Trimming My Stash - November 2017 Edition - Empties And Mini Reviews

Even though I've been opening my advent calendars every day since last Friday, I'm still finding it pretty hard to believe that we are nearly a week into December already. This year has been pretty much blink and you'll miss it for me and the last month of the year seems to have started at a 100 miles an hour.

Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter - 125ml
Primark PS Cuticle Oil - 10ml
AVON Mattifying Foundation - Ivory - 30ml
Beauty Bible Shower Gel - 200ml
Boots Damask Rose Sensual Body Polish - 200ml
Pixi Glow Tonic Exfoliating Toner - 250ml
Primark PS Love Your Skin Oil Balancing Facial Cleansing Wipes x 25 Wipes
Primark PS Love Your Skin Oil Balancing Facial Cleansing Wipes x 25 Wipes

Total - 8 Items

So I'm late again but I'm back and raring to go with my November empties post. I really wanted to hit double figures for only the second time in 2017 but unfortunately I fell just short and I only managed to finish 8 items. Still it was an improvement on October's total of 5 items so I'm not too downhearted. I managed to finish a good variety of items as well with a few skincare body, some body products, and one make up item making the final cut.

1. Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter - 125ml

Apologies that the picture isn't the best but get past that and if you can get your hands on a tub of this fabulous butter then do it! My bestie bought me a tub of this wonder cream after reading about it in a newspaper and it's AMAZING! Officially it's for mini people but this is without a doubt the best foot cream and dry bit cream that I've ever used! Containing olive oil and chamomile you can use this stuff from head to foot. It's sticky and rich but it absorbs eventually and it has a slight vanilla citrus scent. After a shower I've literally been slathering it on my feet and popping on a pair of fluffy socks, and after just a few hours my feet are a lot softer and a lot more moisturised. This product seems to have gone AWOL lately but I'm lead to believe that it's back and that it's just been repackaged as the Waitrose Mini Soothing Baby Bottom Butter which now retails at £3.20 and it is worth every penny! We just need the Waitrose store in Intu Eldon Square to start stocking it again now so I can get some more!

2. Primark PS Cuticle Oil - 10ml

For many years now I've been devoted to OPI's Avoplex Cuticle Oil but after discovering this little bottle of magic in Primark, I pretty much waved it goodbye. At only £1 a bottle this stuff is fabulous is contains Avocado oil, and it does it's thing. It absorbs into the cuticles and nails in an instant and it makes an instant difference to both the look and the condition of the cuticles and the nails. I've bought a few for family members in the past and like me they love it. If something is cheap it doesn't mean that it's awful and this product is a case in point - it's brilliant!

3. AVON Mattifying Foundation - Ivory - 30ml

Now I'm usually a big lover of AVON foundations but for some reason I just didn't get on with this one at all. It was just too thick , and I actually really struggled to squeeze it out of the tube. On the face it looked very mask like and cakey and whilst I do prefer a matte foundation this one was just too heavy. The only positive was the colour match. AVON are always changing their products, lines and formulations and this particular product doesn't appear to be in the current line. One bad experience won't put me off using AVON foundations in the future though and I already have a couple of new ones to try.

4. Beauty Bible Shower Gel - 200ml

Next up another product that I recently tested for Beauty Bible, again due to their restrictions I can't really talk about it on the blog or identify it! It was a shower gel from a largely natural brand and I really liked it but I wasn't a fan of the packaging.

5. Boots Damask Rose Sensual Body Polish - 200ml

I honestly have no idea exactly how old this product is. My mam was sorting through some of her beauty drawers and she gave me this to use up. I've tried and tried to teach her about body scrubs and exfoliating but I've eventually resigned myself to defeat, she doesn't get it and she doesn't see the point - a shower gel and a body mop will as close as she ever gets to giving herself a good scrub - at times I wonder if we're even related!! So I ended up with this pleasant rose scented body scrub which of course I managed to use up in less than a month. It was a cream based scrub with very small exfoliating particles, not my favourite formulation of body scrub by any means but I used it up. This own brand range from Boots seems to be long gone but I'm sure you could easily find something similar.

6. Pixi Glow Tonic Exfoliating Toner - 250ml

Like so many bloggers and online dwellers I bought this product because of Caroline Hirons! It's a cult product and with good reason, from having relatively decent but slightly oily skin over the last 12 months or so, my skin has regained some of it's teenage angst! This stuff though has been a life saver, it's helped my knock some of those horrible hormonal spots on the head and it stopped my skin looking as dull and grey as it can do when it's craving a bit of sunshine. I will definitely buy this product again but at the moment I'm trying out the Superdrug Natural Radiant Glycolic Toner which is supposed to be pretty similar to PIXI Glow but without the price tag. I'll let you know how I got with that in a future post, oh! and if you are a PIXI fan then you might want to make sure your following my blog,  because I may have a giveaway post coming up in the next week or so that you won't want to miss!

7. Primark PS Love Your Skin Oil Balancing Facial Cleansing Wipes x 25 Wipes

8. Primark PS Love Your Skin Oil Balancing Facial Cleansing Wipes x 25 Wipes

Would it really be a monthly empties post on LouLouLand without any mention of these wipes? I think not. I'm hoping upon hope to get a few make up posts up before Christmas and make up pictures mean lots of swatch shooting and that means a lot of wrist and forearm wiping! These wipes are a real must have for me and I'm always finding new uses for them. I was actually in Primark this week though (haul post and video coming soon!), and I couldn't find these tea tree based wipes anywhere! I really hope they haven't discontinued them, I'll definitely be back in before Christmas so I'll have another look then and in the meantime I picked up a couple of packets of their micellar wipes to tide me over and get me through another couple of weeks of swatching and sanitising.

So they were my November empties, I'm planning on making a big push in the next few weeks to try and end my empties year on a high. Given my performance in 2017 as a whole, beating Novembers target of 8 items won't be easy but I'll give it my best shot 

Again I'm sorry that this post is so late - my time doesn't seem to be my own at the minute and my to do list is getting longer by the day but hopefully now that I've seen some friends before Christmas and that I've nearly finished my Christmas shopping. I'll have a bit of time to actually put the Christmas tree up, get some You Tube videos shot, and get some blog posts written - fingers crossed anyways x If you have any questions on any of the products that I finished in November then please leave me a comment below x