Barefoot In The Dark: a New Year’s Eve Home Pedicure with Margaret Dabbs and MICRO Pedi
Regular readers will know that I’m not a big fan of Going Out, and I particularly hate leaving the house on New Year’s Eve. This year, my friend T invited me to a party that does sound truly marvellous, and I was tempted – for the first time in 26 years – to actually leave […]
Christmas Give and Take – Child-appropriate Beauty Gifts
I have two guiding principles when buying gifts: (1) never buy anything that you wouldn’t like to receive yourself and (2) If you live with your recipient, the gift should be something that can be shared, borrowed or stolen. I see no need to relax these principles when buying for children, so here is my […]
Bloom Perfumery Spitalfields
Have you left your Christmas shopping a little late this year? Be not afraid, I bring you good news:Â Bloom Perfumery in Spitalfields stocks an amazing range of astonishingly lovely scent that will delight any adult on your list. The Belle of Brockley discovered Bloom earlier this year, and it is now one of my very […]
Tell Me About Your Bad Self – Ellen Van Schuylenburch
Ellen Van Schuylenburch lives in London and works on Special Projects and Artistic Documentation for the Michael Clark Dance Company, of which she is a founding member. Ellen also teaches at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. We met at the Michael Clark Company office at the Barbican, where I photographed Ellen’s must-have products, […]
Queen Cosmetics: They Reign Supreme!
Although they were established 85 years ago, I only became aware of Queen Cosmetics  last autumn, when I found their Theatrical Cleansing Cream on the shelves at John Bell & Croyden. It’s quite difficult these days to discover something captivating and surprising quite by chance. Beauty brands spend a fortune on advertising and marketing, soliciting […]
MY-Make Up Masterclasses with Lee Pycroft and Sarah Reygate
This week I was invited to find out more about MY-Make Up, the masterclasses in make up offered by renowned make-up artists Lee Pycroft and Sarah Reygate. I first saw Lee Pycroft and Sarah Reygate in action at a BeautyMART Meet The Experts’ Evening, held this summer at BeautyMART Boxpark. I loved what I saw: […]
Happy Birthday BeautyMART!
Let the cry ring round the houses: BeautyMART is one year old today! Without doubt, BeautyMART is my very favourite Thing That Happened in the world of beauty this year. BeautyMART opened at Harvey Nichols on September 6th 2012. This makes BeautyMART a Virgo, born in the year of the Water Dragon: Â meticulous attention to […]
Box De Lux : The Beauty Box With Boarding School Charm
Beauty Boxes never dented my consciousness until I began blogging, and when I did discover them, I was somewhat overwhelmed by all the factors to be considered when choosing one. Annual subscription, or pay as you go? Be surprised, or pick your own contents? Samples or full-size products? Themed box or just a jumble? Urgh – […]
Damn! The Hungarian Design Pop-Up Store at Boxpark CLOSES in Just 2 Days!
I interrupt my unplanned Parisian-style blogging holiday to bring you the tragic news that the Hungarian pop-up store CLOSES on August 30th. However, in Silver Lining News, they are having a SALE, so if you can get down there pronto: do it! I had thought (stupidly) that they were in situ for another couple of […]
The Perfect Concoction: The Bespoke Shampoo That Is Shots and a Cocktail In One!
Concoction, the custom mix shampoo range that blends the concepts of Chemistry and Cocktail Mixology to astonishingly good effect, launched in Selfridges last week. I’ve been watching twitter feeds blow up with exclamations along the lines of of  ‘So good!’, ‘Amazing!’ and ‘OMG IT REALLY works!’ ever since. This enthusiastic response to Concoction was no […]
