Category Archives: beauty news

I always love Charlotte Tilbury’s new launches, so I was excited to hear about her Norman Parkinson collection as his work is so iconic. Charlotte Tilbury has admired Norman Parkinson’s work for years as it has always inspired her, so with the help of his grandson, she used his images on the packaging of her limited edition collection. Although we have to wait till July when it’s launched online and August for stores, let me show you my pick of the best products.

As a lover of cream blushes, I was bound to fall head over heels for the Colour of Youth Lip & Cheek Glow (£45). A long lasting hydrating balm which can be applied on both lips and cheeks for a dewy pop of colour. I found that applying it with fingers was the best as it gave the most natural flushed look to the cheeks, plus it can be applied as though it was a lip balm with the fingers. As with all the products, it contains an image from Norman Parkinson’s career, this time it’s an image of his wife, Wenda.

The famous Filmstar Bronze & Glow (£55) has been re-made into a cream version in the shade Sun Tan and Sun Light. Perfect for the warmer weather when products are usually swapped for creamier products. I always find that cream products are better for contour so I almost prefer the cream to the original powder product. The image on the packaging is from the Vogue issue in May 1975 with Jerry Hall on the cover, which is also featured on the make up bag.

In case you prefer a powder highlighter, the Dreamy Glow Highlighter (£45) is for you. Described as ‘peaches and cream skin’ by Charlotte Tilbury, it’s a very finely milled champagne highlighter which looks great dusted on top of the cheekbones. Again with an image on the front, this features Carmen Dell’Orefice from the cover of Vogue in 1959.

As well as a limited edition collection, Charlotte Tilbury is also adding to her permanent collection with two new lipsticks and a new cream eyeshadow line. The Matte Revolution Lipsticks are beautifully matte and come in a range of shades and now there will also be a warm nude shade, Miss Kensington. The lipsticks glide onto the lips without looking chalky and drying the lips. One standout product for me are the Eyes To Mesmerise, a cream mousse eyeshadow. I’ve been using the shade Mona Lisa, a beautiful brown with a gold metallic running through it. They don’t crease on the lids, last all day and also come in many more shades. I certainly have my eye on a light champagne shade for an everyday look.

This rather funky gift card from Mr & Mrs Smith came through my letterbox the other week – a “dummy” version, sadly, but it did whet my appetite for a spot of overseas travel. I’ve been a member of the Mr & Mrs Smith hotel website for years now – I book nearly all of my holidays through them and most of my business stays too. I’ve had each type of membership (the Gold one is great if you’re a very frequent traveller and can justify the cost) but my default is the entry-level Blacksmith, which is totally free, yet still – amazingly – gets you a free gift or perk at every hotel you book into as well as really nice discounts with lots of luxury brands like NEOM and Oskia.

My friends and family are sick to death of me banging on about the Blacksmith membership, but I can’t stand it when people miss out on perks – it’s like frequent flyers who don’t collect airmiles! What are you doing? Or when Mr AMR fills the car up with petrol at Tesco and doesn’t use the Clubcard! It all adds up – I paid for more than half of his iPad Pro using Clubcard points at Christmas. I’m also a voracious collector of Amex points, but that’s a whole other story and to tell it would reveal the extent of my enthusiastic “online retail adventures”, so we’ll move swiftly on…

If you want to look at the Smith memberships then they are here – I’ve completely gone off piste with this post  and I need to read it again from the start to try and remember what an earth I was going to talk about…

The new “Get a Room!” gift card. Yes. It’s had a complete makeover from womenswear designer Roksanda Ilincic, who has produced something that looks like a cross between a front row invitation for fashion week and a brightly coloured travel wallet. If you are looking for a stylish birthday/anniversary/wedding/engagement present for someone, something pre-loaded with a sense of adventure and opportunity, then this is it. The gift of travel beats a book voucher any day. You can find the revamped Roksanda Get a Room! card here – voucher amounts start at £50.

I very dangerously made the mistake of browsing hotels in Greece when I was looking up details about the Roksanda card and now I can’t stop thinking about holidays. We’re going to Cornwall for a few days this spring, but I’m starting to get itchy travel feet and am desperate for some heat. We haven’t been away on a proper holiday since September 2014 (Kinsterna, see here) and though I know that lounging on a beach isn’t going to be entirely an option with a baby in tow, it would be nice to just see some sunny weather and float about in a maxi-dress for a few days. Drink some local wine that’ll turn my face inside-out, that kind of thing..

I’m thinking Greece – perhaps Crete – in early or mid-May. What do you reckon? OK temperature-wise, or should I be looking more along the lines of Spain? I don’t want it to be too hot, because I’ll spend all of my time worrying that the baby is overheating, but I don’t want to risk rain. We get enough of that here. I’m usually Mrs Confident when it comes to holidays, because I’m pretty well-travelled, but feeling a bit nervous about the whole “abroad with baby” thing. Good advice readily accepted…

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This month’s preoccupation is “interior design”. Despite the fact that my house currently has no interior walls and only half of the outside ones (and groundworks on the new part of the house have yet to even begin), I am sat (often for great lengths of time) studying wallpaper samples and dreaming about the day I’ll be able to move back in. I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel a little bit angsty about the whole thing; the timing is, to put things mildly, unfortunate. It’s debatable whether we’ll be back in the house for my baby due date and so I’ve been Googling the birth centres that are near to my parents’ house in Worcestershire, just in case we end up having to relocate! (We get kicked out of our lovely temporary barn accommodation in mid-May and there is nothing – nothing, I tell you – available for short-let.)

