Category Archives: beauty news

For those of us who can’t scrape up the £250 for the Jo Malone Town House advent calendar (in which I might just point out, there are no candles anyway), then the vintage-Christmas-card style of the Yankee Candle Advent House might make up for it because it’s positively a snip in comparison at £25.

Inside, you’ll find 23 tiny tea-lights in a selection of fragrances, including Christmas Cookie, Sugared Apple, Snowflake Cookie, Candy Lane Cane and Christmas Garland and one votive size for December 24th in Christmas Eve.

To be honest, you need to like your candles on the sweet side, and you also need to have a tea-light holder handy because there isn’t one included (in my opinion, there really should be) but tiny as they are, the tea-lights are really cute and I can see this being a lovely ritual with children – lighting the candle together as a family when it’s all dark and cosy.

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Many of you (kindly) commented on how nice my hair and makeup looked in my latest video (click here if you haven’t watched it yet) and so I thought I’d do a little run-down on what I used. To wave my hair, the amazing Wicked Waver from Mark Hill, which looks like some kind of weird sex toy but is actually one of the easiest hair tools I have ever used. The lumpy bits stop the hair from sliding off the barrel and, if you use a heatproof glove, you can get around your whole head without ever burning yourself. Quick to heat up, loads of temperature settings and – this is the best bit – it’s back in stock on Boots.com AT HALF PRICE! £29.99. You’d literally be mad not to. I’m always wary of wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommending something in this way, but I have tested this sex wand to the nth degree and can honestly say that it is amazing. Find it here before it goes – I’m popping it in my gift guide, too, so I hope they are stocked up!

Makeup: a touch of By Terry Densiliss foundation in shade 7, a whisk of a Clarins discontinued face palette that I love and use almost daily (Colour Accents, see photo below, you can find it on allbeauty.com for £16.50, sshhh!), a touch of Sunday Riley blush in Blushing (below), a sweep of Sunday Riley Primasilk eyeshadow in Godiva (this is one of the best “one sweep” shades I have come across. Perfect for brightening and adding a touch of sultry sheen), and to finish it all off, Givenchy Noir Couture7 4-in-1 Mascara. My lips look as though they have lipstick on but in fact, it was just some remains of Clarins’ Gloss Prodige in Waterlily.

I’ve worn this look for near enough the whole week – natural, quite wintery but with a touch of healthy colour to the cheeks. The waves in my hair were three days old when I took this photo – they stayed in really well. Obviously there were liberal dousings of my CoLab dry shampoo to keep the roots of my hair looking acceptable! I always find that the trick to long-lasting waves, when you’re using a wand, is to make sure that when you release the hair from around the barrel you do it really fast and don’t pull down on the hair. Let the ends go so that there’s no tension in the hair strand and then just kind of “whisk” the wand away! And then don’t touch the wave/curl at all for about ten minutes. The wave sets as the hair cools, so if you faff with the hair before then, all you’re doing is pulling out the curl and allowing the hair to cool straight.

Right – if you’re reading this on Friday then it’s my birthday – THIRTY FOUR! – and if you’re reading on Thursday then it’s the day before my birthday. Either way, I have much to do, including answering about twelve milllion phone calls from my Mum who wants to know exactly what type of cake I’d like. So I’m off. You can read more beauty posts here.

The post Wicked Waves for Half the Price… appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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It’s only the beginning of October – the leaves are barely dropping from the trees – and already the beauty advent calendars have begun to creep onto the internet. I sort of feel that you need to be a serious beauty enthusiast to snap up anything Christmas-related this early, but on the other hand, these calendars sell out so quickly that if you’ve got your heart set on opening cardboard doors to reveal mini luxuries rather than a Cadbury’s chocolate shape every day this December then you need to get moving.

The l’Occitane Advent Calendar (£42 here) is a whopper – jam-packed with travel-sized shower gels and body lotions and miniature perfume and dainty tubes of hand cream.

The total equivalent product value is over £80, so you can feel happy that you’re not paying for the novelty factor – last year there were a few doors with duds behind them (paper decorations and so on), but this time it’s all very, very good.

A highlight for me is the inclusion of the Amande range, my favourite from l’Occitane – there’s even a little tube of the Milk Concentrate, one of the best body creams ever invented. Usually it’s in a big heavy glass jar, so quite nice to finally have a travel version!

The Cherry Blossom range is just delicious and you get a shower gel, shimmering body lotion and miniature glass bottled eau de toilette.

I want to leave a few surprises (though you can always zoom into the bigger overview picture) so I’ll finish with the selection of Verbena products, including a “refreshing cloth”. Possibly the only low point of the whole box, if you forced me to even pick a low point. Overall, it’s just a brilliant, lovely Christmas buy, whether you’re a die-hard l’Occitane fan or just want to spend 2017 sampling all of their wares in miniature form!

Find the l’Occitane calendar online here…

The Clarins Advent Calendar is another beauty-fest; everything from primers and blushers to whopping great tubes of Beauty Flash Balm and the famous Hand and Nail Treatment Cream.

It’s £95 (free shipping, tote and four samples worth up to £43 here) so you’ll want to be a proper Clarins devotee, but everything inside has been well-chosen and I love the inclusion of sell-out products such as the lip oil.

There’s a load of skincare to try out – or, if you’re already familiar, stock up your travel bag with. There are a few charm/decoration typed things, which personally I wouldn’t be overjoyed to find behind my door…

…but the rest of the product selection is so good that all is forgiven. I’m afraid I don’t know the equivalent product value on this one (will try to find out) but I can’t imagine it’s far behind the retail price what with the inclusion of quite hefty skincare samples…

My most-requested review of the year; not from readers, but from friends and family. Which is unusual, because most of my friends and family couldn’t really give two hoots about beauty things! I suppose, though, that the Supersonic hair dryer from Dyson is far more than a “beauty thing”: this is cutting-edge technology, precision engineering and a tool that promises faster and more efficient drying. Everyone wants faster and more efficient drying – especially people who have unruly hair or have to wash and dry it more frequently than most.

Read: 5 Best Time-Saving Things For Your Hair…

Dyson’s Supersonic has been lauded as some sort of hair-drying dream machine; quiet, incredibly fast and with intelligent temperature controls that keep the heat to a level that won’t damage your hair. The catch? It’s £299. See what I think of it (and how it compares to the Parlux 385, an incredibly powerful and lightweight dryer) in my video below. If you’re loathe to watch the video then I’ve summarised my thoughts on the Supersonic below the screen – just scroll down to spoil all the fun. (Joke. I know lots of you read this on the tube or bus and it’s not convenient to have my sweet voice ringing out for everyone to hear.)

You can find the Supersonic at Selfridges here – more technical info on the Dyson website. Please note that my sample came in a leather case, this does not come with the consumer model. The dryer is also available in silver and white, I’ve just discovered!

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