With liquid lipsticks taking over the beauty world, what better time to revisit a classic cult buy? Bourjois were ahead of the game with their Rouge Edition Velvet; a non-drying, intensely pigmented lip colour that feels as light as air to apply but has great lasting power. It’s so premium in feel, but at £8.99 it’s also distinctly easy on the wallet!

Rouge Edition Velvet comes in an extensive colour range, but I’ve picked out my three favourites for different occasions – an everyday peachy nude, a rock ‘n roll cool-toned brown that looks great with sultry eyes and then a bit of a wildcard for me…hot pinky-red! I find that the matte finish on the Rouge Edition Velvet lipsticks gives very bright colours a really chic and modern twist – I wouldn’t normally go for a fuchsia shade, but it’s so much easier to wear when it doesn’t have that hi-shine sort of finish.

Above are the three velvety liquid lipsticks I chose for my looks – clockwise from left to right, there’s the punchy pink-red Fu(n)chsia, my cool-toned nude Cool Brown and then the pretty peach, Honey Mood. I love a peachy shade on my lips and I chose to really prettify this one by using a matching blush on my cheeks. Continue reading →

I posted this video on Youtube months ago and totally forgot to put it up here on the website. Sorry about that! It’s the recipe for one of my all-time favourite dishes, Keema Curry. (Keema is just lamb mince, so don’t be put off by the unfamiliar.) The best thing about this dish, apart from the intense flavour and juicy, spicy meat, is that it has what I have taken to calling a “customisable heat”. I use little green chillis called rocket chillis and I leave them whole, so you can bite into them for lots of spice or easily pick them out if you can’t handle the heat. I really hope that you enjoy this recipe; I don’t eat a massive amount of red meat, but this lamb curry is my definite treat. You can add handfuls of fresh spinach at the end to up the iron content, and you can bulk out the leftovers with a can of chickpeas to stretch the meal over a couple of days. It’s the curry dish that just keeps on giving. (People who don’t eat meat/red meat/lamb: this dish works because of the meaty juices and the taste of the lamb. You could swap out the lamb for potatoes and chickpeas, but I promise I’ll do a veggie recipe soon that will be much more suited to those ingredients!)

Full Recipe and Ingredients List:

Serves 4 very well or 2 people over 3 meals, if chickpeas and spinach added to leftovers!

500g Lamb Mince
1 Onion, chopped
4 Cloves Garlic, crushed (I used this: http://goo.gl/v0lT03)
10-15 “Rocket” Chillis (small and hot), three chopped and the rest left whole with just the stalks removed
1 Green Pepper, chopped
Approx. 1/2 inch of fresh ginger, finely grated, or 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground coriander
1tsp garam masala
1tsp turmeric
1 tin chopped tomatoes

To serve: basmati rice, naan breads, yoghurt, pickled chillis (not authentic but I’m addicted to them.)

1) Fry chopped onion in a small amount of cooking fat – I used ghee, but you can use whatever oil you prefer or usually use. Probably not olive oil though, as it might have an odd taste with the spices!

2) When the onion is softened and a little golden, add chopped green pepper and all of the chillis and stir about for another 5-10 minutes. You can be crushing the garlic and grating your chilli as the onions and peppers are cooking – also, have an open tin of chopped tomatoes ready!

3) In with the keema (minced lamb) and fry it off briefly. Before it’s cooked through, add the garlic, ginger and the dry spices. This where you need to be on the ball; keep the spices and garlic moving because you want to release the beautiful aromas but you don’t want them to stick to the pan and catch! Burnt spices and garlic = a big no-no. Be ready with your chopped tomatoes, OR a small amount of water. If you find yourself panicking and the pan is too hot, just add a little water!

4) In with the chopped tomatoes. I swill the tin out with a bit of water and add that in too, but you don’t have to all at once. Season to taste and leave the pan of gorgeousness to simmer away!

5) The thing is with this curry is that the longer it’s been left, the better it tastes. Sometimes I cook it a whole day in advance – it’s better the day after, even the day after that! Give it at least twenty minutes or so, at any rate. Serve with basmati rice, with naans, chapatis, a dollop of yoghurt,

6) Customisations: less chilli if you can’t take any heat; fresh spinach added in approx five minutes from the end and left to wilt down into the sauce (VERY good for iron and adds a nice texture); a tin of drained chickpeas added to leftovers the next day bulks things out and provides a whole new dimension. I don’t bother with rice or with breads if I have chickpeas added, so it’s a good healthy option.