So. Not ideal. And I’m taking my mind off it all by putting carpet samples on the floor and testing the softness (!) and looking at ridiculously-priced wallpaper. (élitis, anyone? Dear God. Extra mortgage.) I will be back to full-throttle beauty testing and makeup-filming next week, once I’ve purged myself of the whole Interior Design Bug. I keep meaning to do a little video about my house project, but so far every time I’ve been back the builders have been there and I am not parading about talking to a camera like a complete tool.

Oh, by the way; the paint swatches on the wall in the top photograph are from 1969 when the house was built. Look at those amazing colours! No “Magnolia” or “Mole’s Whisper” for those crazy sixties kids!

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I felt quite bad about leaving you all in the lurch when it came to ideas for men’s Christmas presents; I said in my previous gift guides that I found shopping for men really dull and frustrating and that I wouldn’t be going there this year. But then I sat and thought about it, and realised that if I find shopping for men’s stuff dull, and I’m a shopaholic, what must it be like for people who hate shopping? It dawned on me that actually, the men’s part of the gift guide is possibly the most useful and most-needed section. So here we are – a few ideas. Gifts for men. I’ve tried to straddle (oooh!) a number of different price ranges so there should be something for everyone – and if all else fails, you simply can’t go wrong with a Storm Trooper lego clock. Enjoy – you’re in good time to order most of these things and get them for early next week.

1) Yes, it’s an alarm clock and yes, it’s a “lego” Storm Trooper. But Mr AMR gave it a thumbs up and so in it went to the photoshoot. I bought this for my nephew, who is six, but it has met with grunts of approval from a whole bunch of different adult men and so it’s a bit of a crowd-pleaser, if only a novelty one. It’s £17.99 from Amazon.co.uk

2) If you have to buy him skincare then make it something that at least looks the part. Dior’s Homme Dermo System looks half-retro, half-space-age and is suitably posh if you have a discerning gentleman to buy for. Mr AMR assures me that this is a really nice moisturiser – “very light and makes your skin feel silky. It slides on easily and doesn’t leave any weird residue.” (And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the most feedback I have ever been able to squeeze out of Mr AMR!) Dior’s Repairing Moisturizing Emulsion is £37 with delivery from FeelUnique.com

3) Just peeking out cheekily in the background is Atkinson’s brilliant Oud Save The Queen aftershave. It comes in a gold bottle shaped a little like a hipflask (the pictures further up show the whole thing) and the scent is woody and manly without being too obvious. It’s a great one if you want something a little more quirky and different. It’s £140 at Selfridges.com

4) I now buy my Dad a pot of Rose Shaving Cream every Christmas – he loves it. It’s a proper treat and makes for a professional, smooth shave and it smells gorgeous too. Taylors of Old Bond Street do a number of different scents, Sandalwood is also beautiful. I get mine from FeelUnique.com – it’s £8.95, which, when you think about it, isn’t too much more than some of those awful ones you get in the tacky gift sets!

5) These are no ordinary candles: Fornasetti (shown front) and Cire Trudon (peeking in at the back there) make some of the finest candles in the world. And the reason I’ve featured them here is not that they look particularly “masculine” but because the fragrances are always so dark and sexy and spicy. Men, in my experience, don’t tend to comment on candles but whenever I have one from either of these brands burning in my house it always draws a little compliment… The Fornasetti Malachite candle is exclusive to Selfridges.com and costs £110 but is a bit of a showpiece in terms of the packaging and presentation – Cire Trudon’s Gabriel is the most beautiful, woody, musky candle and costs £65 at Net-a-Porter.com. The annual candle video will be up early next week, but if you want something really special to kick off your festivities then grab a Cire Trudon, I promise you won’t regret it!

6) l’Occitane have a lovely and very smart shaving range. I like the Cade shaving cream which is rich and sumptuous and the Plisson shaving brush, which comes boxed and looking nice and classy. You can find the whole range online here.

7) Sorry, back to the pricier stuff, but this is a bit of a winner. Tom Ford’s Oud Wood has earned itself a bit of a cult status and its spiciness and woodiness is quite universally appealing. Though it is expensive, so always good to try and get a sniff in before you buy! If you feel like a bit of a risk then you can order online at House of Fraser – it’s £142 for 50ml.

8) The absolute King of Toothbrushes – if ever a toothbrush could be sexy, then this is it. It also happens to be incredibly good. It comes with a glass mug that charges the unit, a carry case and spare head and also (if I remember rightly?) some kind of USB charging cable. Mr AMR literally raves about this and I think that it’s a top gadget recommendation. It used to be about £250, but it seems to be a lot more affordable this year. I’ve found it at John Lewis for £99.99 and on Amazon it is £94.99 with free delivery here.

9) Finally, a very sweet little collection of three scents from Miller Harris called Wood. A nice way to try some new fragrances and I like each and every one of these – really quite delicate for men’s scents and unusual enough to keep you coming back for more. If you’re trying to steer clear of the “mainstream” aftershaves then – again – these are something just a bit interesting and quirky. The set costs £60 – I bought mine from FeelUnique.com and have yet to decide who the lucky recipient will be…

Hope that helped – do take a look at the other Gift Guides for more inspiration!

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