#TeaTuesday Løv Organic Løv is Beautiful Organic Herbal Tea

I don’t generally commit to teas, variety is the spice of life and all that, which is why I prefer mini tea tins. You get to try many flavors without having so much that you get bored of them. So imagine my surprise when I decided to commit to a whopping 113 grams (4 oz.)  of tea without having tasted it first. What can I say, when you know, you know! Let me introduce you to the lovely Løv Organic Løv is Beautiful Organic Herbal Tea.

This tea is an amazing blend of organic white tea, green tea, green rooibos, pieces of mango, pineapple and apricot, natural peach flavor and natural flavors. To me this is the most delicious way of getting in antioxidants from the different teas and it is so tasty you want to come back for more. It really tastes like peaches and the other fruits included in the blend, there is no bitterness from the green tea at all and it is not sickly sweet either. There are actual pieces of fruit mixed with the leaves, but you can’t see them in the picture below because I’m at the end of my tin (you can see them online here). Luckily, Løv Organic offers refills of their teas so you don’t have to buy a new tin every time. I’m planning on getting mine soon because as you can see, I absolutely loved this blend.

As a brand, Løv Organic has really great ethics focused on being environmentally friendly and offering high quality organic teas certified by ECOCERT and other certifying organizations. The metal tins are refillable as I mentioned and the brand only uses plastic when necessary and when they do, they go for the safer kind. You can read more about the brand and what they are doing here.

You can buy the Løv Organic Løv is Beautiful Organic Herbal Tea from their website (they have various international ones) as well as from many health/food stores.

Spring Cleansing featuring Laneige Fresh Brightening Cleansing Oil and Lip and Eye Remover Waterproof_EX

All through last year, I was really committed to trying out everything I could get my hands on from Innisfree because I love the brand. However before that, I was all about Laneige. I haven’t talked about it much on here but Laneige was my first KBeauty love and I still use their products regularly. My current skincare rotation is quite full at the moment so I haven’t purchased anything from them in a while but two deluxe samples I received as a gift with purchase were too good not to review. Say hello to the Laneige Fresh Brightening Cleansing Oil and the Lip and Eye Remover Waterproof_EX.

Really good cleansing oils can be hard to come by and the Laneige Fresh Brightening Cleansing Oil is one of the best I have tried in a while. It removes all makeup really well, did not irritate my eyes and it is super easy to wash off. No oily residue here! As it turns out however, I ended up using it more as a morning cleanser because it feels very light on the skin and it smells divine. The sweet fruity apricot scent was a nice way to wake me up. The other reason is because it contains nice ingredients like apricot oil and grapefruit extract for a vitamin C boost and I wanted all the benefits to go to my skin and not to removing makeup. You can read more about the cleansing oil here and see the full ingredients’ list. 

Next is the Laneige Lip and Eye Remover Waterproof_EX, a dual-phase remover you need to shake to emulsify. I usually hate all dual-phase makeup removers, they feels too oily, sting my eyes and don’t remove makeup efficiently. I mean, I don’t want to spend minutes tugging at my eyes to remove minimal makeup and non-waterproof mascara. I doubt I’ll be discarding my beloved Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil, but this makeup remover blew me away. It really makes eye makeup and lip stain disappear without any tug-of-war and lo and behold it doesn’t leave an oily film all over my lids! All this without any eye stinging. I was also impressed that it actually removes lip stains easily, my lips did not react negatively to it and it didn’t leave an unpleasant taste on my lips either. I know many like using a separate eye makeup remover and I think this is quite a good one. If you want to read more about it and see a detailed ingredient’s list, head over to the official Laneige website here.

You can find Laneige products from their beauty counters, Amore Pacific stores as well as online and in Target in the USA (though they do not offer all products). Laneige offers many international website which should help you find where to buy their products in your country. You can find the general international one in English here. 

Innisfree Sea Salt Perfect Cleanser

Scrubs and exfoliators are some of my favorite skin treatments because they instantly give you results. My skin actually needs quite frequent exfoliation so I love finding exfoliating cleansers that are efficient, yet gentle enough so I can use them multiple times a week. This is why I was really excited when Innisfree launched their Sea Salt Perfect Cleanser and simply had to get my hands on it.

This cleanser comes in 3 different versions, each with a different concentration of sea salt: 20%, 30% and 40%. I went for the 40% to get the most exfoliation possible. Apart from the mineral salt, the foaming cleanser contains many fruit and plant extracts and, from what I could tell off the ingredients list, it is free of SLS. I am not a fan of foaming cleansers because they can really dry out your face and upset its balance. That being said, this is one of the better ones on the market and I did not find it drying (though it is not moisturizing either). I particularly enjoyed using it at night as a second cleanse or in the morning because the foam is very light and airy. It is hard to explain but once you really lather it up in your hands it doesn’t feel like a foaming cleanser (it’s not as creamy and thick) and it was much easier to rinse off.

So far so good, but the exfoliating part took me by surprise. See, the sea salt particles are actually quite big and while they are not rough on the skin (which is great because they aren’t irritating) they don’t really do much in terms of exfoliating dead skin cells. I assume it must offer some sort of extremely gentle scrubbing effect but I couldn’t really see a difference when using it. I doubt the 20% and the 30% would perform much better either. So on the exfoliating front I can’t say I was impressed.

