I’m a big fan of homeopathic brand Nelsons, a British institution with over 150 years of history behind it. As a teen, I relied on their Bach’s Rescue Remedy to get me through my GCSEs and driving test, I keep an Arnica kid’s stick in my handbag for when Leila walks into something/falls over/needs to pretend that she’s a doctor, and I keep forgetting to pick up a tube of Graphites Cream for the little eczema flare ups that I get where my wedding ring sits. I find the products effective at providing quick relief (almost like a security blanket) without breaking the bank.
I was sent a tube of Calendula Cream*, which is marketed as a multi-purpose cream for rough, dry, flaky or chapped skin. Oh hai! That’s me that is!
I’ve spent the past two days rubbing it into my cuticles as a benchmark, simply because I’m so used to nourishing that area I feel that I can judge it’s efficacy better here than by using it on other parts on my body. I’d describe the Calendula Cream as a good option for those who need a lightweight but nourishing moisturiser. This isn’t something I’d apply before bed for an intensive treatment, it’s better suited to a daytime environment. It’s a little too slow to absorb to keep in my handbag (when you’ve literally only got about 30 seconds before you need to be doing stuff/touching things again) but it’s nicely balanced as an option for your desk drawer.
It has been effective at softening the hardest bits of skin around my fingernails even after only a couple of days. I don’t care for the scent, which I’m struggling to describe as it smells (to me) neither floral, nor herbal. I don’t know what calendula (the plant) actually smells like, it may be a perfect representation. The cream doesn’t leave a greasy film behind but does leave a silky sensation that may put you off… you can ‘feel’ it, but it doesn’t hinder at all.
You can use this on any dry bits, I’m currently suffering around my hairline… so I’ll be giving it a go on my face, albeit a little concerned that it may be too rich… we shall see! I’ve posted a picture of the ingredient’s list above, the cream is described as being free from: artificial colourings, fragrances, parabens, PEGs, lanolin, silicones and mineral oils. So basically, it’s a good option for anyone that has experienced (or feels they have experienced) any problems with the above ingredients in the past. I also really like the Weleda Calendula Weather Protection Cream which is more of an intensive treatment (and doesn’t sink in so well) for very dry skin.
Priced at £6.35, Nelsons Calendula Cream is available to buy instore and online at Boots
When I heard that Glitter Gal polishes had made it across to the UK last month, I immediately skipped over to the UK stockist and placed an order for the two polishes that I’d been wanting for a while. I first tried a Glitter Gal polish a couple of years back, and very pretty it was too – since then, the line has expanded greatly and my heart was going pitter-patter for their holographic RED… but more on that one another time (i.e. when I’ve done the photos).
Light As A Feather is a subdued holo which compliments the soft, ethereal shade beautifully. It looks plumpity and squishy on the nails with a little visible nail line peeping through despite three coats. I think it actually suits the calm demeanor of this shade to be a little sheerer. Sure, it’s not a wham-bam in your face holo but it feels like a demure, more grown up version of the trend – ideal for those of us looking for a work-appropriate bit of sparkle.
Once the light hits it (please excuse my dry hands and nails), the holographic particles spring forth and dance a little jig on your fingertips. They’re linear in placement and sparkle rather than dazzle with their prettiness. Jenni has a great swatch of it here.
Glitter Gal Light As A Feather is priced at £8.75 and available to buy online in the UK at Sjmwell Nail’s & Beauty
Finding the perfect mascara is much like finding the perfect killer heels. You want something that makes your legs (lashes) look incredible without crippling the wearer. Some mascaras sting, flake, smear, or generally flop halfway through the day. The Clinique High Impact Curling Mascara* is a good choice for anyone who wants impressive lash scaffolding without too many side effects.
My lashes are naturally fairly curly and crave definition and impressive darkening to make the most of them. Curling isn’t high on my list of priorities but even I could see how once this mascara sets, it holds a rock-solid shape throughout the day.
