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Monthly Archives: September 2010
Pantene: Make a Swisssh, win a holiday
If you live in the UK, you may well have seen the TV adverts for Pantene’s ‘Make a Swisssh’ competition, which asks people to either take a photo or record a video of themselves “swishing” their hair, and post it to the Pantene website.
I saw this advert for the first time a few days after Terry had taken the above photo of me, which was actually taken for Shoeperwoman’s Shoe Challenge, on a very windy day last month. “You should enter!” said my parents, who were with me at the time. “No way!” said I “I never win things like that, and also: it would be embarrassing.” Then, this week? This week I found out that the prize was a holiday. I really like holidays: enough said.
If you’d like to enter the competition yourself, you can click here to upload your photo or video. And if you don’t want to enter, but feel like helping a complete stranger have a chance of winning a holiday, well, you’ll find my entry here (or just type “Amber” into the search box): just click “like” to make my day…
Crabtree & Evelyn ‘Iris’ Eau de Toilette
Earlier this week I was sent a bottle of Crabtree and Evelyn’s new ‘Iris’ eau de toilette to try out, and I’ve been wearing it every day since it arrived. This is actually my first experience of Crabtree and Evelyn, and so far, so good: the fragrance arrived in a nice, satisfyingly chunky 100ml bottle, which I was surprised to discover costs only £24: great value.
Unsurprisingly, this scent is based around the fragrance of the iris. It contains top notes of Italian bergamot and cassis with base notes of sandalwood, patchouli, cedarwood and creamy musk, and just from reading that list, you’ll know that it has a musky, rather than a cloyingly sweet scent. I’m a fan of musky scents in general, but they can often be too heavy: this one isn’t – in fact, it seems to strike just the right balance between floral and musky, and is subtle enough for daytime use.
If you like this, there’s also a matching shower gel and body lotion, and you can click here to buy them from the Crabtree and Evelyn website.
Dollface Reviews: Johnson’s Daily Essentials skin care range
[Disclosure: these products were sent to me as review samples]
I love Johnson’s. Their famous Baby Lotion is one of my constantly repurchased products: no matter how many other skin lotions I try, nothing is guaranteed to make my legs quite as soft as good ol’ Johnson’s, so I’ve come to associate the brand with great quality, no fuss products that do exactly what they’re supposed to while generally only costing a couple of pounds. (I also wear their contact lenses, but that’s neither here nor there…)
A new skincare line from the brand was always going to be of interest to me, then, and I’ve been using four products from the Daily Essentials line for the past couple of weeks. As you can see from the image above, there’s quite a lot of choice with this line, and it’s available for normal, dry and combination skin. I was sent some of the products from the “normal” line (I’d class my skin as combination: oily on the t-zone, dry under the eyes, normal everywhere else), those being:
Daily Essentials Refreshing Gel Wash, £2.99
The first time I used this product , I actually thought I’d opened the exfoliator by mistake, as the clear gel has tiny pink particles through it which help lift dirk and makeup off your skin. Despite how that sounds, this is very gentle on the skin: it gets rid of a faceful of makeup and the residue of my mascara (which I always use eye-makeup remover on as it’s waterproof) without any problem, and my skin felt smooth and soft afterwards, with none of the tightness I experience with some harsher cleaners. It also smells lovely, as do all of the products in this range, which makes it that bit more pleasant to use.
Daily Essentials Gentle Exfoliating Wash, £2.99
Needless to say, this one actually IS an exfoliator: it’s a white liquid with very fine particles (“micro beads”, the package informs me) to slough away dead skin cells and leave the skin feeling refreshed. The texture feels almost like very fine particles of sand: as with the gel wash, it’s not remotely harsh, and is a nice little pick-me-up for the skin, which I’ve been using a couple of times per week.
Daily Essentials Hydrating 24 Hour Day Cream
Daily Essentials Rehydrating Night Cream – £3.99 each
I’ve lumped these two products together, because going by the look and feel of them alone, there’s not much to tell the difference between them: they’re both a light, creamy texture, they both smell divine, and while I would expect the night cream to be a little “heavier”, for extra nourishment while you sleep, in practice I honestly don’t see much difference. Where I know there IS a difference is in the fact that the day cream contains SPF15, which is always good news for me (and I’m constantly amazed by how many skincare products still don’t contain an SPF of some kind). I’ve really been enjoying using both of these: texture and scent combined make you feel like you’re giving your skin a treat, and they’re easily absorbed, non-greasy, and while I can’t claim to see any obvious difference in my skin since I’ve been using them, they’ve kept it feeling soft and hydrated, and I have no complaints at all – in fact, quite the opposite: I think the low price and high quality makes these excellent value for money.
