Author: MANY BRAVE FOOLS

Dublin Ladiez, and Cork Ones

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I highly recommend calling in to your local fancy department store, as listed below, and having a sesh with Lisa Potter Dixon, Benefit’s Head Make-up and Trend artist. It was she who dropped the wisdom of the foundation brush at the launch for the brand’s new Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation {please to read about it here.*}

She is very cool, and has great style herself, as you can imagine. She is also really personable, and if you find yourself intimidated by the thought of a head make-up and trend artist: don’t be! I found her to be really friendly and enthusiastic.

If you’ve been gasping for a bit of a tweak in the area that concerns make-up, do thisssssssss. It’s a €30 redeemable charge; receive a cream eye shadow with 2 or more items.

Hurry! Places are limited!

***

Benefit Debenhams: Patrick Street, Cork, Thursday 22nd March 2012 11am – 5pm.
Call 021 4648464 to book your personal appointment.

Benefit Brown Thomas: Grafton Street, Dublin, Friday 23rd March 2012 12pm – 5pm
Call 01 6171139 to book your personal appointment.

*Sorry, I just read The Moonstone, and all the servants said ‘please to’ all the time, as in ‘please to read my blog, kind ladiez’. I couldn’t resist, and frankly, it wrote itself. Sorry, again; carry on.

Happy Hair Day!

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I’ve decided it is happy hair day, because look:

Wowee, it is like a hair care bonanza! {OMG is she going to link to — yep, there she goes again… *heaves huge sigh*.}

So, what have we got here? From Revlon, the new Equave Instant Beauty line is all about the keratin. it offers a conditioner for four different conditions of hair, to be wedded with one shampoo. Now, as you can imagine, I would be a heartfelt advocate for a million kinds of shampoo, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of my shampoo-addicted doubt.

What is keratin, you may ask? Why, it refers to a family of fibrous structural proteins, of course. Also, this:

Hair starts growing from a bulb which is lodged just under the skin. The beginning of a hair is made up of cells, which are bulging with keratin. The cells lengthen and then die, leaving behind protein bundles. There are two types of keratin: I and II. And their intertwining form long coils which accumulate in hair.*

Wooo-ooo, you know me and the science. Anyway, from what I gather, the keratin treatments that you get in the salon are the heavy-duty, hardcore hair straightening yokes, and this keratin-enriched shampoo and conditioner is what you can use at home to gentler effect. I haven’t cracked these open yet, so I don’t know from experience.

Cannot wait to experience! What we’ve got is:
> Hydro Detangling Shampoo
> Hydro Nutritive Detangling Conditioner, which you leave in
> Volumizing Detangling Conditioner, which is also a leave-in conditioner, for fine hair
> Blonde Detangling Conditioner, which is for me because I am ‘blonde’
> Sun Protection Detangling Conditioner, which is for your hollllidaaaaays. And also everyday, because of the UV damage that is always happening, right???!

Also! For the stylin’: Volumizing Foam, Substance Styling Cream, and Shine Serum.

Prices range from €10.99 to €14.99, which is excellent value for what is salon-calibre stuff.

I will let you know how I get on…

*Via…

My World of Shampoo: Let’s Just Wrap This Up

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Remember this?

I had such good intentions! I was going to review every single one of these thirteen brands! And then I was all like: naaaah.

The road to hell is paved with shampoo and conditioner.

I did manage … three. I did the Head & Shoulders, the Redken Extreme, and the Matrix one. And the Redken Blonde? hang on… No, the John Freida Sheer Blonde. Oy. But, okay: four!

I even did the Head & Shoulders in haiku! What was I thinking?

I do hate to leave them hanging, though… so here’s a quick round up on what is left:

>Pantene Repair & Protect S&C
Over-the-counter purchase that yields a salon finish. Amazing softness

>L’Oréal Elvive Triple Resist S&C
This gives salon finish too, and can also be bought in the local chemist. Massive shine, but my hair got a bit too… slinky at the end of the day. You know what I mean? I knew I’d never get a second day out this one, and I was right.

>Redken Blond Glam
It is totally glam, and my hair does look blonder when I use this. What more can I say?

>Redken Nature’s Rescue Refining Sea Polish
This is a treatment, I don’t know what this is doing here.

>Orofluido S&C
Love this. Love this beyond words. This I will write about this brand in greater detail in future, because there is also a hair mask and hair oil. Love, love, love.

>L’Oréal Professionnel Absolute repair Cleansing Balm
This is rich and thick and a little weird, because it has the consistency of face cream, or body cream, even. Good stuff, though, for a deep conditioning.

>Ojon S&C
I love their hair mask, and this S&C works best post-mask. My affection for this is ‘medium crush’. Like, this is the dude you occasionally see on the bus, or in the local shop, and you go, ‘Oooh, that dude!’ and then when you get off the bus or leave the shop, you think about him for the rest of the day, and then forget him all over again.

>L’Oréal Professionnel Shine Blonde
This stuff is purple! Otherwise, I didn’t get a lot of joy out this one. It didn’t lather up well, which ‘They’ say is not the point, but it is to me. My hair doesn’t feel clean unless there have been bubbles.

