Category Archives: beauty products

I’ve had total and utter brain-fry this week. It’s the first time that this has happened to me in a serious way, where I can’t seem form proper sentences or kickstart the creative side of my head, and it has not been fun.  Luckily I had my blog posts scheduled, more or less, so I switched off my various bits of technology and tried to take a step back from the internet and de-fry myself.

And I’ve had “body-fry” too, if that’s even a thing – I’ve been quite ill and exhausted and have spent most of the week in bed feeling sorry for myself and trying not to drink too much fizzy Ribena. (Mr AMR started the fizzy Ribena thing off and now it’s become our evening treat. Honestly! You’d think we were both five! And now we’re both completely addicted. It’s very unsophisticated.)

I’ll make an educated guess that the brain-fry and body-fry are linked – I’m so unbelievably tired and can’t seem to get on top of things at the moment. That holiday I was dreaming about a couple of weeks ago? Now would be nice. I don’t even want to go very far. In fact I might just go on holiday in my own house – turn off all forms of communication, order loads of nice food in and pray that the sun comes out and I can sunbathe in the garden. That would be utter bliss. The thought of actually going on holiday, with all of the packing and baby-stuff-sorting and worrying about whether it’s too hot abroad or if the ice cubes are made from tap water or if a scary spider might crawl into the travel cot… I’d need a holiday to recover from the holiday.

Anyway, a video for you – very appropriately, seeing as though I’ve spent the entire week trying to think of things to write and coming up empty, it’s an “Empties” video. I haven’t done one of these in a while, but it’s basically a long ramble about the beauty products I’ve managed to finish off. (Doesn’t happen often when you have so many things to test all of the time, so I save the empty bottles and tubes in a big bag in the bathroom cupboard where they inevitably leak their last drops, go all sticky and get dust and hairs stuck to them.) Some are products that I like, some I’m not fussed about and some are hero products that I’ll definitely be restocking in the near future. Do enjoy – it’s quite a long video, so you may want to watch it as you have breakfast in bed or your late morning coffee! Just a serving suggestion….

I mentioned in last weekend’s Chanel Spring 2015 post that I’d come back to you with my verdict on the Rouge Allure Gloss and it’s a definite yes from me. I’m not a habitual gloss-user; they get on my nerves because even the relatively unsticky types make me feel messy, as though I’ve got jam on my face. And I’m not sure that the glassy, lacquered look is really my thing, either – I’m pretty low-key when it comes to lip finishings and I tend to prefer something low-maintenance (or no-maintenance!) that you can slap on and forget about.

But the Chanel Rouge Allure Gloss? Yes please. Just about as unsticky as a gloss can be, and although it’s very hi-shine, it doesn’t feel particularly demanding in terms of upkeep. You don’t get any of that niggling sensation that things might be sticking to it (crumbs, gnats, all of the dead skin cells from other people that float about in the air) and there’s none of the tell-tale tackiness that starts to happen after a couple of hours when the sheen has gone but the colour remains, all patchy and weird.

Nope, Chanel have got it just right with these. Soft, balmy and plumptious to wear and with a truly excellent amount of pigment. It’s almost like a liquid lipstick, really, rather than a gloss, except more comfortable to wear and a lot more shine. The colour I’m wearing in my moody-face shot above is called “Sensible”, which just about sums it up. It’s a gorgeous everyday shade that goes with everything and anything – it has just the right amount of pink (not too pretty), just the right amount of peachiness (not too orangey) and it gives a chic, polished finish to natural makeup looks. A sensible choice indeed – a solid little makeup investment that you’ll wear again and again.

Some more lip stuff…

The Rouge Allure Gloss comes housed in Chanel’s beautiful clickety-click packaging (I raved about the lipstick version here); it feels so special and luxurious, one of my favourite makeup packaging designs ever. So simple, with its press-down gold button, but so much more decadent-feeling than simply twisting off a lid. A true handbag staple – it should have been in yesterday’s post!

Chanel’s Rouge Allure Gloss is £26 at Selfridges.com

The post A Gloss I Can Love: Chanel Rouge Allure appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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What it is:
An ultra-sheer, skin-saving oil that instantly revives and smooths texture while providing powerful antioxidant protection.

What it is formulated to do:
Progenius Omega Treatment Rescue Oil is an all-natural, featherweight formula featuring bakuchiol—nature’s answer to retinol without the negative side effects. It helps repair and refine texture for satiny, flawless-looking skin. Coleus root and organic rosemary extracts, nature’s best purifying ingredients, work to clarify the complexion. A potent botanical complex boosts skin moisture, and virgin, organic, cold-pressed rose hip oil nourishes with omegas 3 and 6 and vitamin C. Antioxidant-rich ingredients provide environmental protection, making this a true lifesaver for everything your skin faces on a day to day basis.

