Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category
Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, Hair, Opinion
By Lauren Bravo on June 18th, 2013
For a ritual that’s supposed to count as pampering, having your hair done sure is a stressful business. Lauren Bravo rounds up the worst bits.
1) Trying to establish whether or not your hairdresser is A Talker. “They probably don’t want to chat,” you tell yourself. “They’ve had a long day, perhaps they’d like to be alone with their thoughts for an hour or two. Why should I bombard them with my blather? Why do we have to fake a friendship based entirely on serum and why my fringe flicks upward on some days and downward on others? Let’s both just BE for a while.”
Then after four silent minutes, the pressure gets to you. You remember all the cosy, women’s mag articles you’ve read about a hairdresser being a girl’s best friend, confidante, therapist and mother all in one, and you feel inadequate. Maybe they do want to chat, it’s just that they’ve judged you unchattable-to. WHY can’t you chat? You are a person, with thoughts, and things – why shouldn’t you share them with this nice stranger? Particularly when the nice stranger is holding scissors menacingly close to your jugular.
So you grope desperately for something to say. You can’t ask them about holidays, obviously, because that’s a massive cliché and would probably offend them. “Just because I’m a hairdresser,” they might bellow back, “it doesn’t mean I spend all my time getting in a tizzy over package deals to Zante. Talk to me about the G8, or Proust, for God’s sake.”
But you don’t know anything about the G8, or Proust. “Um,” you say. “It looks like it might rain.”
2) The repeated enquiries about whether you’re happy with the water temperature. Nobody in the history of hairdressing has ever had a problem with the water temperature. And if you did, the blistering skin or blue lips would probably tip them off without you having to say.
3) Staring at your own face in a mirror under fluorescent light for upwards of two hours while your hair is placed in unnatural parting arrangements, making one look like one’s mother in her secondary school photo.
4) Needing the toilet but not being sure if you’re ‘allowed’ to go with a head full of foils. What if you do something that weirdly affects the colour while you’re peeing? What if you get the big flappy gown trapped somewhere unfortunate?
5) When they ask you how you like your hair blow-dried, and the only answer you can think to produce is “err.. until it’s dry?”
6) When they ask you if you would like to purchase some of the products used on you today and your mouth says, “Ooh, not today but maybe next time” while your face says “wonder if they sell it in Savers?”
7) When the hairdresser asks, smoothing your beautifully coiffed new ‘do into a style that deserves swishy exhibition, what you are doing that night. Because obviously, you must be going out tonight. You’re a hip young thing, and you’ve just spent an eye watering sum on having somebody preen you! So telling the truth, that you’re going to spend it on the sofa trying to complete the American states quiz on Sporcle, feels like failing your hairdresser. They will look at you in the mirror with sad eyes and think “My art! For what?”
So you lie and tell them you’re going on a hen night, or something.
8) The tipping. Oh lord, the tipping. Never in life (not even when someone produces a cricket set and suggests a casual two innings) am I more uncomfortable and awkward than when tipping, or failing to tip, a hairdresser. What’s worse is that NOBODY seems to know the rules, and when I ask people their responses run the whole gamut from “nothing, are you MAD? It already costs the same as a small bungalow in Aberystwyth” to “I slip a fifty in their pocket and kiss their feet, weeping.”
You know if anyone deserves the tip it’s the poor, harried hair-washers – but it’s pretty hard to get to them when there’s a beaming stylist in front of you. With scissors. Just rounding up the price would be a straightforward enough idea, except that my half head of highlights costs £88. What do I round to? £95? £100? Is it meant to be at least 10%, like a restaurant? Do I leave a sodding £12 tip and let my colourist think I’m secretly in love with her, for the sake of maths? DO I?
If anyone can shed any light on the matter, please comment below. My split ends and I thank you.
@laurenbravo
Tags: Beauty, colouring, etiquette, haircuts, hairdressers, highligts, Lauren Bravo, salons, tipping
Posted in Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, Hair, Opinion | No Comments »
Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Opinion, Opinion peice, Trend Alert
By Lauren Bravo on June 17th, 2013
Let she who is without selfies cast the first moan! But if selfies could speak… what would they say?
Classic pout
“I’m a traditional gal. I don’t deviate. like mild peri-peri on my Nando’s, and Paul McCartney is my favourite Beatle.”
The extreme pout
Extreme pout
“By playing with the proportions of the conventional photographic pout, I am making a comment on the nature of our society’s obsession with lip-to-face ratio. Also, look at me all minxy.”
Satirical pout
The satirical pout
“This is what people do in selfies, yes? I’ve heard it is, but I can’t be sure as most of my time is taken up with poi swinging, not using Facebook and working on my quinoa recipe blog, Keen-a for Quinoa.”
‘The shoes’
“As this is only 20% a photo of my shoes and 80% a photo of some floor, so you’d be forgiven for commenting, “Hey! Nice floor!”. But that isn’t the intended response.”
‘The legs’
“Legs can’t be narcissistic, right? They’re just legs! Lovely, practical legs! Legs for climbing mountains, dancing a merry jig or, on this occasion, casually lying prone on a sun lounger under a light coating of shimmery body oil.’
The mug
‘The mug’
“You think this is premium Venezuelan java. It’s actually Robinson’s Fruit & Barley. Now let’s read some Sartre.”