>Aussie Miracle Moist S&C
Can’t beat the Aussie scent, which is utterly all their own. This is my go-to for a practical hair day. Like, a day when I wanted clean but wasn’t too fussed about sleek. This is a great volumiser.

Having said all that, I am really keen to try something new. I am a hussy.

Coming Soon!

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I hope! OMG I am so behind! So much stuff to try, and post about!

All the nail stuff, ach, and my nails haven’t improved very much at’all. Mainly because I gave up on them, so I better get back on that tip.

Oh, the false eyelashes! So afraid!

Avon’s Smoke and Mirrors collection: I love that lippy there, in Nude and Infused, but must do the quad and the nail varnish.

And Clarins Colour Breeze Face & Blush Powder — looks prettttty…

You can barely see the Johnson’s Body Care 24hour Moisture: Gentle Exfoliating Body Wash, or the L’Oréal Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Fresh Feel Gel, which I thought it would be smart to use on my legs ahead of full-on tanning season…

Okay. Deep breath! Onward!

{And the L’Occitane Hand Cream! Ayyyyiiiii!}

Daphne Guinness for MAC

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Legging it to the post office to collect packages is like my avocation. I don’t even have to show my i.d. anymore, all the post dudes know me, and are curiously incurious as to what exactly I am always collecting.

Luckily, MAC sent a registered package, so it didn’t disappear over the hols when I wasn’t around to fetch it. Talk about happy face! Daphne Guinness for MAC is then newest collection by the famously funky brand, and the two bits I got look good.

I received Circa Plum, a self-described ‘frosty dirty mid-tone lavender’. I had to google MAC pigments because I seriously had no notion where to put this, on my face. It transpires that this is eyeshadow — I’ll get back to you on how this works out.

The Red Dwarf Pro Longwear Lipcreme needed no explanation. Here’s me in my un-sexy glasses {left my sexy ones on the plane, waah} sporting the colour, sans lipliner, and I am impressed with it, and with myself. I didn’t even use a brush, which I would normally think was completely necessary when dealing with a MAC lippy. The round, flat top of the stick is usually a divil to get right, but it seems to be okay here. As with all lipstick in the Lipcreme line, it feels soft and light, yet the colour looks deep and rich.

General consensus on the line seems to be that it’s not as wild as one would have expected from Ms Guinness, but I like what I see. I’m keen to get my hands on one of the brow pencils, as I am still all about me brows.

Both the pigments and the lipcremes are limited edition, and as this stuff tends to sell out fast, check out the line and snap up your faves. If it’s not too late…

Pigment: €24.50/£15.50/$20
Lipcreme: €20/£15.50/$17

I Feel Welcomed Home

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Delighted to have received new and improves body moisturisers from Dr. Hauschka Skin Care yesterday. There are five:

This photo is hilare, because I took it in the throes of jet lag, and you can see that I was spaced to the max. Like, I didn’t even notice that two of them were showing the French side of the box, and one is in German or whatever.

I am still in the throes of jet lag, and can’t be arsed to take the picture over.

I gave the Lavender and Sandelhout and go — that would be Deustch for Sandalwood — and it smells gorgeous. The sandalwood cuts the elderly lady vibe of the lavender, and the lavender cuts the masculine vibe of the sandalwood, and both cut the health-food-store vibe that all natural products have, which to me is a kind of oat-y smell?

I woke up this morning, still hungover from air travel, and my skin felt as soft, if not softer, than it had when I first applied the moisturiser.

I’ll be using these over the next few days and will provide updates. I’m keen on the Lemongrass, for sure.

€23.95/£22.95/$39.95

Note to Future Self: Bung These in the Bag

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As a day-to-day routine, I never took to using Elemis Cellular Recovery Skin Bliss Capsules.

It’s not because they are no good, it’s because they are so good, and I tend to hoard them.

They work like this: there are sixty capsules in this delightful package, with thirty rose-scented for morning, and thirty lavender-scented for night; these are, logically and respectively, pink and green. They smell lovely and feel soothing, and the clean Elemis packaging makes your bathroom look like a fancy spa.

The thing is, they do feel a bit stingy, and the capsules seem too small to use every day. Like, you’ll go through these in a heartbeat. So I tend to ‘save’ them for when my skin feels especially rough, when I need a pick-me-up, when I forget I’ve got them and go, ‘Oh! These!’

I know I’m not going to get much benefit from them, these tiny little pockets of anti-aging and pollution-counteracting goodness, if I don’t actually use them consistently, but cast your eye over the price and you’ll see why I’ve gone all Silas Marner over this ish. Eep!

It occurs to me that under these circs, I could have brought them along on the trip, as a treat for my travel-stressed complexion. So I have made this note to my future self, and since I most likely won’t be using them on the reg, they can look forward to the next journey, whenever that may be.

€75/£58/$105

BREAKING NEWS: On Saturday, Elemis are having a QVC show, on air at midnight, 1am, 4am, 7am, 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm. QVC available on available on Sky Digital channel 640, Freesat channel 800, Freeview channel 16 and Virgin TV channel 740. Yay!