What it is formulated WITHOUT:
– Parabens
– Sulfates
– Phthalates

What else you need to know:
This product is formulated without PEGs, TEA, DEA, propylene glycol, petrolatum, synthetic color, synthetic fragrance, mineral oil, and silicones. It is all-natural, vegan, cruelty-free, and safe for women who are pregnant. The fragrance of the product is botanical and all-natural.

Suggested Usage:
-Use daily.
-Gently press two to three drops onto cleansed face and neck.
-For optimal results, layer on top of ProGenius Omega Treatment Milk.

$68.00

As promised, some book recommendations for Christmas. Nice and late for those of you who are about to start panic-buying! None of these are actually “Christmas themed”, but I would tend to steer clear of those novelty, seasonal releases anyway. Some of them are good (I particularly like one that sits in my downstairs loo called Awkward Family Photos) but most of them end up in the “Car Boot Sale Box”. (Come on, we all have one of those, don’t we? I’ve had one for ten years and have never, in that time, attended a car boot sale.) Anyway, watch the video for a bit of book-related chit-chat if you have a spare moment, otherwise all of my suggestions are listed below. Lots of them are available in the larger supermarkets as well as at bookstores, so quite helpful if you’re stuck and need to get last-minute pressies with your grocery shopping, and if you’re not daring to leave the house then Amazon are taking orders until tomorrow night with delivery in time for Christmas Day. Check the guaranteed dates and times before you order, though…

Non-Fiction Winners

Sali Hughes’ Pretty Honest could well be my book of the year. It’s just a treasure trove of beauty know-how with properly helpful tips and inspirational quotes and guidance. Everything from the perfect red lip to the cringe-free bikini wax, it’s money well spent – stockpile for every female friend and relative! £12.50 here. Jamie Oliver’s latest cookery offering, Comfort Food, brings colourful photography and mouthwatering recipes to the table. I love Jamie’s books because they show food that I actually want to cook and eat – he makes it all look easy, and if not easy then at least so enticing that you’re prepared to give it a go. Comfort Food is £12.50 here. My last non-fiction suggestion would be Tom Kerridge’s Best Ever Dishes, which is a purse-friendly £7 at the moment. Kerridge just makes me smile with his jolly and enthusiastic manner and this book is stuffed full of recipes that look quite showy but that aren’t too complicated. Find it here.

Books for Men

Or for women, of course, but I’ve said men specifically here because so many of us find it difficult to buy good things for male relatives and friends and these are a pretty safe bet. The Son by Philip Meyer came very highly recommended by my Dad and then I read it and could see why; it’s like an epic Wild West film in book form. Loads of gore, loads of history (think Texas Rangers, Comanche Indians) and little bits of rough and ready “love” (sex in teepees). I seem to have dumbed it down with that description – it’s very high-brow and literary, in actual fact, not at all an easy read. Find it online here. We all know about the Robert Galbraith books, I think? JK Rowling writing under a pseudonym? The Cuckoo’s Calling is the first of these books (there are set to be seven in total I think) and it’s a brilliant whodunnit with an unlikely hero. Nice, easy reading in front of the fire with a glass of brandy – you can find it online here. Finally in this category, Lamentation by CJ Sansom is just excellent. Sansom writes what can only be described as Tudor detective novels. A lawyer, Shardlake, goes about solving various murders and crimes and mysteries and teaches us a bit about English history along the way, I love anything set in the Tudor era and so am blatantly biased, but his Shardlake books are all pageturners with an incredible attention to historic detail. Lamentation is the newest in the series and you can find that here.

My Favourites

I’ve missed out a category here – the Booker Prize picks – but if you want to know about those then have a watch of the video. The books are also listed and linked below the video screen, too. But now to my own personal favourites – I’ve started with a teen/young adult pick because everything else here is distinctly adult. The Fault in Our Stars is a novel I thought I’d hate but it’s so brilliantly written and so moving. I only started it so that I could write about it for this post and thought I’d give it a chapter or two, but I’m halfway through and only started it yesterday afternoon. A great choice for any age group but it’s definitely suitable for teens (older) and young adults. Find it here.

