Category Archives: beauty products

I’ve started sniffing around for good little things to put in my Christmas Stocking Fillers video – I know it’s only early November, but if I don’t get the festive vids filmed in the next couple of weeks then they end up going online ridiculously late. Which is helpful for those people – like me – who do all of their shopping after the 20th December, whirring around in a total frenzy and almost being sick in the Selfridges queue, but not for the sane, organised people who like to get it all out of the way early. (Everyone I know leaves their present-buying to the last minute, so I was incredibly surprised to find, in the first year that I did my Christmas vids, that many people actually do their shopping before December!)

Anyway: Rose & Co’s No.84 Hand Cream is prime stocking-filler-fodder. Cute glass jar, pretty pink box and a sumptuous hand moisturiser complete with (strong) powdery rose fragrance. It’s highly Instagrammable, which will please all of those people who like to document the contents of their beauty cabinets, and at £5, an affordable little treat. Personally, I’m not a fan of the fragrance, but I absolutely LOVE the violet version (here) which is basically Crème de Parma Violets. Lush. If someone wants to put that in my stocking I should be more than happy.

You can find Rose & Co online here, I can’t see what they charge for delivery but you can also find the hand cream on Amazon for £5.99

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I don’t usually indulge in “dupes” posts, but I’ve been beavering away trying to find a good alternative to the red shade in Chanel’s Candeur et Experience palette (shade on the far left above), a palette which sold out, unsurprisingly, almost the moment it landed on the shelves. If you want to witness the gorgeous eye-brightening effect of this autumnal red then do refer back to my original Chanel post – the Eros eyeliner was also a total winner, also sold out, but – thank me later – I’ve also managed to find a close-ish match for that. Hurrah!

I tried about a dozen or so different shadows in an attempt to find a good match to Chanel’s matte, brickish red, but it was Make Up Forever’s “M738” that came up trumps. (It’s the single shadow in the larger pan, photographed above.) A really close call, I think. If it was the red from the Le Rouge collection palette that took your fancy the most then MUFE’s version is a safe bet. Ever so slightly lighter and warmer, but brilliant pay-off and longevity and so soft and easily blendable. £13 online here, if you want to give it a go!

If you might prefer something a tiny bit brighter and lighter then MAC’s shadow in Coppering (the smaller single shadow on the far right above) has a brilliant sheen to it, it really lifts the eye area and is slightly more forgiving than the brickish matte red. It’s less edgy, less…editorial looking. You can find that here online – it’s also £13. Here’s the line up swatched on my hand – Chanel, MUFE, MAC:

And the eyeliner?

Chanel’s Eros was the most beautiful, sultry sort of plummy-red-brown. So unusual, and so incredibly flattering. It was harder to find a close match for this liner, but KIKO’s Spicy Burgundy was near enough and had the same soft application and good longevity. In some ways, KIKO’s liner is easier to wear – you can see a comparison of the shades below. KIKO’s is on the left, Chanel’s on the right:

Yes, Eros is more red, but it’s very difficult to tell once you have them on. And, as I said, KIKO’s is a bit more pedestrian, so perhaps you’d end up wearing it more often. It’s a total steal at just £7.90 online

Prada Candy Eau de Parfum 20ml – £24.99 – Fragrance Direct

Prada Amber is one of my all time favourite perfumes, and I decided to purchase a bottle of Prada Candy after getting a sample in an online order. Prada Candy is quite an expensive fragrance, so I decided to purchase the full size when I spotted that they’d recently launched a purse-friendly 20ml bottle. Prada Candy contains top notes of musk, an heart of benzoin and a base of sweet caramel. With a name like Candy, it was always going to be a sweet scent but it’s actually a little warmer than I expected it to be due to the caramel.

I love the bottle design of the miniature bottle, as it looks identical to the full size bottles except a little smaller but 20ml is still a decent amount of fragrance and it’s the perfect size for carrying around in your handbag or taking away on holiday. Prada Amber is completely different to Prada Candy, as Amber is a stunning woody scent which is more of a statement scent but Candy is a softer, sweeter fragrance in comparison. The bottles for Amber and Candy couldn’t be more different, but they both are gorgeous scents.

I would describe Candy as being a younger type of scent, and if you like Britney Spears Fantasy or Juicy Couture’s Viva La Juicy, I think you’d really like this fragrance but I couldn’t imagine my mum wearing it as it’s so sweet but the branding for Candy is very much targeted towards the younger generation although it’s pretty pricey considering its target audience. In my opinion, Prada Candy is more of a day scent and it’s not particularly long wearing at around the three to four hour mark but I love it so I don’t mind reapplying, but Prada Amber is incredibly long lasting in comparison. Overall, I am really pleased that I bought the Prada Candy Eau de Parfum as it’s a gorgeous, girly fragrance especially for Summer.

Spring is definitely here, it seems. The threat of late snows and roof-battering winds has passed and I am packing up my winter coats ready to take to the dry cleaners. (The secret of coat longevity, I have found, is to dry clean them at the end of every winter and then hang them up in one of those breathable cotton suit covers with a moth repeller sachet popped into the bottom or looped over the coat hanger. My Jil Sander coat is on its 10th year, this year, and still looks absolutely new, despite the fact that I have worn it to death! Dry cleaning always seems like one of those ridiculous unnecessary expenses, but I think it’s worth it to prolong the life of a good coat.)