The brush is a curved affair, with a tapered tip to allow you to reach the tiniest of corner lashes. It does offer good coverage with a single pass, which is just as well because the formula has a tendency to go a little spidery if you go back for too many coats. I’d stick with two as a maximum. The formula is a little wetter than some, so be aware of this when applying… I’m always a little heavy-handed which usually results in a couple of splodges of product on my eyelid when using wetter formulas. Avoid this by removing any excess from the wand with a tissue, or wiping it against the edge of the tube opening.
The black is a true, inky black which coats my lashes evenly and offers great definition, curling and lengthening. It also does well to volumise at the roots, but again… with the wetter formula, you do need to be precise here. It’s a little bit ‘bitty’ as it builds, and these ‘bits’ will flake off throughout the day but it’s purely the excess which drops, so again, just take a little more care that you haven’t loaded your brush with too much product and you’ll avoid this. Another issue is removal… you’ll need warm water to remove, so simply hold a wet flannel to your lashes momentarily and the formula will slide right off. If you don’t? This stuff is holding steady – making it a great choice for Summer holidays! Basically, there’s a learning curve with this mascara that’s worth getting to grips with.
All in all, I think the Clinique High Impact Curling Mascara is a strong offering from the line. It does what it says on the tube, and if you’re looking for supreme hold and curl with a long-lasting formula (albeit with a little work on your part to get the absolute best from it), you won’t go far wrong with this one.
Clinique High Impact Curling Mascara is available to buy on counter and online, priced at £16.00
Question of the Week: – If you could eliminate one thing from your morning beauty routine, so that you never had to do it again, what would it be?
Answer: – Doing my hair, whilst most of the other things in my beauty routine actually give me pleasure, I’ve never enjoyed fussing over my hair. Probably because I’m not very good at it! I think that you’ll naturally always enjoy doing things that you have more confidence with – hair is not my forte and it’s a 50/50 thing as to whether it’s gonna look acceptable each day!
Krasey Beauty – gives you the inside scoop on a series of gadgets that tone your body while you type. Say hello the the BMR “Lift” family!
Lipglossiping – flies high with a BareMinerals Pretty Amazing Lip Color that has been designed exclusively for Virgin Atlantic (and the exits are: here, here and here).
Nouveau Cheap – A matte top coat that you can buy at the drugstore for only $1.99…that actually works? Yup, it’s true.
Prime Beauty – continues her mission to rid herself of those pesky crow’s feet with the PaloVia Skin Renewing Laser—read Part 3 of her journey and see the before and after pictures.
How about you? If you could eliminate one thing from your morning beauty routine, so that you never had to do it again, what would it be?
This month sees some new additions to the home-scenting range from Jo Malone. Flanking the ever-popular candles, the British brand have introduced Scent Surround diffusers, room sprays, and limited edition drawer liners and sachets. Playing nicely on the layering theory when it comes to fragrance, you can now treat your home environment to the same luxuries as you do your skin.
The diffusers and room sprays are available in three iconic Jo Malone fragrances: Red Roses, Lime Basil & Mandarin, and Pomegranate Noir whilst the limited edition items are available in Lime Basil & Mandarin only.
As for the ‘negative’ I mention in the post title… well, take a look at the new packaging for the Home Collection…
Cheekily reversing the traditional Jo Malone style from cream boxes with black ribbon, to black boxes with cream ribbon… talk about double negatives, and we all know what they make? A positive! *groan*
The idea behind a reed diffuser* is that it will continually fragrance an area of your home for upto 5 months, it’s perfect for families with small children or pets that are liable to knock candles over. The Red Roses scent smells exactly like the skin perfume, and hasn’t been ‘dumbed down’ into an inferior home scent.
I’d recommend this scent for the more communal areas of your home: the sitting room, hallways and landings would particularly benefit from this delicate fragrance. I’ve had mine sitting on a shelf in the hallway for almost a month and it still ‘catches’ me with a great first impression everytime I walk through the door. Shame about the untidiness that greets me visually!
I’m a huge fan of scented sachets, and have friends who laugh at me because I physically get a little bit excited when I’m out shopping and discover one! I love them because they’re a fairly inexpensive way of creating a sweet-smelling atmosphere! When Leila was a baby, almost everyone used to comment on how beautiful she always smelled – the secret? yep, delicately-scented sachets scattered amongst her babygros! They’re also great for putting in foisty suitcases that you’ve dragged down from the loft. Anyway, I’m completely digressing but I think drawer liners and sachets get a bad rap as a bit of a granny product!