‘The mirror’
“Isn’t this a lovely toilet? Look, they have those nice quilted paper hand towels and everything. Try to focus more on my sassy outfit and less on the fact I’ve just urinated.”
The ‘new hair’
“This is legitimate. I have new hair! I must garner opinions! If a tree falls in the forest and nobody comments on its new hair, does it really exist?”
The sleepy
‘The sleepy’
“It’s pretty hectic, being me. But please don’t be associating my tiredness with the same sort of tiredness that produces eye bags and sleep farting and a little trail of crusty drool on one’s face. Mine is a different, sexy tiredness. Je suis fatigue. Look at my artfully rumpled hair. Are you imagining me in bed yet?”
‘The dopey’
“Geez, I’m so ditsy y’all. I didn’t even mean to take this – I was trying to pay my council tax using my online banking app, but before I knew it I’d snapped myself looking adorably gawky with my mouth slightly open. Still, shame to let it go to waste.”
‘The sneezy’
At the time of going to print, this wasn’t yet a selfie trend.
The dopey
There is a boyfriend in your photo
“OH LOOK I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!”
Your heads are bent together coyly
“NO I ACTUALLY DO I SWEAR”
His face is partially obscured because he is nuzzling your neck/kissing your cheek
“SEE? I AM SO ADORED.”
The arms’-reach, almost, just about, could feasibly not be a selfie
“But it obviously is.”
Tags: facebook, Instagram, Lauren Bravo, narcissism, photography, pouting, Selfies, twitter
Posted in Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Opinion, Opinion peice, Trend Alert | 1 Comment »
Affordable Fashions, Health, Opinion, Reviews, Skin, Uncategorized
By Daisy Buchanan on June 15th, 2013
What would you say if I promised you all the dreamy, fragrant properties of a perfect holiday for less than twenty quid?
Unless you’re three or under, or Tamara Ecclestone, and have no real concept of ‘what things cost’, you’ll laugh, remember the time your Mum and Dad paid fifty quid for a Teletext coach trip to Torremolinos in 1989, cry, become hysterical with memories and book a session with a PTSD specialist for £90.
Korres Holiday In Greece set, £19 from www.biggreensmile.co.uk
But you can go on holiday to Greece for £19 with the Korres Holiday In Greece gift set! It’s a box of sunshine. It fills your bathroom with sun warmed lemon groves, beaches and memories, whilst leaving plenty of room for your towels. It will make you smooth, shiny and relaxed. Without going “all weathery” on you, if the situation in the UK doesn’t move beyond apocalyptic, you can’t afford not to have this in your bathroom. This will soothe every soul that’s seethed with the indignity of spending their June eating soup for supper whilst wrung out, soggy opaques rest on a radiator.
The Basil Lemon shower gel and body milk are instant soothing, smoothing mood boosters. The Guava body butter and shower gel feel a bit richer and ruder – something for the weekend, or evenings when you want to go out and make eyes at the waiters in Pizza Express. And the Aloe & Soapwart shampoo is perfect for hair that has been in the sea – or in the rain, at the bus stop.
The dinky sizing is perfect for holidays – but the set is even more perfect for cheering you up if there are no holidays on the horizon. It’s the diametric opposite to going on a coach trip to Torremolinos with your parents in the mid to late eighties.
Tags: bargain, Body, cheerful, Daisy Buchanan, goodies, happy, holiday, Korres, mood, Shampoo, travel
Posted in Affordable Fashions, Health, Opinion, Reviews, Skin, Uncategorized | No Comments »
denim, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Nostalgia, Opinion, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert
By Lauren Bravo on June 14th, 2013
It’s floral, it’s denim, it’s studded, it’s a shirtdress, it’s a bit 90s, it’s a bit 70s, it has sleeves. We call this one ‘the box-ticker’.
Denim shirtdresses are having a bit of a moment. At least in our hearts, if not in da clubz quite yet. They’re cousin of the giant denim shirt, in which I always like to imagine I will look like a happy lady in an advert, sighing wistfully in the doorway of an empty room with a smudge of paint on her nose while a knitting-pattern-handsome man brings her a cup of tea. But in reality giant denim shirts make me look like one of those women who writes love letters to men on death row, so the fitted denim shirtdress is an appealing compromise – more waisted, less wasted.
This Topshop print stud number is the second denim shirtdress to feature in Sleeves of the Week, and it’s a deserving specimen. We’ve seen 80s-does-50s many times, but who knew 10s-does-90s-does-70s would be so brilliant a combo? In a colourful feathery floral, it manages to be both summery and wintery at once and so will never leave you in seasonal purgatory, trying to waft cold air down your tights in a Caffe Nero loo. It’s even got sturdy poppers, meaning no button-popping fear for the ample of bosom. Add a floppy hat and the biggest necklace you can find.
