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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Beauty discovery: natruél and the wonders of honey
New Zealand is a real breeding ground for innovative and unique natural skincare brands, and I love it when they have a little history and a good backstory to go with their products.
A perfect example of this is a brand I’ve recently come in contact with called natruél. It is the brainchild of one very clever woman at Mossop’s, a family business that has been keeping beehives and producing and packing 100 per cent New Zealand honeys since 1947.
The skincare brand now known as natruél was just “a twinkle in Mossop’s general manager Wendy Mossop’s eye” back in 2002, when her then 83 year old mother used Mossop’s UMF® Manuka honey to heal the wound from a skin cancer operation on her ankle. After a couple of months, the wound had completely healed and the skin around the wound was soft, supple and as smooth as a baby’s proverbial. This opened Wendy’s eyes to the amazing benefits of honey internally and externally and she made it her mission for Mossop’s to develop a chemical free skincare range using UMF® Manuka honey as the main ingredient. Five years later, in November 2007, natruél finally made its debut and has gone from strength to strength since. It is manufactured using a high percentage of UMF® Manuka honey, and contains no parabens, no artificial fragrances, no petroleum derived products and no synthetic ingredients. Love that! It does however contains goodies like the aforementioned “super” honey, cold pressed olive oil, cold pressed flaxseed oil and propolis.
I’ve just started using the Nourishing Hand & Body Lotion, which is created using a riot of yummy ingredients and is a beautiful formula to use even on the hot, stocky days we’ve been experiencing Down Under of late. It’s easily absorbed and little goes a long way too, so it’s great for throwing in your bag and using on the go. Tweet
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Summer Essential: The Perfect Bronze Kit
Lucy and the Powder Room at The Department Store is definitely near the top of my list of “happy places”, and is also where I discover all many of beauty tips and treats.
Naturally, and packages and kits they put together are impeccable, and I absolutely love this summer-focused Perfect Bronze Kit that is key to achieving exactly that.
In it you’ll find on of the legendary Riffi mitts – in my mind the best exfoliating tool on the market. They are indestructible and washable, and the ones I own have been stalwarts in my bathroom for years now. As well as helping with ingrowns, they are a great way to boost your circulation – and keep one step ahead of dry skin.
The kit also contains a voucher for an in salon spray tan – reportedly the safest in the biz with a beautifully natural glow – and a full size SANS Regenerative Cream body moisturiser, which contains the likes of Omega 3’s, antioxidants, AHAs and Vitamin A. A totally power pack for great skin, I’ve used this in the past and can vouch for its efficacy and its general, all round awesomeness. It’ll help your tan linger for longer, along with keeping your skin super noursished.
The Perfect Bronze Kit is just $140.00, get yours now! Tweet
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I try: Smashbox Halo Highlighting Wand
Like having your own personal lighting director, Smashbox’s Halo Highlighting Wand promises to help bring out your best angles – all day long.
An Allure Best of Beauty Award Winner, it’s a super easy to use, click-through pen that allows for precise highlighting and gives you a super dewy glow exactly where you aim it.
Available in two shades - Pearl or Gold – it has a creamy formula that is really easy to control application-wise, mimicking the way light reflects off of the face to create what Smashbox calls “a beautifully lit photo” every time you use it. How good is that?
To apply, just pop on a small amount of product with the applicator brush, and then gently blend in with fingertips. Try brushing it over the tops of your cheekbones, down the bridge of your nose, on your cupid's bow, chin and above your brow bones – wherever you want the light to hit. Magic! Tweet
Love it, need it: Trilogy's Helping Hand Wash
Trilogy were one of the pioneering companies in New Zealand natural skincare, and ten years later are still forging ahead with innovative new releases whilst early ones have gone on to become cult favourites (who hasn’t had a bottle of their original Rosehip oil on rotate at some point in their lives?).
In celebration of 10 beautiful years in business, they have launched a year long campaign to raise funds for Child’s i Foundation, a wonderful charity helping to end the tragedy of baby abandonment in Uganda.
Their all-new, all-good Helping Hand Wash is a gorgeous, limited edition product created specially for this campaign. All profits from its sale throughout 2012 will be donated to Child’s i Foundation, which runs projects caring for abandoned babies and vulnerable mothers in Uganda and places children in loving homes.
