Dior furore

I’m so sorry, faithful followers, that I’ve not posted for a while. I’m actually working with the utterly fabulous girls at the Dior press office for the next few weeks, before returning to editorial at the beginning of June. So apart from feeling inadequate in the presence of so many beautiful and achingly-stylish French girls, I have also been feeling a bit out of the beauty blogging loop. Plus it feels wrong blogging about other brand’s products when I’m being paid to PR someone else’s.
The flip side of course is that I’ve been gorging myself on Dior products galore, which has been nothing but a pleasure, as I’m sure you can imagine! So I thought I’d stay faithful to Dior, and you, by giving you my totally objective, un-biased top 3 picks from Dior beauty cupboard:

1. Dior Addict Crystal Gloss – This pink jelly-textured confection is everything you could want from a gloss and more. It looks sexy as hell, sits beautifully on the lips and will set off a deep tan perfectly.

£19.50, available nationwide from 17th May

2. Diorskin Nude Glow Complexion Enhancer – I find that with a tan comes the confidence to go foundation-free. Of course, I’d never want to go TOTALLY naked, so this complexion enhancer is perfect for giving a radiance boost without weighing down the skin. It smells beautiful too.

£29, available nationwide from 17th May

3. Escale A Pondichery Eau de Toilette – When my boyfriend smelled this on me for the first time, he said: “Mmmmm, you smell like a stripper!” When I reacted with surprise (to put it mildly), he very hastily explained that he meant it smelled sexy, not trashy. He couldn’t however explain how he knew what strippers smelled of?! Hmmm. Anyway, don’t be put off by his reaction – this fragrance, inspired by a trip to Kerala in India, is an exotic blend of black tea, cardamom, jasmine and sandalwood. A delicate but dark and sensuous night-time beauty.

From £46 for 75ml, available now

And finally a date to put in your diary: Monday 2nd August 2010. Why? Because that’s when the stunningly beautiful limited edition Tailleur Bar Palette goes on sale in Selfridges, London, and there are only 150 to be had. Celebrating the first Dior Couture collection in 1947, it’s inspired by Christian Dior’s favourite shades of muted greys, mauve and pink, and comes with a pink Serum de Rouge, designed to compliment the shades of the palette. Beautiful, non?

£65, available at Selfridges, London from 2nd August

There are a couple of other big launches for Dior coming up in the Autumn, with one product in particular that’s truly special, but agonisingly, I’m not able to talk about them yet… I will of course let you know as soon as I can!

Gros bisous x

Home hair colouring - finally chic?

Home hair colouring has long been snobbishly looked down on as the cheap and nasty DIY alternative to having hair professionally coloured. A reputation companies like Clairol and L’Oreal have been desperately trying to shake off with innovative new technologies and glossy ads. I’ve never actually coloured my hair, at home or in the salon (minus an ill-advised experiment with Sun-In aged 14, but let’s not get into that now...) so I’m afraid I can’t give a personal account of how good or bad they are, but I’m working at Cosmo at the moment and lovely Beauty Editor Kate Turner told me a very interesting story which I just had to share with you!

She’s recently been away in the Dominican Republic, shooting a model called Amy for the summer issues of Cosmo. Kate complimented her on her hair one day, and Amy told her it actually used to be really thin and limp, but has totally transformed since she started using Clairol’s Perfect 10. She first used it when she was cast to be the model on the front of the box and was so impressed with the results, she’s been using it ever since. She used to fork out over £150 on having her hair coloured in the salon, and says it's now in much better condition and a more natural colour, at less than a tenth of the price – just £6.99 every couple of months! Now if that’s not an endorsement for you, I don’t know what is.

I can’t post up a picture of her hair as they haven’t been published in the magazine yet, but I can tell you from what I’ve seen that it looks really thick, glossy and healthy, and is a really gorgeous shade of light ashy blonde.

Kate was so impressed with Amy’s hair that she’s now trying Clairol Perfect 10 herself – having never home-coloured her hair before! I think that proves how staggered she was.

