Wednesday 29 September 2010

Carry-an-iPad...

Our friend Sally Walton does a very nice line in vintage shopping bags and make-up bags.  (You may even have entered a prize draw to win one of her Aveda Festival Kits, earlier this summer...)  But since this is the 21st Century, and we are new converts to the iPad (the very best way to read blogs like this one, in our opinion), we had the idea that Sally could expand her Carry-A-Bag range and start making iPad covers, too.  They are so widely admired - Liz Earle herself has bought one, among others - that we thought it was time to share their loveliness with you.  Each one is unique - vintage, darlings! - but all are gorgeous, and if you have particular colours in mind Sally can tailor-make, so long as she's got the right fabric.  They're £30 each and you'll find them on her site under 'Specials' (but do have a browse at the gorgeous one-offs, while you're there).  Soooooo much nicer than some old boring black plastic iCover, we say.

www.carry-a-bag.com

Monday 27 September 2010

The prettiest li'l App we ever did see...

Thanks to India Knight (whose Posterous blog we just l-u-r-v-e) for steering us in the direction of this nifty little iPhone App.  What's it got to do with beauty?  Well, it's beautiful, that's what!  With a choice of incredibly pretty images and space for a short message, you can use it to send personalised invitations to friends via text or e-mail, or messages of love/support/thanks.  Cartolina is priced £1.79 at the App Store, and has a useful little built-in calendar which pops up to remind you your friend's birthdays/anniversaries etc. (Which qualifies it as a stress-buster, in our book:  no more angst-ing over not getting to the postbox in time to slip a card in the mail.  One of these is definitely just as lovely...)

PS  India's Tweets are as funny as her books;  follow her @indiaknight.  (And of course follow us @Beauty_Bible)!

Friday 24 September 2010

Fornasetti's smokin'...


We've always been partial to a little bit of Fornasetti around the casa.  Sexy tables and chairs and furnishings, fabrics, even wallpaper.  (Actually, we're kicking ourselves for not picking up lots of pieces before the prices went stratospheric.)  Even if you don't know the name Fornasetti, you'll recognise the designs at 50 paces.  And now everyone can have a bit of (more affordable) Fornasetti fabulousness, with the launch of their scented home accessories, based on the designs by this celebrated Milanese painter, sculptor, interior decorator and engraver.  Just touched down at Selfridges, there are scented candles, room sprays, scent spheres - and very wonderful incense burners, which are a quantum leap forward from the yoga-studio-worthy inlaid wooden versions most of us have to make do with, while the candles, we think, would make quirkily stylish containers for Q-tips and cotton wool, once they've burned their last.  (And a bonus:  the candles themselves have been created by Cire Trudon, currently Beauty Bible's scented-candlemaker-of-choice, with a wonderfully aromatic blend of lavender, thyme, cedarwood, incense and labdanum.)

Fornasetti, you've lit our fire.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

It's National Spaaaaaaaah Week


Well, reclining in a tub of rosepetals is where we'd definitely like to be right now.  (Especially Jo, who is recovering from hosting 200 wedding guests in her garden last Saturday.)  So as it's National Spa Week, we think you ought to know about the website Wahanda - tag-line 'Health, Beauty, Happiness' - which offers great discounts on spa treatments up and down the country:  lots of 2-for-1s, in particular, so you can escape with a girlfriend or even a partner.  (If your chap is man enough not to mind a rosepetal or two.)  The Aroma Decadence Package at the ultra-gorgeous May Fair Spa - at the hotel of the same name - is looking particularly good to us, at £159 for two people, including a Moroccan steam cleansing ritual, Aroma salt glow, aromatherapy cocoon body wrap, scalp and foot massage and full use of the spa facilities.  (There, we told you it was a good deal.  They start at much less than that, though - especially the 'mob deals' - and the special discounts also extend to fab hairdressers, including Lisa Shepherd.)  Oh, we do love a beauty steal.  Our only challenge? Finding time to sniff the rosepetals as we hurtle towards our deadline for The Anti-Ageing Beauty Bible...  Guess we'll have to settle for repeating the word 'spa', like a mantra, and rely on that to bring our blood pressure down.

www.wahanda.com

Monday 20 September 2010

Now we have office envy!


At Beauty Bible we've always believed that your office surroundings are important.  (After all, most of us spend more waking hours there than at home.)  A bunch of flowers, a nice Aromatherapy Associates oil or a Neom candle burning in the background, a few great pictures or a 'mood-board' of lovely images on the wall are all de-stressing and life-enhancing, at once.  But having recently nipped in to visit the PR for too-cool-for-school beauty brand Benefit, we have to concede:  in-house PR Jazzy Kaur has elevated office chic to a whole new level.  Pink toaster, pink Roberts radio - even a pink Smeg dishwasher.  (And this is her 'desk'!)  We were the only green (with envy!) thing in the office.

Tuesday 14 September 2010

Get ready for Fire & Ice

Last year, Revlon brought back Cherries in the Snow - one of their iconic reds.  This year, it's the turn of Fire & Ice - created in the 50s as the most perfect bold and dazzling scarlet you ever did see - to be revived.  Beauty Bible's toenails are currently so brightly pillarboxy red you can probably see them from Google Earth - but the rest of you will have to wait till the start of December to get your hands (and feet) on this gorgeous polish.  (And we'll Tweet when Fire & Ice is on the counters).  Aside from the I-have-someone-else-to-do-my-housework nail shape, though, couldn't this advert be 2010, not 1952...?

Tuesday 7 September 2010

And if you happen to be in Harrods...


...  Don't miss the exhibition of Estée Lauder fragrance and powder compacts, showcasing many of the most collectible limited editions they've issued over the years.  It's the kick-off for the celebrations marking 50 years of Lauder at Harrods (London was the first city outside the States 'colonised' by Mrs. Lauder, and Harrods was the debut stockist here...)  The fourth floor gallery (you can double up with a visit to The Perfume Diaries) features these miniature versions of the Harrods' teddy - and Beauty Bible is reliably informed that the folks at Lauder are let in on each year's top secret design even before staff at the shop, so they can get the matching teddy compact designed!  (PS  There's an iPod commentary, as you walk around...)

The Estée Lauder Jewelled Compact Exhibition runs at Harrods from 2nd September until 2nd October 2010.



Wednesday 1 September 2010

The Perfume Diaries officially opens tomorrow...



The most important exhibition about fragrance to be staged in the UK for, oh, aeons, is throwing open its doors to the public at Harrods tomorrow.  This must-visit show for scentaholics is curated by Roja Dove (who else?), who's giving Beauty Bible a private tour on Monday.  So:  watch this space for the behind-the-scenes gossip and fragrant insights...