Spoil your senses with Escentual - and 10% off Bioderma!

Ever have one of those websites that make you wish money was no option? 

Escentual is one of those sites. If you know me at all you know I love me some french skincare, and they've got it by the virtual bucket load.

In a perfect world - my dream Escentual shopping basket

Spot the difference - Vichy Normaderm Hyaluspot

I used to find it really difficult to find advice for dry and dehydrated skin. So I hope I'm not annoying anyone in how I keep bringing everything back to that - but I guess in a way it's unavoidable.

Treating blemishes when you have dry skin is pretty difficult, because they can often be so harsh and drying that they end up being more of a problem than a solution.

But not anymore, thanks to Hyaluspot from Vichy's Normaderm range.

Bad phone picture - but good product!

Luxe for Less: Dupe for Butter London?

Still on a high, a sugar high, from the Butter London Sweetie Shop launch, I have the pretty pastel colours firmly on my mind. So when I saw a shot of Model's Own lineup for Spring, I did a double take.

Models Own Fruit Pastel  - scented nail polish

Saving the Planet - is Eco-Fashion a thing now?

This morning the British Vogue Twitter account tweeted a link to possibly some of the most beautiful clothes I've seen in a long time. What was more captivating was the fact they were all from H+M as part of the Entitiled Conscious Exclusive collection, an extension of the Conscious Collection faced by Vanessa Paradis. This means everything was made from sustainable materials.

The short article got me thinking about fashion being friendly to the environment and I wondered
 - is eco-fashion a thing now?

Conscious Exclusive Collection - I am so in love with this dress it's almost painful

Benefit Fake Up - Faking it without the Guilt

Problem: Didn't sleep
Solution: Under-eye concealer
Further problem: Concealers gather in those terrifying little lines you didn't want to admit were there
Solution: Benefit, who else?!

Benefit Fake Up - Crease-Control Hydrating Concealer

Cold Sore Crisis Management

When I first got a cold sore, I freaked out. I had no idea what it was. Yes, I was that dramatic.

Cold sores are a very new demon of mine and everyone gets them differently. I get them in the middle of my top lip, and they tend to get very swollen. They generally only appear if I'm run down and each time I'm unprepared because they're just not something I, or any of my family, are used to dealing with.

A few weeks ago I caught a cold and a cold sore to match. As per usual I was completely unprepared. There was nothing in the house, and I was waiting to get paid so a run to chemist was out of the question. I text Avril (of Blushful Beauty) and she had some great advice. Picking up the cheapest cold sore treatment, getting some vaseline to help it heal and if I was stuck, put a drop of perfume on it to dry it out.

Then I started thinking about it. A cold sore is a virus. There's nothing that can kill a virus. What good is a cold sore treatment when I've woken up with a fully formed and very angry cold core? When I got my first cold sore, I found relief in Aloe Vera Vaseline - the only time I use Vaseline. The Aloe Vera really helped heal it.

Then I remembered what I read when I was looking at the properties of lemon oil and juice - one of them being the fact it was an anti-viral. It won't kill a virus, but it will keep it from spreading. Also tea tree oil is well known for being anti-bacterial. So I set out about creating my own cold sore home remedy.

Key Ingredients

I don't like lipgloss - I like Yves Saint Laurent

That was a very strange and slightly spoiled statement to make, I agree, but that's exactly how I feel about Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupté Shine. My heart skipped a beat as I read about them and fell more and more in love with them. The packaging is beautiful, the colours are beautiful and smell oh the smell is just devine. I mean just look at it!

YSL Rouge Volupté Shine in No. 11 Beige Instinct  

Weather Worries - Dry Lip Superheroes

French Pharmacy favourites - taking pride of place on my bedside table

This is a quick, spur of the moment post because I know it's something that will be troubling a lot of you out there. Dry, chapped, sore lips - it's rampant at the moment. This freak weather we've been having; snow, wind, ice, sun, more snow, frost, is playing havoc with our hair, skin, lips everything. And while I have my go-to rescue remedies for my skin and hair, finding something that would save my lips from ... let's just say it, cracking (shiver) was harder to come by.

