Author: brightandbeautyfull

Haiku Review: Madame Glamour

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Oh, Madame Glamour!
As cheap as chips, and fragrant —
You fade all too soon.

Lidl, who do so much for us already — the ‘American Style’ peanut butter is a guilty pleasure, and they do a delicious bottle of prosecco for, like, no price at’all — have given us a bargain fragrance that does not smell cheap.

Smelling cheap… well, it’s best to be avoided, isn’t it? Oh, God, the scents I used to wear in my misguided youth! I like to think that Coco by Chanel came along just at the right time to save me from all those drugstore brands {chemist! the power of nostalgia! I forget my new words!} that came on strong and faded away in the blink of an eye, or rather, the twitch of a nostril.

Lidl’s brand is called Suddenly: Madame Glamour. I take the colon to be implicit, because otherwise this has two names. Anyway, UK-based Lidl enthusiasts have been merrily spritzing away with this, to the tune of £2.90-ish, since May, and the perfume arrived on Irish stores just in time for Christmas. It’s been making a splash, both over there, and here:

Two independent consumer panel blind tests carried out in the UK by the Perfumer’s Guild on the Lidl Suddenly Madame Glamour perfume against the hugely popular designer branded perfume revealed incredible results – 50 women in the first test voted overwhelmingly for the Lidl Suddenly perfume with 89% saying they would prefer to wear it over the designer brand.

And, 90% of the 100 women who blind tested the perfumes in the second round said they also preferred the Lidl perfume. A blind test was also carried out on Newstalk’s Tom Dunne Show on Friday 2nd of December with the Lidl fragrance beating Chanel again live on air.

I love the design of the bottle: it’s delicate and feminine, and perfectly handbag-sized. The thing is, you will have to have it to hand, because otherwise, you’ll find that in a short time, you will be fragrance-free. Which is not the point of wearing fragrance.

Okay, seriously, at €3.49, you can buy enough of these to rig up some sort of perpetual spritzing machine, but is even that low a price a waste of dosh? I wouldn’t go that far, because the scent, which apparently contain ‘citrus and floral notes, incorporating bergamot and jasmine’* is really refreshing, and… optimistic. Yeah, it is really quite youthful, yet confident, and I love that about Madame Glamour. I suppose if there was a body cream of the same scent, that layering might help with the staying power… just an idea…

*I would like to learn more about how fragrance works. Is there a course I can take???

Best Brows in the History of Brows

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

The first time I got my eyebrows waxed, I was 12 or 13. This seems crazy to me, but I mention it by way of establishing my credentials. I know that this nothing, nowadays, when girls much younger are getting waxed in places that don’t bear thinking about, or even younger girls getting spray tans for their First Holy Communion — but it still strike as kinda young. So anyway, that little bit of personal information is given so you know that I’ve been around the block, several times, and am a good judge of services that concern the removal of excess hair on the brow.

As for threading, I’ve only had five instances, but they all had defining characteristics:

1} My first time, and the lady took so much off the ends of my brows they have barely grown back — two years later.

2} This time, it felt like the lady was pulling out the hairs one by one with her teeth.

3} My sister took me to the place she goes in the strip mall in North Brunswick, NJ. It cost $3, which is roughly €2.24. When I was waved to a seat, my sister winced, because she knew the threading ladies, and this one liked to take her time, possibly in sadistic fashion. The lady ran the thread through my brows like an arpeggio — a slow, slooooow arpeggio.

4} I will be writing about this in future, because it was good one, and an option for southsiders: Shavata in Harvey Nicks, Dundrum.

5} This was the best one, though: Neelu at Arnotts. Continue reading →

Sweet Sixteen: Voya Lazy Days

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

I have always loved seaweed products. I used a powdered version for the bath {Seavite? I think so} that really required a strong drive to use, as it made a complete and utter mess of the bath after it was done. I mean, like, total ring-around-the-tub mess, and talk about a buzzkill, having to clean it up almost immediately after having sent all your tension down the drain.[Or else you have an argument with your live-in-fella-at-the-time because you let the mess go for a day or two, also a buzzkill.]

I wasn’t sure about this when I got the box. I mean, it’s a box. How’s seaweed supposed to fit in a box? I knew the Voya line very well, and have even had their seaweed baths, based in Strandhill, Co Sligo, on my to-do list almost since I moved to Ireland. I knew that the entire product line was organic, and that the seaweed itself is harvested by hand. I didn’t know that you could get it, freeze-dried into a roughly rectangular bundle.

