Review: Olay Fresh Effects Bead Me up Exfoliating Cleanser

A while back I reviewed the rest of the Olay Fresh Effects line. I have finally been able to use Bead Me Up enough to give it an informed review. Bead Me Up is an exfoliating cleanser.  As exfoliating cleansers go (at least the ones that I have tried) this one is pretty unique. 

This cleanser foams like Shine Shine Go Away to help clean all of the dirt out of your pores.  Because it foams, you do not need to use a lot of product.  It also has a ton of tiny little microbeads to exfoliate.  The microbeads are very, very small. When I use it on my already damp face, I can barely feel any exfoliation going on. But when I use it on dry skin, it exfoliates a lot better.  I would recommend trying it either way based on your preference, but I feel this cleanser exfoliates better on dry skin than on wet skin.

Cleansing wise, this cleans really well! My skin definitely feels clean and fresh.  It is not drying like Shine Shine Go Away. 

This isn’t the best face scrub I have tried; I have tried many that exfoliate much better. But as cleanser, this is great and it does have the added benefit of light exfoliation. 

The packaging is the same as Shine Shine Go Away, a squeeze tube. Which I like, it makes it easy to dispense the product. 

I should mention that this year, Olay is expanding the Fresh Effects line. The new products include:

-Swirled Deep  Pore Clean Plus Exfoliating  Scrubs in three scents:  Green Apple and Jasmine Tea, White Grapefruit and Green Tea and Honeysuckle and White Tea

- Dew Over Hydrating Gel Moisturizer

- Soak up the Sun Protection  Moisturizing Sunscreen SPF 15

- As Fresh As New Exfoliating Wet Cloths

- Bright on Schedule Eye Awakening Cream

These new products seem great and I am excited to try quite a few of them. 

Olay Fresh Effects VaVa Vivid Cleansing System Review

 Disclaimer: Everything in this post was given to my complimentary from Influenster.

I was so excited when I opened my Influenster VoxBox and saw this. Not only was it a cleanser from Olay, a brand my mom and I have trusted for years but it also came with a brush. I do love my Sephora face cleansing brush but I've always wanted to try an electric brush.

Shine, Shine Go Away! is a powdered cleanser meant to minimize shine. This type of cleanser is ideal for anyone with oily skin and problems with shiny skin. The brush is meant to give a deep clean and fit into facial contours.

I found the cleanser to be drying, which I expected from a powdered cleanser. To me it isn't a huge deal because I can always put on some moisturizer. My skin has been terrible these past few months. After using this cleanser for just about every day for a week, I saw an improvement in the overall look and feel of my skin. It does cleanse well. It also smells great and lathers well.

I was most excited to try the brush this cleansing system came with, but I was disappointed with it. The brush doesn't have normal bristles, but semi chunky rubber bristles. I am not impressed with that. I expected the brush head to move or at least do something more when turner on, all it did was lightly vibrate.  By far the biggest disappointment of the brush: its size. This brush is really small! It is nice for fitting into the contours of your face and reaching those harder to clean places but it is too small. I would've liked it a lot more if the brush was larger.

My only other complaint is for some reason after using this cleanser, the brush has a not so pleasant smell. I'm not sure why.

Olay claims that this system will give a 400% better clean. It does clean very well but I wouldn't go as far to say that my skin was that much cleaner. I feel that my Sephora brush gives a much better clean.

Over all, I did like this product even though I have many complaints about the brush. I would totally buy this cleanser again, but I wouldn't buy the brush. I will be sticking to my Sephora brush.

You can purchase this cleansing system from www.olayfresheffects.com and www.amazon.com . If you just want to learn more about the Olay Fresh Effects system just visit http://www.olayfresheffects.com/ .

Influenster SweetHeart VoxBox

                                                             
                       Everything in this post was given to me complimentary from Influenster.

As you may know from previous posts, I do a lot with Influenster.com. I have gotten a VoxBox from them before and had so much fun participating in the program and reviewing all of the products. I was even more excited when I was selected to receive this VoxBox, the SweetHeart VoxBox. I was very surprised when I opened my box to see all of this:

In the box was a travel size of Not Your Mother's Beach Babe spray, Olay Fresh Effects Va Va Vivid cleansing system, Skinnygirl Daily Skinnygirl On-the-Go Bar, and Secret Clinical Strength Stress Response deodorant.

The outside of the box also had a pink heart glued to it, which I thought was really cute.

I will be posting individual review posts for everything I received (yes, even the Skinnygirl bar, even though this is a beauty blog). These review posts might not be up for a week or two, next week I will be getting all of my wisdom teeth out at once and I will need some time to recover from that. I'm hoping to have at least some of the reviews posted this weekend or even the end of next week. Don't worry about not seeing posts from me next week, I already have some queued to post! Keep your eyes out for reviews of all of these products, which will be coming soon to this blog. I can't wait to share what I think!

Lush reviews

This post is going to be short reviews of some of the Lush products from my Lush haul (http://lipstickxzombie.blogspot.com/2013/02/lush-haul.html). I have already reviewed Lush Shower Jelly (http://lipstickxzombie.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-lush-shower-jelly.htmll). I will not be reviewing every item from my haul yet, I haven't tried everything yet but once I do I will post reviews.

My first review will be of the Toner Tabs.