Don't be left red faced - La Roche-Posay Rosaliac UV

The lighter your skintone the more likely you are to experience some redness, us Irish gals are terrible for it. 

My skin flushes at the slightest thing. Heat, tiredness, alcohol, spicey food - anything. Ever since I was little I have memories of my cheeks getting warm being asked to read something in class, or generally going bright read in almost any situation. In my mind, I feel like my face is always flushed. (Mental tomato face you may say...) For this reason, I wear medium coverage foundation and avoid any blushes that are too pink or red toned. It's almost a fear at this stage, having had it pointed out to me enough times ... yeah, thanks for that by the way

Redness is also a sign of sensitivity - your skin reacting to its environment. So in covering the redness, in an ideal world you'd want to be treating your skin's sensitivity so, hopefully, it's less likely to react.

We all know about opposite colours canceling each other out - so anti-redness products are generally green, and unfortunately they're often quite caky. The problem becomes covering the redness while maintaining the natural look of your skin and avoiding the zombie-look.

La Roche-Posay Rosaliav UV - yes, it's green but don't be scared!

Luxe for Less - Pastel Boucle Dress

I am so in love with this Savida Petal Boucle Dress. It immediately jumped out at me as a perfect candidate for the second,  and most pivotal, installment of Luxe for Less. (Because we all know the second album is the riskiest - and I like to relate my problems to that of rock stars sometimes ...)

Those colours, that darting, that delicate neckline. It screams chic. Screams sophistication. But it certainly does not scream €40 in Dunnes Stores. Yes this Savida number belt and all is available in our own humble, homegrown institution - but we shouldn't be surprised by this. 

If you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to the Savida range over the passed few seasons - my mum buys pretty much all of it, so that's my main point of reference, you'd notice it wad paying very close attention to the catwalks. Possibly too much attention in some cases ... but the less said about that the better. 

This piece is timeless. It reminds me of Mad Men, vintage Chanel - this beige Emma Dress from Hobbs or any of these beauties from Valentino, Alexander McQueen to Victoria Beckham, Camila and Marc and Rag and Bone. 

It reminds me of hundreds of wonderful things - because you don't need me to tell you that this classic high-neck cut and sumptuous pastel colours are absolutely everywhere.

I adore this dress. Whether or not I could pull it off, I'm not sure...

But you, you should buy it immediately. 
Trust me

Lisa
xXx

Post by: Lisa Dunn

Doing my Boyfriend's make-up

When I was 15, my friends and I were huge Good Charlotte fans. You know who you are! We loved our punk rock guys in eyeliner. Boys wearing eyeliner was the sexiest thing we could imagine. Fast forward ... eh ... a few years and I still have a soft-spot for some good guyliner. And I did my 15-year-old self proud by finding a guy who was fond of it too.

When I met Boyfriend he had an 8" (get your minds out of the gutter) mohawk, a Jack Skellington tattoo and he was a barman. And eyeliner, plenty of eyeliner. Since then the hair has changed, but the eye makeup hasn't, if anything there's more of it. And now, of course, the person applying it has changed too - because it's me.

So most Friday and Saturday nights I can be found helping him get ready for work - which generally means I do his makeup. If you're not convinced that a guy could wear makeup, well then keep reading.

Sugar cravings with Butter London Spring Collection 2013

Just as I was beginning to think Spring would never arrive these beauties came into my life. Butter London have released their Sweetie Shop collection of gorgeous, sweet pasel colours. Something straight out of the 50's. Oh, and they fed us. Which is always good.

Falling for the hype - Effaclar Duo or Effaclar AI

My love for La Roche-Posay is probably already pretty apparent from my glowing review of the Nutric Intense Riche. But that's not where it started.

A few weeks before that I had a Dundrum voucher and a problem - my skin was breaking out in what I thought were random places. Mostly on my cheeks, forehead and nose. So I needed something to treat blemishes. I mentioned this to Avril (of Blushful Beauty) and she said La Roche-Posay's Effaclar Duo was making waves in the beauty world. 

Now, when it came to it do you think I could remember the name? Of course not, but eventually I did find myself in front of the La Roche-Posay counter and I had narrowed it down to two: