Category Archives: beauty products

I wrote a novel, years ago, when I was doing my Master’s Degree, and I thought that it was about time I finished it off. Because what sort of madman writes a novel and then does nothing with it? We’re talking  over 160,000 words here; admittedly it’s not War and Peace, but it did take a bloody long time!

So this week I set about editing my novel. At first it was very exciting; it was like reading a book written by someone else, because – although I remembered the basic plot and the essential facts about the characters – I had completely forgotten most of the finer details. Twists in the plot would take me completely by surprise, bits of dialogue made me laugh out loud; it was like being reunited with an old, familiar friend but having to re-learn all of their quirks and idiosyncrasies.

And then things got rather difficult. And I suddenly recalled why I had shelved the blasted book in the first place; I had managed to tie myself into a tangle of plot-lines that made absolutely no sense, and trying to unpick it had evidently been far too much effort. Sitting here now, with the draft versions of chapters 21 to 31 minimised on my desktop and with three new documents entitled “New Plot Plan”, “NEW New Plot Plan” and “NEW New Plot Plan 2” open in front of me, I can tell you that attempting to untangle nearly a third of a novel is as frustrating as wading through quicksand with sieves on your feet.

People refer to “editing” as though it’s one step, but I actually think that it’s far more complicated and lengthy than the writing stage. Writing is thrilling – the world (or blank page) is your oyster. You’re creating new characters and new settings, you’re imagining events and shuffling everything around at whim, you’re killing people off left right and centre, cutting their strings like some sort of despotic puppet master. I now see that the editing process is more akin to a clean-up job than anything else. It’s the Glastonbury aftermath. It’s a caretaker going into a student common room after the sixth form have had a boozy leaving party – rolling his eyes as he finds sick on the ceiling and a pair of lacy pants pinned to the dart board. It’s Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction sorting out two buffoons in an out-of-control situation. As I plough through my drafts, I feel like the only adult on a toddlers’ trip to the zoo – I’m trying to watch multiple stories unfold whilst keep a grasp on the main event and at the same time stop a gang of unruly two year olds from falling into the bear pit. I have characters who have been left swinging from the monkey bars with no way of jumping down, plot-lines that have run away into the distance with totally unsuitable partners and an overarching problem with my theme, which appears to have drunk a bottle of whiskey and fallen asleep in an empty bathtub. All of these things need reining in but I can’t change one thing without having to retrace all of my steps and amend everything else. This editing lark isn’t a one-step process, it’s about 75,000!

Anyway, I’ll update you when it’s all done and dusted. It’s possible that nobody in their right mind would ever want to publish thirty-ish chapters of farcical mayhem, but only time will tell. Maybe I’ll publish it on here, chapter by chapter, like they used to in the Victorian times. Ooh, that would be a troll’s dream, wouldn’t it? Imagine the comments! The one thing that is keeping me focused is the fact that I’m using my old Macbook Air to edit on – it’s not connected to the internet (would be easily done but can’t be bothered to find the code) and so distractions have been kept to a minimum.

(For those who are interested, the MA I did was at Royal Holloway. You need to have a first degree already to be considered, but if you don’t have a degree and want a brilliant creative writing course to get you inspired and (more importantly) productive, then I can vouch for nearly all of them at the Open University. I got quite addicted to their courses and they are usually online, which is always convenient.)

The post Sunday Tittle Tattle: Editing a Novel in 75,000 Easy Steps appeared first on A Model Recommends.

© 2016 A Model Recommends®: all opinions are my own and any sponsored or paid posts will always be very clearly marked. I accept press samples and receive product and services to review as part of my job. Outward links to retailers will usually be affiliate links. Please see here for full “about” section and disclaimer.  A Model Recommends and Ruth Crilly are registered trademarks.

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Infographic

FeelUnique.com recently commissioned an infographic based on studies around how and why women buy their beauty products. I think it tells us what’s been staring us in the face (and certainly if you follow the beauty industry, it’s been blaringly obvious for years) – that women don’t trust celebrity beauty endorsements. They trust other women!

At the same time, L’Oreal has put in place a manifesto to include using more ‘real’ women rather than celebrities – along the same lines as Dove. They’ve got a cringey video to ram home the point that it’s #beautyforall. I could nearly cry for them at how wrong they’ve got it – two minutes of really, really slim and beautiful women (okay, there is some multi-ethnicity in the mix) and a few ruggedly handsome and buff men, and literally 2 seconds of an older couple. It’s so mind blowingly removed from the very thing they’re trying to portray. They just can’t quite brave the thought that real women are not always ‘classically’ beautiful, don’t spend their lives running in white gauzy clothes across beaches or regularly stare wistfully at sunsets through a well-mascara’d eye. It’s HERE.

And yet, real women WORK at L’Oreal. You know, the ones like us, with shadows under our eyes, a spot or two, a few extra pounds where we don’t really want them, and dreadfully frizzy hair when it rains. It’s not like there isn’t any real woman reference to draw from even if the creatives never set foot outside the doors of L’Oreal. Pretend real women isn’t the same as actual real women.

The FeelUnique infographic also picked up on something that is a personal interest of mine – the emotional connection that women have with brands and products. It’s crucial. Bloggers instinctively know how to connect emotionally – because they’re, er, real women, really using the products and really loving or loathing them. They’re the embodiment of emotional connections with beauty.

