Male Grooming: Liz Earle

I've written about my lovely boyfriend several times, and those of you who read Modesty Brown will all know a bit more about him than you might like! Here for the first time on The Beauty Hall, the one known as 'The Boy' takes over the reviewing. Over to him, and allowing him a bit of poetic license. After all, we know that he is partial to the odd beauty product, whatever he might say...

Liz Earle is a company better known for beauty products for women. However what is less well known is that the entrepreneurial Ms Earle has diversified and produced a line for men. Displaying the chic, understated packaging women have come to expect from the company, this is a welcome development for any man who has had to listen to their girlfriend wax lyrical about Liz Earle’s products.

I am not usually one for beauty products, a fact which continually astounds my girlfriend. (The Beauty Hall: Er, my pillaged products say differently, Mister!) Tubes of moisturiser and packs of facepacks, given as presents, sit unopened in my closet. I am sure this is typical of many men the country over. This is not to say I do not like being pampered, just that who can be bothered with it all? Don’t women do enough of that stuff for men everywhere? And do we really see any difference as a result of using these products?

Well, I can say if the three products from Liz Earle I have been using are anything to go by, all men should be bothered and the difference is apparent from the first use. Asked to try the men’s Cleanse & Polish, Sensitive Shave Cream and After-Shaving Moisturiser, it would be fair to say I will be taking a bit more time with my morning ritual in the future.

First of all, they all smell great. Whiffs of eucalyptus oil, herbs like rosemary and sage, and hints of menthol greet you as you apply all the potions. Secondly, the use of all natural ingredients is a massive draw, being as they are for a very sensitive area, though men might not like to admit it.

The Cleanse & Polish is very straightforward, just use instead of soap, twice a day and wash off using the provided flannel (or whatever!) It made my skin feel incredibly clean and light and did not dry it out as can often happen with soap.

The shaving cream is, to my mind, something of a revelation. Easy to apply and quick to provide a generous, luxurious lather, despite the relatively tiny amount needed, I do not think I will be using any other product on my face. It gave me one of the closest shaves I have had and without the post-shave rash, the bane of my pre-work preparation!

Finally, the moisturiser is the perfect accompaniment, post-shave. Light, quickly absorbed and smelling good and manly, it helps calm things down and protect the face after being attacked by our razors.

All in all, Liz Earle has three products here that are an excellent introduction for any man into the world of beauty products, so often dismissed as just being for girls. If these are representative of the rest of their line, I can see what all the fuss is about. More please!

The Cleanse & Polish Starter Kit is £13, Sensitive Shave Cream is £10 and the After-Shaving Moisturiser is £16.50.

Gift: Christmas

I've loved reading all the fabulous Christmas gift guides over the past month, and I'd hoped to have mine written weeks ago. However, much like my own approach to Christmas shopping, here I am on the last minute, but hopefully fellow disorganised souls will appreciate a bit of last-minute guidance. Just make sure you don't all rush out and deplete supplies as I still need to buy these for my family and friends!

This first installment contains gifts for the more mature lady, although the majority of these gifts would be suitable for women in their mid to late 20s and beyond. Where my friends and family don't guide me on what they want, I tend to buy treats and the sort of things that people wouldn't always buy for themselves, although as a beauty blogger, that concept is a little alien to me, as I buy everything I want! So, here's my little edit of what I think will make lovely gifts, and I've tried to keep it on the reasonable side in most cases, but do forgive me where I apply a bit of 'luxury license'. It is Christmas after all.

The White Company White Cashmere Candle, £28

I absolutely love scented candles, especially in winter. It's so nice to cosy up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate, while a candle envelops you in a soft glow and fills the room with a beautiful fragrance. The new White Cashmere range at The White Company is a combination of fresh, zingy, and ever so slightly masculine vetivier, with warm, spicy cardamom. I absolutely love this clean yet rich scent, and think it's the perfect spring fragrance. Definitely the kind of luxury we should be spreading at Christmas!

Prada Infusion D'Iris Bath Salts, 500g, £34


These baths salts come in a gorgeous pale green presentation box, the salts beautifully bagged inside, and the delicate silver scoop sitting on top. It smells of white flowers and talcum powder, and makes for a decidedly decadent bathtime. If you really feel like spoiling them, throw in the scented drawer liners. Totally over the top, but it makes getting dressed on those chilly winter mornings just about bearable.

Chanel No.5 Eau de Toilette Refillable Purse Spray, £58 (Chanel counters nationwide)
I got this for my Mum last year and she describes it as her favourite Christmas present ever, which makes me very happy. As always with Chanel, this comes beautifully boxed (and it can be gift wrapped at the counter for the time-poor amongst us) and contains three 20ml refills and one sleek and sophisticated black container with a pop-up gold push button spray. It's so lightweight and practical that it's perfect for carrying around in your handbag, and is more glamorous and infinitely more practical than decanting your beloved fragrance into a fiddly atomiser. Several fragrance companies have caught on to the idea so if your Mum isn't a No.5 fan (although I'm yet to meet anyone who isn't), shop around and you may find something similar.

