CLARINS

♥Day: If I was Your Boyfriend, Etc, Etc

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Oh holy niiiiiight, is this not over yet?

In my personal experience, a special nightie on the special night is always a gift For Him. LIDL are doing a line in Satin Negligees for €5.99. At that price, you can have a bodice-ripping good time. Just me?

Another option is the use of Friday’s Veuve Monsigny Premier Cru Champagne from Aldi, which is not gender specific. As far as I know? Dudes like the bubbles, too, right?

If your fella likes to look after his skin, Clarin’s are doing an excellent promotion, because you get a gift, too. If you buy a Beauty Flash Balm Gift Set (€35.58) you get a free Clarins Men’s gift for him (this offer is available at all good chemists.) Or! Buy two products from the Clarins Men’s skincare range, maybe the Super Moisture Gel and/or the Super Moisture Balm and get a bonus gift for yourself (this offer happens in all good departments stores.)

There’s a whole bunch of good stuff on hand in Debenham’s: Marc Jacobs, who is a personal fave of mine, has a new cologne by called Bang Bang (€52.14), which is mostly sandalwood-y and musky, and there’s a John Rocha Manicure Set (€31). All the necessary tools are contained in a brown leather kit; you may like for yourself, at the end of the day.

I don’t know… Dudes I knew were always happy enough to get a CD, or I would ask them what thing they wanted. Such things were rarely red, or heart-y. Or I’d swing by Ann Summers and get something dirty, but silly.

They all liked getting cards, though? Real ones, not the ones from the internet. I think dudes are pretty easy as far as this goes. I don’t know, I think I am being sexist in every single way possible: that gals are the only ones who care, and the guys just play along, thereby stomping all over the lads with the loving natures and making the ladies all gimme, gimme… And I think this is where the whole ♥Day thing gets such a bad rap, this manufacturing of ‘Romance’ and it has to be such a big deal, and everybody is grumpy.

Eh, who knows your fella better than you do? Not me, for sure… but the Marc Jacobs stuff is really delish.

Coming Soon!

/ MANY BRAVE FOOLS / Leave a comment

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!}

Day Cream & Night Cream: What’s the Point?

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

It’s churlish for me to give out about having too many objects of a beauty-full nature cluttering up the place, but as I was moving things around the other day, I had to wonder, in true SATC talking-to-myself style: Is there really a difference between day cream and night creams?

I don’t usually have my logic-hat on when I’m thinking about beauty products. I don’t even think about beauty products, if you know what I mean: I simply accept them for what they are and am grateful that they are in my life. But now and then, I do wonder if my self-care routine could be made more simple, and the first thing I consider taking out of the rotation, if not outright chucking in the bin, is night cream.

Are those screams I hear? I got scolded roundly when I told a friend and fellow beauty colleague that I didn’t bother with eye cream, and I imagine that those in the know will start the finger-wagging any second now.

I’m on a bit of a campaign, however, to really understand what’s up with the why. Like, you can tell me, ‘Oh, anti-oxidants blah blah free radicals blah,’ but what’s it mean? And can I understand and believe it, without having gained a science degree.

Explanations are abundant, and okay, so they make sense: you need different things during the day as opposed to the night. During the day, you need to moisturise and protect, and during the night, moisturise and replenish. Okay, I get that. Also, here’s a cool thing, via allaboutyou.com:

During the day the skin’s energies are directed at protecting itself and you from stress, be it environmental or psychological. At night however cells focus on repairing themselves and damage sustained during the day. It follows that using different products for night and day supports the natural functions of the skin.

Okay! I totally get that, mainly because I think it’s cool that there’s a psychological aspect to skin care. As if I didn’t suspect that already!

I’ve got three day/night cream duos that I’m testing at the moment:

>Ziaja Rose Butter Anti-aging Moisturiser and Night Cream
>Renovage (for Aldi) Protective Day Cream and Rejuvenating Night Cream
>Clarins Extra-Firming Day and Extra-Firming Night

I will, of course, let you know how I get on…

Clarins Skintime Rundown

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Remember this totally free thing? I just wanted to let you know, step by step, what you can get for nothing at your local Clarins counter.

