reason I think I prefer micellar waters because the oil content in those helps to remove waterproof mascara without leaving any greasiness either. This works perfectly well on everyday makeup. I do seem to be getting through the bottle rather quickly though!

Lord & Berry Scuba Mascara
I go swimming every week so I've been looking for a good waterproof mascara. This came very close but it was let down by one thing - it is incredibly dry. If you ignore that dryness though, this makes your lashes look stunning. Never has anything made my lashes look so long or hold a curl like this before. They were almost touching my eyebrows! I had to run the tube under a hot tap first to get anything out though, which really isn't acceptable for a new product. The dryness also made my lashes quite flaky & I had some black bits drop down underneath my eyes. It is definitely waterproof though and it took a bit of effort with some cleansing oil & a muslin cloth to remove it properly. It's just frustrating that this was so dry because it had so much potential!

Lord & Berry Smudgeproof Eyeliner in Smoke
This waterproof eyeliner is actually grey in colour. It looks really nice & is a softer alternative to black eyeliner. This stuff does not move! It doesn't run, smudge or transfer at all & only comes off with an oil-based makeup remover. However again there were a couple of problems with this Lord & Berry product. The edges of the pencil were raised above the nib so I had to sharpen it a bit first before I could use it. It also wouldn't show up at all on my waterline. Instead I'd recommend using it all over the lid & then blending it out quickly with a MAC 217 brush. It does set quickly so you do have to work fast. I do like this product & the colour is pretty unique so I can see myself using this a lot. Grey smokey eye looks are my fave.

This is the first time I've felt a little bit disappointed with my Love Me Beauty box. I think it was mainly let down by the Lord & Berry products because they had the potential to be amazing but fell at the last hurdle. Apparently some other people have experienced problems with those products too. Product quality and customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance to Love Me Beauty, so they have released this statement:

"It has come to our attention that some products dispatched in our October box from our long term partner Lord & Berry, have not met the high standards set by Lord & Berry and ourselves. As our customers are the heart of our business, this has been brought to the attention of Lord & Berry's head office. Lord & Berry has set a team to investigate as to why the products fell below the high standards that they set themselves and are making additional quality checks to all of their products that they send internationally. As a gesture of goodwill and apology to our members, Lord & Berry will be providing in next month’s box a full sized lipstick which retails at £12 to all members. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

I think it's brilliant that they're putting things right and are giving everyone a free lipstick next month. It shows that they do care about the feedback they get from customers and don't just fob people off with a statement (take note, Bleach London). You can subscribe to Love Me Beauty for £10 a month plus £2.95 delivery with no minimum subscription term. Visit the Love Me Beauty website to find out more.

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