Liz Earle Ultimate Christmas Hamper, £163.25
Ok, so this is where my festive indulgences meet their peak price, but considering how much you get, this gift makes for exceptional value. It contains a whopping 16 full size products, and is tailored to skin type, meaning you can buy a hamper with perfect products for normal/combination, dry/sensitive and combination/oily skins. If you have a stressed-out, busy female relative who loves a bit of indulgence but doesn't always treat herself, then this may just be the perfect gift. Otherwise, it's for the woman who has everything, but just doesn't have any Liz Earle products. You can read my many, many rave reviews of the Liz Earle range if you like to do your research, but rest assured, you can't go wrong. There are plenty more gorgeous Christmas gifts from Liz Earle ranging from a fantastically afforable £8.25, so check them out here if you're looking for anything from a small stocking filler to the above hamper, which, let's face it, is more of a 'bathroom filler'!

I'd love to know what you'll be buying this Christmas and I hope my little edit is helpful!

Skincare: Liz Earle Deep Cleansing Mask Review

Wow, it has been ages since I last posted and I have to say, it feels good to know that I will have several posts written by the end of the night, and that there will be few items ticked off the vast 'to review' list. As any beauty addict knows, just because I'm not writing doesn't mean I haven't been buying and trying lots of lovely things that I want to share with you!

My biggest wake up call on my lax blogging of late came when I was fully prepared for a relaxing Liz Earle Deep Cleansing face mask, but found that the tube was empty. Never have I actually used up an entire product before I came to review it! This, however, gives you a good indication of just how much I loved this, and I will be repurchasing on my way to work tomorrow (nope, I can never get past John Lewis without popping in, which is unfortunate, as I pass it twice a day, Monday-Friday!)

The mask itself is the usual heady concoction of beautifully scented botanicals, containing clay, manuka honey and geranium to draw out impurities and tone and balance the skin. It's recommended for combination to oily skin, and has definitely helped me battle those pesky hormonal breakouts, which at 28, are even more frustrating than when I was a teenager! I've been using this after Cleanse & Polish and the Gentle Face Exfoliator as a twice-weekly bathtime treat, and it really is fantastically relaxing, alongside being super effective, but really, what else do we expect from the lovely Liz? As for the exfoliator, it's easily the best facial scrub I've ever used, with the grains being the perfect size to give a good deep cleanse and the cream thick enough that it doesn't all run off your skin as soon as you apply it. The exfoliator can be used as often as needed but I use it two to three times a week, depending on my skin. My boyfriend loves this product, so it's another bulk-buy for me, because as always, he likes a liberal application!

A Deep Cleansing Mask Starter kit (pictured above, which comes with the two sponges) is £12.50 and the Exfoliator is £12.25. These products aren't suitable for sensitive skin types, who should go for the Nourishing range instead.

Makeup: Lanvin hearts H&M

Today was unlike any other Tuesday in central London. A queue of 400 waited poised outside H&M on Regent St, each eagerly anticipating the launch of one of the most exciting collaborations in recent years. That’s right, ladies: we’re talking about the day that a bow-tied, bespectacled man with a flair for the romantic opened his world up to the masses. I can’t count the number of people I saw laden with bags as I walked to work, and after seeing the dresses in the window, I found myself wandering to the store at lunchtime, wondering whether I’d find anything more than shell-shocked sales assistants with the odd stiletto print on their chests after the earlier stampede...

So at lunchtime, I joined the queue in store and waited for the rope to be released for our allotted ten minutes of pawing the collection, looking in at the dresses and finding myself utterly underwhelmed at the spectacle of 50+ men and women clamouring to grab whatever they could. I’m not knocking the pieces, but seeing what looks like half of London fighting to get their hands on one of 20ish items in the collection makes me wonder how long it would be before I ran into one (or more likely, 100) women wearing exactly the same thing as me. There’s something about the whole experience that made it feel less desirable, less special, and that’s what stopped me buying any clothes today: it was less shopping, more ‘grab it before it goes’. I’m sure lots of people who bought today absolutely love their purchases, but it struck me that the apparent desire to get something which seems exclusive because of its designer provenance, but is anything but as soon as it appears on the rails of one of the biggest high street chains in the world, has overtaken the minds of many a sane fashionista. I guess herein lies one of those fashion mysteries that we’ll never solve: people who love fashion so often want to be known for their style, which you’d think would mean carving out their own niche, but invariably what’s desirable becomes ubiquitous, and soon we’re all dressed the same and wondering how it happened. I write this while looking at the Breton top on my ironing pile, so I am certainly not ruling myself out of that number!

