The French Pharmacy Discount Returns to Escentual.com

This is quick heads up that the popular French Pharmacy discount returns to escentual.com today. There's a 1/3 off Vichy, La Roche-Posay and Nuxe. Avene, Klorane, A-Derma, Rene Furterer and Pierre Faber are all reduced by 25% and there's 10% off Caudalie. Great news for those of you that are keen to get your hands on the famed Caudalie Beauty Elixir.

I will be taking advantage of the offer to re-stock on a few basics, particularly because my parents won't be returning to France until May. My Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk is almost empty and I need another tube of the LRP Effaclar AI Targetted Breakout Corrector. Also, Mr. MB wants some more of the Vichy Shaving Foam I bought for him last time the offer was on. As Escentual have recently started carrying the Bioderma range, I might have a look and see if they have the wipes pictured above but for goodness sakes don't grass me up to Mrs Hirons.

Talking of Mrs Hirons, if you haven't already spotted it via Twitter or Caroline's blog, the good lady herself will be holding skin care workshops and one to one consultations at Liberty's on the 12th and 13th March. Caroline is a lovely, extremely entertaining lady and I have immense respect for her knowledge of skin care and problem skin. You can find out more information about the workshops and personal consultations here.

Help! What do I need from France that I haven't already tried?

As usual, I have left important decision making until the last minute. My parents are returning from France this weekend and I need to put my order in now for any beauty related items. My mind is drawing a complete blank though.

Last year when I was on holiday, I bought the following items: Bioderma face wipes, Bioderma Crealine Cleansing Water, Embryolisse Lait Crème Concentré, Gemey Eye makeup remover, Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk, Sanoflore 24H Sans Concession Deodorant, MUFE Smoky Lash Mascara, BcomBio Organic Intense Triple Action Eye Contour, Mavala Nail Polish Remover and Avibon Vitamin A Pommade.

I used up the Bioderma face wipes, Klorane dry shampoo and Mavala polish remover all quite quickly. Both the Klorane dry shampoo and Mavala are worthy of re-purchasing but you can buy both of these in the UK and I know that I can purchase the nail polish remover in a larger size online. The deodorant, MUFE mascara and Avibon ointment are things I wouldn't purchase again, so they are instantly off my list.

I've recently finished off the Bioderma micellar water and Gemey eye makeup remover. I loved the Gemey remover as it's really gentle and feels very much like a cleansing water. However, I bought this in duplicate so I don't need a replacement for it yet. I'm a bit more ambivalent about the Bioderma. It's ok for cleansing when you're feeling lazy but I always have to wash my face after I've used it as I dislike the sticky feel. It is great for touch ups but I do wonder whether it would be worth trying different micellar water cleansers? I do have the travel size bottle left too.

I rate both the Embryolisse cream and the BcomBio eye serum and think these were my best pharmacie purchases. I've not run out of either of these yet and I don't feel I need backups at the moment. If only the Embroylisse contained an SPF, it would instantly be re-purchase worthy.

What french fancies am I forgetting? I'm sure there must be an important must-have or two that I have missed? I am particular interested in skincare items but my Mum should have opportunity to go into Sephora at Cite Europe, so makeup is a possibility too.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Guest Post: Give your skin a break

I'm pleased to be able to let a really lovely lady take over today, with such an excellent choice of topic too. Nic of Strawberry Blonde Beauty Blog has been inspiring my beauty purchases for a long time now (we go back beyond the blogging days). Nic is more than just a great beauty blogger, she's an all round good egg and has held my hands through some difficult parenting moments, for which I am extremely grateful. Anyway, without further ado, I will leave you in Nic's very capable hands.

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Thank you Jane for inviting me to guest blog… I am honoured!

Sometimes I lie in bed at night mentally listing the number of skincare and beauty products I use daily… a number which, unsurprisingly, has increased since I started beauty blogging.

I’m passionate about skincare and have used it religiously since my late teens. I care about what I put on my skin, research it thoroughly, and spend as much as I can afford on what I believe are the best products for me. I’m fickle too… I get bored easily and even if something is working for me, I always want to try the latest wonder product I’ve heard about. At times I’ve used poor quality products (for financial reasons) and while I know quality doesn’t always equate with cost, my skin has suffered as a result – and improved when I returned to ‘the good stuff’!

What has never occurred to me until recently, is that maybe all this goodness I’m applying to my face twice daily isn’t always so good for me. Maybe my skin feels overworked, or perhaps there really can be too much of a good thing? Hormone fluctuations can occur throughout key stages of our lives, like puberty, pregnancy and menopause, but factors such as contraception, diet and stress can play a big part too and it’s definitely true that our skin reflects what’s going on inside.