If anyone has any experience of home hair colouring – successful or otherwise – let me know!

Clairol Perfect 10, £6.99, available nationwide now.

Philips Lumea - Session 1

Hair removal. One of the least glamorous but most necessary beauty rituals. The problem is, every single way of executing it has at least one big disadvantage. Shaving – only lasts only a couple of days; professional waxing - expensive and painful; home-waxing – messy and even more painful; epilation – really really painful!

This is why laser hair removal has been something I’ve wanted to try for a while – it’s pricey, but being permanently fuzz-free is worth the investment, right? So when Philips invited me to try their brand new at-home laser hair removal system, Lumea, I jumped at the chance. They’ve set up a pop-up spa at the gorgeous Soho Hotel in London and the deal is - I go in for four sessions, two weeks apart, and in eight weeks I should be able to kiss my razor goodbye forever...

I had my first session on Monday evening, and to be honest, I walked into the room a bit of a nervous wreck... In my extensive pre-treatment research (read: googled ‘laser hair removal risks’ in 5-minute lunch break) I discovered all manner of horrific laser-induced injuries. On top of that, I’d been sent a 5-page safety information document, and a disclaimer waiving all responsibility from Philips in case of ‘personal damage or injury’. Errmm... is this going to hurt? Am I going to be permanently scarred with third degree burns??! Help!

Luckily my therapist, Ella, who was over-seeing my session, immediately put me at ease. She talked me through the product and how to use it, gave me a demonstration on my arm and then supervised whilst I tentatively started zapping my bikini line. And I have to say – it was incredibly easy to use, and even more importantly, virtually pain free!! It looks like a high tech cordless hairdryer- you press it against the bit of skin you want to zap, wait for the green ‘ready’ light, and pull the trigger. There’s a bright flash of red, and you feel a slight heat sensation – but no pain!! And that’s it! You get the occasional slightly alarming whiff of burning hair, but Ella assured me that is totally normal.

Overall I was really really impressed. It’s so quick and easy – it took me about 15 minutes to do my bikini line, including pauses where I was nattering away to Ella. And you can use it to zap hair virtually anywhere on your body, just not your face. And you don’t have to wait for hair to grow like you do when waxing – in fact, it works most effectively on clean shaven skin as the laser beam can travel down and damage the hair follicle more efficiently. The only drawback is that it doesn’t work on all skin tones – any darker than an olive skin tone and it’s a no go I’m afraid, and it will only work on black to dark blonde hairs, nothing lighter.

For everyone else though, this could be the best £400 you ever spend! If I’m hair free in 8 weeks – and I will of course let you know if I am – I would 110% recommend you buy this product. I’ll keep you posted!

Philips Lumea, £400, available from Boots now. Visit the Philips website for more details.

Is it a lipstick? Is it a gloss? No, it’s Clarins’ new Crystal Lip Balm!

You might think that after years of using and reviewing beauty products, I would have developed some kind of beauty-related compassion fatigue. But no, every now and then a product comes out that’s so clever / innovative / beautiful, it has me leaping around the office like a madman. Which is exactly what happened when I received Clarins’ gorgeous new Crystal Lip Balms. Part of the summer Instant Sun range, they’re translucent lip balms in the form of a bullet lipstick that have the sheer finish of a light gloss. I haven’t seen a product like it before and I think they’ll be a huge summer hit for Clarins.

Clarins Crystal Lip Balm, £15.50, available nationwide from May 2010

Heaven scent

I love everything about Stella McCartney. Her clothes, her ethics and her daddy (I had a major crush on Macca when I was growing up, slightly wrong looking back on it now…) And now I’m falling in love with her latest offering – the new Sheer Stella fragrance. A delicate fresh floral with notes of rose, peony and amber, it’s the perfect light summer spritz. Oh and it’ll look beautiful on your dressing table too.

Sheer Stella EDT, £36.50 for 100ml, available nationwide from May 2010.