The post Recipe: My Amazing Keema Curry! appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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Lengthiest post in the world alert. Do you remember when I recruited some skin care guinea pigs to test out the new Effaclar Anti-Blemish System*? Way back when the sun was shining and we weren’t being relentlessly pelted with hailstones and cold rain? Well the results are in. Overall, the response is great. I have to say that I was slightly apprehensive about the testers only being able to use the Effaclar system; in normal life, you probably wouldn’t use a treatment like this so exclusively. Or I wouldn’t, at any rate. I was terrified that I’d get reports of dried-up skin or signs of over-exfoliation and actually, I do think that the more negative experiences with the system are due to the fact that it’s very inflexible on the skin if you’re only able to use three things, all of them from the same range. Sometimes you need more moisture, or you need to swap in a creamier cleanser or a different acid exfoliant to change things up a bit. But, as I said, the general response was overwhelmingly positive. I’ll recap my own personal thoughts at the end (I tried it too) but for now, let’s get going with the testers’ feedback.

(Just a few preliminary notes: the set consisted of a cleaner, toner and blemish treatment “moisturiser”. I asked the testers to test until the products ran out, or for around 6-8 weeks, and I also asked that they try not to mix in any other products so that we could get a fair idea of the results.)

Reviews from my two seventeen year-old testers (one male, one female) and my thirty year-old female tester were positively glowing. Harry (17) said that he had seen a “huge improvement” to his skin and that he was totally converted to La Roche-Posay – he had previously been using an American system called ProActiv. In his detailed review, Harry said that the cleanser cleansed beautifully without being stripping, the toner was “just wonderful” and that the Duo+ “really does reduce the appearance of angry red spots and prevents future breakouts”. It was great to get a male perspective on the set – Harry said that it is “easy to apply and takes no longer than brushing your teeth would.” He found Effaclar to be “gentle to apply” in comparison to the ProActiv which he didn’t have a great experience with; “the skin felt raw after every use and it was really abrasive on the skin”.

Frances (also 17) wrote me a gorgeously detailed review with a great tip about decanting the toner into a little spray bottle – something that Harry mentioned too. I think that’s a brilliant idea – Frances said “I find it easier to apply toners that way and to be honest, it’s a lot more therapeutic to spray it on.” Frances had never had acne before, but for about three months before starting the Effaclar system her forehead and T-zone had been “irritated and covered in blemishes” – her forehead was “rather red and angry all the time, especially after cleansing.” Frances found the foaming gel cleanser to be “very gentle on the skin” and said that the toner was “soothing, hydrating and sort of tightening on the pores”. Her verdict on the Anti-Blemish System? “I haven’t had any active breakouts since using the Effaclar system throughout the past 2 months! I don’t have any redness on my T zone either and my blackheads and pores haven’t disappeared, but they’ve definitely reduced visibly. I would say my skin is now combination/normal, since my skin doesn’t become shiny after 3 hours anymore. (Now it’s more like 5-6 hours) which is such an improvement and I’m really happy at the result as it’s only been about 2 months.”

Diana (30) also had a great experience. She said “I found that using all three products in the kit over the six week period really improved the appearance of my skin to the point that it is calm and clear. Prior to using this kit, I had regular breakouts, especially in my oily T-zone area.” Diana has fairly sensitive skin, and she said that she was “initially sceptical of the foaming gel” due to previous bad experiences, but she felt that it worked well for her, saying “even after the first use, it had a very calming effect on my inflamed acne areas.” Diana also really rated the toner, but found the Effaclar Duo+ to be a little bit drying when she used it all over her face. She took matters into her own hands (excellent!) and only applied to the areas with breakouts and said that this worked “fantastically well” for her.

I must say that I do get occasional reports of people saying that they can’t use the Duo+ all over their skin; if you don’t need it all over, then don’t use it all over! I do, and I find that it works well for me, giving my skin a kind of all-over clarifying session. But what works for me might not necessarily work for others and I do think that – as with all skin care – you need to adapt products to suit your own face.

My twenty-two year-old tester, Beth, also found that the Duo+ didn’t provide her skin with enough moisture when used all over – she said “I figured it was almost the serum/anti-blemish step before locking down my moisturiser”. (Again, nothing wrong with applying moisturiser over the top, but we do have to note that I instructed the testers to use only the Effaclar system and nothing else. Silly me with my rules!) I had Beth’s report after two weeks of Effaclar use, and at the time of her initially writing to me she hadn’t fared quite so well; she saw no reduction in her spots and had a few “under the skin monsters” that had appeared. Because of this she was swapping in her Pixi Glow Tonic for the Effaclar toner, every now and then, as she felt she needed a tried-and-tested acid exfoliant she could rely on. I emailed Beth for an update and unfortunately she had been forced to end her trial early as the set just wasn’t working out for her at all. She liked the toner step, and continued with that, but didn’t want to risk making her skin worse if it wasn’t agreeing with the Effaclar routine and so stopped using the other products.

My final tester was Andrea, aged 40. Andrea used the set and nothing else for the whole of August. She said  “I found that the good parts of my skin looked in better condition and felt smoother. However it wasn’t enough to combat my hormonal and stress related acne which is mainly concentrated around my jawline.” Andrea actually saw the bad parts of her skin worsen slightly, but put that down to the fact that she wasn’t using any additional targeted spot creams. Andrea didn’t find the Effaclar set strong enough on its own to keep her acne at bay.

