Hello
I am Abbie, and I am very hard to impress.
I make beauty and skincare content from Braintree, Essex, UK. Brands send me things, I buy plenty more myself, and I use all of it for long enough to work out whether it was worth the money.
My skin is oily through my t-zone and combination everywhere else, with some uneven tone i am always working on. That is worth knowing before you read anything else here, because it shapes every verdict on this site. A mattifying primer that saved my T-zone may do nothing for you if your skin is dry, and a foundation I called a perfect match was matching fair skin, not everyone’s.
This site exists because I got tired of reviews that were clearly written by someone who had held a product for an afternoon. A first impression is not a review. Whether something is still in my routine three months later is the only test that counts.
I am not a beauty expert.
I do not know every brand, I cannot tell you what an ingredient does at a molecular level, and I have not tried half the things going round on TikTok. What I do is buy something, use it properly for weeks, and tell you honestly whether it was worth the money.
If you want ingredient science, there are people far better qualified than me and you should go and read them. If you want to know whether a £38 foundation genuinely lasts a full day on oily skin, that I can help with.
The deal
What you can expect from me
I tell you when something is gifted
Every time, clearly labelled, at the top where you will see it. Being sent something free does not buy a good review, but you deserve to know it happened so you can weigh what I say.
I tell you my skin type
Mine is oily to combination, slightly uneven tone. A moisturiser that sorted me out might do nothing for you, so every review states what my skin was doing at the time and how long I used the product, and you can decide whether that has any bearing on yours.
Brands cannot buy a ranking
Where I earn a commission, it changes nothing about what I say or where a product places in a list. If the best thing I tried pays me nothing, it still goes top.
I am not a dermatologist
I am someone who uses a lot of products and pays attention. Nothing here is medical advice, and for anything genuinely worrying, please see a GP or a pharmacist rather than a creator.
Elsewhere
Where else I post
Most of the day to day lives on TikTok and Instagram. The longer, more considered write-ups end up here, because there is only so much nuance you can fit in a caption.
Start with what I use
The shelf is the fastest way to see what has actually earned its place, and my testing standards explain exactly how it gets there.
Shop my shelf