Clinique's lullaby skin

MY THREE DREAM CATCHERS

To improve the way your skin looks in the morning, action needs to be taken at bedtime. I rise at 7am, and looking in the mirror is not always a pretty sight. Skin can face the world looking sad, creased and dehydrated. Three good things that have helped improved my AM skin is: a good book. For too long now I’ve been reading emails, tweets and news stories on my iPad before sleep. The upshot? I toss and turn with thoughts running through my head. Now, give me a good book and I’m out like a light. My second skin saver is a silk pillowcase bought from John Lewis for £35. Pillow creases now never happen. That’s all I need to say. And thirdly, my beauty bonus is Clinique’s new Moisture Surge Overnight Mask.

MY BEDSIDE SKIN STAPLE

I can always tell my skin needs a slug of something serious if I put the palms of my hands on my cheeks and push up. I can see a myriad of fine lines caused by dehydration. With central heating pumping out, winter is a time skin needs PM SOS. To be honest, I don’t really know what the difference is between this and a night cream as you don’t need to rinse it off. I suspect the mask just makes it sound more hard working, but whatever it gives the results. It certainly goes on like a night cream; it sinks in readily and doesn’t leave any mask like tightness or residue on the skin. It feels luxurious, giving intense hydration with moisturise trapping hyaluronic acid along with sodium hyaluronate which delivers an instant burst of moisture. This VIP (very important polymer) is able to hold large amounts of water within the skin so it’s left feeling plumped. It’s not an exaggeration to say, my morning skin is now getting a much better (looking) wake up call!

Clinique Moisture Intense Overnight Mask is available nationwide from 1^st January priced at £28. www.clinique.co.uk

Elemis box clever for Christmas

HO.HO.HO! LOOK WHAT SANTA HAS BROUGHT!

As a general beauty rule, I’ve never been a great lover of coffrets or beauty sets. They always seemed a little bit tasteless in their presenting – everything moulded into plastic, and had a whiff of, dare I say it, can’t-be-botheredness. After all, it’s easy to pick up a box that’s been put together by somebody else, plus the product size was usually so small as to be of no great use.  But that was a few years ago, and coffrets have, in X Factor language, raised their game! No longer are they crammed with mini samples or products that haven’t really sold well during the past year. Today, they’re serious gift givers.

SUPREME GLOW FOR A YEAR ROUND RADIANT COMPLEXION

EXOTIC BODYCARE FOR SHOULDER-TO-TOE GORGEOUSNESS

The Elemis Royal Collection of beauty box sets has no plastic or naffness in sight. They are literally box clever in terms of classy and indulgent looking packaging, carefully selected products and above all the price tag really works in your favour.  For instance, my two favourites include Duchess of Spa Exotic Bodycare with four full size products. Bought separately, it rings in at £88, bought as a box set, £49.50. Or there’s the Supreme Glow Skincare Essentials with three full size products and a 100ml bath elixir which should rightly be £80. To you madam? £46.50.  So whether you’re on the beauty hunt for mum, sister, aunt, friend or mum-in-law there’s no need to give them the receipt, as this is one present that will be for keeps!

Elemis is available from www.timetospa.co.uk and selected John Lewis, Debenhams and Harvey Nichols.

Fashion kisses from Bourjois

Fashion meets lips for Bourjois new lipstick wardrobe. The runway pout packs a punch with colour and attitude, and their 18 Rouge Edition ready-to-wear formula really sets the beauty trend. A true model lip pleaser if ever there was one!

Smart in it’s wrapping - their new lipstick case mirrors the sexiest and sleekest LBD, and the transparent bottom showcases the lip shade perfectly. Saturating the mouth with unadulterated colour, the 18 shades are divided up into a trio of gorgeousness. Lip pick from Preppy for style addicts, Color Block for bright, eye-catching colours and Night Out for shades of divine glamour.

As for the formula, boy are we talking lip smacking good! For starters they slick on smooth. Very smooth thanks to being enriched with orchid blossom extract. They’re comfortable to wear and a quarter of the pigments are lacquered. This adds up to shine. And the more your lipstick shines, the more mwah your lips look. From the collection hunt out Cristal Minimal along with the shades that pop too. It's a transparent concentrate of pearl hues, and it's great to slick over as topcoat to make colour shimmer. It's been in my make-up bag ever since I've discovered it.  You may not be a diva, but your lips can sure play up like one with this fashionable collection!

Bourjois Rouge Edition, £7.99 each launches nationwide in February 2013 but is exclusive to Selfridges London from December 2012.

For the love of rose

What girl doesn’t like roses whether they’re in a vase, named after a box of chocolates or bottled in a juice? Roger & Gallet’s new Rose Imaginaire smells as delicious as a bunch of lightly scented roses and delivers all the pleasure of chocolates without the guilt factor!