Well, it is possible. The hunk of seaweed has been helpfully inserted into a mesh bag; there is, in addition, a wee bag of dead sea salt. <I wasn’t sure whether to captilise that or not, but Voya haven’t. Is ‘dead sea salt’ a thing that is separate now from the Dead Sea? Anyway: as instructed, I ran the bath full of hot, hot water and dropped the brick of weed in. I left the room to let it sit — I had to, because almost immediately the pure, salty scent of the seaweed began to waft around the bath. As I didn’t want to lose a layer or two of skin, which I would have done had I immersed myself, I went and did some email.

When I could bear it no longer, I went back and ran the water cold, sprinkled in some salt, and got in. Now, I love a good bath, and I go the full whack, with candles and a glass of wine, or when the circumstances demand, a short glass of Laphroaig, and appropriate musical accompaniment. Even then, I tend to get bored long before the water begins to cool. Not this time: I kept topping up the bath with as much hot water as it could handle without overflowing. I squeezed the now-football shaped net of weed to release even more of the gel that had infused the water. I was in there for almost 45 minutes.

If you take good care of it — I put mine in a large mixing bowl and covered the top with cling film — you can get another bath out of the ball. It’s not as transcendent as the first, but it is still pretty boss.

The re-hydrated bag of seaweed was pretty impressive, and also pretty: it bore no resemblance to the stuff that washes up on a beachy strand, and looked as if each… frond?… had been groomed to reveal its jagged beauty. I felt as relaxed as if I had visited the Strandhill baths themselves. This is a sublime treat for body and mind. Bonus: a cursory swipe of the bath the next morning was as hard as I had to work to clean up. In my book, there is no higher praise.

Voya Lazy Days €16/£15.50

Manky Nails: An Update

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Well, I broke a nail this weekend. If you’re not interested in reading about things equestrienne… well, try it, you may like it.

So, I’m going to have to make all my nails match, lengthwise, and start the Nail Envy over. The fact that I broke the nail on Saturday and haven’t bothered to file them all down to size tells you everything you need to know about my nail care habits.

I refer you back to the weirdy shape of my nails, and I must add that I am the world’s worst varnisher. I am so, so bad at applying nail varnish, I could make the Hall of Shame. It’s a lack of patience, I think, more than anything else. Even when I get them done, I always — always — manage to muck up at least one nail.

I will say, though, that keeping the Mavala Cuticle Oil next to my laptop is making a huge difference in my ability to at last swipe the stuff on once a day. Is it having an effect? Well, they look wonderfully smooth and healthy upon contact with the oil, but I think they are even more peely than usual. I suspect that this is because all the yucky dead skin is giving up the ghost. We’ll see…

Mavala Cuticle Oil [10ml] €13 [approx.]/£10.95/$11

Coming Up Next Week!

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Wow! Five days goes fast!
Beauty blogging is the bomb.
So livin’ the dream.

^Once you start, it’s kinda hard to stop.

So! Thanks for reading this week; next week’s coming attractions are:
>A review of the eyebrow threading experience at Neelu at Arnotts
>At least two more, if not three, Sweet Sixteen winners.
>One or two complaints about the price of things in our little corner of the euro zone.
>No really, I actually do have that much shampoo, and there are many reasons why!
>MORE HAIKU

xx!

My name is Susan…

/ brightandbeautyfull / 8 Comments

And clearly, I am addicted to shampoos, conditioners, and hair treatments.

Not all hair treatments are pictured, either! Oh, halp.

This is just by way of letting you know the S&Cs and other yokes that are on tap [ha, ha] to be discussed here at brightandbeautyfull.com.

From left:
>Pantene Repair & Protect S&C
>L’Oréal Elvive Triple Resist S&C
>Redken Blond Glam
>Redken Nature’s Rescue Refining Sea Polish
>Orofluido S&C
>Head and Shoulders S&C
>Redken Extreme S&C
>John Frieda Sheer Blonde
>L’Oréal Porfessionnel Absolute repair Cleansing Balm
>Ojon S&C
>Matrix S&C
>L’Oréal Professionnel Shine Blonde
>Aussie Miracle Moist S&C

Some have been reviewed here, but you will not be surprised to know that I could talk about hair care all the live long day.

Note to self: clean the bath.

