I’ve been ridiculously busy with work this week (also why the house-move is taking so long), shooting videos and editing videos and working on the launch of the new Colab product. It’s an exciting one: a luxe hair fragrance spray (notes of bergamot and oud, very sexy) with a lovely light shine that’s great for fine hair. I’ll talk about it more next week, but keep a lookout for it at Superdrug and FeelUnique from Monday!

Did you know that I have an entirely separate blog over on The Uphill? Mum stuff, baby stuff, observations on life (often random) and lots of chat about breastmilk and large guts. It’s a hoot, if you’d care to join me – the comments sections are, I feel, a brilliant way to pass an hour or so. Some readers have the most fantastic motherhood anecdotes. I also write about fertility and I recorded my pregnancy from about twenty weeks in, so plenty to catch up on if you’re interested!

The Uphill

No pet pics this week – Mr Bear will be home in the next few days, I hope, and I imagine that all hell will break loose! I wonder how the new carpet / recently re-upholstered chairs / tactile wallpaper will fare against his sharp claws? I may have to get my Mum to knit him some mittens.

Continue reading →

I can tell you, with absolute hand-on-the-heart conviction, that The Body Shop’s Colour Crush nail polish in Just Peachy is a hundred-percent dupe for one of my favourite shades, Chanel’s Holiday. I have tested it in all lights and it is exact in every way – I’ve even made Mr AMR examine my nails painted with the two shades and he couldn’t tell the difference. (He has a very good eye for these things.) (Images and colours, not nails!) At a push, he said that Holiday was ever so slightly darker and duller, with less of a sheen, but I couldn’t tell them apart at all until I noticed the sheen. You can see the comparison below – Holiday is on the left and Just Peachy (most inaccurate shade name of all time) is on the right. I would point out that Just Peachy is glossier and so looks more “jelly bean” than Holiday, in this photograph it looks a bit lighter than it really is. (Snoozing readers that I’ve bored to death: WAKE UP! This is important cash-saving science we’re talking about here!)

I’m not into this whole “dupe” business as a whole; cheap foundation dupes, for example, hardly ever seem to live up to the hype and I’ve had some questionable suggestions in the past where the high-street products have been completely disappointing and nothing like the “duped” original. I should say, though, that I’ve also seen things go the other way, with the budget option beating the more expensive, but not so often; this Body Shop polish is a rare gem.

I wanted to do a separate post on the new Colour Crush polishes from The Body Shop; they are simply superb. Gorgeous, easy to apply formulas, long wear, no chipping and completely vegan. The colours are well thought-out and flattering, the brush is neither too thick nor too thin and the price? A fiver. Pretty good if you ask me. I’ve been using Almond Kiss (above far left), a perfect nude, for the last week or so and haven’t been tempted to change it up.

Take a look at some on-trend manicure ideas… 

The Body Shop have done well with this addition to their cosmetics range; I get the feeling that polishes won’t be the first thing that a shopper would look at in-store, but I’ll bet that they do magnificently well online. This shade, Just Peachy, which is nothing like peach, more of a fiery orange-red, will save Chanel fans a whopping great load of cash. There’s nothing like that iconic Chanel nail polish packaging to make you feel as though you’ve treated yourself, but I go through Holiday at a ridiculous rate so sorry, Chanel, I’m betraying you just this once!

Colour Crush polishes are £5 each from The Body Shop – buy online here. There’s an offer on at the moment; if you spend £50 then you get £25 off. Seems too good to be true but I just tested it out and it worked, so perhaps it’s Christmas Stocking Fillers time! Code is 14673.

Continue reading →