Welcome to this month’s random selection of “things I’ve really loved”. There’s a full video version further down the page and I do highly recommend you watch it if you’ve a spare ten or so minutes. It gives you an extended ramble about each of the bits and pieces I’m about to talk about whilst…
It’s my favourite week of the year: birthday week. I’ve never really been one of those people who squeal on and on about their birthday for ages beforehand and demand that many different festivities are organised for them, who expect special balloons with their age on and feel deeply, genuinely hurt when not everyone within…
This post was supposed to be about seasonal skincare changes, but in order to provide a bit of context I started writing about my usual skincare routine and then I went off on a tangent about how I feel about my face in my forties and then about eighty-seven years later I looked up and…
A quick post today because I am writing this on Easter Sunday, when strictly speaking I should be trying to talk my kids down from their rampant sugar-high. One of them is currently gyrating to the Wonka soundtrack, the other has filled up a water pistol and is “cleaning the insides of the windows”. I…
Fancy a delve into my springtime makeup bag? Why does that sound so dirty? Is it just me? This is what happens when I spend days editing content all by myself without any sensible adult conversation… You should know that I very rarely change my makeup looks according to the season; if you’re expecting spring-appropriate…
Five February Favourites, including the very timely rediscovery of an absolute skincare marvel and an incredible book of short stories. But let’s start with the boots I’ve fallen for. Oh, the boots. If I told you that I’d been searching high and low for the perfect western-inspired boots since October, would you believe me? It’s…
Well, I was seduced again. I went on the Sézane website, saw that absolutely everything on there would almost definitely make me look like a twenty year-old Parisian sex-kitten from the seventies and then ordered a load of stuff. It arrived, I unwrapped my haul from its très pretty paper and then immediately tried everything…
My three best beauty buys this month – picked out from the quagmire of new launches for their excellent performance, high quality and price-tags that won’t cause immediate heart palpitations. Ad info: no paid or sponsored content. Contains press samples and affiliate links are marked *. The first little gem: e.l.f. Cosmetic’s brilliant Camo…
January “favourites” and what an eclectic mix we have going on here! Family photo albums, rubber stamps and a stand-up show that will have you chortling away and wishing for more. As per monthly favourites tradition, there’s a video to accompany this post – it’s right at the bottom of the page. Ad info: no…
I took a little makeup bag with me on an overnight trip a couple of months ago and then when I got home again from my travels I forgot to unpack it. I only happened upon it by total fluke, the other week, when I went searching for one of those sticky clothes rollers in…
In February, it’ll be fourteen years since I posted my first blog on this website. Back then, in 2010, the website was called A Model Recommends and each post was a couple of hundred words long, if that. I just wrote exactly what I thought of a product in the shortest, snappiest way and the images…
I have to have Invisalign and to say that I’m not massively keen would be an understatement. I’m viewing it as a necessary evil and in this post I wanted to outline a few things about the whole process that I’m not too enthusiastic about. But first, some backstory: A few years ago I was…
A quick little beauty post to break up the contact lens content. I mean, I’m verging on becoming an eye blogger at this point. There are two or three posts on laser eye surgery to come yet and who knows what eye-related things I’ll find to write about after that? Sunglasses? Lash growth serums? I’m…
I’ve been meaning to add to my collection of cacti for a while now. I have two big window ledges at the front of the room known lovingly as the “Oil Baron’s Sunken Lounge” and though one of them was filled with a row of the cacti I’ve been lovingly killing since 2007, pictured above,…
OK, this is how it works: as I potter along doing my beauty research stuff, testing everything in the world from eyewateringly expensive face creams to the cheapest brow gels, I make note of any brilliant bargain beauty finds I come across. Until I have five of them listed: and then I make a video….
I went to a lovely beauty dinner organised by Sainsbury’s and it reminded that I was, at one point, doing some sort of supermarket beauty series. I can’t remember the title of this particular series but I’m sure it would have utilised a pun, because I can’t resist them, or there would have been some…
Arriving in London with a makeup bag that had apparently been packed by a drunk baboon forced me to be a bit creative with my products. I honestly have no idea how I ended up with four bronzers and two foundations but absolutely no brow stuff, no lipstick and only one (quite dark and punchy)…
I was slightly nervous about the fact that the epic Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Wear foundation had been reformulated. And I say epic with not even a hint of irony because it was just that: very few high coverage, ultra longwear foundations came close to it in terms of the quality of finish, ease of…