Tags: 70s, 90s, 90s fashion, denim, dress, floral dress, high street, Lauren Bravo, Shirtdress, sleeves of the week, TopShop
Posted in denim, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Nostalgia, Opinion, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert | No Comments »
Accessories, Behind the bag, Designer Fashions, Designers, Fashion Crush, Fashion Tips, Features, Handbags, Nostalgia, Opinion, Style spotlight
By Daisy Buchanan on June 13th, 2013
Lucy plotted this purchase carefully online. She wasn’t thinking ‘mummy bag’. She wanted something classy, classic, summer in the Hamptons, old school power bitch with a Filofax. But now the cream exterior is smudged with biro and stained with mustard, and the interior is a different, even more distressing horror story. She imagines an official government bag inspector rifling through it in dismay, ignoring the shinier signs of success (iPad, Marc Jacobs wallet, Chanel lipstick – in a colour that’s no longer available, but still) and shrieking with horror at the tampons who escaped their cellophane to roll in the bag dust like dirty hippies. And what of the other monstrosities? Nude Topshop ballet pumps with a busted seam that have started to smell ‘curious’. Camus to look cool, Jilly Cooper for luck and an old, unread Vogue doing the job of a document folder. Seven foil wrappings which once held falafel wraps from Leon.
Lucy sometimes finds life in London so overwhelming that she wishes she could climb inside her giant bag and wait for someone to discover her and look after her, like Paddington. Or she could set up home there – it’s no darker or smellier than her Clapham house share, and it’s much cheaper. Perhaps she’ll throw it into the sea and go to her parents’ in Dorset for a bit. She remembers walking around their hall, arms outstretched, feeling for wifi like a Knightmare contestant, and thinks again. She hitches her giant bag higher on her shoulder and its padlock narrowly misses the face of a passing cyclist. In London, you need all the weapons you can get.
Tags: "designer handbag", Accessories, Behind the bag, Daisy Buchanan, Osprey, tote bag, wardrobe stories
Posted in Accessories, Behind the bag, Designer Fashions, Designers, Fashion Crush, Fashion Tips, Features, Handbags, Nostalgia, Opinion, Style spotlight | No Comments »
Beauty, Features, Opinion, Opinion peice, Reviews, ShinyStyle Investigates, Skin
By Lauren Bravo on June 11th, 2013
When almost every other bodily problem is up for public discussion, why does adult acne get left in the dark? Writer Laura Jane Williams brings her breakout battle into the open
So the thing is, I’ve always had pretty amazing skin. And that’s a really shitty thing for me to say, because nice girls don’t gloat about such genetic triumphs. It’s like saying “No, I eat whatever I want, I never put on weight!” or “Oh, my lashes naturally hit the glass of my spectacles.” I know this. But I promise what I’m about to type will satisfy even the most extreme schadenfreude hankering.
From November 2012 to April 2013 every Facebook photograph of me has been touched up, on iPhoto, so as not to reveal the true state of my skin. Karma came to bite me on my ample ass, you see. I got adult acne.
I amassed a collection of painful pustles under the skin, positioning themselves in such a way that it meant natural sunlight made it seem as though Batman’s Egghead had invited his whole family over for dinner along my jawline. The fluro lighting at work made the mounds on my chin look red and angry, pounding for release. Washing didn’t work, makeup did sod all, and the stress of worrying about how I was putting my colleagues off their lunch made it even worse.
Seldom did my irritations do me the pleasure of developing heads to be squeezed in order to release the pus. Any PMT blemish before The Skin Debacle of 2012 would’ve been dealt with in that way. But my bout of adult acne? Not so amenable. And it made me fucking miserable.
The truly ironic part of this devastating turn of events – and truly, I have now come to understand how absolutely, cripplingly mortifying bad skin can be – is that at the time of my outbreak, I was writing an eBook about adult acne. Say what you want about the universe, but that bitch has got one hell of a sense of humour.
I used to think that irrespective of the odd pimple it was who you were on the inside that counted. Well I’m calling shenanigans on that. Despite the fact that I’m a smart woman- I graduated top of my class, pay all my own bills, date, have friends, work hard, play harder, that is, in short, do everything normal, happy, functioning, people do- I could not get past the disfigured face I saw in the mirror. Over Christmas, I didn’t even leave the house. Kids- that kind of behaviour just ain’t me.
But that’s just it! Spots send you bonkers! It’s all you think about! All you see! AND THAT’S NOT ALL. As a sufferer of adult acne, you wonder if every time somebody makes eye contact with you, from the sales clerk to your BFF, if they’re thinking to themselves, “Wow. Sister be gross.” So basically I just stopped making eye contact at all.
My self-esteem was never as low as it was in those months.
I tried everything. Two litres of water a day. Lymphatic drainage massages. Eight hours a week of blue light therapy. New cleansers, different toners, no moisturiser, more moisturiser. I felt better for being more hydrated, and I’ve since recommended Lustre Light Therapy to friends because it helped enough to be worth a try for anyone, but I still couldn’t talk about acne. I still couldn’t use words to describe the debilitating angst that I felt, for the first time in my life, teenage and adult, ugly. And that goes hand-in-hand with worthless. I felt that, too.
My boss, wise elder, took me aside one day, slipping a box of Priori Advanced AHA facial cleanser into my palm. She had me combine it with a Vitage Age Defence Hydrating Mask a few times a week, and Medik8’s Growth Factor underneath my twice-daily Nivea application. I got salon-strength exfoliant to use twice a week, and switched my foundation to a tinted moisturiser so that my face can breathe better.
After 8 weeks of intensive TLC, my face started to heal. I felt like myself again. I don’t know why I got a breakout when I did- hormones, my “big move” to London, bad luck- karma? I don’t even know which part of my solution to recommend to you.