Regular readers will know I’m not a big designer spender, so I’m certainly not opposed to the concept of high street and designer collaborations, but I love putting outfits together that reflect my personal style, and I’m not quite sure how I’d do that with a fashion piece so striking, so distinctive, that it’s instantly recognisable. Maybe I don’t have the vision, or maybe I just don’t have enough accessories. Anyway, that’s just my thoughts on the whole thing: I’m not judging those who bought one of the dresses, but it was my first experience of a collaboration launch day, and it got me thinking about fashion and style, and how you work a hot pink, off the shoulder ruffle dress in your own way when there are 10 other people in the room wearing the same thing! If any of you have bought from the collection, I’d love to know what you got and your take on the whole concept.

All that said, I’d be a very bad beauty blogger if I went in there, saw there were lipsticks in the collection and left empty handed, so after discovering that the only shade left was red (other shades were plum and a rose pink), I grabbed the adorable package and made my way to the till. The box is super cute, but the lipstick case is not quite as chic as I’d expected. Red, boxy and with a little ‘Lanvin hearts H&M’ logo, it’s getting a ‘could do better’ rating from me. The lipstick itself, however, is super pigmented and a gorgeous Russian red, so definitely a lovely, chic winter shade and great quality for the price (£7.99). For those of you who’d like a little piece of the collection but don’t have a spare £100, or like me, don’t want to look like everyone else, I’d say bag a lipstick and sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that you’ve reduced your odds of turning up at the Christmas party wearing the same dress as every other woman in the room.

Confessions of a beauty addict...

I'm over on the brilliant Modesty Brown today confessing all my deepest, darkest beauty sins. If you're not familiar with Jane's blog, get over there now as it's a fabulous read, and the Friday Confessional is always a good chuckle!

If you're curious to know my biggest beauty disaster, and why my boyfriend always gets scared when the rain clouds gather at the weekend, hop over there to find out!

Beauty: The Beauty Hall's Big Foundation Survey!

Ladies, it's time for a rant. It's not often that I feel like having a good moan, but tonight is one of those nights, and it's one thing in particular that's getting on my nerves: foundation shades, and notably, how hard it is to find one that matches my skintone.

So, let me give you the back story. Firstly, my skin is pale. It's the kind of pale that often renders me a glowing white shape under flash photography; the kind of tone that would make Snow White look like she'd spent a healthy summer on a yacht in St Tropez. Yep, that pale! Over the past two months, I've been stealthily swatching and sampling various brands, both high and low end, and the results are dire.

Looking at the vast majority of 'designer' brands, even the lightest shades are too warm for my skin tone, with NARS and Illamasqua supplying the only shades that vaguely match. And popping into my local branch of Boots to grab at bottle for under £10? Forget about it. I knew I wouldn't be the only one, so I spoke to friends to find out about their experiences. The results confirmed my suspicions, and each of the girls I asked had a similar story to tell: pale girls, Asian girls, black girls whose various skin tones never seemed to be the ones replicated in those pretty beauty counter bottles. They came to the unanimous conclusion that chemist/drugstore brands just didn't carry anything suitable, and many - including me - couldn't even find a close match with brands that sell foundations for upwards of £25. I know we can't all expect to find a perfect match with every company, but how can it be that, in this day and age, many of us don't see our beauty represented on the counters across the world?

We shared stories about how the palest amongst us have been matched with warm beige shades, told by the MUA that 'this will warm your skin tone', when the rest of our bodies are lily white and we didn't ask for our skin tone to be changed. Darker skinned friends had been offered shades that were too light, or had the wrong undertone, which left them feeling annoyed that they hadn't been listened to, and frustrated that so many brands were still getting it wrong.

I've very recently had a great experience with NARS, buying their two palest shades after the MUA showed me the quantities to mix to preserve my naturally pink undertone, whilst keeping the shade as light as possible. Much better than the Chanel MUA who said, 'you should conceal the pink tone to your skin so you have a neutral base to work with.' Judging by her orange face, she wasn't really an advocate of natural beauty, but it's not the greatest strategy for making your potential customers feel good.

So, I've created a little survey as I want to know what your experience is. It would be fantastic if you would take five minutes to complete the survey by clicking through to the link at the end of the page. Please invite as many people as you can to complete this, as I think it's so important that the beauty world understands the needs of so many of its customers. We want to spend our money, but you've got to supply us with the right products!

To complete the survey, click on the following link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GG7VM56

Image courtesy of sheknows.com

Long time, no post!

Hi everyone!

Firstly, I am SO sorry for not having posted lately. I started my new job three weeks ago and it's going brilliantly, but keeping me very, very busy. I've found myself leaving the office at 6.30pm, arriving home an hour later armed with a Thai takeaway and then been fast asleep by 10pm! Oh the glamour! Anyway, I've started to feel a bit more human this weekend, so I'm just hoping you haven't all forgotten about me.

So, over the next few weeks, we've got Christmas gifts, skincare, shopping and plenty of gorgeous things to lust over. Normal service has resumed!

Also, I'm having a bit of a sale and have got a few bits on ebay, including the dresses above and some Lancome and Giorgio Armani foundations (about half used). Click through here if you fancy a bargain!

x