Monday 28 April 2014

HealGel Body – Tried and Tested Review

HealGel has an interesting story. The brand was started by a team of leading medical experts (4 plastic surgeons and a biochemist) and the actress Natasha McElhone, who became involved following the sudden and tragic death of her husband, the celebrated plastic surgeon Martin Kelly.

Their collective mission: to pool years of research into anti-ageing and skin healing to create a new breed of skincare.

I became an early convert to their launch product, HealGel Intensive. I bought the serum a few years back after developing a rather nasty episode of skin inflammation and irritation on my face - thanks hormones! It’s so soothing and calming, a wonderful salve. I try to always keep a tube of it in the house.

HealGel Body, the newest member of the family (news story), is very much in the same vein. From the list of ingredients through to the price point – at £39.50 for 100ml cheap this product is not – HealGel Body is a formula for skin in need of serious TLC.
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Friday 25 April 2014

New products: Latest In Beauty - Chantecaille - Skyn Iceland

Limited edition beauty boxes, tick! Sumptuous face cream, tick! Anti-wrinkle face patches, tick! That pretty much sums up this week’s pick of the best new product launches. So let’s get on with the post.

Latest In Beauty – Exclusive Caudalie and BeautyMART Beauty Boxes

 

Latest In Beauty, who produce some of the best beauty boxes around in my opinion, have launched two new special edition boxes following separate collaborations with Caudalie and BeautyMART. The Caudalie box features three products from the brand’s new Polyphenol C15 anti-wrinkle range: a serum, eye and lip cream, and SPF 20 protect fluid. It is priced at £9.95. The BeautyMART box, meanwhile, contains 9 of their selected cult products including Balmain Silk Perfume (full size - 200ml), Weleda Skin Food (10ml), Rimmel BB Cream Matte (8ml tube, shade ‘light’), and a 10ml Yu-Be Moisturising Skin Cream free gift. This box - said to be worth over £50 – costs £12.95. Both boxes are available now, without membership, here.

 Chantecaille – La Crème à la Rose de Mai

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Tuesday 22 April 2014

Sisley’s Eye Contour Mask – My Top Rated

If you follow @FaceUpBeauty on Twitter you may have seen my rather ridiculous haul of Sisley products, bought back in Feb during a very uncharacteristic single brand spending spree at John Lewis.

I never used to buy Sisley because of price. But then I got introduced to a particular product that so completely blew my mind it changed everything. That product is Sisley’s Eye Contour Mask, and it sparked my love affair with this very chic French beauty brand. 

For the last couple of years I have used an eye mask regularly, at least once a week. For a while I was fond of Origin’s No Puffery cooling mask for puffy eyes - not that I’ve ever had particularly puffy eyes but I do like the way this light green gel cools and brightens the delicate skin under the eyes. Because it’s so cooling it’s a great product to take on hot summer hols – roll on roll on!…

Next I switched to Darphin’s Eye Sorbet Mask after initially liking and buying it. But I have to say with use I’ve become less keen. I am still using it as I’m not wasting the cash I forked out for it but it’s quite a thin cream and feels more like a daily eye moisturiser than a treatment mask. It won’t be a repeat purchase.

Which brings me on to Sisley’s Eye Contour Mask...
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Friday 18 April 2014

New Products: Silk'n - Elemis - Éminence Organic Skin Care

Summer prep is the key theme of my 'top picks' of new launches this week, featuring a variety of body and face products promising sun kissed, hair free and radiant skin.

Silk'n - Silk'n Glide At Home Hair Removal


First up we have Silk'n Glide, a new compact at home hair removal device which is said to deliver a full body treatment in under 30 minutes. As someone very familiar with at  home laser hair removal (I have a Philips Lumea) this is quite some claim - it takes me about 20 minutes to do just the bottom half of both my legs!

The Silk'n Glide uses 'home pulsed light', a patented  technology not to be confused with 'Intense Pulsed Light'. Silk'n say its device delivers short pulses of optimum light energy which immediately deactivate the hair follicle. They also claim the device is the first on the market designed to incorporate darker skin tones - Fitzpatrick 4-5 - and is equipped with enough pulses (50,000) not to need replacement cartridges. Available to pre-order now at Very.co.uk, the Silk'n Glide costs £160. More info here 

Elemis - Total Glow Bronzing Moisturisers, Face & Body 

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Monday 14 April 2014

Battle Of The Skincare Makeup – Eve Lom vs By Terry (Round 1)


When Eve Lom announced earlier this year that she was launching her first makeup range, the news was met with palpable excitement.

Such a move into uncharted waters by a brand famed for its sumptuous skincare was bound to be headline grabbing. What got me particularly fired up about Eve Lom’s Complexion range (news story) was the product formulas – cosmetics infused with active anti-ageing ingredients.

