We love Childs Farm in our house. With two kids that suffer eczema, one of them quite badly, it’s really important that products we use on them don’t aggravate their skin. It’s been great to try out a few more products from the range. This time the Childs Farm 50+ SPF Sun Cream and After Sun Lotion.

Childs Farm are a Hampshire based company who specialise in natural “free-from” ingredients and essential oils to create toiletries that are gentle and beautifully scented, suitable for the hair and skin of even the most sensitive of children. All of their problems are extensively tested to make sure they are suitable for everyone, even those with sensitive and eczema prone skin.

My kids both have a little tube of the sun screen in their school bags. With an SPF of 67 this cream acts as a barrier, using titanium dioxide, protecting skin from UVA and UVB rays. It’s not only protecting their skin but hydrates too, and both of the girls have found there’s been no adverse reaction to their skin when using it which is fantastic, particularly as we’ve had some issues with sun screens in the past. It is quite thick, but my tip is to rub it between your hands first, it spreads more easily and sinks in leaving little to no greasy residue.

The After Sun Lotion contains soothing aloe vera, and moisturising shea and cocoa butters. It moisturises beautifully and I can’t tell you how gorgeous it smells, all of the coconut! It’s so soothing and moisturising, I could be tempted to use this every day on my own skin, not just my kids after the sun!

I’d recommend these products to anyone, but particularly children who have sensitive or eczema prone skin. They have caused Chloe no reaction whatsoever and she does suffer really quite badly.

The Childs Farm SPF Sun Cream is £10.99 for 100ml and the Childs Farm After Sun Lotion is £4.99 for 100ml.

Purchase yours from Boots and Waitrose stores or online from http://www.childsfarm.com/

*Products received free of charge for review purposes

I know I’m cutting it fine, but did you know this last week has been Sun Care Awareness week? I think by now, most of us are aware of the damage the sun can do to the skin, but also in terms of our health and premature ageing. Thankfully Insitut Esthederm have got us covered with their sun care range, designed to protect the skin from UVA and UVB rays, while letting you build a long-lasting tan and with anti ageing at the forefront of their products.

The range is pretty extensive, including everything from products to prepare your skin for the sun, such as the Osmoclean range,  through to Moderate Sun formulas and up to No Sun formulas (total sun blocks)  and everything between.

Also available are skin and body care items such as the Micellar After Sun Shower Gel, designed to remove sunscreens, sand, salt and chlorine from your skin whilst offering a moisturising formula.You’ll also find ranges for sun intolerance and sensitive skin, as well as a range of formulas including lotions and oils. Seriously, the selection is so huge, it’d be impossible to cover them all here, but whatever you need this Summer you’re sure to find something that suits you on offer from Insitut Esthederm.

Do head over to the website, to check out the range and find your nearest stockist.

I was a bit worried that I’d left this review a bit late but the sun is still shining here in Devon and there’s still a very definite need for sunscreen for me and the kids!

I’ve blogged about lots of Badger products before but for some reason it escaped my notice that they did sunscreens.

I received three for review purposes.

 The three I received are the Tangerine and Vanilla Kids Sunscreen, the Chamomile and Calendula Baby Sunscreen as well as Unscented Sunscreen. As they are all SPF 30, we’ve made use of all of them over the Summer, especially while we were on holiday in Cornwall.

As you would expect, all of these Badger Sunscreens are organic and natural. I think these are all basically the same, with the child and baby versions having the addition of essential oils. They offer broad spectrum protection from UVA and UVB using Zinc Oxide and they are water and sweat resistant for at least 40 minutes. Thanks to sunflower oil, beeswax, seabuckthorn and vitamin E, these are beautifully moisturising. It’s also worth mentioning that the tubes are made from recyclable plastic.

The unscented sunscreen, doesn’t have any scent added to it but it does have a very subtle scent of beeswax. The Baby sunscreen, has the addition of Chamomile and calendula which is a very delicate scent, but the kids sunscreen with tangerine and vanilla is to die for. It smells absolutely sublime!

The downside of these beautiful natural sunscreens is that they are a little harder to rub in than some of the more modern formulas today, not impossible though and they don’t feel uncomfortable on the skin, as I recall sunscreens from my childhood being. Its a worthwhile trade off in my opinion, especially for the glorious tangerine and vanilla!

These Badger sunscreens have served us well this Summer and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone looking for something more natural to protect themselves and their families from the sun.

They retail at £14.99 each and are available from Graftons Beauty.

*products received free of charge for review purposes.

Phew! If forecasters are correct then next week is a threatening to be a scorcher and you’d best make sure of it because going on Summer’s we’ve had in recent years that one week will probably be all we have!

So with the sun in mind I’ve got a sunscreen to show you that’s a little different from your usual creams, making it a) convenient to use, b) very suitable for those who don’t like traditional sunscreen’s on their face and c) lightweight and small enough to be handbag sized.

Meet the Susan Posnick Brush On Block SPF 30

I have mostly positive but a little mixed views on this so I’ll just start by telling you a bit about it.  Brush on Block uses Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide to give full coverage to your skin which is invisible. It also contains Green Leaf Tea extract which is a natural antioxidant, Safflower Seed Oil which functions as an emollient to moisturise and protect and Honeysuckle and Chamomile extracts to prevent inflammation and irritation that may be caused by Sun exposure.

Okay so the easiest way to tell you my thoughts on this product is with a list of Pros and Cons, and I like those, but don’t get to do them often!