Several months ago I tweeted about a skin flare up and Pai Skincare responded. I’d previously had no contact with Pai, though I was familiar with the brand through reading reviews by some of my favourite bloggers.

Sarah Brown, founder and owner of Pai asked me about the exact condition of my skin and requested a list of every product I used at the time. She then researched potential allergens or irritants within the product ingredients and came back to me with some advice.

The main thing she thought I ought to do was give my skin a complete break from complicated skincare. When the owner of a highly respected skincare brand suggests this, you sit up and listen! I was both surprised and humbled by Sarah’s advice and would like to personally thank her for the time she took to advise someone who at that point, had never even tried her products. (I since have and love them, though Pai held off sending them until my skin was back to normal!)
This was Sarah’s advice, which she agreed to let me share in this post…

“Even the most robust of skin can develop sensitivities to ingredients that it may have previously been tolerant to. These sensitivities can be caused by hormone fluctuations, stress, illness, tiredness or overuse of particularly harsh or active cosmetics.



In all cases I'd recommend first giving your skin a rest.



While all beauty lovers want to sample a wide variety of skincare classics & new innovations, chopping and changing products regularly can leave skin very confused and out of balance.



As it responds to the varying oil levels in each, your skin adjusts its own oil production to reach an equilibrium. If this happens too often, your skin simply can't keep up, and can breakout, dry-out or develop a red reaction.



Allow your skin to rediscover its natural balance, and protect this with gentle products.



Increasing your intake of Essential Fatty Acids (Omega 3,6&9) can also help calm and condition your skin from the inside out, as they are powerful anti-inflammatories. Oily fish, seeds and nuts are great dietary sources, or you can opt for 1-2 tsps of organic Hemp or Flaxseed oil a day.”

Sarah Brown, Pai Skincare

With the EFA (omega oils), try and buy out of a fridge in your health food store and store it the same way at home. If they're on a shelf in a shop it's not a good sign and are best avoided. These oils are very prone to degradation and you want to take them in their most 'active' fresh form.

Obviously I had to keep cleansing and moisturising my skin at the time, so I used the most simple products I had, which at that time were Purity organic cleanser and moisturiser. Next time I’ll use a gentle natural oil, such as Jojoba; Pai products or Neal’s Yard Calendula Cleanser. 

I also minimised the amount of makeup I wore at the time, so that my skin could breathe. Products such as Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint or Estee Lauder’s new BB cream are perfect for this, along with a slick of mascara and gloss. My skin definitely benefited from this whole process. The sore spots and under-skin bumps cleared up and my face returned to normal.

While I still test new skincare products for my blog, I’m now much more careful about how I introduce them, adding one new product to my regime at a time, so that if I have a negative reaction, it’s easier to figure out what’s caused it. And in between switching to a new range, I’ll stick to basic, gentle products for a week or two, to avoid throwing my skin out of balance.

Have you given your skin a break recently or is it something you’d consider?

I hope this has been helpful… thank you for reading – and thanks again to Jane for letting me post on one of my favourite beauty blogs!
Nic x

Blogger Beware!

I realised today that I had never got around to explaining why I suddenly changed to short feeds for my posts. The reason for the change is addressed in London Makeup Girl's excellent advice post here. If you are a blogger using the Blogger platform, I would heartily recommend you have a read. It's also worth knowing about as a reader: I realise that it can be frustrating not to be able to read whole posts via email or in Google Reader but there is a good reason for protecting content this way.

I'm not sure how many of you know that my blog was disabled a little over a week ago. It was thankfully brief but I freely admit it was a very nerve wracking couple of hours. I actually feel very lucky that Google got back to me so quickly. I have all of my posts backed up but I did worry about how I would re-publish them without a blog to put them on! Although I don't know the exact reason that my Google account and blog was disabled, it's very likely that Google had flagged my blog as spam.

Grace explains all about spam blogs (splogs) in her post and the value of using a short feed. I changed my settings to short feed the minute I got my blog back. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this causes but I hate to run the risk of losing my blog permanently. Although I don't consider myself terribly precious about my blog, I was shocked by how awful it felt to lose it even for that short time. Luckily for me I had Grace on the other end of the phone to talk me down from the ceiling!


PS. For those of you that have trouble getting blogs to display as mobile format on their phones, try adding the suffix /?m=1 to the end of the blog address. This will only work on blogs that have their mobile template setting enabled but I find this a very useful trick!

