Love, love, loving these polishes

A sneak peek: shoes to lust over, polishes ditto. At a PR preview for 2010's beauty must-haves, we discovered these swoonworthy polishes, created to match Georgina Goodman's 'Love' shoes. (And we all do love shoes...) Think: sparkling indigo or a fabulous flesh-tone, which looks very sexy indeed on tanned feet. We predict both shades will be hot, hot, hot once the weather gets - well, hot...

Look out for our Awards stickers!

A few weeks ago we hosted our very first Beauty Bible Awards - and many of the brands featured in our books are now helping beauty-hounds take a short-cut to the products our testers loved, by splashing pink Beauty Bible Awards stickers on the winning lotions and potions, powders and paints. We spotted this from Organic Surge, in Boots, flagging up their Beauty Steals... (If you click on the picture you'll see the stickers better!)

Full of the joys of a Chanel spring

Pretty, pretty, pretty. Previewed on gorgeous mood boards at Chanel’s spring-summer open day: all their sherbet-y, ultra-wearable shades for next year, from a collection called Les Impressions de Chanel. The soft, neutral palette really is like an Impressionist painting and Beauty Bible particularly swooned over a liquid illuminating highlighter (Soleil Tan de Chanel Sheer Illuminating Fluid) which gives a soft, sun-kissed glow, and the string-of-pearls temporary tattoos (alas, those were for the catwalk show only. But worth trying to recreate at home with an eyeliner!) On these dark, gloomy, windswept, sodden days, it’s good to feel like spring is around the corner. Can’t wait to get our hands on this collection, early in 2010. Counting the days, actually…

Wild man of beauty

Alan Mackenzie is a man on a mission: not just to create reasonably-priced natural cosmetics, but also to do good while he’s doing business. Creator of Organic Surge (several products feature in Beauty Bible Beauty Steals), his new, slightly more upscale venture is Wild Organics: bath and body care using wild-harvested ingredients from Brazil, Egypt, Croatia – and his native Scotland. Over tea at Providores (keeping up our cake quota), Alan explained the extra feel-good factor from Wild Organics: you get prettily-scented, Ecocert-certified ‘smellies’ (you can see them demo-ed on QVC), and because a percentage of sales goes to his chosen charity Freedom From Fistula, women in Africa have access to a simple but life-changing operation (we won’t go into the slightly gory details in this fluffy pink zone, but you can log onto the website below to find out more…) Our favourite Wild Organics creation, meanwhile? Just loving the Marshmallow Butter Sugar Scrub…

Wild Organics at www.wildorganics or www.qvc.co.uk
www.freedomfromfistula.org

Secret addresses 2: Queen, Dublin

When two beauty editors need to be primped and camera-ready for Ireland’s RTE Afternoon Show and Xposé (the must-watch cable network for the wannabe-stylish) to promote Beauty Bible Beauty Steals, where would they turn? To Queen, in the heart of Dublin town. Leonard Daly is the name you want in your Little Black Beauty Address Book: this catwalk and session make-up artist has opened his own fab beautique and hair salon, showcasing the hard-to-find Kevyn Aucoin make-up range (Queen is the only location you can now find it, on this side of the storm-whipped Atlantic) and Planet skincare, among other ranges. We especially fell in love with Bog Standard: the hilariously-named all-Irish capsule collection of fresh-scented hand washes and lotions, with fragrances like Irish Mist, Irish Linen and Irish Moss. And BIG thanks to Leonard and his ace stylists for coming in to primp us on their day off…! (That explains why Leonard’s in his tracksuit!)

Queen Beauty Emporium, 66-67 Aungier Street, Dublin/+353-(0)1478-9633
www.queenbe.ie

Secret Addresses: Kazumi, Dublin

Without a personal recommendation, finding a salon in a strange city can be like pinning a (pony)tail on a donkey. So Beauty Bible was grateful to a Dublin insider (the lovely Sophie Flynn-Rogers) for pointing us in the direction of this chic salon, in a bow-windowed townhouse just off Grafton Street. Stocking both Shu Uemura and (our favourite) Kérastase, the stylists are fast, the back-wash heavenly (we do love a vibrating reclining seat), and – like all hairstylists – they’re a fount of insider wisdom about where to go and what’s cool in their home town. (A great, shiny blow-dry, too, from Jacqui). And with Dublin suffering in the downtown, Kazumi some clever budget-friendly ideas, including an ‘In-Between Colour Check-Up’: a ‘colour boost’, hairline or parting touch-up, for 40-50 euros, to tide you over the next few weeks before a major colour splurge.

Kazumi, 36 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2/00-353-1678 5004
www.kazumihair.ie

Beauty treatments to try before you die No. 2: an Emma Hardie facial

Ever fancied getting your face ‘ironed’? Emma Hardie’s your woman. Now, this isn’t a facial if you like layers of masks and wafty aromatherapy oils: this is the real, re-sculpting deal (and as such, pretty flipping brilliant for this time of year, as the mistletoe season looms). Here’s Emma – a darned good advertisement for her own skills – at The Hale Clinic, in London (where she regularly practices when in London), and where she recently demo-ed her ‘Sculpting Face Lift’ massage technique to us. It’s not sensual. It’s not even pleasurable, at times, as she works her magic on the underlying muscles, but the results are next-best-thing-to-Botox that Beauty Bible’s tried. (And actually, we don’t do Botox. List of reasons too long to feature here.) If you can’t book in for a one-on-face-firming-one with Emma, might like to know she’s offering Face Facts Workshops at Space NK Apothecary (for a £20 fee redeemable against purchase from the Emma Hardie Amazing Face skincare range, now on sale there). Be there. Or be – well, droopy.

Emma Hardie at The Hale Clinic, 7 Park Crescent, London W1B 1PF/020-7497 7377
www.haleclinic.com
Emma Hardie Face Facts Workshops at Space NK/01923-839505