But what I do want to say, is that why is it we can talk about in-growing pubic hairs, fanny farts, thrush and scaly dandruff, but acne is off limits? The thing I wanted most during my six-month pizza-face ordeal was, aside from a solution, an honest conversation about it. But I was far too embarrassed.
It’s only now I’m almost back to my old spot-free self that I feel confident enough to say guys. We need to talk about adult acne.
I’ve stated my case. What’s yours?
Laura Jane Williams blogs at Superlatively Rude and Tweets under @superlativelyLJ
Tags: acne, blue light therapy, dermatology, Laura Jane Williams, Medik8, Priori, Skincare, spots, Vitage
Posted in Beauty, Features, Opinion, Opinion peice, Reviews, ShinyStyle Investigates, Skin | 2 Comments »
Affordable Fashions, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Opinion, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert, Weddings
By Lauren Bravo on June 8th, 2013
How many kinds of sweet flowers grow… on this lovely ASOS shift dress? Botanical and be-sleeved, it’s our pick of the week.
Botanical things are usually good things. Botanical gardens, botanical extracts, that odd botanical cola you occasionally get served in hipster pubs. Surprisingly for a word that sounds so much like “botty”, botany itself is a lovely idea – I always like to think that it another life, one in which I’m a sudo-Mitford sister living in a crumbling 1930s manor house, I’d be really into dried flowers and pressing things.
But until that dream can be realised, I’ll settle for a botanical wardrobe instead. And there’s never been a better time to acquire one, as florals have really stepped up their game this season – gone are the mimsy patterns and Cath Kidston clones of yore, and in their place digitally-enhanced psychedelia and photo-realistic prints to bring a slice of nature to even the dingiest urban enclave.
Even better, some of them have sleeves! This bracelet-length ASOS shift dress is fresh as a daisy but far more interesting – with its big, detailed bluebells and foxgloves, it’d be a bit like wearing one of those wallcharts that used to come free with The Guardian. But less papery. Enjoy.
Tags: "shift dress", ASOS, botanical, floral, floral dress, Lauren Bravo, prints, sleeves of the week, White dress
Posted in Affordable Fashions, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Opinion, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert, Weddings | No Comments »
Accessories, Fashion Tips, Features, Opinion, Opinion peice, Sunglasses
By Lauren Bravo on June 6th, 2013
Nobody likes the knob in dark glasses on the tube – but it’s not always as simple as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Here’s a handy checklist to help you know when to put them on and take them off
In a small shop: acceptable
In a big shop or department store: unacceptable
£10 ASOS
In the pub: unacceptable
In a restaurant: unacceptable
In a club: unacceptable
£8 Bank Fashion
In the car: acceptable
On the bus: acceptable
On a train: borderline
£20 Urban Outfitters
On the tube: unacceptable
In the entrance to the tube station: acceptable
At the top of the tube escalator: acceptable
In the middle of the tube escalator: grey area
At the bottom of the tube escalator: unacceptable
£9.50 Marks and Spencer
In the daytime: acceptable
At sunset: judgement call
After dark: unacceptable
£16 River Island
In bed: unacceptable
***
(If you are visually impaired or have other health reasons: acceptable. Obviously.)
Tags: ASOS, Bank Fashion, fashion rules, Lauren Bravo, M&S, summer, sunglasses, Urban Outfitters
Posted in Accessories, Fashion Tips, Features, Opinion, Opinion peice, Sunglasses | No Comments »
Accessories, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, How to Wear, Opinion, plus size, Weddings
By Lauren Bravo on June 5th, 2013
Never mind what to wear on your own wedding day – what the hell do you wear on everybody else’s? Luckily, we’ve rounded up more than a few ideas.
Weddings! WEDDINGS! ALL THE WEDDINGS! Wait, aren’t you meant to be at one RIGHT NOW? The sun is out and with it, thousands of twenty and thirty-somethings in suits and crumpled fascinators standing around queasily on railway platforms, picking marzipan out of their hair.
Far harder, really, than the question of what to wear on your own wedding day is the question of what to wear on everybody else’s. Are black and white still banned? Will sugared almond shades look adorably winning or like you’ve crawled out of Mothercare? Are floral head garlands pushing the Pinterest agenda just a BIT too hard?
Factor in multiple matrimonies in a single summer and you’d be forgiven for giving up and Skyping in your attendance from beneath the duvet. But let’s not lose our sense of perspective – there are free booze and profiteroles at stake, remember.
The way I see it, you can either be the guest everyone loves – tasteful, appropriate, elegant but not scene-stealing – or the guest everyone sort of hates, because you’re rocking an incredible outfit they never saw on their endless trips from Monsoon to Coast and back again, and the photographer keeps stealing you aside for separate photos, muttering “this will be really bloggable”. Or you can strive for a delicate balance of both.
Weddings are costly enough, without you having to buy a pile of pastel polyester that you’ll never wear again. So forget the nuptial standards and just choose something wonderful instead – you’ll look so much more comfortable than you would in identikit pastel pink Reiss. Go loud, go proud, and then go home after the Grease Megamix.
Clean t-shirt maxi dress, £58 Topshop
I am obsessed with this dress. Mainly because I know there is little in the world that would suit me less than this dress, and so I want everyone else in the world to wear it on my behalf.