In my vain attempts at shedding the remaining 3 1/2 excess stones that are hanging from my bones, I’ve been customising various recipes and generally bastardising them until they’re less likely to (fat) bastardise me. My latest batch of chocolate brownies packed a concealed weapon of the green variety. Courgette. Zucchini… whatever you want to call it. A veggie commonly used in cakes n’ stuff because of it’s moisture giving properties.
You wouldn’t know it to look at them though huh?
They’re sublimely moist, beautifully chocolatey, could do with a little more sweetening and have a satisying, though-not-very-cakey texture. Half of you will be grimacing at your screens with an “Ugh, sick!” expression, the other half will be piqued by the possibility of being able to indulge in chocolate brownies whilst wearing a smug look of virtue on your faces. At least I hope.
Courgette Chocolate Brownies (makes 24-ish, approximately 104kcal each piece, 3 Weight Watchers Pro Points)
2 1/2 large courgettes (pulverised in a food processor)
140g Apple Sauce
200g Caster Sugar (I’d add about 50g Splenda to this next time)
300g Plain Flour
100g Cocoa Powder (I used Tesco’s Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder)
100g Plain Chocolate (broken into little pieces)
1 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1. Add the apple sauce to a bowl and stir in the sugar and vanilla extract.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb.
3. Stiry the dry ingredients into the wet and combine. The resulting mixture, will be very dry but don’t worry, here comes the courgettes to save the day!
4. Add the courgettes to the mixture, followed by the plain chocolate pieces.
5. Pour the mixture into a greased brownie tin and bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees celsius for around 25-30 minutes.
6. Allow to cool a little before turning out and cutting. Remember, 6×4 = 24!
I think I’ve cracked it. It’s only taken me 30 years but I’m absolutely, definitely, completely (most-likely) going to return to the hairdresser I visited yesterday for a trim. I was doing some shopping in town whilst Leila was on her first-ever play date *bites knuckles* and I dared myself to walk into the first hair salon I saw for a cut (I do shit like this to myself all the time – I think it’s a touch of OCD).
I did have some exceptions to that rule: no salons with the word “cuts” and “super” in the name, no salons with more children than adults in the chairs, and no salons which filled their windows with the products they would be blatantly hard-selling me thirty minutes later.
The first salon to cross my path was Trevor Mitchell on East Street. From the outside, I wasn’t convinced, it was like the 1970s had met with a 1990s revival and gotten lost on the way to the nought-ies. The inside wasn’t a whole lot better and I don’t like the name Trevor. Still, I can’t deny that I wasn’t tempted by the offer of a £25.50 haircut on the price list. I mean, I didn’t want anything too drastic… just a (good) trim and a fringe-reshape. I shuddered at the thought of all the different ways the fringe-reshape could go horribly wrong. I stepped inside anyway.
There isn’t much in the way of luxury going on at Trev’s place. There are no cups of tea on offer and the dayglo gowns felt and looked like something I’d put on Leila to protect her from a Play-Doh attack. Does anyone else get anxious about which way round you’re going to be asked to wear the gown? Posh salons have ones that you put on like a coat and the rest make you wear them like a straight jacket right?
I’m not a big talker when someone is holding a pair of scissors centimetres from my ear, mostly because I’m fairly socially-retarded and tend to giggle inappropriately. Thankfully, my stylist Kylie wasn’t much of a talker either – except for where it mattered. I gave her free reign to chop off what she needed to restore health, tame the over-processing and neaten everything up. Before she started cutting, she showed me the various lengths of my old layers and reassured me that she would leave it well-beyond the annoying ‘growing out’ length.
Admittedly, a basic trim isn’t the easiest thing in the world to mess up… but the scary bit was still to come. The fringe.
