Friday 20 August 2010

Our first guest blogger: The Legologist

It’s always fascinating to us to find out what our fellow beauty editors actually love.  We are all sent a gazillion products, try loads of stuff – and something has to be really special to hang around on our bathroom shelf or in our make-up kit.  Now, we are big admirers of fellow beauty editor Kate Shapland and we’re devoted readers of her blog, The Leg Room, where Kate describes herself as ‘a beauty columnist who loves her food but hates her thighs’, and which is dedicated to the zone between toes and knicker-line, basically!  (That includes everything from cellulite treatments to roll-up shoes.)  So for our first guest blog, we asked The Legologist to come up with her all-time top 10 favourite products – ever, ever, ever…
Guerlain Divinora Pure Radiance, £40. completely transformative, but it’s all in the application: smooth it over just-cleansed, warm skin and it seals the pinkness in and acts a bit like egg-white, giving skin a noticeable lift.  The gold flakes brighten.  It’s a proper tonic for a tired face.  I use it over moisturiser and instead of foundation. 
Lancôme Color Fever Gloss, £17.  Covers and finishes unlike any other gloss.  It’s a hybrid lipstick-gloss because it has the pigment density of a lipstick, the consistency of a gloss (without the lip-lash stickiness – it isn’t overly shiny either) and is dispensed via a wand.  It stays on too.  Shade 316 Blackberry Party is the closest they have got to my all-time fave lip-colour – a dark mauve Juicy Tube that I liked so much I had to ration, then cut open to get at the last of the colour.
Bobbi Brown Sheer Raspberry Sheer Colour Cheek Tint, £16.50.  This has exceptional hold (it doesn’t come off on your phone), it’s an easy-blend cream and the colour is spot on for a pop of colour.  I only recently finished my previous all-time favourite blusher – a limited edition Chanel 3-tone powder blush from three years ago; it had the perfect mix of pigments.  I got two and squirreled one away; it took me three years to work my way through both.
Serge Lutens Mauve de Swann Necessaire de Beaute Lipstick (£53, 020 7235 5000): my all time favourite.  The name is enough to make it covetable.  But it also happens to be the perfect size – small, like an old-fashioned faceted bullet lipstick (Lutens made it to fit a female hand), the best colour – a mauve-pink which looks a bit edgy (but not Goth) and could pass off as being classic, and a satin finish.  Perfectissimo!
Shirley Page Chamomile Dreams.  Made by my facialist, the wonderful Shirley, this is a healing and balancing organic oil – the only aromatherapy blend I can use on my face.  I just tap it onto my cheeks and neck at night when they feel dry.  It’s also magic at soothing psoriasis (unusual for aromatherapy oil) so I’ve normally got a bottle on the go (bedside table, desk ..) to tap on patches when they get angry.  (Available by mail order from 7th September 2010 price £40;  call 07776-375659.)
Sunday Riley Liquid Diet.  One of a few rare topicals that truly help the appearance of cellulite by easing water retention and firming skin.  I come back to this every time I want to shift a few (fluid) centimetres and it works brilliantly as a short, sharp hit for thighs and muffin top, especially if I take a daily dose of Super Diet Cellimine Organic Drink – a great diuretic with green tea, birch and meadowsweet in it which I discovered in a French pharmacy some years ago – at the same time.
Kate Logan Beauty Fennel Nourish Oil, £19.99.   I’m prone to puffiness (knees, ankles) so I’m quite obsessive in my quest to find topicals (and oral supplements) which nix the problem.  This seems to work very well for me, easing out trapped fluid; I’ll apply it at night after a soak in a bath with a dash of Magnesium Oil Original Soak (£19.95) – another good ‘ban the bloat’ remedy – in it, and tend to feel less balloon-like in the morning. 
Josie Maran Argan Bronzing Oil.  I’m not a self-tan fan.  I just don’t think any of them work well enough to use on a regular basis – drift and grab are still problems.  This is a non-sticky skin oil (you can use it on your face and legs) with a slight tint to it, so it gives you a subtle from-within glow – it’s quite remarkable.  It was developed by an ex-model and it’s full of skin nurturing vitamin E and essential fatty acids.  (Currently only available from the US.)
Femergy Food Supplement, £9.95 for 60 capsules.  100% the best daily energiser you can take.  This is a new find, but it’s something I can see myself taking in 10 years time.  It’s a herbal blend (Peruvian maca, ginseng and gingko biloba) which, instead of making you jittery, just lifts you gently and sharpens your concentration and focus.  Magic stuff. 


www.thelegroom.blogspot.com
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