I don't remember what the name of these Toner Tabs were, but I got them as part of Lush's after Christmas sale and they were buy 1 get 1 free. To use these you boil some water, pour it into a bowl and plop in one of these tabs. Then you stick your face over the bowl and cover your head with a towel. This will steam out your pores, cleaning out all of the dirt in them. Afterwards you wipe your face with the toner in the bowl. What I thing is even cooler about this product is that you can take that toner (cool it first) , put it in some sort of bottle and use it as a toner for about a week (make sure to keep it in the fridge). Even though $2-$3 may seem a bit much for one of these little tabs, they are effective and  you can get a pretty good bang for your buck. After using these my skin felt very clean and it felt soft.

Next up is the Cupcake Fresh Face Mask.

First off, I love this product so, so much! Lush Fresh Face Masks are only sold in stores, they are made with fresh ingredients and they will spoil within a few weeks. These also must be stored in the refrigerator. I keep mine in the freezer, which also helps it last longer. I have combination skin and I have been getting a lot of breakouts lately so I thought that this mask would help. It did! The very first time I used it I noticed a difference, it also minimized some of the redness in my face and made my skin very soft. Any time I wax my eyebrows I always get breakouts around my eyebrows. Twice I have used this mask right after waxing and I didn't get a single breakout. This mask is a life saver! It smells great and even though it doesn't look like a lot of product, I got many uses out of this pot. I am devastated that I'm out of it, I can't wait until I can buy more of this.

                                                           Popcorn Lip Scrub

 As mentioned in my previous post, this was part of Lush's after Christmas sale. My friend bought one and gave me the free one. I've been a little hesitant to buy one of their lip scrubs myself. When I first saw one in the store I thought, $10 for this little thing? I now kick myself for even thinking that! A little bit goes a very, very long way with Lush's lip scrubs. So $10 is actually a pretty good price. I've been using mine since early January 1-2 times a week and I haven't even put a dent into it. This is a really, really good lip scrub. It gets all of the dried skin off of my lips. It leaves them soft and flake free. It makes it so much better and easier for me to wear OCC Lip Tars and some of my more matte lipsticks. This lip scrub smells and tastes amazing, just like kettle corn. When this pot is dwindling I am most definitely going to buy the Bubble Gum scrub. I smelled it in the store and it smells heavenly.

                                                             Ocean Salt Facial Cleanser

The very first product from Lush's website that drew me in was the Ocean Salt cleanser. I really wanted to buy it to try it, but it is SO expensive! When I went to my local Lush, one of the sales girls gave me a sample of this. When I first used it I wasn't very impressed. I didn't think it cleansed my face well and it tasted (I accidentally got some in my mouth) and smelled like margarita salt. But, I tried it two more times using more product and now I absolutely love this cleanser. It is very refreshing and leaves my skin feeling great. It exfoliates and moisturizes well. I recommend only using this once or twice a week, if you use it ever day the exfoliation will be too much. That being said, I love this product and even though the price tag is very steep, I am planning on eventually buying this product.

The very last product I will be reviewing today is the Daddy - O shampoo.

I was looking at the shampoos at Lush and the sales girl asked me if I would like to try anything. I was overwhelmed by all of the different shampoos so I let her pick something for me. She picked Daddy - O because I have a lot of blonde in my hair since all of the different colors (the pink, blue and purple) have now faded away. The purple is meant to make blonde hair more blonde. After a few uses, it does work. I have one spot in my hair that is orangey from my faded pink hair (oh, how I can't wait to dye it again), this shampoo took away some of the orangeyness. My favorite thing about this shampoo is the smell. It smells so good! It has a lavender scent to it and the scent stays with my hair after shampooing.

Lush haul

Here it is, finally, my Lush haul post! This is all the result of 2 visits to a local Lush store with a friend. These were from my first few Lush visits ever, so I'm pretty new to all of these products and to Lush its self. Some of the samples I haven't gotten to try yet, but once I do I'll do a review on all of them. The picture backgrounds and quality are a bit different. I had taken pictures of everything at two different times with different cameras and different backgrounds.

One of the coolest things I got was the Toner Tabs.

I originally bought 2 of them, but I had used one by the time I had taken pictures for this post. I will be posting a review of this along with a few other products from this haul on Monday.

Next I bought 2 Whoosh Shower Jellies. I had used my first pot a few times and loved it so much that I had to buy another when I had the chance. I have already reviewed this, you can find the review at: http://lipstickxzombie.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-lush-shower-jelly.html .

Cupcake Fresh Face Mask. I had been dying to try one of these masks, my review will be in Monday's post.

 Popcorn lip scrub. I had wanted to try one of Lush's lip scrubs very badly, luckily they had the buy 1 get 1 free sale after Christmas. My friend bought one and didn't want 2 of them so she gave me one.

 And lastly, I got a bunch of samples to try out. The ladies at my local Lush were very nice and let me get a sample of everything that I had wanted to try out.

Here are all of the samples that I got, a few of these will be on Monday's post:

                                                    Love Lettuce Fresh Face Mask

                                                                Retread Conditioner

                                                              Imperialis Face Moisturizer

                                                              Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter

                                                             Ocean Salt Facial Cleanser

                                                                     Rehab Shampoo

For some reason I do not have a picture of the top of my last sample, Daddy - O Shampoo.

That's it for this haul post! As I mentioned a few times, there will be a post on Monday of some mini reviews of some of these products. For anyone who is sick of my haul posts, I only have one left so please hang in there!