85% of American women don’t trust celebrity endorsements. That’s a lot. Ads using celebrities find them only 2% more enjoyable than those that don’t. Tell that to Chanel and the $6.5 they paid Brad Pitt to be the first male face of Chanel No.5. It’s maybe something to note that if you are super-successful as a blogger or YouTuber these kind of stats are a warning to keep it very real and not tip over into the current perception of celebrity. Maybe.

61% of blog readers have bought on recommendation (as opposed to 33% of Facebook users and 31% of Twitter users). And here’s us, not skipping skinnily across a sand dune but still taking the lions share in influencing the world of beauty and economy. For the record, according to the infographic, blogs are x2 more likely to have influenced a beauty purchase than magazines. And there are a hell of a lot more blog views than there are magazine readers.

If you ever have a moment’s hesitation that your blog isn’t part of something very special or that what you’re doing isn’t being noticed, check over those stats again, have a little giggle at the #beautyforall campaign and realise that as a real woman (or man) you’re holding the world of beauty in your hands.

The post FeelUnique Infographic appeared first on British Beauty Blogger.

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Thrifty Scent. I know what you’re all thinking: has she really gone to the effort of compiling a whole feature based around an incredibly bad pun? The answer to that question is yes. Yes I have. And it’s not even my own bad pun, I nicked it from Mr AMR. If you’re at a loss to know what the pun is even about, then let me please direct you to the Wikipedia page of everyone’s favourite (a while ago) rapper, Fifty Cent.

(I told you it was an incredibly bad pun. Fifty Cent the man has nothing to do with scent at all – though how amazing would it be if he did actually bring out an aftershave and call it either Fifty Scent or Thrifty Scent?Hold on: he does have a scent! It’s called, disappointingly, Power. What an anticlimax. His most recent customer doesn’t seem too thrilled with it, either: “At first the fragrance is a strong manly one, but after 5mins of putting it on it dissapears [sic] into nothing!The title is the total opposite,should be called WEAK!Only paid £12 for it but its not worth that. 50CENT? MORE LIKE 50PENCE!!” Oh dear.)

Anyway, seeing as though I’m making the effort to craft a readable post out of nothing, using this meagre pun as my starting point, I’ll get serious: thrifty scents. Is it really possible to find great perfumes at low prices? Let’s take a look…

The Celebrity Smells

Lots of the celebrity fragrance offerings seem to be a bit sweet or sickly for me but I found a few gems that would sit happily alongside my more expensive bottles. Firstly – and this has been the case for a few years, now – I am very partial to a bit of J-Lo. More specifically, Love & Glamour, which is on Amazon here for £7.99. It’s peachy and summery – nothing risqué, but pleasing all the same. It’s not pictured here because I’ve lost it, but at that price I won’t be tearing my hair out with worry…

Kim Kardashian’s True Reflection nearly passed me by because I’m not really too much of a Kardashian fan. I don’t have an actual dislike for any of them, it’s more a of a strong disinterest. Anyway, I’m glad I gave this a chance because it’s really rather dark and sexy. Fruity start, heady middle and a woody, almost-masculine base. True Reflection is £25.50 here. 

Lovely, by Sarah Jessica Parker. If you like soft, wearable and feminine scents then you’ll get on well with this one – it’s warm and comfortable, like a cashmere scarf. I don’t know whether I could get into hot water for saying this, but it smells very similar to Narciso Rodriguez For Her. Really – very similar. Not identical, of course, but similar enough that I’m sure someone in the Lovely board room must have had it in mind when they were throwing ideas around… Find it online here, £11.35 for 30ml.

The Age-Old Classic

There are scents that have been around since the beginning of time (almost) and cost less per ml (nearly) than some sparkling mineral waters. 4711 is one such fragrance – the original cologne, made in Cologne. Oft copied, or at least used as inspiration, it has neroli, bergamot, lemon, lavender and rosemary notes and the smell is fresh, herby and zingy all at the same time. It’s incredibly popular the world over and its affordability means that you can sprinkle 4711 on your linen, freshen the air in your hotel room with 4711 and use 4711 to scent the air before you as you walk around the city, like some kind of visiting dignitary. Find it online here – you can get a 100ml “splash” bottle for £14.45.

The Price War

If you’re ever about to buy a fragrance online it’s always worth doing a quick Google to see who’s stocking it at the best price. Take the fabulous La Petite Robe Noir by Guerlain; for 50ml it’s £68 at House of Fraser, £56 at FeelUnique, £41.95 at Amazon. Thirty seconds of computer time well spent.

All Beauty are a good place to check and they stock one of my first ever beauty indulgences – Agent Provocateur Eau de Parfum. A huge 200ml bottle, which looks great in the boudoir, costs £31.95 instead of £99. Find it All Beauty here.

The Unexpected Contender

I love finding a perfume that stands up to its bigger, more expensive competition, despite being from an unexpected source. Roger & Gallet’s Fleur de Figuier is part of a line of body products, which would usually make me take a fragrance less seriously, but it’s just absolutely gorgeous, so brilliantly put-together. (See full review here.)

Roger & Gallet’s Bois d’Orange is also amazing – heady and vibrant and fruity with a sensual, mysterious sort of undertone. Both scents offer excellent value for money, if you’re after a properly crafted perfume but don’t have oodles of cash to spare. Fleur de Figuier comes as a little 30ml bottle of Eau Fraiche, a snip at £11.33 here, Bois d’Orange, with its sunny-exotic demeanour is £21 for 100ml here.

There you have it – an entire post borne from a bad pun. Do please leave your own Thrifty Scent suggestions and recommendations in the comments below, as well as bad puns if you can conjure any up…

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