Long story short, she cut it perfectly and not only that but she had my hair foibles sussed within seconds of looking at me. Dodgy lick on one side of fringe = don’t touch it until it’s dried. I went to one hairdresser in January who literally snipped in a straight line across my wet fringe… I had a puffy sticky up bit for weeks. Traumatic. She suggested that the outer edges needed more blending and by this time, I trusted her. She also thinned the hair at the edges and boy, that’s made a huge difference as to how it sits against my forehead! Before I left, she gave me some tips on fading old colour and apparently Vosene works better than Head & Shoulders for lifting dark dye!
I hadn’t had a good, full haircut since I first got my fringe cut in last year and had only found one salon in Soho (Studio12) who had trimmed my fringe to my liking. A bit of shine spray and £25.50 (+ tip) later and I’m walking somewhat taller with my noo doo.
Cheers Trev! Oh and just for giggles, Trevor Mitchell (the man behind the local salon chain) introduced Kevin Keegan to his infamous perm in the 80s! I think I had a lucky escape!
You know how I love a good gift with purchase and I’ve got another one to share with you today.
Until 31st May, all customers who purchase one or more full-sized ESPA products will be offered a uniquely personalised GWP with a set of four trial-sized products. Take your pick from a selection of ten carefully-chosen products that hail from British brand ESPA’s most-loved ranges.
The gift with purchase Try Me… Love Me collection takes inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and each set also contains a unique code which can be entered online to uncover the chance to win £500 worth of ESPA skincare or one of five runner-up prizes.
Currently, the offer is only available in spas, salons and stores nationwide but will be rolling out on the ESPA website shortly. Search online to find your nearest stockist.
I’ve got two NOTDs to show you today, and I thought I’d bunch them together seeing as they both fit neatly along a theme. Union Jack Black and Saucy Jack… err, you’re getting the connection right?
Butter London – Union Jack Black
Butter London – Saucy Jack
Union Jack Black is a rich black with a patent, high-gloss shine. At three coats, it requires one more than I’d like to reach full opacity but it applies effortlessly and dries rapidly. When I got to meet Nonie Creme, she ranked Union Jack Black as one of her personal favourites from the line.
Saucy Jack is an intriguing shade with its almost jelly-like finish and blood-red hue. It gives a stained glass-like impression that is really intriguing and ranks up there as one of my most vampy shades. Most jellies are quite soft and squishy looking, this is far more gothic in its interpretation.
Talking of Jacks… my brother used to get mistaken for Jack Black a lot. This is not really relevant but watching this clip always makes me laugh. Not only does my brother look a little like Barry. He basically is Barry, albeit slightly less hyperactive. Also not relevant to the post, but my other brother played bass on Dry The Rain, also in the film here. It’s like trufax Thursday right here!
Both shades are available to buy online from Powder Rooms, priced at £11.95 each.
I’ve been trying out the ADesign Skincare Brush Set for just over a month now, and I wanted to see if this one set could ever possibly replace the various skin brushes that I’ve grown to love over the years. I have to say, the set did fare better than I thought it would… but the ultimate answer is that nothing can replace many years of replacing rubbish brushes with marginally better ones until you reach brush nirvana!
But let me talk you through the brushes contained in the ADesign Skincare Brush Set*, with particular reference to my. new. favourite. brush.
I’ll begin by giving you a quick overview of the set, which is available to buy online from Cocktail Cosmetics, priced at £44.95. Broken down, that works out at around £8.99 per brush – which for face brushes, makes it a very good value set. You’d easily pay that on the high street for brushes that don’t come close to even 10% of the quality that these represent.
For your money, you get five brushes housed in a patent mock-croc bag that is fully-lined to prevent damage from spills. The brushes (from left to right) are: Pointed Foundation Kabuki Brush, Flat Top Foundation Brush, Foundation Brush, Medium Concealer Brush, and Pointed Concealer Brush.
You may be asking yourself, why on Earth would you need three different foundation brushes? If you are, get off my blog.
Moving on…
Yes. It’s magnificent isn’t it? Like a silver bullet sent to banish bad makeup application werewolves (or something *shrugs*). I haven’t quite got the hang of how best to use the Adesign Pointed Foundation Kabuki Brush and I’m not keen on the stubby kabuki-handle – the pointed tip is obviously engineered to provide precision and having a longer-handle would complement this more effectively. Of course, if you love the design, you could always opt for something like the Bdellium Tools Bambu Pointed Foundation Brush as an alternative.