PRO’s

• Invisible and weightless.
• Fantastic if you don’t like cream sunscreens on your face (me me me!)
• Kind to your skin (my freaky skin hasn’t had any adverse reactions).
• Perfect to tote around with you all day since it isn’t much bigger than a short handled blusher brush.
• Convenient to use, you can just brush on over your make up with out having to apply sun creams and therefore remove your make up or disturb your make up.
• You need to reapply sunscreen every few hours, it’s a breeze with this stuff!
• Protects your skin from the sun (living in England I’ve not rigourously tested this!)
• When you run out, you don’t need to buy the whole thing again, you can just buy refills.

Clinique have everything you need to get Summer ready and today I’m going to run through few of them!

1. The Editors Pouch by Ela. Actually not from Clinique but a jolly lovely thing anyway. Silver, studs formed in the leather. Perfect for holding either your ipad or just your “stuff”. I wish I could give you some more info about this as it’s amazing, but alas, I can’t find a UK stockist!
2. Self Sun Body Tinted Lotion. Available in Light – Medium £18 for 150ml. My dream come true product. I suck at fake tans, even though that profess to be streak free streak on me, but this one, well it’s really pale, but not too pale (for me). I usually use gradual tans, just to take the edge off my whiteness, and this is a step up from that, but it’s foolproof. I am sold! Fantastic stuff.
3. Long Last Lipstick in Runway Coral (£16). A vivid coral shade lipstick. The colour is incredible and the wear time is amazing. A must have colour for the Summer months.
   
4. A Different Nail Enamel for Sensitive Skins in Strappy Sandals.  Matches the clutch perfectly. Silver. Really silver. Wears well, looks great, but be warned, these types of metallic colours show up every flaw in your nails!
   
5. City Block Sheer SPF25 (£16.50). Oh this is a dream product. I struggle with sun protection on my face. Uh-mazing. Although this calls itself tinted, it’s not really, it comes out of the tube a pale tint shade but disappears on the skin. Foundation applies flawlessly on top of it. Hooray. Get it, it’s a great price too for such a fab product.
   
6. After Sun Rescue Balm with Aloe (£24). Not tried this one yet but this after-sun balm is sure to help if you’ve over indulged, sun wise!
7. Sparkle Skin Exfoliating Cream (£20 for 250ml) What an amazing exfoliator! I love scrubs. I love really scrubby scrubs. This one is really scrubby (but not scratchy) and minty fresh, leaves my skin smooth, shiny and feeling ultra clean. My keratosis pilaris on my upper arms is all but gone after one use of this.
8. Last but not least, quite possibly the best bronzer ever. The Fresh Bloom All Over Colour in Almond and Blossom Blend. A beautifully simple case, with a pretty flower embossed powder, in just about the most perfect colour ever. The powder is so soft and pigmented, you need very little on your brush to get a great effect, but the colour is incredibly natural. It’s brown with a hint of pinky red, much like my natural colours when I catch the sun. When I naturally catch the sun, there’s no orange, there’s no gold, it’s like this. Perfect. £16.
   

*Disclosure – All items received free of charge for review purposes*

I have to confess I was sent a range of Malibu products AGES ago but as the weather was so vile for so long the products just sat unloved waiting for even a hint of sunshine. And then the sun finally appeared thankfully and I’ve been giving the products a good go.

I want to start by saying that this range is very competitively priced making them very purse friendly so far as sunscreens go.

My personal favourite items are the SPF30 Dry Oil Spray (not pictured) which is £5.99 for 200ml and a little goes a long way but I also love the same product in the aerosol which retails at £9.99 but is currently £7.99 on the Malibu website. I just like the oil, I find it so much easier to apply. The benefit of having the aerosol over the spray is that you can spray it continuously rather than having to keep spraying repeated squirts, its just a matter of preference really.

On the children I’e been using  the SPF30 Lotion Spray Aerosol. Personally I prefer a higher SPF for my children’s very fair and delicate skin, but thats not to say the SPF hasn’t done a fab job, there’s no hint of redness or sunburn on my kids, but then I do limit the time they spend in the sun.

All the products are waterproof.  The only item I’ve not tried at all is the Aloe Vera After Sun Gel Spray Aerosol. Simply because there’s been no need. Am off to Cornwall next week though so I’ll be applying it religiously after each day out!

All products available from, Superdrug, Matalan and wide range of other stockists!

*Disclosure – PR Samples*

I don’t like fake tan much. I just can’t seem to get on with any brand at all. I do have successes with gradual tans but a proper fake tan will never be for me unless I pay to let some else do it… so as a brand, generally speaking, St Tropez doesn’t ever really catch my eye, until I received a press release a week or two ago announcing they are launching a couple of new lines. Firstly a brand new SPF range. This does interest me, I’m pale and freckly so I look after my skin in the sun and never mind the fact I have a brand new tattoo that needs looking after and protecting from the sun. There are face and body products in the new range, of varying SP Factors.

The other new things to be launched are the Illuminators (£12). I have already tried and tested the gorgeous Violet Illuminator which has been repackaged so it now matches the two new variants, Rose and Gold. I loved the original violet one a lot but it’s not subtle and it’s very striking, even with a light hand, although perfect for a night out but this time I was sent the Rose version to test.

Blended out, I’m not sure you can even see it on this picture, other than the bottom half of my hand looks almost perfect and flawless. I don’t think that’s an advertised feature of the Rose Illuminator but certainly I can see where it is on my hand because of how smooth the skin looks!

In this final picture, I’ve failed miserably to show you what I’m trying to show you!

Down the left hand side is a blended out blob of the violet, but on the right hand side is the blended out Rose, and I think you can see to the immediate right of the vein (shudder) in the centre, towards the bottom, just a subtle sheen, and thats how this product is. Perfect and glowy, no chance of finding you’ve become a glitterball!

I can see me getting a lot of use from this because of the natural colour.. I’m thinking cheekbones, cupid’s bow and so on… I’ll try and use it in a FotD soon so you can really see what a natural glow this gives.

Definitely recommended!