Author Archives: netnoise

Every Benebabe has one—she’s our counselor, our relationship guru, our life coach, our friend & our best listener. Arch experts become SO much more than just “that girl who does my brows once a month.” They listen to us go on about our online dating snafus and tell us when to hit it & when to quit it, they know how totes crazy our mom can be & they totally get how annoying that guy who sits across from us at work is (seri, can you CHILL with your bro-tastic beer bong stories!? And we don’t care what happened on Game of Thrones last week. Sorry, not sorry). She’s our #browbestie!

We love OUR arch expert so much that we decided that they deserve a whole month of recognition. This May is arch expert appreciation month! Show your love for your ULTA arch expert AND enter for a chance to win a year’s worth of free brow waxes + $250 worth of Benefit products! (Okay, so totes arch expert love, but also—free brows for a year!? YAS.) All you have to do is snap a selfie of your flawless arches when you get your brows wowed during the month of May, and then upload to Instagram with #browbestie & tell us why your Benefit arch expert is the ultimate brow bestie. Easy, amirite? And you’re so gorg, how could you not snap a selflie anyway!? 😉

When you upload your pics, make sure you tag @BenefitCosmetics & @ultabeauty & your arch expert’s ULTA location—bonus points if you mention her name so that she gets all the love she deserves! What are you waiting for, gorgeous!? Book your appointment now & show us your #browbestie!

Rules: http://bit.ly/browbestierules

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Something I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, as a keen-ish cook: until yesterday I had a complete aversion to separating eggs. You know, when you crack the shell and then pour the yolk from side to side, attempting to keep it whole and unbroken whilst the gloopy, snot-like whites fall miraculously into a waiting bowl? That. A silly thing to have an aversion to, I suppose, and I don’t know where it all stemmed from, but I have avoided all recipes that require either egg yolks or egg whites for most of my adult life. I think that it’s the fact that so many things can go wrong – the yolk is so precious and delicate, yet you have to pass it from shell to shell and the shells just happen to have the most jagged edges of anything on earth. And God forbid you break the yolk and some of it goes into the bowl of whites: I can still hear my Home Economics teacher shouting “YOU WON’T GET PEAKY WHITES IF THERE’S YOLK IN THE BOWL!”

The whole egg separation thing is such a palaver and even if you manage to get a lovely saucer of plump yolks and a clean bowl of whiskable whites, you still have to find something to do with the parts of the egg that you don’t need for the recipe. “Make mayonnaise!” suggests Google. “Use the yolks for a Hollandaise or to make homemade ice cream!” I’ve just spent an hour separating eggs into a series of eight different bowls for fear of contaminating a bulk-load of whites; do you really think I can be arsed to now make Hollandaise?

Anyway, all of these issues are in the past for I have made the greatest culinary discovery: egg whites in a carton. Ready separated, pourable egg whites. Thank you so much to the readers who recommended the Two Chicks brand last year; I hadn’t ignored your advice, I was just waiting until the right time to buy them. Which was Christmas – prime pavlova-making time. (Nigella’s Prodigious Pavlova to be exact, recipe and pictures to follow.) To use the Two Chicks egg whites you just pour two tablespoons out for each white that you need and then put the carton back in the fridge. The remaining whites last for a week or so, plenty of time to add them to an omelette or what have you, though I just made a whole load of meringue and then froze a batch of them for later. You can never have too many meringues in the freezer – instant dinner party pleaser!

So: Two Chicks. Life changing, at least in terms of the kitchen. Those who are good at separating eggs may sneer and tut and they are welcome to carry on with their perilous yolk-pouring antics, but I am a Carton Convert. You can find Two Chicks egg whites at most supermarkets – I got mine at Tesco but all the stockists are here.

The post An Easy Fix for (Egg) Separation Anxiety appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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My monthly hormones have returned from their extended pregnancy/breastfeeding hiatus and are attacking my poor skin with extra enthusiasm. Sore-feeling spots that brew just beneath the surface and an oily t-zone, but at the same time I have a bit of sensitivity and a tendency towards redness that means I have to treat my face with kid gloves. So to speak.

Here are the products I’ve been relying on to placate my angry, temperamental skin – this isn’t so much of a “routine” as a few supplementary skincare things that I’ve been swapping in as an emergency measure. I’ve used all of them (apart from the Blemish Dots) on non-hormonal skin too, so I’m by no means suggesting that these are purely PMT face-savers; they’re all-round top picks.

Clinique’s Mild Clarifying Lotion (£16.50 at Amazon here) is just brilliant. Swipe it on after cleansing  to very gently exfoliate and unclog the skin without stripping the absolute bejeezus out of it. As someone who looks upon the other Clinique Clarifying Lotions with something bordering on abject horror, this one is a bit of a surprise: the formula is soothing on sore skin and an easy pre-serum/moisturiser/oil step that takes seconds to do. Just pour a bit onto cotton wool and wipe.

The Extraordinary Rebalancing Facial Oil from L’Oreal Paris has been a fixture on my bathroom shelf for quite a few months, now; it does a great job of moisturising (as you’d expect) but also – somehow – seems to stop my t-zone from being quite so oily. It’s a lightweight, non-greasy formula and so sits just as well beneath makeup in the daytime (give it a good massage-in) as it does on a cleansed face at night. The formula is lovely (no mineral oil, for those who look out for that) and the ingredients list rivals those of some of my far, far more expensive oils. It’s £13.33 here.

A while ago I raved about the Blemish Patches from COSRX: emergency spot plasters that stop you from picking and squeezing and help to heal the pimple faster. The Blemish Dots from Skyn Iceland are the same sort of idea, except that instead of just forming a barrier they contain the spot-fighting ingredient salicylic acid so you’re actively treating the blemish as well as protecting it from grubby fingers. I think that the patches are slightly thinner than the CORSX ones, too, so perhaps less visible if you want to keep one on during the day. Though overnight is more ideal!

Gentle clay masks for PMT skin…

You can find them for £17.50 at Marks and Spencer here – quite pricey if you compare the little dots to a bottle of spot treatment gel, but I think very effective. And M&S are currently offering a free skin set worth £15 with every Skyn Iceland purchase, so that softens the blow somewhat!

The last weapon in my current anti-PMT-skin arsenal: Liquid Laser from Alpha-H. I’ve mentioned this a few times now, but it’s a great one if you want a serious moisture injection without having to layer on thick, heavy creams. I like to keep everything light and clean-feeling when I’m in that “everything feels grubby and unclean” stage of the month, and this is great if you want an overnight treatment that sinks straight in and feels fresh.

Soothing Moisturisers for Sensitive Faces… 

It’s a bit of a powerhouse concentrate, leaving the skin plumper and brighter without the potential risk of causing breakouts. I also find it to be reasonably gentle – not too tingly – which is important for me when I’m trying to keep my skin on an even keel. You can find Liquid Laser at Cult Beauty here – it’s £47.

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