The heavily tapered bristles on this brush allows for dual-motion blending… you can swipe both back and forward like a traditional painting motion or apply circular buffing strokes. For me, I’ve found its forte when it comes to applying concealer over a larger area, particularly around the nose as the point gets right into the creases whilst the taper blends the edges seamlessly. I’m not completely sold on it, but I do think I’ve not quite mastered the best technique for it yet. If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears!
The Adesign Flat Top Foundation Brush, a.k.a. my new favourite brush. It’s a masterpiece, so beautifully dense with tickle-me soft fibres. It is not very pliable which allows for a really good buffing motion (rather than flopping about ineffectively on the face) and comes with a small head which I much prefer when compared to a larger size flat-top such as the ELF Powder Brush. I’m going to photograph comparable brushes shortly and reiterate why I prefer this brush to the others. For quick reference, comparable brushes would be: MAC 130 and Shiseido Perfect Foundation Brush (though this one isn’t cut at an angle).
I’ve been using this for applying foundation (all textures), applying cream blush and blending out any edges. When my skin has been particularly dry and all my products have been cream or liquid-based, I haven’t even bothered to use a different brush. This is the stand-out offering from the set. The smaller head also means that it complements my stick products really well (things like NARS Multiples and my Shu Uemura Stick Foundation). Perhaps the ultimate compliment I can pay it though is that it has enabled me to wear my MUFE HD Cream Blushes… those things played me up something chronic, I just couldn’t find the right tool to get the just-flushed blush from them. Until now.
I wish that I could point to a single technical aspect of this brush that suits my needs so well, but all I can tell you is that I’m in brush love. For reals.
After the gushing over the previous brush, the Adesign Foundation Brush doesn’t get me nearly as excited. Again, this is small-headed… comparable in size to the Giorgio Armani Designer Foundation Expert Shaping Brush but mega-bucks cheaper. While the GA brush tapers away quickly, the ADesign brush provides greater density from the base up, which allows this brush to both paint and buff. The fibres have a good amount of spring to them and are densely packed from root to tip.
TheAdesign Medium Concealer Brush is another that didn’t give me an awful lot to flap about. Again, it’s a good-looking brush without any flaws and applies under-eye concealer very gently but one the whole, I prefer my No7 Concealer brush when it comes to painting on the product with a flat edge like this offers. But talking of flat edges…
…the Adesign Pointed Concealer Brush is without them! This is a really good brush for concealing over blemishes. It delivers the product with pin-point precision and blends without dislodging or removing any of the product you’ve just placed! How many times have you applied concealer to a spot, blended and then realised that you’ve blended at least 50% of the product off?! This has worked wonders for my concealer application skillz… now I has some! Again, this is so densely packed, you would think you’d need something with a ‘lighter’ touch, but no… despite my initial scepticism, this really does the job magnificently well. It’s a little too stiff-feeling to use in the delicate eye area, where something like a MAC 224 works well to both apply and blend concealer.
Without exception, each of these synthetic-fibre brushes are high-quality. The ferrules are solid, the fibres are well-cut and dense. Each is perfectly soft, washes well and keeps its shape as it dries. Talking of drying, these do dry more slowly than natural hair fibres…. such is the downside to synthetic brushes but I haven’t experienced any shedding during washing or application at all. Which is more than can be said for most brushes. Whilst I haven’t fallen head-over-heels for every brush in the set, the two that have made an impression on me (Flat Top Foundation & Pointed Concealer) … have made an impression that I want to shout about.
As an aside, you may be wondering why this is called the ‘skincare’ set… well, if you watch the video below, you’ll see that this set was designed for both makeup application AND skincare application. Call me old-school but I’m all about the fingers when it comes to skincare!
Well, not entirely monstrous, but green is not a colour that I can pull off with much success. Mr. L, who never comments on my makeup (other than to tell me I look lovely when I drop enough hints that he ought to be saying something), readily agrees that green is not a colour I should allow into my makeup-playing repertoire too often. About halfway through the day I asked him, “Have you noticed that I’m wearing green on my eyes today?”.