If you want to give them a try, the range is available from the usual mix of chemists and supermarkets: click here to view it at Boots.
Benefit ‘Girl Meets Pearl’ – liquid pearl for the face
Benefit have been busy creating new products this summer, and one of their latest offerings to arrive in the US (it won’t hit the UK until October, unfortunately) is ‘Girl Meets Pearl’, which they describe as “liquid pearl for face” and I describe as “highlighter”.
Packaged in the same kind of tube as Benefit’s ‘That Gal’ primer, this looks to me to be a more golden-toned version of their bestselling High Beam, or its sister product, Moon Beam. Now, I adore High Beam, and would be hard pressed to find a good reason to purchase this one instead of it, but if you’ve found that the High/Moon duo aren’t quite the right shade, then this could well be the answer. Wear alone or over makeup to add a “luminous” glow anywhere you need it, and layer it up for a more obvious glow.
This is $30 from the Benefit website – click here to buy it.
Hair Products: Why are redheads always overlooked?
Well, Dollfaces, I’m pleased to report that last week’s haircut was far less traumatic than I’d anticipated and so, to celebrate, I headed to Boots to buy myself some new hair products. (Is it just me who always wants to buy new hair products after a cut? I always feel like the new hair deserves it somehow. Or that I deserve it, for having survived the trauma of a haircut…)
Specifically, I wanted to stock up on some of John Frieda’s Luminous Color Glaze in ‘Radiant Red’, which, as longtime readers will know, is a product I absolutely love. As well as leaving my hair very shiny and silky, it also makes my natural red that bit more vibrant, so it’s a product I’ve been repurchasing ever since my first review of it, in 2008. Lately, though, it’s been getting harder and harder to find, and I soon found out why: it’s been discontinued, along with the ‘Sheer Blonde’ version of the glaze, although the clear and brunette versions still seem to be being sold. (I emailed John Frieda last week to ask if there are any plans to replace the red and blonde versions, but haven’t had a response from them, so I’ll update this if and when I hear back from them).
Well, I was crushed. It’s always a blow when a favourite product is discontinued, but presumably these hadn’t been selling well enough to justify keeping them in production (it’s entirely possible that I was buying ALL the red glazes, actually…) so I took it on the chin, and begun a search for something to replace it. Here’s the thing though: I didn’t find much. Our local branch of Boots is a big ‘un, and has a huge section dedicated to hair products, but while I found lots of shampoos and conditioners (and even mousses and other styling products) dedicated to making blonde hair blonder and brunette hair browner, other than the John Frieda range, I found very little for us redheads. In fact, a quick glance at that aisle would have easily convinced visitors from another planet that those were the only two hair colours found on planet earth. (I suspect people with jet black hair possibly have the same issues)
When I got home, I got online, and had a quick look for products designed for redheads. That search did turn up a few options, but most seemed to be from higher-end brands (Aveda’s Madder Root Shampoo and Conditioner, for instance, sounds great, but at £22 per bottle, it’s out of my price range.). Of course, I understand that this lack of choice is probably financially motivated. There just aren’t as many redheads as there are blondes and brunettes, so obviously there won’t be as much of a demand for products to suit our colouring, but at the same time, we’re not SO rare that there wouldn’t be any demand at all, and my online searches revealed lots of other redheads, both natural and otherwise, in search of products to enhance our colour, so there could be a great opportunity for some brand to capitalise on that.
In the meantime, I fell back on one of my own favourites – Boots’ Botanics ‘Radiant Red’ which is good, affordable and therefore probably doomed to be discontinued any day now.
Any other redheads out there? What products are you using on your hair?
Tweezerman Betsey Johnson Slant Tweezer Collection
I’m a huge Tweezerman fan, and they’re one of those brands I genuinely don’t begrudge paying a little extra for: when you have a mono-brow like mine, trust me, you’ll pay whatever it takes to keep it under control. I wouldn’t normally pay extra, however, for a limited edition set of tweezers, or a set created by a fashion designer, but as the tweezers in the brands new Betsey Johnson collection don’t cost any more than a regular pair of Tweezerman’s slant tweezers, I could easily be persuaded if I was in the market for a new set (which I almost always am). What can I say, I love me some Betsey!
My own preference is for Tweezerman’s point tweezers, but the slant versions are great, too. These ones are available in three different designs, and retail for $25 at Sephora. Click here to choose yours!