Here are the eight steps that incorporate Clarins Skintime, each one totally libre:
1> Eyesadow gently removed
2> Skin cleansed using the suction procedure as explained
3> Exfoliation, in a process that is exactly not what I do: the product was swept from left to right, rather than rubbed in circles. I feel like this is important.
4> Quick mask. There wasn’t the time for the usual 10 minute time period, but it was still refreshing.
5> Toning
6> Moisturiser
7> Neck and Decollete: mositurise using the light pressure application thing
8> Eye cream

I can personally recommend the Hydra Quench Mask {step 4} and Eye Contour Gel {Step 8}. I’m in the process of testing the Gentle Eye Makeup Remover Lotion and will share my thoughts anon.

And I’m still pondering the lymphatic drainage craic, may be writing more about that…

This is a Totally Free Thing: Clarins Skin Time

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

I am a pushover. I go for a makeover, say, at the beauty hall of a big department store, and think to myself, ‘Well, Suzu, this time we will just pay the €20 or whatever and not get hijacked into buying any product.’

But, then, the thing is, you actually don’t have to pay anything if you spend that much on product, and seriously, you walk away with something that has been used to create that amazing face, and doesn’t it make more sense to have spent the money on something you can use in future?

Yeah. So, you can imagine what transpires. Although it does make sense {it does!}, it would be nice to rock up to a counter and say, ‘A free treatment, please!’ and have it actually be free. Clarins Skin Time is totally free, and you won’t be hectored into buying any of the myriad product that is utilised, and you will learn something. Continue reading →

Happy Face Day!

/ MANY BRAVE FOOLS / Leave a comment

As in, I’ve decided today is face day, and also: take a trip in the way-back machine to get some quick reviews of face masks I have tried and tested. Below are the products reviewed:

Dermalogica makes yet another appearance! I am nothing if not consistent.

Sisterhood of the Travelling Products: The Winnowing

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Hmmm. Is this really any improvement a’tall?

Three lip things — there’s the Lush Latte yoke that didn’t make the last photo; one foundation {although I expect the Eau Thermale Avéne compact I’m reviewing will slip itself into a coat pocket}; one hair thing, one brow thing… a new thing {upper left} that came in the fabbbb Kiehl’s gift box that my sister-in-law gifted…

I don’t know, I guess this is a good edit.

The long shiny rectangular yokie is Clinique’s Black Honey Colour Surge Eyeshadow Quad, must share my opinion on that officially. Hint: it is excellent. The product, that is, although my opinion is excellent, too.

Well, I think I did do an okay job:

Yeah, fine. Oh, and I googled the Dermalogica Multivitamin Power Recovery Mask {bottom left} and they’ve redesigned the packaging. Yup, I knew it was old, but…

It’s Always Spring Somewhere

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

Right before The Christmas, there was an exciting launch of the Clarins Spring/Summer 2012 collection. One never needs much of an excuse to go hang in a fancy hotel in Temple Bar, and beautiful cosmetics notwithstanding, the nibbles were pretty impressive.

I haven’t had a chance to play with the Ombre Minerale 4 Couleurs and in all honesty, that bright turquoise pigment gives me the willies — but I am your intrepid beauty blogger, and will give it a go in due course.

But! I didn’t expect to like the Gloss Prodige in Papaya. Not so much the gloss part, but the papaya part. It looks really coral-ly in real life, and I am not a fan of coral, and it is not a fan of me. I wanted to see how prodigious the gloss was, though, and I can say that it is so prodigious that the papaya colour actually worked. The glossiness of this is extreme, and very sexy.

As vernal as I’d like to be right about now, when we are bracing ourselves for some below zero temps, I don’t think I can pull off the sky-blue vibe of that shadow, not in December/January. I’ll leave that for braver souls than I.