Sunday saw me walking the dog around Marylebone, spending some time with my brother and his girlfriend before they caught the train home. Later that day I was red-carpetting at the Empire Film Awards (a totally different story) and so I wanted to be comfortable and casual – the calm before the storm, if you will. I wore my new Cargo Skirt from Hush – what a little gem this is! Made from light grey cotton, it has all the hardiness of a denim skirt but the fabric is so soft to the touch. And it has more of a stretch than denim, too – it’s nice and forgiving around the waistband, if you catch my drift. (Tested that aspect properly with a Sunday pub lunch!) You can find the skirt here at Hush – I have a size 10.

And what better to go with the casual skirt than a pair of bright and funky Supra trainers? These are pink-and-white polka dot Vaiders and walking in them is like walking with air-bags inflated around your feet – properly, properly cushdy. They are actually on loan for a shoot I’m doing, but a full purchase is on the cards. I love my Converse, but in terms of comfort, there’s no comparison!

Surprise success of the whole winter has been my M&S coat. I don’t know whether you remember this tweedy biker jacket from last Autumn, but it has been quite the sartorial “dark horse”. It sat tucked away in the coat cupboard when the weather was chilly, but on every day with even the hint of sunshine, it came on out to be thrown over jeans or skirts as a much lighter alternative to the heavy black winter coat. So useful was this tweedy number that I actually have my eye on another M&S coat – again, quite casual in style and relaxed in fit, but this one is slightly shorter and looser. It’s called a “car coat” and you can see it here – let me know what you think. I might be having a complete moment of madness.

PS: I always feel like a total dick in sunglasses, but I am trying to wear them more. Post-30, the squinty-wrinkles definitely become more of an issue!

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Recently I wrote about my new healthy eating tips, or rules, that were part of my general diet overhaul. After a rather extended “babymoon”, in which I had been eating incredibly naughty things with the excuse that I needed extra calories for breastfeeding, I decided that enough was enough. The handfuls of Haribo and nightly chocolate ice-cream were all fun while they lasted, but I really need to get back into healthy habits and completely overhaul my diet.

And I realised that where I was most frequently falling down was with my snacking. I have an incredibly low tolerance level when it comes to hunger pangs and within ten minutes of feeling hungry will be tearing through the cupboards looking for the quickest fix. Pre-baby, I would put together a salad, maybe open a tin of sardines, toast a pitta bread to put them on, that kind of thing; but now that I have my bonny little companion on one hip I tend to make panicked choices and go for things like (more often than not) choc-chip cereal bars. So the biggest part of my diet overhaul has been to address the snacking situation and make sure I have things to hand that are portable and that don’t require any preparation or need to be refrigerated.

And of all the old staples I’ve bought back in and new snacks I’ve discovered, I think that almonds have been my most successful addition. I’ve been keeping helpings of them (one portion is about 28g) to hand so that whenever I get the urge to sniff out bad things I can munch on my almonds instead.

I thought that my snack swap would be really difficult, but actually, it’s been a breeze. Helped by the fact that I really like the taste of almonds, I suppose. There are loads of very tempting ways to jazz them up if you don’t want to eat them unadulterated but I haven’t even felt the need to do that yet! (Though probably by the time you read this post I’ll have done these Soy and Wasabi Almonds, because I’ve been out to buy the ingredients. Update: moreish. Very, very moreish. You can find loads of jazzing-up recipes on almonds.co.uk)

It’s a bit of a no-brainer, swapping sugary cereal bars for handfuls of almonds, I know; I’ve just been doing a bit of Google research and the nutritional benefits are almost polar opposite! A portion of almonds has around 14% of your daily dietary fibre*, 10% of your calcium and is low in sugar (about a gram). My favourite type of cereal bar (I won’t embarrass myself by telling you exactly what it is!) is about the same weight as a serving of almonds and has 8g of sugar and 0.7g of fibre as well as nearly three times the amount of saturated fat. Oops.

And on a beauty level, almonds are packed with vitamin E – one portion has a whopping 60% of the recommended intake – as well as being a source of protein and zinc, essential for skin health. I’m beginning to see why so many beauty brands have skincare ranges marketed on almonds’ skin benefits – though I’d hazard a guess that consuming almonds is going to be a bit more effective than applying a cream that contains a very minimal, been-through-the-mill extract of them. (Or, in some cases, an artificial version of the fragrance, aka no benefit whatsoever. Though my Mum has always used sweet almond oil as a body treatment and has the skin of a baby, so that’s always a good – and inexpensive – one to look out for.)

It makes absolute sense that if you’re into your skin and hair products you take care of yourself from the inside too. In fact, it’s so much more important, though never quite so glamorous-feeling or swankily-packaged! I’m making a real effort at the moment to make good food choices and incorporate all of the right nutrients and vitamins into my diet, especially with my skin being slightly drier since having a baby and my hair trying to generally disassociate itself from my head. Swapping my bad snacks for almonds is – I think – probably the easiest and best change I’ve made so far!

If you’d like more information on almond snacking then there are loads of tips and recipes for jazzed-up-almonds at almonds.co.uk.

*The nutritional information provided is all based on Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA’s) set by the EU. This post has been sponsored by the Almond Board of California.

The post Almonds: My Health and Beauty Snack Swap | AD appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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