I’ve been playing about with Dolce & Gabbana’s Summer In Italy collection, which includes a lemon yellow eyeshadow, a creamy gold shimmer pot for face and eyes and a bronzer with the most colourful packaging I’ve ever seen.

The matte eye monos are unbelievably pigmented, and I’m having great fun with the Turquoise one (though not quite ready to go out in it until I’ve honed the application technique), but it’s the lipstick and nail polish in Orange that I’ve found most instantly wearable.

Sizzle sizzle. I’m wearing NARS Tinted Moisturizer (Alaska Light 2) with about eight tonnes of D&G’s The Sicilian Bronzer over the top, Chanel mascara in Rouge Noir on my eyes and, on my lips, the Classic Cream Lipstick in Orange. (Find it here.) It’s a great holiday shade, slightly more flattering, I think, than the pinkier corals that always come out for the summer. Though I suppose that depends on your skin tone.

Stay tuned for more on this collection – you won’t believe how bright the turquoise eyeshadow is. It messes up my camera settings because (I think) the lens just goes “what the hell am I seeing here? It’s like nothing else on earth!”

You can find the Summer In Italy collection in its entirety at Harrods here – the nail polishes have particularly good wear and are smooth and easy to apply.

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Oh dear. I do sometimes think that Jo Malone gets far too much attention from me in comparison to other fragrance-makers; as a brand, they are kind of like a very cute and confident little girl that can’t be ignored. You know that type of impossibly pretty, curly-haired blonde that runs upstairs to put a tutu on whenever there are visitors and then hurtles back down the stairs to perform a pitch-perfect rendition of Annie? (Usually when everyone is trying to enjoy a glass of wine and talk about adult things.) Her.

Everything is always just so covetable and nice to look at – and in terms of mass appeal, the scents are never too wacky or unusual, the ideas behind the product campaigns are universally pleasing… This is by no means a criticism of Jo Malone London; I’m mostly in awe of the marketing skills and behind-the-scenes creativity that must go into keeping each new launch fresh and interesting and completely lust-worthy. Especially when the new launches are so frequent. It’s just that I realised, moments before sitting down to write this review, that the brand manages to get itself a hell of a lot of air time!

Browse the archived Jo Malone posts…

We’ve only just had Rock the Ages; a series of scents – such as Tudor Rose – that were specially designed to celebrate different eras in British history. Now we have something pretty and sweet to take us into spring – the Blue Skies and Blossoms collection. Perfectly named and perfectly timed – just when the first bit of sun peeks out from behind the clouds, here are three re-released fragrances that are spot-on for the new season in terms of both appearance and scent.

More fragrance posts…

If you were a super-sleuth, you’d be able to tell from the image above which one’s my favourite; I knocked the bow off the bottle and it has reset itself at a bit of a jaunty angle. I found that the outer two fragrances; Plum Blossom and Sakura Cherry Blossom were just a bit too girly for my tastes. Pretty – the Sakura Cherry is powdery and romantic, the Plum is slightly more juicy – but a bit on the soapy-soppy side for me. Osmanthus Blossom, however, is the kind of greenish, fresh scent that makes you want to sit in a field in a straw hat and drink ready-made cans of G&T. A bit peachy, a touch sharp – I like it more than the Geranium & Verbena from the latest collection, but not as much as the fizzy, summery Cricket Pavilion Cologne from a couple of years back. (Can’t even remember the proper name for that one now!)

**UPDATE: HA! I knew this scent was familiar. I already reviewed it! You can read my original review here – I called it a “a spring picnic laid out on the lawn; peach melba, apricot tart, a sparkling wine poured into long-stemmed glasses”. Well, at least I’m consistent, though I seem to have let my standards slip since the last review – gone is the laid-out picnic and sparkling wine on the lawn, I’ve taken to sitting in a field like a drunkard with ready made cans of Gin and Tonic!*

You can find the “Blue Skies and Blossom” collection at John Lewis here – £86 per 100ml.

*disclaimer, for those who take everything literally: I am NOT drinking ready made cans of G&T. Or sparkling wine, for that matter. If you’d like to follow my pregnancy diary, it’s over here.

The post Blue Skies and Blossoms: Jo Malone Cologne appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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Alright, Benebabes, we’re about to get REAL up in here. Sometimes, life just gets hard! Your boyfriend dumps you, your brows are NOT on fleek, the heel busts off your favorite shoe (as your walking by a major hottie, no doubt). We’ve all been there. But, girlfriend, you are not alone anymore! Thanks to the Benefit Cosmetics Flawless Friends Network, you’ll never be alone again!

How could anyone frown while Miss Cleo is telling them how flawless they are?

Even Joey Lawrence (WHOA!) calls in when he’s feeling low and needs a little bit of lovin.’ (Trust us, Joey, we’ll give you all the lovin’ you need ;).)

Shannen Doherty turns to the Flawless Friends Network when she’s feeling down ’cause her boyfriend gets a little bit too, errrm, into himself.

We know it’s the first place turn when that one friend (you know the friend, we all have one) starts getting into it again.

So why wait, gorgeous!? Miss Cleo is waiting for you!

Call the Benefit Cosmetics Flawless Friends Network NOW & let your flawless future begin!

Seriously. Do it. NOW.

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The first proper pregnancy feature! I imagine that there will be lots of cheers, because so many of you have asked for updates and posts, but also a few little groans, because some would prefer all pregnancy stuff to be as far away from here as is humanly possible. I’ll let you into a little secret that should hopefully please everyone; I’ve been beavering away at another blog, recording all of my random thoughts and feelings in an online pregnancy journal. It’s not quite ready to look at yet, but there are a good few posts up so I just need to do some final adjustments and hit the “on” button. All of my informal, diary-style stuff will be over there and all of the big, proper pregnancy posts (or ones that are fashion or beauty related) will stay here.

And so, beauty-related pregnancy video: some skin changes, an overview of the products that I’ve been using since September and a couple of things that my skin has decided not to tolerate. The main gist of this video is that a) my skin has got drier, b) I can no longer abide the smell of Sunday Riley’s Good Genes, c) my skin doesn’t like glycolic acid at the moment and d), I seem to have gravitated towards using quite a lot of “natural” and organic brands. (Note that not all of the products shown are “natural” or organic, just that there seems to be something of a trend going on.) (Note, also, that I use inverted commas around the “natural” – I do this only because it is such a ridiculously vague term. But it suits my purposes for now, so it stays.)

My skin wasn’t too great for the first trimester; I think it was mostly just a reflection of how terrible I was feeling in general; tired, sick and miserable! I also struggled to eat healthily, because I developed an aversion to most foods apart from Coco Pops and bananas and Jacob’s Cream Crackers topped with Davidstow cheese, and that definitely did my skin in a bit. But a few weeks into the second trimester – it must have been at around Christmastime – everything seemed to perk up and now my skin, I have to say, is just about the best that it has ever been. This week, at least!

I’m still using my Olay Regenerist Luminous serum, alternated with the Vichy Aqualia and the odd touch of something completely new, because I can’t resist trying the launches that come my way, but my most-used pregnancy product has to be the MV Organic Skincare moisturiser that I’ve harped on about for months. It just has a very calming, soothing effect on my skin, though it perhaps doesn’t provide quite enough moisture if used without a hydrating serum first. I must experiment with the MV boosters that I have to mix into it – I keep meaning to, but it slips my mind. Like just about everything else these days!

OK, onto the vid – products are listed below it, if you want to cheat and skip to the info part, and if you missed my Affordable Skincare Routine one at the weekend, you can catch up on that here.

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