The fragrance stands pretty in pink and is a fresh fragrant water that never over-powers, but instead delicately plays the three acts of this poetic and historic flower  – the sweetness of a rose petal, the delicate scent of a fruity rosebud and the romantic smell of a rose in full bloom. Whether you’re gifting yourself or someone else it has all the hallmarks of love.

Rose Imaginaire is exclusively available in Marks & Spencer Nationwide at £32.

Lancôme spreads a little sparkle

Like hangers full of sequined dresses, sparkle and glitter in make-up can be a touch overwhelming leading up to Christmas. There’s only so much a girl can handle without looking like she should be switched on!

For their under-play on the sparkle, I love Lancôme’s Happy Holidays Collection. Inspired by Paris – the city of illuminations that enchants and shimmers, each beauty pick is bold and modern, giving your party look just enough of a seasonal edge.

The Ombre Hynose Mono, £18 is all wrapped up in a gold glitter case and once opened reveals a golden eyeshadow. Woven like a mesh fabric, the formula is exceptional to handle. The pure golden pigments literally sweep like magic across the eye. Think of Tinkerbell with her wand dusting down magic glitter. The effect lasts for 16 hours – that’s a heck of a lot of partying, whereby the formula can be used wet or dry to increase the density.

For nails their Vernis in Love in Ginger Swing , £12– just feeling that name! gives nails the cocktail vibe, and for lips L’Absolu Rouge in Rubix Exquis, £21 adds high octane to your look ready for any mistletoe action. A radiant red, it’s adorned with radiant metallic shimmer for a luminous and very modern lip. Santa will definitely be coming to your town if looking so seductive!

Lancôme’s Happy Holiday’s Collection is available nationwide from this month while limited edition stocks last.

  

Man, I smell like a woman!

I don’t know about you, but I love smelling the unexpected in terms of fragrance. Generally, you wouldn’t expect to smell a cologne on a woman, but the more I’ve asked around, the more women are liking the masculine and earthy smell of a men’s cologne. “It makes me feel powerful, less girly” says one such scent sleuth. Amongst some of my friends, Vetiver by Guerlian has been a favourite, but I’m now going to introduce them to Atelier Cologne.

It’s probably not a perfume house you’ve heard of – I hadn’t, so it’s even more exciting to discover it. Their master perfumers pride themselves on blending unpredictable and rare extracts with more-of-the-known fresh citruses to create Colognes Absolues. Made in France, the bottles are robust and masculine in the hand, and the concentrates are high, the lowest out of the nine colognes being 12 per cent. I’ve been wearing the addictive Orange  Sanguine – top notes of blood and bitter orange mingle with jasmine and geranium drying down to sandalwood and tonka beans, for the past week, and the general consensus is something along the lines of, ‘Oooh, you smell nice, what is it?’ How much nicer is that than someone saying, ‘are you wearing such-and-such?’ After all, a woman does like to retain a bit of mystery, and never more than with the trail of her fragrance.

Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine, £95

Available in Selfridges, London.

To read their back story and check out their collection go to www.ateliercologne.com

Pout pickers

...WITH ADDED SECRET MIRROR

 Pucker. Pout. Pose. Who doesn’t love the effect of a good lipstick? Lip smackers that have landed on my radar this week are 17’s Mirror Shine Lipstick and Fresh’s Sugar Berry Tinted Lip Treatment SPF15. 17’s demographic is young and experimental, but outside of being a teen there’s plenty of make-up value in the range too. The formulations are grown-up – this lipstick feels wonderfully soft and hydrating, leaving a subtle sheen on the lips, and they’re fashion focused. Hard wired to bring catwalk colour to the high street, it’s a range perfect for dipping into trends without paying a fortune. The new Mirror Shine Lipsticks come in 13 on-trend shades – their insiders report that salmon and mauve (not as scary as it sounds, and actually makes your teeth look whiter) are two of the season’s top colours for lips, which you can find in the collect. And surprise! When pulling off the top, there’s a handy mini mirror that slides out from the lid. Genius for perfecting quick touch-ups.

SUGAR FOR THE LIPS, NOT THE HIPS

My second pout pick from Fresh puts sugar on our lips, but thankfully not on our hips! Sugar is a natural humectant that ensures long lasting moisture. Apart from the sweet stuff, there are natural waxes, fatty acids and antioxidants, all of which conspire to make this berry lip tint a hydrating anti-ageing slick. SPF15 is in the mix too – remember, lips are vulnerable to UV damage due to their lack of melanin. It smells berry nice, and the colour can be as sheer as or dense as you please. Simply layer up for a deeper hue. Oh, and one last thing. Don’t try pulling off the lid, it’s a screw top!

17 Mirror Shine Lipstick, £4,79

Fresh Sugar Berry Tinted Lip Treatment, £16.50 available from Fresh, 92 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4RD