Summer Faves
Here’s a quick trip through my Summer favourites – products I bought over the Summer months which I will definitely be taking into Autumn/Winter.
Expressive Cherry Purdy sunglasses
Look at these beauties! A wonderful blogger on Instagram, @behindthewoman aka Linda Holman-Evans, was promoting these and had a discount code, so for £13 I thought it was worth a punt, and how right I was. They are so stylish – I love the fact that they are oversized and properly black, and comfortable to wear.
This mirror – what can I say – it’s a magnifying mirror, simples. But I hadn’t realised how magnifying 10x actually is. I can only see into it properly on the magnifying side when I hold it close to my face, but when I do, I can easily find any pesky bit of hair or eyelash that’s embedded itself into my eye, which happens quite frequently, for some strange reason. Also handy for close examination of unwanted upper lip or chin hair. £14.99 at Amazon.
Retinal sits in the lower middle of of the Vitamin A family, which goes from Retinyl Palmitate to Tretinoin (and Tazarotene for psoriasis). I couldn’t tolerate Retinol, so tried this lower strength Retinal (which is a form of Retinaldehyde – keep up at the back!) https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/retinoids-for-wrinkles#choosing-the-right-retinoid
As I understand it, you need to be using Retinol in whatever form you can tolerate it, for some considerable time before you see any benefits, particularly if, like me, you don’t have specific skin concerns like, say, age spots or hyper-pigmentation. I have fine lines and wrinkles, and puckering of the skin, all age associated, so I am not expecting miracles, but if I could see a slight diminution of any of the above, I’d be happy, or if I could slow down the ageing process, well, that would be nice. So once I finish this tube, I’ll move on to the next strength up, and hope that my skin can tolerate it, and that I eventually get to see the benefits.
I bought this product a month or so ago to replace my super expensive CE Ferulic by Skinceuticals, which at £149 a pop is rather a lot, although it does last quite some time, but having hunted around for a product that had both Vitamin C and Vitamin E in one hit, this fitted the bill, and at £50 was considerably cheaper. The jury’s out as to whether it’s as effective – although to be honest I couldn’t tell you whether the CE Ferulic was either – but all you do is mix a couple of shakes of powder with your serum or moisturiser – I’ve been mixing it with my sunscreen – and apply as normal. One to watch.
I’d been using a Tangle Teezer for a good few years, but when I saw the makeup artist Caroline Barnes talk about this brush on her YouTube channel I had to give it a go, and I’m so glad I did. It fits into the palm of your hand – even my tiny ones – and doesn’t tug on the hair but kind of glides through and if you’re experiencing hair loss, it won’t pull out great tufts as some brushes are won’t to do. Developed by Tim Binnington for his wife who was going through chemo, it’s a pricey but gentle hairbrush.
Beauty Pie All Over Face Brush
I bit the bullet and joined Beauty Pie a couple of months ago, after much humming and hah-ing. My main issue with them was that a lot of their skincare products contain “parfum”, a generic term meaning scent, which could contain one of the products I’m allergic to and which you can read about in my dandruff post [insert link]. But I decided to take a small bite out of the Pie and purchase non-scented beauty products such as this face brush. I’d been looking for a brush which I could use with my favourite powder, the Hourglass Ambient lighting powder, and this is a lovely brush.in fact, it’s more than lovely, it’s luxuriously soft and feels luxurious against the skin. £45 non member, £9.35 to members.
Brabantia Bo Touch Bin, 11L & 23L, Matt Steel
Am I allowed to fall in love with a bin? Because I think I have, and fallen quite hard. I’m sure I’m not alone in trying to figure out the most efficient way to manage our waste and recycling, and a few years ago I decided that was by having two bins – as well as not paying a fortune for said bins. So we had a red bin for waste and a blue bin for recycling – bear with me! But over the years the bins, which were cheapos, started looking really tired and rusty, the pedals stopped working and although they were partially hidden by the kitchen island, were letting that side of the kitchen down quite considerably. So I bit the bullet and decided to spend a ridiculous amount of money on this fancy schmansy bin, and I don’t regret it one little bit! It’s smooth, it’s sleek, it’s small yet perfectly formed and big enough for the two of us and our trash – love, love love.
I am new to the Viakal party and have to say this cleaning product has, if not exactly revolutionised, has caused a major policy change in this household. It cleans everything bathroom related, and properly. The key, as my friend Sue informed me, is to leave it on for a good few minutes before wiping – oh, and you could use a toothbrush for those hard to reach crevices around taps, pop ups etc. Currently £2 at Waitrose. ‘Nough said.
I can take no credit for suggesting these as an aid to cleansing your face at night. This was a suggestion by Kimberly from Pretty Over Fifty [add link] who said it made the cleansing process so much more pleasant, due to the fact that this brilliant little towelling wrist bands stop that pesky water from your washcloth dripping down your wrists and arms. Now, you may say, come on Dez, can’t you just wring out cloth, but honestly, that doesn’t seem to make any difference. Anyway, for those of us who struggle with this vitally important issue, here is your solution, wrist bands made of towelling material. They cost fumpence – £5.89 to be precise- and work a treat – and you get the headband thrown in.
Gloss Embrace in Muse by Lisa Eldridge
Lisa Eldridge, for those of you who haven’t come across her, is a fabulous makeup artist who has a small range of fabulous beauty products, including lipsticks. I own quite a few, and this lipgloss is my most recent purchase. I am not usually a lipgloss fan, but this particular colour, Muse, drew me in as is is a non-lip colour colour, if that makes any sense – it enhances the colour of your lips, rather than pigmenting them, and it contains wild mango kernel butter, acai berry oil, sunflower seed oil and vitamin e oil, which all help to keep your lips moisturised and hydrated. It reminds me of a lipgloss from the legendary makeup artist Barbara Daly who had a makeup range at the Body Shop back in the day.
Can we talk meatballs? Yes I know this is a beauty blog, but meatballs, or rather vegetarian meatballs, could fall in to the beauty category – hear me out! These non-meat meat balls are actually made of soya and wheat protein – sounds delicious, non – but honestly, they really are. You simply fry them and pop them into, say, a tomato sauce and you have a delicious vegan or vegetarian meal – I added mine to spaghetti and some feta cheese (for the non-vegans). If, like me, you are trying to cut down on your meat intake, and finding it difficult to think of exciting ways of baking an aubergine, these may be for you. As we age, we need to be mindful of what we consume – it’s a sad fact that we should eat less calories as our bodies don’t require them, although there is some debate about why that is, for example, is it because we have less muscle as we age, and that’s an issue for women particularly, because they have less muscle than men. https://www.verywellfit.com/your-daily-calorie-need-decreases-with-age-2507134
So cutting down our meat intake and eating more vegetables is one way we can keep our calorie intake down whilst still consuming enough protein. I don’t want to get into calorie counting here but just to give you an idea, there are 170 calories per 100 grams in the Vivera meatballs and 320 calories in 100 g of minced beef – you get the idea.
These, along with Quorn, another new discovery of mine, are definitely my new favourite ingredient. Not glamorous, not gourmet, but delicious.
Hope these suggestions of products I’ve loved in the Summer months are helpful. If you’d like to watch me rabbit on about these, check out my Summer Faves over on my YouTube channel.
