Hair Scare…

I’m sure I’ve written on here about my constant hair abuse via hair dye. Anyway, if I haven’t I’m a bit of a home dye addict (particularly L’Oreal) and it has come back to haunt me in a big way.

I’m naturally kind of mousey-blonde and in the last ten years I’ve had black hair, reddish hair, mousey blonde hair, chocolate hair, orange hair, blonde hair, auburn red hair, orange hair, blonde hair and now dark mouse. Not what I wanted! Both times that I had orange hair it was due to a)bleach and b)pre-lightener. I wanted to darken it a bit for winter, so I dyed it ‘Dark Blonde’ and it came out brown. Yucky brown! Eeeeeeek!

I went to the hairdresser and they said that it was to weak to fix so I’ve been hitting the Head and Shoulders and mega conditioners to try and lighten the colour and restore some strength (not sure its working) and looking at colour strippers online but I’m scared, I don’t want to be the halloween monster!!

Help! Any advice? xx

Camel Tones? Its no desert out there…

So bad puns aside, it seems that once again Camel, Caramel and Sand tones are taking over the stylish girls A/W wardrobe.

It all started in MaxMara – there are rails and rails of Camel. Its on all styles of coat, skirt, jacket and probably dresses. Everyone else now seems to be following suit – TopShop, Uniqlo and probably even my beloved Chanel (they’re faux fur is nearly Camel). You can get Camel/Caramel/etc. in shorts, skirts, knitwear, et al.

So how to wear it? Magazines will tell you it suits any colouring, however as a blonde I found that Caramel-y shades were not good and nor was Camel on my upper half (I think that this is the same for grey haired people). So I found the perfect solution – Camel shorts from TopShop! And they’re wooly and knee-length so perfect winter wear. And if I wanted to do the trendy double Camel, I top up with a cream woollen…

Anyway, let me know how you get on with Camel and your Berry/Khaki shades…xx

Autumnal Shades

This autumn beauty is all about khaki and berry; on eyes, lips and nails.

At Chanel this season, they have launched the new ‘Les Khakis de Chanel’ nail varnishes in the shades Khaki Brun, Khaki Rose and Khaki Vert. They were first available in London at the Vogue ‘Fashion’s Night Out’ in the Chanel Bond Street store and at Selfridges. And by the end of the evening, Selfridges had sold out of the Khaki Rose shade, a pinker shade of last winter’s Particuliere (worn by Lily Allen at the Paris Show).

Berry lips are a big deal too. At many of the shows, berry and red lips dominated (including Chanel’s who launched their Rouge Coco line recently). Dior are launching a line of red lipsticks named after famous couture dresses from their archives and Lipstick Queen‘s range (available at Space NK) has been hitting the magazines (Grazia, etc).

Anyway, get Khaki-ing and Berry-in for beauty this autumn!

P.S. This isn’t an advert for Chanel beauty, I just like it…xx

Fascinating Fascinators

Well its been a while, hasn’t it? While I wasn’t blogging, I’ve been busy making Fascinators on a course at Central St Martins. I signed up so I could do something new, but it has turned out to be super fun!

I have been making proper Sinamay based headpieces, and I thought that I’d share them this way as sadly I don’t really have an event to wear them to at the moment.

Enjoy, while I hunt for my Ascot ticket!!

xx

Super stripes

This season the stripy nautical style tee is firmly IN, a continuing trend as it seems to be around every spring. I love stripes and so the hunt was on for the perfect one for me. And it’s really hard on a high street budget!

I wanted a white based, heavy weight, non stretch, blue stripe tee with no writing or embellishment on it. And could I find one? No! I hunted high and I hunted low. NOTHING!

I went to Liberty’s and looked at the A.P.C offerings – the stripes were too thin and the body too short. Zara had a lovely one but it as hand wash only – ridiculous for a cotton t-shirt! French Connection‘s offering was too long in the body and so stretching that it was like wearing a lycra body suit. Not a good look. The ones in Jigsaw and Kew were lovely but a little too heavy for me. The top in All Saints was lovely until I noticed the writing on it – also not good….