Sweet Sixteen: Elemis Frangipani Monoi Moisture Melt

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Here is my recipe for the perfect home-spa experience: Elemis Frangipani Monoi Moisture Melt.

That’s it. That’s all you need.

I’m delighted to be able to make this recommendation in typed-out words, because confidence in my articulation abilities takes a terrible dip when I try to speak the word ‘frangipani’; ‘monoi’ is not so bad, but following hard on the heels of the preceding fail, it just makes the whole situation worse that it needs to be.

{I say fraangeepannee, as opposed to the more American way, which because of the longer, fancy ‘a’ sounds, would be frahhhhngeepahhhhhnee. Both sound equally awkward to me, in my actual voice.}

Linguistics aside, this stuff is the stuff of dreams. Fill your bathroom sink with hot water. Set the bottle — the lovely smoked glass bottle — in the water so that the solid material within softens into a luscious oil. Run a bath. You could even run the bath and meltify the Melt in the tub! Whatever: at some stage, shake in a few {million} drops. Enter; recline; relax.

Dunk your head under the water, then proceed to shake a few {million} drops of the Fraheheheheh on your head. Massage into your scalp. Sigh with pleasure.

Language, and pronunciation therefore, will cease to be an issue.

Get out of the bath before you, yourself melt. Shake the previously recommended number of drops of oil on your wet skin, massage. Pat yourself dry with a towel. Maybe rinse your hair out if you’re going out that evening — although why you would is utterly beyond my comprehension. You’ve just given yourself an amazingly self-nurturing treat! Stay home! Put your feet up! Get someone to make you your tea!

The only caution I have is that I’ve heard from pals who are as in the know as I, that the Fraheheheheh yokie can tend to discolour white toweling robes. Not that you’re not going to wrap yourself up in one regardless, but know that you may have to give it a spin in the washing machine sometime after your Melt event. Or you may close your eyes to this, because your robe is going to smell gorgeous — almost as gorgeous as you do.

€32/£29.70/$50.00

Haiku Review: An Introduction

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Oh, crap, this is hard:
Reviewing products, in verse.
Whose idea was this???

I think we learned to write Haiku in the fourth grade? Maybe fifth? It seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts, and since my brain doesn’t ‘do’ numbers, a delightful alternative to sudoku. Soduko? Wha’?

So I started to go over my list of things I want to review, or re-review as the case may be, in haiku — and I decided to write about how hard it is to do, instead.

But when it works, I bet it is going to be awesome!

I highly recommend this, based on the super awesome excerpts I’ve read, and this, if you don’t even know what the hell haiku is. Fans of American football will enjoy these

Sweet Sixteen: Bliss Vanilla + Bergamot

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

I’ll always remember the first time I got a whiff of Bliss’ cunning combination of vanilla and bergamot: I was working as the art director of a super cool magazine, and one of my colleagues just about thrust an open tub of the Body Buff under my nose. ‘Oh, my God!’ I sighed. ‘It smells like the beach!’*

If ever there was a hoard-worthy product line, it is this one. I couldn’t bear to not have it around, just in case — and ‘just in case’ = the possibility of sharing my fragrant, beachy, perfectly exfoliated skin with a… ‘friend’. As it is, this scent almost exists almost entirely in my memory, because I allow myself to use it so rarely. (Which either says sad things about the state of my… ‘friendships’, or implies that I choose my ‘friends’ with extreme care. Let’s agree on the latter, shall we?)

Oh, but when I do decide to break out the V+B, I do it thoroughly and completely. The Body Buff is truly superb, and one of the top five I have ever used. The Soapy Suds come next, naturally, and of course it is all capped off with the wonderfully rich Body Butter. I only wish there was a shampoo and conditioner. And a perfume. And a — a hat, or something. I wish there were clothes that smelled like this.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I am so not. The smell of the seashore is hardwired into the pleasure centre of my brain, so that, like a rat in a Skinner box, once I get a whiff of beachy goodness all I want is more. Some of the best times of my life were spent oceanside, and a tonne of unencumbered joy is triggered by the glorious scent of the auld V+B. I am a great believer in aromatherapy, and the days in which I walk around, wafting the joyful fragrance of undiluted joy and optimism, I have a very joyful and optimistic day. It is totally true.

Body Buff £28/€39/$36, Body Butter £20/€25/$28, Soapy Suds £16/€22/$18

*I have absolutely no idea why the combination of vanilla + bergamot smells like the beach, but it does.