Interesting! Three excellent experiences, one reviewer who needed something more powerful and one who simply didn’t get on with the set at all. My own experience? I used the set over my “PMT days” for around a week and it worked very well. I couldn’t have really done much more time than that (which is why I recruited my testers in the first place) because I don’t have blemish-prone skin for most of the month. It’s a hormonal thing.

In terms of the individual products, it’s the toner and the Duo+ that I’m most taken with. I’m not the hugest fan of the type of foaming rinse-off cleanser that’s included in the set, preferring a cleansing balm that I can really work into the skin, but I didn’t particularly have any issues with the Effaclar one. It didn’t feel moisturising, but neither did it leave my skin feeling over-dried. I can totally understand why that’s included in the set, it works well with the other products, but perhaps my skin isn’t oily enough to really benefit! I loved the toner with salicylic acid. Lovely formula, it’s a great step to add in before your serum if you want to give your skin a little blemish-busting boost and it actually feels very soothing on angry skin. (Please note that this is NOT the same toner that gets a “poor” rating on popular website Paula’s Choice; this toner has a different ingredients list and is alcohol-free as well as containing lactic acid and zinc oxide. Altogether a nicer kettle of fish. I only add this note because quite a few people brought it up over the summer.)

If you’re a long-term reader of A Model Recommends you’ll already know my feelings on the Effaclar Duo+; I adored the original version and love this one too. For me, it was one of the only things that truly cleared my skin up in an emergency. I now use it sparingly when spots threaten and rarely get any actual blemish trouble. I think that it’s a beauty cupboard staple, really, and the feedback I’ve had from readers who’ve used it has been phenomenal. It’s actually the reason I agreed to feature a trial of the Effaclar set in the first place – I think that there’s a shortage of spot treatments that are properly effective without forming that drying protective film that you usually get with more targeted treatments. Duo+ seems to do the trick without resorting to extremely harsh, eye-watering methods.

And so the verdict? I suppose I should leave you to reach your own conclusions based on the tester findings; the toner does seem to be enormously popular and I think that there will be a few people rushing to the shelves when (if) it launches as a standalone product. (For me, it’s up there with Serozinc which is a soothing spray that helps to keep spots at bay. Not available in the UK, at present, but I’d imagine there would be stampedes for it – I really do think that there’s a real lack of good, uncomplicated spot things that don’t smell of tea tree and make your eyes cry. You can read about Serozinc over on Caroline Hirons’ blog.) As I said, the Duo has always been a winner in my books – you can browse through all of the mentions and rave posts here!

You can find the Effaclar Anti-Blemish System at Boots here (there’s 3 for 2 on across the La Roche-Posay brand at the moment) – and if you fancy just trying the Duo+ then Escentual.com have a third off all “pharmacy” skin care products this month. If you’re on the constant battle to fight down acne then it could be a nice one to try and at just over a tenner (with the discount) it won’t break the bank. Please do let me know your own feedback and comments below, I’d love to know how you’ve found the set if you purchased it last month!

*this post is the second half of a sponsored review project. For the first part please click here.

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Ah – nearly every single one of you answered correctly to my little giveaway question last week – I think I must have made the clues too easy! I asked which “city” (strictly speaking, it’s a principality) was represented by my brand new, glamorous-smelling Colab dry shampoo and most of you said Monaco. Well done. Winners have been notified by email so please do check your inboxes and spam filters and what have you.

I’m exceedingly proud of this particular Colab scent because it manages to smell rich and indulgent and heady, like some kind of holiday body oil, but it’s actually a light, sheer dry shampoo in a spray can! I’ve been skipping my perfume quite a lot since I received the final production samples of Colab Monaco – I find that a good dousing of the Sheer & Invisible in my roots leaves me perfumed enough for the day without any extra anointing of the pulse points. I do this pretty much every second day, actually, because during my last trimester of pregnancy my hair has been a little bit lanker at the roots and I’ve needed a little bit of oomph to stop it lying so flat. It never feels greasy so much as just…disappointing. So yes, a few big spritzes in the underneath layers and a nice little fingertip-massage and my hair starts to behave itself that bit better.

The Monaco scent, by the way, was inspired by some of my favourite summer fragrances; those heady, unisex ones with classic cologne notes. Think Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino, some of the lighter and fresher Acqua di Parma scents, the solid, original 4711 cologne… I wanted that absolute headiness that you get with neroli fragrances and then a lovely lightness from the citrus and a bit of sexy warmth from the amber – glamorous but completely wearable. And I must say, very moreish.

Monaco launches at Superdrug tomorrow, so keep an eye out here – and make sure you take a look at the Colab Instagram page, they are running the most amazing competition with Superdrug to win a luxury trip for two to Monaco. Swish hotel, helicopter rides and Michelin star restaurants…it is well worth giving this a shot!

Colab Instagram Competition 

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