Illamasqua Sophie

I’m sure that all Illamasqua fans know about the Sophie Lancaster Foundation – since its conception in 2008, Illamasqua has fundraised for the foundation. If you don’t know about Sophie Lancaster, she and her boyfriend took a walk through a local park, where they were targeted by a gang simply for looking different. Sophie was one cool girl – red braids in her hair, piercings, lashings of black kohl; all in all, living and expressing her individuality. What happened to Sophie – and there’s no way around this one – is that she was kicked to death. For kohl. By people who had no tolerance for expression and no understanding of individuality.

Illamasqua Sophie

I mention this today because the anniversary of Sophie’s death passed last week. Each time this comes around, we’re reminded that The Sophie Lancaster Foundation exists to stamp out ignorance about sub-cultures and to remind us to be respectful of individuality. By supporting The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, you’re helping to push away boundaries that shouldn’t exist. So, a quick reminder of the Sophie Blush (£21.50) from Illamasqua above, from which £1 goes to the foundation, and the Sophie Eye Pencil (£15) from which £3 of each purchase goes to to the foundation. You can find them both HERE.

There’s also a brand new download by Bad Pollyanna that’s also raising money for The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, also available in the link above.

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I’ve bought new bed linen. Because my Kelly Hoppen stuff from QVC was such a success (1000 thread count, brilliant white, no longer in stock) I thought I’d splash out again and go for top quality. The sort of sheets that make you think you’re in a swanky hotel, until you wake up in the middle of the night with a dog wrapped around the top of your head and a “lights and sounds!” bathtime turtle digging into the base of your spine.

I’ve bought the Luxury Hotel Collection linen from House of Fraser before (in fact I’m pretty sure I did a post about it) but that was when we had a massive bedroom and a superking bed. If we tried to shoehorn a superking into this bedroom we’d be using the headboard as a shoerack and storing clothes beneath the mattress! So now we need king size, which is a blessing in disguise as linen does work out a bit cheaper. Every cloud, and all that..

The 1000TC from Luxury Hotel Collection is ludicrously priced – £370 for a king sized duvet cover – but, fortunately and also suspiciously, always on sale. At the moment, for example, if you buy two or more pieces from the range you get 70% off, making the duvet cover £111.

(Christ on a bike! I told Mr AMR it was £60. Better keep that one quiet, I only just looked at the invoice properly!)

Anyway, it all came in (sheet, duvet, pillow cases) at about the same price as the Kelly Hoppen stuff and it definitely feels just as luxurious. It’s so heavy, in fact, that it’s almost too much for the warmer summer months. Even without any filling, the duvet cover is approximately the same weight as a collapsed four-man tent, and with stuffing, lying underneath it is like being slowly flattened inside a giant flower press.

On a completely different note, I have the winners of the Alpha-H giveaway for you, emails bastardised, as usual, to protect privacy. Well done to the victors – the rest of you can have another bite of the beauty prize cherry this week when I post up my next epic giveaway!