Category Archives: beauty look

Space NK are killing it this year with their goody bags and shopping offers; the latest one has a pricey minimum spend threshold at £200 but is well worth it in terms of what you get in return. For a start, eligible customers receive a £50 gift voucher to spend instore and online (so you could look at it as a 25% discount, in a perverse way) and then there’s a bag filled with Space NK’s bestsellers and favourites, nearly all of them full size. I’ll run through the contents below, but know that if you want to shop instore at the #wishuponastar event then you’ll need to book a ticket which is £15 redeemable against purchases; if you want to shop online it’s free (obviously!) but there are a limited number of bags.

Inside the Wish Upon a Star gift, as well as the hot pink £50 gift card, there’s a full size Erborian BB Creme (£35), Space NK Daily Fix foot cream (£15), Sei Seaweed Bath Soak (£32), Rodial Lip Balm (£12), Living Proof Style Extender (£18), Lipstick Queen Liquid Lips (£22), REN Emollient Rescue Cream (£19), Kevyn Aucoin eye pencil (£21), and a little box of bestselling Aromatherapy Associates bath oils worth £26. There’s also a little Cowshed hand cream worth £8, a mini 30ml pot of Eve Lom cleanser worth around £15-£20 (depending on which larger size you base the price-per-ml on!) and a small, but not miniature-sized, Diptyque candle worth £20. I make the total worth of the products in this goody bag to be around £240, and then there’s the £50 gift card, of course, taking the overall value up to nearly £300.

A very tempting offer if you’re thinking of getting your Christmas shopping done – something for them and then LOTS of stuff for you! If you are shopping online then the bag will automatically be added when you get to the checkout. If no bag is added, it probably means that there aren’t any left. Early bird catches the worm, and all that… You can shop online or find your nearest Space NK store here. (Offer is for today (19th November) only and  I’m sorry, but I don’t think this offer is available in the US as Space NK run their own events there.)

SPACE NK

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I can tell you that it is virtually impossible to do a still life photography shoot when you have a large and determined cat like Mr Bear in the house. There’s something about the set-up – the pristine white foam background boards, the glossy, clean paper, the interesting little objects that are painstakingly arranged ready to be photographed – that makes the whole thing simply irresistible to him.

I tend to do a very extensive product shoot about once or twice a month; I like to capture things (makeup especially) when they are in pristine condition, before I’ve mulched up the lipstick or put a great whacking big fingernail dent in an eyeshadow palette. In a way, it makes no sense to do things this way around because I only end up liking – and featuring – about an eighth of the products that I shoot, but I like to have a lovely, clean still life on a plain background for when (if) I need it. And the ever-evolving little catalogue of pictures stored on my computer reminds me to get on with testing things out – to pop a new bronzer into my handbag or shift some different cleansers into priority position on the bathroom shelf…

And so yes; still life shoots happen once or twice a month and usually take the whole day. I’m bloody sick of looking at beauty stuff by the end of it! But Mr Bear never fails to be curious – often he pads off with lipstick on his nose or blusher on his paws, or he likes to knock the products over and watch them roll off the edge of the table. Which is disastrous when it’s a beautiful new lip gloss or messy mascara wand!

I like to think that he knows what he’s doing, though; it amuses me greatly to think that he might be purposefully lying there, posing away, trying to get himself into prime place in all of the pictures. I don’t ever have the heart to move him, so the day’s shoot often takes far longer than it should. Especially when he crawls over the entire length of the set and promptly falls asleep…

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My search for the perfect nude lipstick continues. And when I say nude, I mean the kind of shade that almost blanks out the lips, not that “my lips but better” kind of shade that’s a pale, caramel-beige neutral. “My lips but better” shades are easy to find – there’s usually a good one in every big lipstick range. Take Chanel’s Adrienne, for example, in the Rouge Coco line-up (read post and see pics here); a chic, smart type of lipstick that flatters and shines and brings an element of polish to any makeup look.

No, when I say nude, I mean that nearly-the-same-as-your-skin lipstick shade that is so very simple to get drastically wrong. Too pale against your skin and it looks like concealer; too orange in tone and it’s hideous, making your teeth yellow and face pallid. Go matte and it’s instantly edgy, editorial, but you need a hell of a lot of Twiggy-style eye makeup up to pull it off and as soon as you open your mouth to speak, your tongue and the inside of your lips look rudely red and (for me, at least) the whole thing can look quite vulgar. Go too shiny and suddenly you have these monstrous, oversized skin-sausages stuck to your lower face.

So nude lipstick: it’s a tricky old business. I can demonstrate this with two shades from Bobbi Brown, one of which doesn’t suit me at all (in my opinion) and the other, a creamy nude with a hint of sheen, I love so much it has been promptly stashed in my permanent makeup kit and labelled “a winner”. Here’s the one I’m not sold on, the Creamy Matte Lip Color in “Pale Beach”:

Not hideous on me, by any means; in fact as I stare at it again and again, I don’t mind it whatsoever – it’s quite “high summer” and beachy. But it’s very peachy-orange and there’s something just a little off about the tone against my skin. Compare it, if you will, to Bobbi Brown’s Creamy Lip Color in the new “Pale Beige” shade, which is spot-on, colour-wise, and has just the right amount of shine and sumptuousness to make it flattering and easy to wear:

Without the orangey undertones, I feel that the rest of my skin suddenly looks cleaner and more even-toned. The lips are pale – paler than their usual colour – but they don’t look chalky or deathly. Everything just feels right. I’d add that this particular lipstick texture, the Creamy Lip Color, is incredibly beautiful and comfortable to wear; juicy but not sticky, long-lasting but not drying. I’d also add that Bobbi Brown is Queen when it comes to natural and nude-y makeup, with loads of options to suit all skin tones. Well worth spending a few spare minutes at a counter, finding a good match…

More lipstick reviews and pictures…

You can find the Bobbi Brown Creamy Lip Color and Matte Lip Color at counters nationwide and online at House of Fraser here – lipsticks cost £19.50. I’m wearing the same face makeup as I was in Saturday’s “natural bronzed” post, you can find details here.

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