It comes in a beautiful, wedding-perfect colour spectrum of cornflower blue, coral and turquoise, and with its juxtaposition of slinky Japanese satin and t-shirt shape it’s all business at the top, party in the bottom. You’ll be the envy of everyone in a badly fitting multiway bra.
Tags: ASOS, dresses, full skirt, M&S, maxi dress, Missguided, occasionwear, sequinned dress, skater dress, summer, TopShop, Virgos Lounge, wedding guest outfits, weddings
Posted in Accessories, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, How to Wear, Opinion, plus size, Weddings | No Comments »
Beauty, Features, Nails, Opinion, Reviews
By Daisy Buchanan on June 4th, 2013
I grew up religious, and as such, enjoy preparation, fasts, feasts and ritual anointment. And nearly all of these practices can be observed, should you wish, during holiday preparation. Holiday prep is the ultimate Lent. Forget Jesus, in the desert, having a crappy old time of it – this is you, having a fabulous time in the run up to your trip to the desert, or beach. Observing every element of the festival will leave you broke and might well cost more than the holiday – but if you’re prone to pre hol panic, one or two well chosen bits of fine tuning will leave you feeling more like Jade Jagger and less “Oh no, where’s my hand luggage bag?”er. It’s better than wildly spunking major dollar on DVT socks and malaria pills in the run up to your coach trip to Dieppe.
One of the most cheering pre vacation treats you can give yourself is a professional pedicure. My first pedicure was a traumatic, terrifying experience. A woman who looked not unlike He Man and who claimed to have starred in a reality show about salons delivered the sort of ritually humiliating experience that some people in Soho charge an enormous amount of money for. “WHY ARE YOU NOT ENJOYING YOUR RELAXING MASSAGE?” she shouted, as she crunched her foot as if her hands were teeth and my toes were Hula Hoops. “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”
I did not go back.
However, I always wondered if it were possible to get pretty feet without experiencing years of PTSD – and you can, at The Debbie Thomas Collective (Hari’s Salon, 305 Brompton Road, London. Luxury pedicure from £59). The therapists do more to put you at your ease than a new boyfriend’s mum who looks into your eyes and sees grandchildren. As well as the standard scented scrubbing and exfoliating, there’s an amazing paraffin treatment which sorts out any dry skin or manky heel business. Choose the gel polish – it doesn’t chip and it dries straight away, so you don’t have to walk around Kensington in flip flops pretending you just got back from Dubai.
You might be horrified by the idea of a pre holiday facial- “Dude, I could get SEVEN FISH BOWLS and a plate of patatas bravas for what that costs in Euros!” but if you’re like Elfine from Cold Comfort Farm at a dress fitting, or like me, you’ll take to the idea “like a swan bathing in foam” because you spend your life looking for excuses to get people to pour lovely products on to you. A holiday facial should make everything smooth, cleansed and glowing, lessening the opportunity to spots to burst forth the second you get in the sun, and it irons your face out a bit, so you feel like you’re on holiday before you actually go on holiday. The Elemis Skin Booster facial (£45 for 30 minutes, department stores nationwide) does all of these things – and they sit you in a magical massage chair, so everything is loose and holiday ready. It’s timed to take place within a lunch hour, so you don’t have to feel guilty about using time that was earmarked for writing handover notes or washing pants or switching off every single plug socket in the house. It delivers the holiday experience so effectively that if you’re time and cash poor, you could get away with booking one instead of a holiday. And if you’re really, really REALLY busy, the Radical Skincare Instant Revitalising mask (£40, Space NK) is basically the closest product to a facial in a bottle and it only takes three minutes. You will not go un-radiant.
It’s a divisive subject, but I am a big advocate of holiday pre lash. Semi permanent lashes sound like a faff, but they minimise mascara faffing – and melting – when you’re away. If you plan on a lot of underwater swimming, they might not be for you, but if you’re a little lazier – say, the sort of person who goes to Barcelona and decides their favourite thing isn’t the beach or the abundance of Gaudi, but, erm, room service – then spending an hour lying down in the dark having tiny bits of hair glued to your face will prove a rewarding experience. Browhaus (19a Floral Street, London, WC2E 9DS) will do this for £40, and if you look after them properly they’ll last for a fortnight. Anything near your eyes takes a bit of getting used to, but once you’ve stopped nervously touching your browbone and holding your palm to your face as if trying to trap a butterfly, you’ll be able to go properly low maintenance – I left all the eye themed cosmetics at home and didn’t miss them. And when you’re home, you can go for a £10 tune up – you might be broke, wet, cold and in emotional hock to some tequila slamming cad named Roberto, but you can keep fluttering forever.
You may or may not wish to wax or be spray tanned – I do, and do, but they’re sizeable subjects and I’m running out of space (one day I shall write an epic love letter to East London’s Hula Nails, who do both of these things magnificently, but they are the Elizabeth Taylor of salons and my words need to sparkle with the ardor of the contents of a thousand Cartier boxes) but once you are out there, in the sun, in Factor 70 and under a big hat, I recommend the lavish and joyful application of Gatineau’s Tan Accelerator (£34 for 250ml, online). It’s great for keeping beach blown skin silky and hydrated, as well as reducing the redness of an arm that was stretched out in the full glare of the sun and reaching for the Aperol Spritz.
