A bit about the brand:

Astalift is definitely one to watch in the beauty world. It uses the breakthrough technology that Fujifilm has previously applied to its photo imaging techniques and has now applied them to their beauty products. So why has photo-imaging got anything to do with beauty? Good question… anti-oxidation technology, collagen research and micro technology are all key in making sure photographs are taken correctly and develop properly; and coincidently all of the above are important fields of research and application in the beauty world. Anti-oxidation of the skin pretty much equates to anti-ageing and we’ve all heard of collagen.

I’ve tried a few of the products but they are definitely tailored to older skin – although I’ve got it under good authority from some seriously influential beauty insiders that the night cream is superb. However I’m slightly in love with the Nurturing Eye Cream. It’s a fairly buttery eye cream but you need only a very small amount for it to go a long way. It contains dill and cress extracts to reduce puffiness, dark circles and wrinkles and although I’ve never used either ingredient on my eye area to my knowledge, I’m not going to stop now. I wake up every morning with really bright bushy eyes and the skin around them feels moisturised and plump. The result I’m most impressed by however is its apparent ability to actually reduce the dark circles around my eyes; something I’ve never had with such good effect with other products.

My only downside for this product is that it leaves a slight residue on your eye, but if you’re using it at night and wash your face in the morning, this should not be a problem.

TBB thoroughly recommends.

Buy it for £40 from www.astalift.co.uk

The product is a two-step treatment for your hair and is said to help you achieve a professional blow-dry at home everyday.

The steps are as follows:

STEP 1 – THE SMOOTHING:

• Shampoo hair without massaging the scalp

• Towel dry and comb, then secure hair into 4 sections with plastic hair clips

• With gloves on, apply the smoothing serum to each section, then comb through to straighten the hair

• Let the serum process for 20 minutes (25 minutes for thick hair)

• Comb hair 3 to 4 times during the process to ensure it remains straight

• After 20 minutes, rinse hair with lukewarm water (don’t shampoo!)

STEP 2 – THE SEALING:

• Repeat the same steps with the sealing cream and let it process for 10 minutes

• Comb the hair again, 2 to 3 times

• Rinse hair (don’t shampoo, but use a conditioner if needed)

After this all you have to do is blow-dry your hair with a big round brush and it will keep your hair looking fab for up to 10 washes -  just keep bowdrying your hair straight after each wash and it will be noticeably more manageable.

To watch the play it straight How-To video visit www.youtube.com/got2bUK

got2b play it straight is priced at £6.99 RRP and available now from Boots, Superdrug, Asda, Savers and Amazon. For more information visit www.got2b.co.uk  or http://www.facebook.com/got2buk

NB: This is a sponsored post

It’s that time of year where we’re dreaming of holidays and concocting more and more outrageous designs to get rid of our ghastly pale skin, so it was a welcome invitation down to Spa Illuminata to con my body into thinking that this May isn’t the worst we’ve had in the UK for nearly 300 years.

As I arrived I was escorted through the decadant, Decleor and Cavita filled hallway and into a lovely treatment room full of fluffy towels, duvets (I’ll come to that later) and a great little shower room. As I robed up I was informed that the treatment I was about to undergo was probably the nicest available at the spa…. and they weren’t wrong!

The treatment began with a full body exfoliation using using fruit seed oils and essential oils to exfoliate the skin and make it super smooth. I absolutely loved that after this body treatment you are kept under a fluffy duvet whilst you’re given a mini facial. It keeps you warm and gives the oil a chance to completely soak in and rid the body of toxins and dead skin while the therapist focusses on your face.

Post facial, you’re asked to shower off and pat dry to remove the excess oils. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt my skin that smooth (except after Hammam!) and it smelt absolutely divine. Having showered, you then get yourself back under the duvet and the therapist moisturises and applies the fake tan all over (careful not to apply too much on the face – no TOWIE here thanks).

I left feeling completely relaxed and rejuvenated. The therapists at Spa Illuminata were fantastic and the treatment was brilliant. I woke up the next day and had the most beautifully even, golden tan that wasn’t too much for my pale skintone (which I find a real problem with most self-tans). Also, having showered the next morning it was amazing to see that there was no colour guide washing off. The even tan I could see was the tan I was left with… which is nice when you’re used to having a darker guide colour that reveals patchy coverage.

I would 100% recommend this treatment as a treat for yourself before the holiday season or as a very generous gift!

My one passing negative comment would be that your so glowing and dewy from the oil that you should really book the day off for this, or at least make sure you have got any important meetings planned afterwards (as I unfortunately did). You can’t put makeup on afterwards and you’re literally glowing, so it’s best not to let yourself out in public until you’ve showered the next morning and controlled the shine.