I found my match though in Gap – the right length, weight and colour scheme and all the stripes the same width. Also it was in a three-for-two offer so I got three (two white ones, you can rock stripes tooooo much) for £17!! That’s what I call a result!

Now I just need to plan the rest of my summer wardrobe…

The Hair Wars

Have you had a haircut recently? I had one a few weeks ago and my friend only the other day. I loved mine, she hated hers. Why is it that we have so many problems with haircuts?

Most women have at least once in their lives had a haircut that they hated and even made them cry. A collegue of mine said that she had one that made her look like a ‘lightbulb’, and another friend had a fringe cut shorter and shorter until it nearly disappeared.

I find that when I go to the hairdresser that I don’t know exactly what I want and usually take photos or just use way to many adjectives. When I kind of know what I want I find that mostly hairdressers listen to me. When I last went I chose my salon, Headmasters because it was local and affordable and my previous hairdresser was a place I walked past one day and they were free. Both time my hair was super. My friend went for a special treat to Vidal Sassoon on the King’s Road, and while her cut is good, is just wasn’t at all what she wanted. The stylist did what she wanted and didn’t listen to her client.

So why is it that some of us can get a lovely haircut just like they wanted while others get haircuts that make them cry? Unlike handbags and shoes, high costs don’t always equal great haircuts.  Its a mystery but I’ve found that photos get the best results. However, this isn’t always true.

Can you help? How have you got good trick to getting the cut you want?

On the ‘Greige’ hunt

Has anyone else seen the cover of Grazia this week reporting on the trend for ‘Greige’ (that’s grey mix with beige if you haven’t) nails? Apparently since Lily Allen wore Chanel’s new Greige shade when she performed at the Chanel Paris show there has been a waiting list a mile long for it.

Lily Allen’s greige nails

The other problem is it isn’t out until March so, how can you look fashion forward??

Well…

You could try Nails Inc.’s ‘Jermyn Street’ shade which is very good and not that pearlised and pink (and doesn’t have a waiting list)…

(it looks a little mushroom here but is amazing). I haven’t found many other good shades yet sadly despite an extensive search of Boots…

Annoyingly, Barry M which did an amazing copy of the Jade Chanel varnish of last year doesn’t seem to have a greige yet, so no luck there either…

Let me know if you find any good copies!! xxx

Smelling of Roses?

Do you wear perfume? If you’ve read this blog before then you will see that I do (everyday) and that I’m slighty obsessed with smelling good. I’ve worn perfume everyday for at least the last decade and I think that I will continue to do so. My approach to perfume is a bit scattered and disorganised in that I’ve never really stuck to one scent or brand for more than two bottles (I’m more loyal to shampoo, hair dye and bath foam). This is partly because I am bought perfume as gifts but also because I am seduced by excellent perfume marketing.

Marc Jacob’s Lola Bottle (with the lovely lid) The ad featuring Karlie Kloss

Again, if you’ve read this blog before you’ll have seen the obsession with Lola by Marc Jacobs and that I own the perfume, perfume ring, shower gel and body lotion. It is the first time that I have really thought about sticking to this brand and even buying the massive bottle. And its in no small part because of the really cool bottle lid, advert and website. The added extras to the fragrance make it something that I want to keep on wearing, a trend that I am sure that Chanel No. 5 (whose adverts have featured Audrey Tautou on the Orient Express and Nicole Kidman directed by Baz Luhrmann) Viktor and Rolf’s Eau Mega (with adverts featuring Naomi Watts); Thierry Mugler’s Angel (also featuring Naomi Watts and an amazing bottle), or Dior’s J’ai Adore Dior (with Charlize Theron) have all noticed. I’m not saying that we don’t smell the perfumes first but that the added extras of advertising and bottles help.