Over all, I think the Sea Salt Perfect Cleanser is a decent foaming cleanser but it didn’t blow me away. I don’t see myself repurchasing it since I much prefer the Green Barley Cleansing Cream and I would rather try cleansers from their olive or green tea line next.

The Innisfree Sea Salt Perfect Cleanser is available on the Innisfree website.

The Olive Oil Skin Care Company Manuka Honey Soap

In yesterday’s haul, I mentioned a little wonderful soap I got from Nourished Life. Generally speaking, I feel bar soap does not get as much love as it deserves even though there are so many great formulas out there. Also bar soap generally comes in less packaging than shower gels (no plastic) so it’s better for the environment. Why not make the change if you can or at least alternate so you can reduce your overall plastic consumption. If you are looking to try a great one look no further than the Olive Oil Skin Care Company Manuka Honey Soap.

This natural soap is handmade and only contains 100% saponified Australian extra virgin olive oil with fresh goat’s milk and Australian Manuka honey. On the box, the brand claims they are using a traditional way of making soap and their recipe really intrigued me. You see, years ago my mom told me a story about how my great-grandmother used to make her own soap using different ingredients and flowers from her garden. Apparently she had the softest skin ever, which I thought was impressive because most commercial bar soap make your skin feel dry. Well, according to my mom, this soap from the Olive Oil Skin Care Company smells and feels exactly the same as the one my great-grandmother used to make! How amazing is that!

The soap doesn’t have much of scent, it simply smells natural and quite neutral. It doesn’t smell of honey and don’t worry you can’t smell the goat’s milk either so the very light scent is gender neutral. On its own it doesn’t lather much but you can get a nice non-drying lather when using it with a loofa. This Manuka honey soap actually leaves my skin feeling so much softer and smoother than other soaps and shower gels. Quite surprising considering its minimal ingredients list.

So the formula is amazing, however because the results are so different it means the formula also feels different. Now I know this won’t sound like a good thing, but I promise it is: the soap is quite slimy. Don’t worry the lather is not, but the bar itself as a little slime-like quality to it, a bit like touching fresh aloe vera straight from the leaf (but not as bad). Don’t let it put you off, this is such a great product! Another thing in favor of the formula is that it lasts for a long time. I have been using mine for weeks and it’s still going strong. So there you have it, a perfect soap that is natural, long-lasting and affordable! It doesn’t get much better than that.

I got my Olive Oil Skin Care Company Manuka Honey Soap from Nourished Life and it is available from the company’s website as well. 

Nourished Life Haul Featuring Kora Organics, Hurraw! and more

I don’t spend a lot of time on social media and can easily go days without checking it simply because it is so easy to get lost in this world of perfect pictures and miss out on real things. That being said no one can deny that Instagram can help you discover new wonderful things and I couldn’t be happier to have been introduces to Nourished Life thanks to it. Nourished Life is an Australian website that sells an incredible selection of natural and organic products ranging from skincare to water bottles, teas and makeup. I have literally spent hours browsing the site before picking a few products for my first order (and made a HUGE wish list). Today I wanted to share with you a haul of what I picked up and let you know a bit more about the site.

The moment I saw they carried Kora Organics products I just had to get something. I chose the 3-Step System for Normal/Dry skin to help get my skin through the winter. This might seem an odd choice because I have combination skin and spring is coming, but honestly I need all the hydration I can get with the blizzard outside. The kit comes with the Cream Cleanser, Balancing Rose Mist and the Hydrating Day and Night Cream. This is my first foray into organic skincare and so far I really love the products.

Next I got the Hurraw! Black Cherry Tinted Lip Balm as an organic alternative to my tinted lip balms. It is packed with different oils to make your lips soft and I love the unusual oval shape of the tube. It also smells amazing! The brand has non-tinted lip balm if that’s what you prefer and they have loads of different flavours to choose from.

Lastly I bought the Olive Oil Skin Care Company Manuka Honey Soap, I love to alternate shower gels with soap bars and this seemed like a good natural option. I cannot resist soaps with honey in them and I like that this one is fragrance-free. I won’t go into more details here, but I have a review coming up on it really soon and it’s a good one.

Now about Nourished Life, what first drew me to the site (apart from the incredible selection of brands and products) is that everything is in Australian dollars. So depending on where you live, it can be a much more affordable option than paying in USD. They shipping internationally and the shipping is actually very fast (I got my package in a week). Obviously shipping rates for international deliveries are more expensive (they have just started offering it) but for me it was still more affordable than going through a site that uses USD. You can easily check the rates for your country by adding something to your basket and clicking on it to select your country. I think it is worth doing the math and you might be pleasantly surprised by how pricing compares.

Every order comes in a really pretty box (you can see the underside of it in the picture) with 2 samples and everything was securely packaged. They have great customer service if you have any questions so don’t hesitate to email them. 

I am so in love with this website I can’t even tell you. You can expect reviews on everything mentioned here as well as another haul very soon (I couldn’t resist). Every product in this post is available on Nourished Life.