“Yes. *pause* It doesn’t look too bad does it?”
And that ladies, clearly means that it looks amazing. Or not. I’ll go with the former.
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re getting a bit old to wear bright colours on your eyes? I do. I mean, when I was 27…. I thought I was getting too old, but now that I’m 30 and I’m looking at the photo thinking, “I think it doesn’t look too weird” but, I surround myself (online) with beautiful women who love to have fun and enjoy a passion for makeup. What must women who don’t share our creativity when it comes to slap think?
Of course, one totally shouldn’t care what other women think and I’m neither fishing nor asking for validation here, it’s just that being on the cusp of the wrong side of 30 makes me hesitate. Nothing more and nothing less, I guess it comes down to the fact that you can’t really pull off the “cute” thing once you reach your thirties, and so there’s no room for error in the same way as when you were younger.
“Should know better”. I’d like that on my headstone… along with “One Day”, a long-held shot at faith.
I usually only have time in the morning for the basics when it comes to makeup but Mr. L has been super-generous with his time in the run-up to releasing his next game, so you can expect a few more FOTDs than normal simply because it feels lovely to walk out of the house in a proper made-up face once a week you know? The type where you’ve played and pontificated over choosing what to apply rather than reached for the quickest, most fool-proof things you own.
Anyway, I’m really rambling. I’ll do a quick product breakdown.
Face
Face Atelier Ultra Foundation in Ivory
Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage SC-1
Guerlain Terracotta Moisturising Bronzing Powder in 00
Eyes
GOSH Velvet Touch Eyeliner in Green Grass on the upper lashline
Purple Eyeshadow from the Smashbox Muse Artist Eye Palette on lower lashline
Clinique High Impact Curling Mascara*
Illamasqua Eye Brow Cake in Gaze
Lips
Bourjois Sweet Kiss Natural in 09 Sienne Kiss*
What’s your colour nemesis? Do you hesitate when it comes to colour?
It’s like that time I found out about coconut m&ms(did the m&m website really just age-check me?!), I can’t remember where… some foodie blogger who was baking immense cookies with them or something. Oh, how I hungered for the crunch of a more tropical m&m… I thought about ordering online but realised that if I’d ordered enough “candy” to make the postage worth it, I could kiss goodbye to both my diet and ever-decreasing arse. So I waited. And I waited. I contented myself with peanut M&Ms as my weekly treat but it was never quite enough.
Then one day. I snapped. Actually, I think it was about three days later, but whatevs.
I don’t know if I’d dreamt about them but I woke up with a mission, and one that I was going to fulfil if it killed me. We were going on a roadtrip and I WAS going to have my coconut m&ms damnit. We jumped in the car, Leila still rubbing her eyes after being dragged from her bed (don’t worry, I made it up to her with a Tootsie Roll) and we headed up the M3 in search of Shangri-La. Or theStateside Candy Co. in Aldershot as Mr. L called it.
I bought two packets. And some root beer, mac & cheese, cheetos and Vanilla coke… what?
Well anyway, I got back to the car… cracked open my Vanilla Coke (O.M.G) and dipped into the bag of coconut m&ms.
Meh.
A bit like this polish.
I wanted China Glaze Fast Track from the moment I saw it online, I mean… look at the bottle! What in the name of all things sprinkled in gold shimmer could be more beautiful? But on my nails, it just doesn’t translate so well. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, it’s just that the base shade does absolutely nothing for my skin colouring. Infact, it looks a bit fecal in an anaemic kinda way and no amount of beautiful golden sparkle can make a turd look good. Unless, you completely obscure the turd with gold glitter, but this doesn’t do that. I digress. I didn’t mean to talk about turds either, sorry.
So yes, on paper… it’s a wonder, but when you get down to it… like coconut m&ms. it just leaves me feeling a bit, disappointed.
China Glaze Fast Lane is available to buy as part of the Hunger Games collection, priced at £6.59 from Sallys
* I want to live off cheetos and mac & cheese for the rest of my life. Orange food ftw. Oh and these mini-doughnut things that must have been packed with enough preservatives to restore the defunct do-do.
){kind=link}