Chanel No. 5 Eau Mega Angel j’adore Dior

No longer do most women buy perfume from perfumier’s, now it is from the big fashion houses. I am sure that most designers are glad that Coco Chanel began the trend for fashion designers making scents, as the turnover for perfume is huge as so many of us want a small affordable piece of the designer lifestyle. I do and I smell good. Of roses some may say…

The Power of Celebrity…

Since I started this blog I’ve pestered my friends, family and colleagues to read it yet in recent weeks I’ve noticed that most of my traffic has been from the keyword of ‘Cheryl Cole Red Hair‘. So I thought that I’d write a little piece about the power of the celebrity ‘look’.

Cheryl Cole’s Red Hair

If you went onto the high street today how many people that you stopped would tell you that they’d bought something because a famous person had it – most of Oxford Street probably! However, if you asked them if they were inspired by a particular designer then the answer would probably be no. It is amazing that celebrities drive our shopping habits as well as how we choose restaurants or magazines. This interest has even led to the creation of ASOS.com, one of the internet super-retailers, that started as As Seen On Screen a place to get the things that your favourite star had been seen in.

Marc Jacob’s Lola Marc Jacobs Lola Ring

I feel that I have relatively independent taste and style – I take inspiration but then do things my own way. I love sequins, and now they are super-in I’ve stocked up but won’t stop wearing them; I also love Marc Jacobs Lola; but not just because of the supercute bottles and perfume rings; I just love the scent.

Florence (in the feather cape I wanted from TopShop, not fair)  Ashlee Simpson

However, I dyed my hair red partly because I wanted to and I liked the colour but also because I liked Florence + the Machine and because I’d seen pictures of previously blonde celebrities (Ashlee Simpson) with new red hair and I saw that it worked. I also bought into the heeled ankle boots and shoulder padded top trends because I saw cool people wearing them. I don’t think that it is necessarily a bad thing – just a different way of how fashion designers work filters down to us. I still want a Chanel 2.55 and not just because everyone has one. It’s because its beautiful and amazing and I want it!! Xx

Handbags. A home from home?

Do you have more than one handbag or do you keep the same one day in day out? I used to be a changing handbag lady – I had billions of bags in a riotous rainbow assortment of colours. But then I found a bag that I truly loved – a cheap black number from Urban Outfitters that had little triangle studs in neon colours on the flap. It went everywhere with me – Spain (twice), Cornwall even Glastonbury. But a £30 bag cannot take that much love and it died a slow and painful death – its straps fell off, its popper came off and the studs fell out. I loved it so much I bought another in the sale to cannibalize, but it wasn’t the same. So to save myself from the trauma of loving another and losing it I invested in my beloved Mulberry Roxanne. She has gone with me all over (except the beach holiday in Crete – my fake Chloe did the trick there). Anyway, I now have four bags – Roxy, an All Saints clutch for clubbing, a Lulu Guinness clutch for Operas and my beloved disco dinosaur’s corpse.

The disco dinosaur The Mulberry Roxanne

How many bags do you have? Are you a hoarder or a one special bag? And what is in your bag?

I have my purse, make-up, umbrella, digital camera, pens, a canvas bag, gloves, oyster card, keys. And then there’s all the other stuff that I throw in – hairspray, eye highlighters and my library card. I insist on a big bag as this is the tidiest I get, yet I never have useful things like flat shoes, hand cream or water. I keep it clear of clutter (reciepts etc) because otherwise I can’t find anything. I don’t know about you…

Now I have my Roxanne (goes with everything, goes everywhere, should last until I’m 150) I’m thinking of investing in a Chanel 2.55 as I need a black bag. However I’ll need to cut back on what I lug about with me as its at least 1/3 smaller if not more.

Chanel 2.55

I love classic, expensive bags and I’m not really into cheap bags ( I love them and then they die). I would never buy an expensive bag in an outlandish colour – what happens when its out of date?

What do you think? Xx