Forever Living; A Review and Giveaway

Now if you are a mum living in Dubai I am sure you will have seen time and time again the Forever Living opportunity pop up in various Facebook groups. Along with the highly mysterious sounding “Clean 9” which ok isn’t so mysterious sounding as it does what it says on the tin and is a detox.

To be fair, I’m sure those of you reading who aren’t from Dubai are also aware of Forever Living as it is a rapidly expanding business.  It must be to make it out here!

I digress, whilst I was in hospital having Baby Boy the lovely Tanya got in touch with me and asked if I fancied having a week’s trial of various Forever Living products suitable for the breastfeeding mum and newborn babies.  Oh and grubby toddlers. She wants to show that there is so much more to Forever Living than the Clean 9.

Having long been interested in various Forever Living products but being skeptical about whether they would work with my sensitive skin I jumped at the chance and asked Tanya to put me together a selection which she thought would be most suitable, bearing in mind that I am also hypertensive.

She delivered a beautiful parcel to my front door made up of a variety of different products, all in their distinctive simple white packaging and left me to it for a week before picking it up from me.  I tried everything once, and thought I’d share with you my favourites.

Washing

I’ve never been one to mess around with fancy shampoo for my hair.  Given that I did a stint at a hairdressers when I was younger you’d think I’d pay more attention but I don’t and generally just buy whatever is on offer.  These came just the right point for me having had my hair dyed as part of my makeover the day before. The first wash I did with the thick pearlescent shampoo I expected colour bleeding, there was none. It took a while to lather up and a bit of elbow grease before it did and I was satisfied that my hair was clean but once it had been worked into my hair it was rich and sudsy.  Easy to wash out my hair was left feeling a bit tangled, fairly normal for me with curly hair that needs taming with lots of conditioner.  Normally.  The Forever Living conditioner when I first tipped it into my hand, about a 50p sized blob, looked more like moisturizer than conditioner, unperturbed I smoothed it into my hair and was easily able to run my fingers through working out the tangles.

Cleanse, Tone and Moisturise

Likewise, I’m not a big skincare routine kinda girl. More a baby wipe the make up off and splash water on my face.

I tried. I really did. But it’s just not for me, too much faff. Which was confirmed for me again when I gave it a go with these Forever Living products. Too much effort! But again, even with my sensitive skin they didn’t react and burn like some of the other brands I’ve tried in the past. In fact the moisturiser I used was the Propolis cream which is very rich and heavy. Probably not suitable for normal skin but as I tend to get psoriasis flare ups on my face I get away with a heavier cream.

Though I’m not into the whole skincare routine I do generally wash my face (I promise!) and my best discovery of the Forever Living cleansing products was the Hand and Face wash, I love being able to wash my face with a soap that leathers up and it not dry my face out. There’s something about being squeaky clean, the soap was even used on my sensitive toddler, again no problems except for he wanted to “DO IT MYSELF” so how clean he actually got we will never know…

Moisturizing

As I mentioned I used the Propolis cream on my face no problem, I also used this on my knees. It must be a mummy problem from spending so much time on the floor but my knees are dry and cracked, and well generally a little bit revolting looking. Living in the desert I’m normally in dresses and skirts so a flash of scaly knee is not the best look. No hiding in jeans, tights or leggings which used to be my saviour. I digress. I swear I actually saw my skin drinking up this stuff. Yes they are still dried out but a week of lovingly applying cream is not going to make up for the 2 years of floor abuse my poor knees have suffered.

Then there was the lip balm *which I get to keep* my husband in particular has always been big on lip care. When I first met him we all used to laugh at him carrying round his little pot of lip balm but it pays off and he does have kissable lips now. So I let him share my lip balm for a couple of nights. He liked it. I LOVE it, it’s deeply moisturizing without being greasy yet still gives you that “shine” on your lips that means you can get away without lipstick or lipgloss.

Who am I kidding?

I have 2 small boys I have no time for lipstick…. the lip balm could also be used on any cuts and grazes that the Toddler terror sustains while out, but to be honest, I’m too mean to share with him.

Energy

Having just had baby boy and being busy night feeding (this post is brought to you at the grand old time of 4am as my little man feeds away) Tanya included a couple of products that give increased energy.

Bee pollen tablets; I took these for 3 days then didn’t on the 4th thinking nothing of of it. Then it got to 4pm and I was really flagging. No difference in the number of times I was up in the night, or the time I went to bed and got up in the morning. Just the fact that I didn’t take 2 little supplement tablets. I was amazed at the difference in energy they have.

FAB Natural Energy drink; FAB stands for Forever Active Boost. Initial I was nervous of this, thinking it was of the Red Bull variety. But I read up on the facts and it is a natural energy drink with the primary source of energy “caffeine” boost coming from Guarana. This gave the pep of Red Bull without the shakes!

Other Products

There were a few other goodies included for me to try in the basket that I didn’t really try out to their full capacity:

Sunscreen; not because we don’t need it here, we definitely do. More because we didn’t really go outside it was too hot! The one day we did venture outside I did use it, it was easy to apply to both myself and the Toddler without too much screaming and rubbed in well. It’s also a relatively high factor being factor 30, definitely required.

Gelly; good for scars and any skin irritation. Reminded me of aloe Vera pure gel, very cooling and soothing. I used it when I remembered on my c-section scar and it did tone down the stretching itching feeling I had when in bed.

Alpha E Factor; a lovely serum which is great for stretch marks and baby massage. Now don’t hate me. Please. But the one stretch mark that I got when pregnant disappeared back into my belly button so I didn’t really have chance to try it.

And baby massage with a toddler around? Pahaha!

All in all I had a lovely experience trying out the Forever Living products. As beauty products they are soothing for any sensitive skin types. This really has opened my eyes to the fact that there is more to Forever Living than just the Clean 9.

If you want to know more about Forever Living then please get in touch with Tanya Jepson, who is a Global Retailer and Recruiter.  You can also find her on Facebook.