Tags: Beauty, Browhaus, Daisy Buchanan, Elemis, facial, Gatineau, holiday, lashes, Pedicure, preparation, tan
Posted in Beauty, Features, Nails, Opinion, Reviews | No Comments »
guess where this is from, How to Wear, Nostalgia, Opinion, Uncategorized, vintage
By Daisy Buchanan on June 3rd, 2013
Writer Janina Mathewson explains the rules of wearing something that has been loved before, and how a girl on a budget can avoid growing weary of the nearly new…
Sometimes in our lives we find it hard to stretch to a new pair of jeans. Sometimes we find it hard to stretch to a replacement pair of three pound sneakers. Sometimes we’re startled awake by the realisation that we don’t own a single piece of your own clothing that’s newer than three years old. That you have more hand me downs than you do clothes you’ve actually bought.
Once you start accruing hand me down clothes it can be difficult to stop. There are two reasons for this. The first is because if you’re going through a time where you know you may not be able to have a decent shop for a while, you start losing the ability to turn down free things. Someone might offer you a dress in just not at all your colour, and you’ll take it because you’re not sure when you’re going to manage to buy a dress yourself. The second reason is that once people realise that you’re open to receiving their leftovers, they start running them all by you before they take them to the charity shop.
This is obviously lovely; it’s splendid to be able to sit back and reflect on the fact that your friends won’t let you go completely naked, but there is a difficulty to be overcome. Because when you’re trying to choose something to wear, you want something that feels like you. Something that shows the most and best of you. And it’s really hard to achieve that with a wardrobe stocked with other people’s leavings.
This is easiest combated with the smaller items. Your skirts and shirts and cardies. In this case, it’s like mixing paint – you think yellow is too jaunty? Mix in some blue for a vintage pea-green. Think that shirt is a bit too prim and businessy for you? Chuck an old belt over it and wear it with a chunky necklace.
Dresses and such like are harder, as they’re kind of like a full outfit, but choice of boots and jackets can do a lot. It’ s all in what you do with it.
Yes, there will be some things that will always feel a little strange; like those boots you have to wear more than you want to because they’re the only footwear you own that keep out water, but you can still have a strong effect on the overall look. And if nothing else, you’ll learn more about what you don’t like to wear, for when your ship comes in and you can foist the whole lot off on someone else.
Follow Janina on Twitter @J9andIf
Tags: clothes, found, Janina Matthewson, second hand, style, vintage
Posted in guess where this is from, How to Wear, Nostalgia, Opinion, Uncategorized, vintage | No Comments »
Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, guess where this is from, Opinion, Opinion peice, Perfume, ShinyStyle Investigates, Uncategorized
By Lauren Bravo on June 2nd, 2013
Rumour has it Lidl do a perfume that smells exactly like Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle. Lauren Bravo sniffs out an unlikely bargain.
I have plenty of good associations with Lidl. I like their enormous cartons of orange juice and wide range of ambiguously-labelled continental meat products. I even have good smell associations with Lidl, as the branch on Camden High Street pumps out the scent of freshly-baked pastries so aggressively that you can walk in a warm cloud of maple pecan twist all the way to Mornington Crescent.
But until recently, and I trust this won’t make me sound too much like Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had never occurred to me to go to Lidl for perfume. Not until, that is, I watched C4′s SuperScrimpers and was told that the winningly-named “Suddenly Madame Glamour” (except the presenter pronounced it “Gla-MOOR”, as in ‘Glamorgan’, presumably to give it a modicum of chic Frenchness), smelled exactly like Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle. That’s the warm, potent scent of a thousand sexy Parisian necks, for the price of a sandwich and a Twix. Or four jars of sauerkraut and an eight-pack of batteries, if you’re still in Lidl.
On the TV show they blind-tested ladies in a shopping centre and showed them all enjoying Suddenly Madame Glamour, then not believing it could possibly cost £3.99 from a supermarket. So I grabbed a colleague and marched them down to Lidl at lunchtime, to douse ourselves in Faux-co Chanel among the sausage and soft cheeses. “This could change EVERYTHING,” we whispered.
On first sniff it’s promising. It DOES smell like Coco Mademoiselle. It’s the same heady jasmine-rose scent that brings back my first year of uni, when every second girl on my corridor was a devoted fan. It’s strong and unashamedly perfumey, not pretending to be fresh laundry or a dewy meadow or anything, but nor is it something you need to reach certain levels of maturity to appreciate, like Chanel No.5 or chicken liver pâté. It’s not my signature scent, and especially not when it’ll cost me upwards of £50 – but for £3.99? Heck, for £3.99 I’d make make pickled onion Monster Munch my signature scent.
Still sceptical, we left Lidl empty-handed and walked round for the rest of the day waving our wrists at impartial volunteers. We waited for it to change magically into eau de loo cleaner within a few minutes, but it didn’t. It mellowed nicely. It didn’t last for hours and hours, but for more than long enough to send us straight back to Lidl the next day to stock up. “We’re so glamOORus!” we cried, spraying it everywhere. It was my new desk perfume for a few weeks before it proved itself sufficiently to be allowed on my dressing table, and “I’m just going to glamOOR myself” has become shorthand for making oneself irresistible. Or £3.99-worth of irresistible, anyway.
Next on the list to investigate: Aldi’s “miracle” Lacura skincare range. After I finish this vat of sauerkraut, that is.