Possibly my best read of the recent few months has been Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the most talented novelists of my generation, I think. She writes about life in Nigeria and I find her words both eye-opening and life-changing, if that doesn’t sound too mad. Take a look at the description of Americanah here – it is so worth reading if you’re looking for intelligent and thought-provoking literature. Finally, The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton – again, a bit of suspense and mystery within a historical setting. I’m not embarrassed to admit that parts of this novel scared the life out of me, but only because I was home alone. Ahem. Find it online here. (NB: I don’t know why The Book Thief is in this photograph, it was supposed to be The Fault in Our Stars, but it is supposed to be excellent, so there’s a bonus suggestion for you!)

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For the month of October, Birchbox are letting their subscribers choose which box they wish to receive from two different boxes, which is such a fun concept and you know you’re going to get items you want. The first box on offer is the Stylist Guest Editor Birchbox, which contains five deluxe beauty must-haves as chosen by Stylist’s Associate Editor Joanna McGarry. The second box is the Back to Basics Birchbox which is all about mastering the beauty basics, and discovering products you can choose to use everyday, and again it contains five beauty treats.

I’ve never seen a beauty box brand allow their subscribers to choose a box like this before, and I think it’s such a great idea and would absolutely love it if Birchbox did this quite frequently as it means you’ll receive items you definitely want or would use. The Stylist Guest Editor Birchbox is packaged within a cute patterned box, whereas the Back to Basics Box is a ‘basic’ blue box – I love them both, but the Stylist box is definitely more aesthetically pleasing but I always reuse my beauty boxes within my makeup storage so I’ll be making good use of both boxes.

The first item in the Stylist Guest Editor Birchbox, is a 30ml bottle of Parlor by Jeff Chastain Smoothing Blow Out Spray (worth £3.46) which is described as a miracle tonic for blotting out frizz and protecting against heat damage, as well as making hair more manageable. I’ve never heard of this brand before, but it’s supposedly a Birchbox exclusive and it does smell divine, with a lovely peach scent. Then we have the 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Lip Glaze (worth £19) which is a full size. The glaze is formulated with avocado and cocoa butter to nourish, and rich fruit pigments to give a matte finish, comfortable colour. The packaging is beautiful, with silver metal casing and it’s really impressively pigmented.

Next up is the cutest little 20ml bottle of Bioderma Sensibio H2o (worth 81 pence). Bioderma is my holy grail skincare product, so I’m super happy to see it within this box but the sample is just too small in my opinion as I have used half of the bottle in just one use so it’s a shame it’s such a tiny bottle as you might not have enough to try to see if you like it or not, but luckily for me I know I love it. Then we have a 50ml bottle of the Rituals Yogi Flow Foaming Shower Gel (worth £2.12) which is scented with Indian Rose and Sweet Almond. I really do love the Rituals Foaming Shower Gels, they lather up amazingly and have such a strong scent that they fill the whole bathroom and the scent lingers on the skin too. I’ve never tried this particular scent, but I’m hoping it’ll be as lovely as the other ones I’ve tried from the range.

Then there is a single When Travelmate Sheet Mask (worth £6.25), which claims to lock in moisture, soften the skin and to undo damage. I’m not entirely sure I believe the whole undoing damage claim, but I do like using sheet masks as they’re so relaxing and soothing, especially when you’re tired or poorly. Lastly there is a ‘beauty bonus’ which is a fragrance sample – the English Laundry No7 Signature for her which isn’t for me personally, but I’m glad it was a bonus and not in the place of a full size product.

Then we have the Back to Basics Birchbox, which firstly contains the full size Eyeko Fat Liquid Eyeliner in Black (worth £12) which I’m very happy about as I’d been pondering over whether or not I should buy this liner as I’d read some great reviews, so I cannot wait to try it. Next up is another full size product, and my holy grail nail top coat; Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (worth £9) – the best topcoat in the world in my opinion, which I know is a dramatic statement, but it really is unbeatable.

There is also another mini Bioderma in this box, but it’s the Bioderma Hydrabio H20 (worth 81 pence) version which is my favourite as it’s better for dry and dehydrated skin but it’s still super small, but perfect for a weekend away. The next item is a little random.. a sample tube of the Regenerate Enamel Science Advanced Toothpaste, which I’ll definitely try but I just cannot get excited about a toothpaste sadly. The last two items in the box are from Beaver Professional – a 40ml tube of the Hydro Nutritive Moisturizing Shampoo, and a sachet sample of the matching conditioner. I’ve never heard of Beaver before, but they’re another Birchbox exclusive.

So they are the two boxes that are on offer this month. If I had to choose one of the two boxes, I think I’d have to go for the Back to Basics box as it contains a full size Eyeko Liner and Seche Vite inside which combined are more than worth the price of the box alone. I’m not too fussed on the toothpaste, or the haircare samples but I’m sure they’ll please some people.

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