Established by Lucy Buck (pictured above, right), a seriously amazing British woman who gave up a successful career in TV production to help the children of Uganda, Child’s i Foundation is a small charity making a big difference. In Uganda poverty, disease and violence are rife – which leads to hundreds of children being abandoned every year. The charity’s transitional home and family support centre provides quality short-term care for babies; while its Social Work Team ensures every child in its care grows up in a loving family in their home country.
And if that isn’t enough of a backstory to make you rush out and grab a bottle, the hand wash itself is an absolute joy to use. It combines the natural antibacterial properties of Elderberry and Burdock with natural vegetable oils, whilst Trilogy’s signature fragrance of frankincense, rose geranium and lavender gives it its delicately delicious smell.
If you would like to give time, love or money to Child's i Foundation, visit the website: www.childsifoundation.org or email: volunteer@childsifoundation.org or office@childsifoundation.org Tweet
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Summer essential: St Tropez Tan Optimiser Tan Remover
This is a product with a seriously long name that happens to perform a very simple task – perfectly!
From the St Tropez Tan Optimiser Tan collection, this Tan Remover (pictured) helps to remove any unwanted Self Tan in an instant and whatever your skin type. It’s perfect for the palms, soles of the feet and heels, as well as to even up any darker-than-necessary patches on the elbows and knees. And bonus: you can even remove unwanted tan up to four hours after application, which is about when you start to spot serious disasters looming!
To use it simply apply to hands with a little water immediately after applying your tan, paying particular attention to fingers and palms and any other trouble spots. Too easy…
This is a total summer essential if you’re a self tanner like me, which I should sincerely hope you all are! Love the sun, hate the burn. Tweet
Monday, January 23, 2012
Summer essential: Stephen Marr’s Hair Repair Kit
Summer is the season when your hair gets assaulted at all angles – think sea salt, sunshine and humidity, all banding together to seek and destroy healthy locks! Throw in a few highlights and you have a lethal combination that soon leads to dull, brittle ends and a general follicular downer.
If you’re in the market for a preventative or a method of addressing all of the above, you can’t get much better than the Hair Repair Kit from Stephen Marr salons. I don’t really need any excuse to hit one of their stylish locales, but if you do then this little baby is it.
It contains a professional-only protein and moisture infusion to heal, nourish and repair, a bottle of SANS Nourishing Ultra + hair treatment from Lucy Marr’s hair and bodycare range of the same name and a Kevin.Murphy wooden Texture Comb to keep your tresses in order by neatening without frizzing. Love that combo! I’m a huge fan of SANS Nourishing Ultra + in particular and kicking myself that I’m all out right now. It is truly like first aid for damaged locks, with four times the nutrients of many conditioning-type products out there in the marketplace right now. It’s also free of all manner of nasties and smells beautiful, two more big ticks in my book.
To get your hands on a Hair Repair Kit – a steal at just NZD$120.00 - click here for details of a Stephen Marr salon near you. Tweet
Cult favourite: the rather magical Beautyblender
Already afforded cult status despite the fact that it hasn’t even been around that long is the Beautyblender, which is often called “the ultimate make up sponge applicator”. The clever tool was invented by top Hollywood makeup artist Rea Ann Silva so that all you lucky little piggies out there can achieve a professional finish and a flawless complexion. The key to a perfect face is a perfect blend, and this baby gives you just that, mainly due to its elliptical shape that makes application foolproof. Its suede texture feels gorgeous and its unique curves fit the contours of your face, plus it’s latex free, non-allergenic and odour free.
The Beautyblender has won more awards than many of us have had hot dinners, and being a full time mother of two, celebrity makeup artist and entrepreneur, Rea Ann can appreciate the many challenges that women face when it comes to quick and easy beauty solutions. Your makeup routine needn’t take an hour in the morning, although for too many women I hear about it actually does! Get one of these little wonders and I guarantee you will shave a hell of a lot of precious time off that.
And lucky for us down in the Southern Hemisphere it’s now available at East Day Spa, so get in and grab one now! Tweet
Thursday, January 19, 2012
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