Tags: bargain, Chanel Coco Mademoiselle, cheap perfume, Lauren Bravo, Lidl, perfume, Suddenly Madame Glamour, supermarket beauty
Posted in Beauty, Fashion Tips, Features, guess where this is from, Opinion, Opinion peice, Perfume, ShinyStyle Investigates, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Beauty, Features, Opinion, ShinyStyle Investigates, Uncategorized
By Daisy Buchanan on May 30th, 2013
The ultimate electric toothbrush for the face.
It’s Sunday, and you read that India Knight thinks everyone should buy a Clarisonic. It emerges that she used to have frequent facials, but the Clarisonic was better. In fact, her regular facialist accused her of cheating with another facialist ever since she started using a Clarisonic. You google “buy Clarisonic”. You see they are sold out on the John Lewis website and decide it is a sign. You must have one immediately.
They are £120. You feel your pulse quicken with the certainty that they would not be allowed to cost £120 if they were not very, very good.
You do not have £120.
You count up all the cigarettes you have never smoked, all the magazines you do not subscribe to, all the forty poundses you have saved on cabs while waiting for piss soaked nightbuses in the pissing rain. You think about that time all your friends drunk-booked flights to Thailand and you didn’t, because that internship that never happened might have happened.
You have now mentally saved over five grand. You trot to Selfridges in a grasping, gasping state of excitement. The embossed numbers on your credit card have now burrowed their way onto your palm. You resolve not to shake hands with any fraudsters who know mirror writing.
The woman tries to sell you the £250 one. You shake your head like an octagenarian who has just been offered an ‘inclusive’ quad biking session on a Thomas Cook holiday. You’re so full of missionary zeal that you even manage to convince her you don’t want the pink one.
You gallop home. On the tube from Oxford Circus, you analyse everyone’s pores and feel sad for them.
You burst through your front door and collapse on your bathroom floor. When your boyfriend cries “Are you alright? Do you need a change of knickers?” you yell “NO, IT’S NOT THE GASTRO THIS TIME! I HAVE BOUGHT AN ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH FOR MY FACE! I MUST TRY IT OUT!”
You rip the packaging open, you pour the special facewash into your upturned hand, and read the instructions. You must charge it for 24 hours first. You blink back tears.
You go to sleep, wake up, go to work. The Clarisonic is all you can think about.
You get home and head for the bathroom. You ask your boyfriend if he would like to watch you try it out. Your boyfriend stares at you as if you have just suggested a threesome with the weird neighbour who is always trying to sell you surplus eggs he buys from Leighton.
Alone, you find absolution. Salvation. The brush is gentle but firm, penetrating your pores, shifting the blackhead you always thought was a freckle, washing the corner of your soul that you believed to be forever black after you stole a tin of Licorice Allsorts from your little sister during Christmas ’94.
You rinse your face and look in the mirror, expecting to see Jesus. You see you. You look like your 12 year old self after a Sunday night hairwash.
You do this for a few days. You notice your serum seems to be doing something. You realise serum has a point and isn’t just another expensive, paranoid making myth. Your face is smooth to the touch. You almost wish you’d only washed one side of your face, to get a full before and after effect.
You find yourself resentfully, methodically, washing your face every single night so as not to waste the £120. You drink slowly and carefully, even at weekends, determined not to get so wrecked that you pass out without washing your face. Sometimes you pass out in your boots – but you’re always clean from the neck up.
A few weeks in, you bump into an old friend from university. “Oh my god, your skin looks AMAZING. UH-MAZE-ING. What moisturiser do you use? WHAT DO YOU USE?” they shout, shaking you slightly. They never got this animated during discussions about Gawain and the Green Knight.
You smile, tilt your head and start to walk away. You are Gwyneth. You are made of kale. “Oh, thanks. I got a Clarisonic,” you reply.
Tags: Beauty, Clarisonic, Clarisonic Mia, Daisy Buchanan, effective, exfoliation, face, facial
Posted in Beauty, Features, Opinion, ShinyStyle Investigates, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Fashion Tips, Features, Nostalgia, Opinion, shoes, Trend Alert, Uncategorized, vintage
By Lauren Bravo on May 27th, 2013
Cropped tops and tie-dye are all over the high street – so here are five more 90s trends we’ll be welcoming back with open arms
Studded bumbag, George at ASDA
Bumbags
For years now, bumbags have been the sole preserve of paranoid tourists in too-short slacks and giant Reeboks, denied as a bonafide fashion item for anyone with an ounce more personal style. But when I worked on a stall in Camden market, I was obliged to wear a bumbag (black leather, pockety) and I quickly came to love it.
They’re hands-free, but unlike a rucksack don’t give you the look of a world-weary tortoise, plus they’re the ultimate defense against pickpockets because it would take a pretty brazen toerag to go for an iPhone you’re carrying just above your crotch. Opt for neon, metallics or studded leather and wear with warm-bellied pride.
Skirts with shorts attached underneath
So you can do handstands without showing your knickers! And a host of more practical reasons, including standing on air vents and avoiding hot weather thigh chafing. Also, they looked pretty rad when I was six.
High ponytails 
There are ponytails, then there are high ponytails, then there are ponytails so high that your hair hangs down either side of your face like a spider plant. These are probably the best kinds of ponytails, because it’s almost like just having your hair down, except three inches shorter and with a big ol’ scrunchie perched on top like a cherry.
