inspiredwellbeing.com haul

Last week I put my first order in to
www.inspiredwellbeing.com, I have been eyeing the website for a while because I have been curious to try couleur caramel which is suppose to be a natural cosmetic brand, to my standards I don't consider them completely natural- I consider them to be a less toxic brand then other brands such as Revlon or L'oreal, so they are absolutely more natural than those kinds of brands but not the best- that's for sure.

So couleur caramel is very expensive here but on the inspierdwellbeing.com website they are much, much cheaper so I ordered a few things to try out as well as a few skin and hair products.

A'kin Unscented Intensive Hand Nail & Cuticle Treatment 75ml x2  $10 each on special 
Well I ordered 2 of these because that was the limit and I go through hand cream so fast and I loved that it was the intensive treatment and unscented, unfortunately I was only given 1 of this and then accidentally they put a different type of A'kin hand treatment in, a lavender one which isn't unscented or intensive. I emailed them about it and they have no more left and said that they cannot send it to me when they get it in for that price. So my options were to send it back, and it sounded like he expected me to pay for shipping and they would refund me the $10, so I would have to pay for their mistake and not even have much money left over from the $10 refund since I was expected to pay for shipping, no thank you, I've decided to keep it and even though I don't like lavender so I hope it's not too strong.



Alchemy Conditioner Macadamia & Wheat Protein Treatment 225ml $10
This was on special too so I wanted to try it, I was interested that the macadamia's were cold pressed and it sounded good. I still haven't found an amazing conditioner so I don't think it exists but maybe it's this?

Top Left: 80 Matt Cocoa  Top Right: 43 Pearly White  Bottom: Concealer sample in "light sandy beige" 

Left to Right; 80 Matt Cocoa, 43 Pearly White and Light Sandy Beige Concealer

Couleur Caramel eyeshadow " 80 Matt Cocoa"  $5.95

 A very warm toned brown, a bit of a purple- red undertone. Nicely pigmented but wouldn't have spent $6 had I known it contained talc, which is same with the pearly ivory and I assume their whole range of eyeshadows. In the picture the matt cocoa shows up more like a burnt orange but in person it isn't, it's more brown with some purple/red to it.

Couleur Caramel Eyeshadow  Sample "43 Pearly Ivory " $2.95

Well I assumed that the sample size would be smaller than the non-sample size but it is not,  I emailed inspiredwellbeing to ask what the difference is and why I paid double for the exact same size? They said the sample and non-sample are the same size but the packaging is different- now maybe I was given the wrong thing but the package to the pearly ivory and matt cocoa are exactly the same, so I might have paid double for no reason or there was a mistake- not sure. I decided not to email back cause to be honest I find it unlikely that I will buy these eyeshadows again since they are claimed to be "natural" by Couleur Caramel  but contain talc which I didn't know when I bought them.

 The colour is a very shimmery off white colour- maybe a pale cream colour, very pretty highlight colour.

Couleur Caramel Concealer Sample "light sandy beige" $4.50

Very yellow toned- which I am not. I might have to add this to my August blog sale. The texture feels ok maybe leaning towards the dry side, not too sure about this.

Top: Eyebrow pencil in blonde      Middle: Beige    Bottom: Chocolate Brown

Sorry about the crappy picture!!!!! from left to right; Beige, Chocolate brown and eyebrow pencil in blonde. Note that the chocolate brown colour in the picture isn't as burnt orange looking.

Couleur Caramel eyebrow pencil $6.95 Blonde 12122
Nice colour, very hard though like the eyeliners, a more neutral-ish cooler toned brow pencil finally since they always seem to be so warm which doesn't suit me. Not sure how this will go though, I might do a review.

Couleur caramel eye & Lip Pencil $5.60 in "12111 Beige"  and " 12110 Chocolate Brown " 

I don't know in what world the "beige" colour would be actually considered as a beige cause to me it looks like a light-medium brown, and looks nothing like the picture on the couleur caramel website so that was very disappointing. The chocolate brown colour has a very warm undertone which I expected but it's very red undertone which I wasn't crazy about. These are very hard though, I don't know if I can use them for my eye because they are very hard and I'm afraid I will hurt myself so to be honest I regret buying them- very disappointing.

Natralia Nourish NatureColour in Almond Blonde 8N + Shampoo 

Natralia Nourish NatureColour Almond Blonde 8N + shampoo $16.95
So I think this brand is discontinued, well at least it was from Priceline according to a lady there.  I saw the colour and thought it was really nice, I've never tried a more natural  hair colour brand. I have a rule not to go blonde at home, I usually go to the hairdressers but I decided to break my own rule and hope that I don't regret it. This could be a very big mistake but I hope it turns out good, I will probably colour my hair in September so after winter, I love that it has an expiry date so that's great.

I might sell the shampoo in my August blog sale because it says it's for golden highlights and I prefer purple shampoos to tone down brassiness.




All in all I am not very happy with this haul, I am disappointed with many things in it, so far I don't really recommend couleur caramel but I will give it a proper go and see, but yeah overpriced in Australia, I can't believe it is so cheap on this website compared to the recommend retail price so if you are interested check out there website.

Burt's Bees Winter Grab Bag Haul/ First Impressions

So first thing I have to say is in my opinion Burt's Bees does not have a perfect ingredients list (phenoxyethanol being one that springs to mind), usually I would buy a different brand with "cleaner" ingredients but I did decide to buy this because I was kind of curious with what was in it and I was really happy with the price. The usual prices of Burt's Bees products in all honesty is ridiculously expensive, I think the prices they charge for ALL there products are absolutely a rip off, I would hate to see the price of there products if there were completely organic.

Anyway so I was in a bit of a sad mood on Friday when I saw I got an email from Burt's Bees, I don't always look at the emails I've signed up to cause they have this exciting title then I open the email and it is underwhelming. Anyway I opened the email saw the price $39.95 for 7 products that would usually are valued at $126.95, usually when I see these kind of "goody bags" from companies the contents really let me down but this time the content wasn't like amazingly exciting or anything but I think it was good and there were some things I needed or would like to try.
 So with me being in a bit of a crummy mood then seeing such a  good saving which appealed to my shopaholic and bargain buying tendencies- I caved and bought it. To be honest I don't know if I would have gotten that email another day if I would have bought it, hmmm maybe I would have actually, don't know anyway I did buy it.

Of course I had to pay for shipping which was $6.90, shipping prices in Australia really confuse me because they are so expensive here, it's ridiculous- but anyway I thought it could have been worse. Free shipping is available if you spend over $75 so I had a quick look at the products on there and prices were just too much  that it wasn't worth it for me.

 On the email they sent to me it says shipping will take 3-12 business days but I could have sworn it said 2-3 when I had just finished putting the order in, I could be wrong though. I got it Wednesday July 3rd and ordered it Friday June 28th.

The email did say that limited  Grab Bags are available which is another ploy to get people to hurry up and buy which I did lol. Something I love about Burt's bees is that they tell you how much of each product is natural which I appreciate.