BECCA Manicure Tips from Session Manicurist Katie Hughes

I don't usually post press releases but I think this one is a little different. When I visited the BECCA Boutique earlier this year, I had the pleasure of a manicure with the gorgeous Katie Jane Hughes (for Twitter fans, you can find Katie tweeting here). I know some of you met Katie at the TOWIB Blogger event recently and she is a great Makeup Artist but she's also a bit of whizz with a nail brush. Katie gave me a manicure with one of the BECCA colours coming out in September called Billy Tea and hopefully I won't get in trouble for giving you a sneaky peek.

This manicure lasted really well. Longer even than my Shellac which I think says great things about both the BECCA formula and Katie's skills. With this in mind I thought you'd like to hear Katie's thoughts on the nail varnish and hear hear tips for a lasting, home manicure.

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Session Manicurist, Katie Jane Hughes, details unique features of BECCA Nail Colour

“I love the new BECCA nail polish - not only are they great colours, but the highly pigmented formula is

excellent and really easy to apply without streaks. After nearly 10 years in the business I'm very fussy and always searching for the next best formula, and BECCA have it. It's exciting for me as a pro because I know I can rely on these to perform...

They dry amazingly quick which is essential when working on shoots as things can change at the drop of a hat…

And clothes are always flying around so you need dry nails to avoid ruining couture garments!

I’ve been using the 2-in-1 Base/Top Coat to seal the colour and add extra shine. I love that it contains the little silver balls – unusual for a top coat – as this keeps the polish texture so thin, which not only makes it easy to apply but also means it won’t chip as quickly.”

PRODUCT FEATURES + BENEFITS, as noted by session manicurist Katie Jane Hughes

• Brush is perfect length for ultimate control and easy application.

• Brush has a sleek, flat end designed for optimum application and product placement; ensuring it splays across the nail for an even coat that doesn’t streak.

• Ultra gloss finish; even pastel shades look expensive.

• Long lasting, for up to five days.

• Superior nail adhesion to protect against chipping.

• Smooth, self-levelling pigment for ease of application.

• Fast-drying.

• Easily removed with Acetone or Non-Acetone remover.

INGREDIENTS

Butyl Acetate, Ethyl Acetate, Nitrocellulose, Phthalic Anhydride/Trimellitic, Anhydride/Glycols, Copolymer, Acetyl Tributyl Citrate, Isopropyl Alcohol, Stearalkonium Hectorite , Adipic Acid/Fumaric Acid/Phthalic Acid/Tricyclodecane, Dimethanol Copolymer, Styrene/Acrylates Copolymer, Citric Acid, and may contain Talc, CI 77891 (Titanium Dioxide), CI 77491 (Iron Oxide), CI 77499 (Iron Oxide), CI 15850 (Red 6 Lake, Red 7 Lake), CI 19140 (Yellow 5 Lake)

Session Manicurist, Katie Jane Hughes,

shares her tips for the perfect
20 minute manicure at home
in eight simple steps…

WHAT YOU NEED

Gentle nail file, buffing block, cuticle oil, small lip brush, cuticle pusher, nail polish

remover, BECCA 2-in-1 Base/Top Coat, BECCA Nail Colour.

STEP ONE

Gently file the length of your nails to shape or shorten.

 

STEP TWO

If necessary, gently push back any over grown cuticles with a cuticle pusher. 

 

STEP THREE

Lightly buff the nail surface to remove any old build up and create a smooth surface for the polish.

 

STEP FOUR

Coat each nail with one thin, even coat of BECCA 2-in-1 Base/Top Coat.

 

STEP FIVE

With your chosen shade of BECCA Nail Colour, paint two very thin coats of polish over the nails. Ensure you always gently touch the tip of the nail with the colour – this seals the end and adds longevity to the polish as any typing or manual work with not chip the nails instantly.

 

STEP SIX

Dip the small lip brush into the nail polish remover, then very carefully sweep the brush around the cuticle area. This cleans up any uneven mess around the edges. 

 

STEP SEVEN

Finish with a thin, even coat of BECCA 2-in-1 Base/Top Coat to seal and add gloss to the nails. Don't forget to cap the edges by painting the tip of the nail.

STEP EIGHT

Wait for about one minute, then carefully apply cuticle oil around the cuticle and sides of the nail. 

TIPS

• Don't soak your nails in water before you do your nails, as the nail soaks up the water and swells. This can lead to premature chipping when the swelling goes down.

• Always use a good cuticle oil after you polish to help nails dry.

• File your nails in one direction only.

• For the most natural looking nail, the shape should mimic the cuticle.

• Don't overload the brush or nail with polish.

BECCA Stockist details: 

BECCA Boutique 91a Pelham Street, South Kensington SW7 2NJ

Online www.beccacosmetics.com 

Phone Mail Order 020 7225 2501