Oracles of beauty - the little pink powder

Well done if you've already guessed what I'm about to discuss, those little tubes and pots of brightly coloured pink, ripe with the promise of revealing hidden secrets. Like the real oracles of ancient greece however I'm inclined to think of their predictions as deliberatley vague to provide the illusion of mystery.

All right all right I'll get to the point. This outbreak of colour change "shifts to the most perfect pink for YOU" products that simply refuses to go back to the mists of the 80's from which it crawled. I hate the way they use science, not complex science mind you, science we've all done in our fabulous free education, to attempt to baffle us into believing many ridiculous things, as I shall demonstrate below...

The products all claim to use "the pH in your skin" to adjust their colour. We will start by dissecting just this one claim. Let's assume that this is correct and the products do react to pH, by no means an impressive feat, red cabbage and Phenolphthalein can perform this circus trick and with their clear to pink spectrum it wouldn't surprise me if the chemical in these products was of similar origin or makeup.

Let's have a closer look then, pH is a measure of acid/alkaline. 7 in the middle is neutral. Stomach acid being the strongest acid at 1 and bleach the strongest alkali at 13. The general idea - that we got from school anyway - was that alkalis (at the levels most people would come into contact with) were far more dangerous than acids. Our skin is slightly acidic at pH 5.5. Looking at the way Phenolphthalein works i'd wager whatever chemical they use is very sensitive to slight variations around pH 5-6 with the pink darkening towards the more alkali end.

Indicators are a fairly basic, but visually impressive science and i'm not averse to their use as an exciting and entertaining product, I love science, I love pink, these are normally something i'd be all over. But no, what I don't like about these products is the way they heavily imply that whatever pink it turns is your OMGSUPERSECRETMOSTPERFECTESTJUSTFORYOUSPECIALSNOWFLAKE.

The product changes colour, it reacts to the pH in your skin, pH has nothing to do with tone or what suits you, the lipstick/gloss/blush CHANGES COLOUR - that is awesome in and of itself, I don't need to be told that it knows what suits me better than my own eyes do, I'm not going to buy it for fashion advice, If I buy it at all it's because it uses science and changes colour.

Lush Jackie Oates review

I enjoyed Lush's previous tint offering in light pink, but it was far too dark for my skin and I had to water it down with moisturiser so much it was hardly worth the effort. This new ivory colour is much better. I still mix it with my factor 50 to make the colour more like my real skin though, but as suncream is something I wear every day that isn't a problem, it's just combining two steps in one.

I still powder over this as I find it does next to nothing to stop oil breaking through.

It's not unreasonably priced at 7.50 but that does make me question lush's claims that you can use it straight as a foundation. The formula is a very thick cream, and in such a small jar (the same size as their lip scrubs) I wouldn't want to use it straight for a whole host of reasons. I mix a dab (on the end of one finger) in with a dab of sunblock and find that it gives skin tone improvement over my whole face.

While I do like this product i'm not sure if I would repurchase, my card details went missing in the big lush hack that occured a few months ago now, I bought from them in november and was not at all impressed to find out they still had my card details and information stored in february, It took 40 days for me to get my bank card back after the big fiasco.

Having finally got my card back and thinking everything was fine now, I bought this little pot in store a few days ago. Later I found that my card had been flagged as "retain" to shops, meaning that it had been flagged as stolen by my bank. Thinking the cash machine would tell me what was wrong was a mistake, the machine ate my card. Santander are now sending me a new card, but it will take 10 working days and will be sent to my parents address (I live away from home at university) meaning I have to travel across the country - without a bank card - to get it back.

Now, obviously i'm a bit miffed that my bank flagged my card as stolen when I didn't report it stolen, and then didn't seem to have any idea why the machine ate my card when I called, but once again i'm stuck with no access to my money because the banking world doesn't think Lush can be trusted with card details and when I have to commute to work no fancy bath product is worth sacrificing my card for.

Tangle Teezer review

I've been wanting to try this for a while, the beads on the bristles of my tigi bedhead brush have started to come off and I was worried about my hair being damaged. I picked up the compact version so I can carry it around in my bag without the bristles getting bent out of shape, a problem I encountered frequently with the Tigi brush.

The tangle teezer is awkward to hold. Perhaps not the big one, but this one is for me. It does the job brilliantly, better than my ouchless tigi brush even but takes longer because it's so awkward to maneuver. The shape is fine, it's the fact that you don't have a handle that's a paid in the backside. I'm sure there's a very good reason for it being a palm brush and is probably part of the reason it tugs so little, but it means that to brush your OWN hair if your hair is very long begins to require an oddly large amount of shoulder and elbow flexibility.

The brush is small (shown here next to a body shop face compact) and I like the clip on bristle cover, though I do not like the hole in the middle of the brush. Oh no I do not like it Sam I am, it makes it feel to me like it will not work as well.

My hair is long, thick and curly and this brush does smooth it out and leave it managable and soft, though mercifully not flattened. The brush claims to work well on curly hair, and it does, but I have noticed that it has a straightening effect which I'm not a fan of but others might love. It can be a little awkward to get the tangles at the back of the neck, again a nice handle would be helpful here XD

All in all it's a nice brush, does what it says on the tin and doesn't ruin your hair, which should save you a fortune in cutting and maintaining, though I'm still not wholly convinced that 10 quid for what feels in your hand like cheep plastic is fair since my lovely Tigi brush only cost me a fiver.