My go-to for skincare makeup for more than a year now has been By Terry. I simply adore her Hyaluronic Hydra Powder, Hyaluronic Hydra Primer and Touch-expert Advanced (By Terry’s founder Terry De Gunzburg was the brains behind the best-selling YSL Touche Eclat).

But as a big fan of Eve Lom’s skincare range too (including of course her classic cleansing balm), I was keen to try out the makeup range and compare it with my current trusted favourite. Which one would I prefer?

I recently scraped together enough pennies (ahem, pounds) to top-up on my By Terry (running low on the primer) and splash out on some of the Eve Lom (particularly the translucent powder), so that I could compare them and do a ‘vs’ post. Space NK also very kindly gave me some samples of other products in the ranges, enabling me to do a broader comparison. Let battle commence...

Eve Lom vs By Terry (Round 1) – The Powders

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Friday 11 April 2014

Mimova Launches With Trio Of Luxury Beauty Products

My Demo of the E-One home hair reduction device
Last week saw the official launch of Mimova, a brand new company with a remit to source luxury beauty products for UK consumers and professional businesses.

One of the brands in its portfolio is Sqoom, the German-based anti-ageing home beauty device that I bought last summer and still absolutely adore (see my reviews part 1 and part 2 ). The other products in the Mimova family currently are the French made E-One home laser hair removal device, and the LipoGenie professional non-invasive eye bag reduction system. 

I had the pleasure of attending last week’s launch event in London for a taster of the products and to get an update on Sqoom.
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Tuesday 8 April 2014

Murad Bolsters Skin Protection With MuraSol And Sun Balm Stick – Previews Pore Reform Product Launching July


Not wearing a sunscreen daily is one of the worst things people can do when it comes to skincare since incidental UV exposure can happen even when you’re not directly in the sun.

I quote Dr Howard Murad, board certified dermatologist and founder of the Murad skincare brand. This advice we’d all do well to heed, and for the last 5 years or so wearing a broad spectrum SPF 30 has been an essential part of my daily skincare regime.

When we sit in the sun, our skin absorbs ultraviolet radiation (skin ageing UVA and skin burning UVB rays) that can cause instability in the molecules of the body tissue, releasing harmful compounds called free radicals. These free radicals can damage cell function and cause premature ageing.

So when Jeff Murad (Howard’s son and Murad VP of product development) explained at a bloggers media event in London last week that no product is able to block more than 98% of UV rays, I got a bit worried – momentarily! For Murad has come up with a clever solution. It’s called MuraSol.
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Monday 7 April 2014

The New Breed Of Creams Caring For Unique Menopausal Skin

It can be one of the most distressing periods in a woman’s life and something many women find difficult to open up about. I am talking about the menopause, that moment in time which marks the end of fertility.

For something so natural and normal I find it upsetting that the menopause is shrouded by stigma and negativity. Many women at this point in their life feel ashamed, that they are no longer beautiful, that they have already served their main purpose in life, to reproduce. They need support and encouragement, not a wall of silence and sneering.

The beauty industry is awash with anti-ageing products to fix wrinkles, age spots, loss of firmness and so on, but I see little mention of the menopause in the context of skincare. Why? Dry skin, oily skin, spots, facial hair, sagging skin, facial flushes – these (and more) are all skin issues that can occur even at the very early ‘peri’ stage of menopause as a result of a drop in the female hormone oestrogen. Ageing suddenly accelerates but the link with menopause is often not made, unless you deliberately seek it out and research it.

It is against this background that I applaud the few beauty brands who have recently launched skincare ranges for menopausal women, including Rodial with its March announced Cougar line (while I applaud their move I find their choice of brand name quite vulgar).

But the product I am going to talk about today is Stratum C, a line of skincare launched in September last year by British company Forme Laboratories.
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Friday 4 April 2014

New Products: L'Occitane - Crabtree & Evelyn - Guerlain

It’s all about the body this week, with no less than 14 (unless I miscounted – quite possibly!) new products to tell you about for giving our hands, legs, arms and trunks a perfect treat.   

L’Occitane - new Almond Collection products


I’m one very happy blogger, for L’Occitane have announced new additions and formulas to their Almond range – one of the most exquisite fragrances around in my view and the Milk Concentrate is quite possibly my favourite body cream of all time! (see review). The new Almond products are Tonic Body Oil (£35 for 100ml), Smooth Hands (£14 for 75ml) and Lighter Legs (£20 for 75ml). New formulas have meanwhile been announced for Shaping Delight (£36 for 200ml), Milk Concentrate (£38 for 200ml) and Supple Skin Oil (£35 for £100lm).  The new collection will be on counter in May. More on L'Occitane here.

Crabtree & Evelyn – Caribbean Island Bath and Body Collection

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