Clarissa may have explained it all, but she never taught us the secrets of the high pony. Luckily we worked it out ourselves – flip your hair forward and tie it up at the point on your head where it stops looking like a unicorn impression.
Waistcoats (especially velvet)
When I was six, my birthday party outfit of choice wasn’t a frilly pink dress. Oh no. It was a pair of black velvet trousers, a white shirt, and a little velvet waistcoat in mottled shades of burgundy and bottle green, with gold embroidery. I looked vaguely like Little Lord Fauntleroy, but I thought it was the bomb. It was also much more practical for soft play adventure parties and jostling my way to musical chairs victory.
Sweet Valley High: The Complete First Season, Amazon
I’d happily herald a return to waistcoats, because they are the ultimate unisex fashion item. Like all the best trends they’re ultimately pointless, unless you’re especially keen to keep your kidneys warm, but they show a certain flair for dressing that can’t be achieved with a humdrum jacket. As for the velvet, I’m sure I’ll meet little resistance when I say that it truly is the fabric of kings. To quote George Costanza from Seinfeld, “if it was socially acceptable, I would drape myself in velvet.” And hopefully soon it will be.
Coffee shimmer lipstick
Our Beauty of our Youth series has already tackled Spectacular glitter and 17 Twilight Teaser lipsticks, but there was another shade gracing the grown-up kissers of the 90s that is well overdue a revival. We called it ‘Sweet Valley High lipstick’ (we also called snogging ‘Sweet Valley High kissing’, such was the Wakefield twins’ influence).
It was not quite gold, not quite beige, but occupied a gleefully metallic spot between them on the spectrum. It was a bit reminiscent of the icing on coffee and walnut cakes, and applied just as liberally. Given we’ve worked our way through every rosy, peachy and berry shade in Boots over the last 15 years, isn’t it time we rediscovered a coffee shimmer pout? We’d have to call it ‘soya macchiato’ now, of course.
And three we really wouldn’t…
Heat-sensitive colour-changing t-shirts
Hey everyone, look where I’m sweating! You’d think just pits, but it turns out lower back and between-boob too, ain’t that grand?
‘Spice Girl’ platform trainers
They were giant, they were rubber, they came in either black and white or denim and white from Shoe Zone, and they were the only acceptable addition to your stretchy back bootcut trousers and Kappa top. A few months ago they might have made it onto the list above – but since Viva Forever flopped so resoundingly, our zig-a-zig-ah has jumped ship.
Fleeces
In a world where the oneside has been so thoroughly roadtested and vetoed, we simply have no need for the fleece. Carry on hikers, by all means – but the fash pack ain’t joining you.
Tags: 90s fashion, 90s trends, bumbags, Clarissa Explains It All, fannypacks, high ponytails, Lauren Bravo, retro, Spice Girls, Sweet Valley High, waistcoats
Posted in Fashion Tips, Features, Nostalgia, Opinion, shoes, Trend Alert, Uncategorized, vintage | No Comments »
Affordable Fashions, Fashion Tips, Features, Opinion, Sales and Specials, Sleeves of the week, Style spotlight, Trend Alert
By Lauren Bravo on May 24th, 2013
Metallics in the daytime? Don’t mind if we do! Long-sleeved but skimpy AND on sale, this Oh My Love dress ticks all our boxes
I’ve always been a fan of glam daywear. In a nonchalantly decadent way, you understand, not in a ‘walk of shame’ way – although we all know that can be plenty fun too. Ever since implementing ‘Fancy Fridays’, where about five of us wore cocktail dresses and suits to sixth form once a week for no particular reason (other than being 17 and by default, knobs) I’ve loved the thrill of wearing something glitzy in broad daylight. It’s probably because I’m terrible at proper dressing up, when then pressure is on and something inevitably always rips or spills or pinches or just doesn’t quite work. Meanwhile the element of surprise in wearing a sequinned top to brunch will always compensate for the fact you look a bit like Danny La Rue.
The trick is paring down a fancy frock with flats and a casual jacket, or teaming luxe fabric with an old t-shirt (I’m quoting this from fashion magazines of course; all t-shirts make me look like a Mum on a charity fun run). This year’s metallics obsession has been great news for us magpies, with even the dowdiest of shoes, satchels, jumpers and trews being given a Midas makeover.
So, onto our star of the week. This shimmering silver wrap dress from Oh My Love scores on so many different points, it’s like it’s auditioning to be the Robin van Persie of your wardrobe. Long sleeves, yes, but still skimpy enough for bonafide summer wear. That now-ubiquitous skater style, yes, but with a plunging wrap neckline for easier hefty necklace co-ordination. Plus, it’s reduced from £39 to £15 in the sale. PLUS, it looks vaguely like a sci-fi outfit from the 60s, which will be useful for all those space-themed fancy dress parties everyone is always throwing.
Give it the tights-and-biker-boots treatment until your legs are ready to come out from hiding (at our estimation they should get a good two and half hours or so in mid-August), then with sandals and beachy hair. Maybe a Barbarella bubble helmet. It’s your call.
Tags: metallic, Oh My Love. long-sleeved, silver dress. wrap dress, skater dress, sleeves of the week
Posted in Affordable Fashions, Fashion Tips, Features, Opinion, Sales and Specials, Sleeves of the week, Style spotlight, Trend Alert | No Comments »
From:What does your selfie say about you?