Decleor Sunrise Skin Preparing and Self Tanning Treatment, £95

www.spailluminata.com

I was trawling their site this morning to find that the amazing Tavi Gevinson (the teen blogger that took the world by storm a few years ago and who has now set up her own e-zine Rookiemag.com) had recently done a #TEDTeen talk and I was intrigued. Rightly so apparently, as this 15-year-old fashion blogger has a serious head on her shoulders. Watch her talk all about her feminist ideals, pop culture and the lack of genuine 3-dimensional female icons and role models around today.

Hearing a 15-year-old talk about meetings with her own ‘editorial director’ is a bit weird. Her love for Stevie Nicks… is not.

Enjoy:

If you do one thing today, go soul searching on Ted Talks. You’ll find talks on new technologies, carbon footprints, architecture and fashion… It’s ace.

You really don’t get much cooler than their neon, studded designs and I’m in love with these green clutch (although the neon yellow one on their facebook page is coming a close second).

Aila Neon Green Mini Spiked Cross Bow Bag

It’s £175 but so worth it.

Find out more at www.facebook.com/Aila.design

Why?

Well there are a number of ‘rose’ ingredients that can help you achieve or maintain a gorgeous complexion. Firstly you have Rosehip Oil, which I swear by when I’m not using my Argan Oil at night. The oil is super nourishing and is proven to help the skin heal, so it’s great for evening out skintone and reducing the appearance of scarring etc. I use it as an overnight facial of sorts.

NB: Don’t ever believe that using oils on your skin if you’re oily already is a bad thing. Think about it. If you’re skin is already being fed the good stuff, it won’t feel the need to produce the bad stuff and as such is great for balancing out oily/ combination skin.

Another ‘rose’ ingredient out there is Rose Water. This gem has been used in beauty products for centuries and is amazing for balancing out your skin. You can use the water as a hydrating cleanser, toner (it’s great as a mist to tighten pores and reduce inflammation for anyone that has acne/bad skin) and can even be added to other products such as moisturisers to improve the pH balancing qualities.

The last ingredient I’ll be mentioned is Rose Extract. It’s potent stuff and as a result the stronger concentrations come at a price. Ila Spa use some seriously quality Rose Otto Oil extract in their facial oil (buy it here for £68, www.ila-spa.com) and they are heavenly. Watch out for the price tag but if you can, give it a go you wont turn back!

So on to my recommendations…

This Works Clean Skin 5-in-1 Water

This soon-to-be-cult product really does offer you 5-in-1. It cleanses, balances, brightens, refreshes (it’s got Wild Water Mint in there somewhere) and removes makeup – which is pretty amazing as it feels as light as water when you apply it and isn’t astringent at all. I use it in the morning and evening before I wash my face to make sure that I get all the London grime off and don’t think I can live without it.

£21, www.thisworks.com

Melvita Rose Nectar Fresh Micellar Water

If you don’t want to splash the cash on the 5-in-1, come June 2012 you’ll be able to get your hands on the divinely scented, new Rose Nectar Collection from Melvita and it’s rather nice. I love the multi-tasking Fresh Micellar Water which cleanses, removes makeup and tones all at once.

Look out for the great collection in June and this product is £14.50.

Neal’s Yard Remedies Rose Facial Wash

If cleansing is what you’re after you need look no further than NYR’s Rose Facial wash. I gave this to a friend to try (as I’m currently sampling another!) and she’s in love. The product has a super light texture and glides over your skin as you massage it into damp skin. It’s got Aloe Vera and Rose Otto in there too so is great for balancing the skin and reducing irritation.

£14.80, uk.nyrorganic.com

For makeup lovers, it ain’t got no rose in it but if you’re after a touch of posie to your cheeks, you can’t go wrong with Benefit’s PosieTint (£24.50). I love this on flawless skin (which is where the other products come in!) and it’s great for people that are low maintenance but want the ‘pretty’ look.

If you’re looking for a full on pout along the rose theme, you need some by Terry Aqualip Jelly Tint in your life. For goodness sake don’t test it on any part of your body that you want people to see as this stuff stains for days (note the ‘tatoo color’ note on the box)… but boy does it give the perfect posie pout for summer. This is a must have for the beach as you’re lip colour will last all day – just don’t be put off by the neon orange colour it looks like in the pot, it does come out a perfect posie pink.

Get in SpaceNK stores from May for £22.

FYI If you love the bunch of roses I used here you can buy them as seen from the amazing Jane Packer Florists for £40 at www.janepackerdelivered.com

The event’s primary sponsor was Superdrug, who informed the audience that over the last 12 months in store Superdrug Salons have threaded 350,000 eyebrows!  (Just thought that was a fun fact…)

TBB was lucky enough to have a front row seat again this year and without further ado… The Winners are….

Best new Bath & Body Product:  BURT’S BEES HONEY & SHEA SUGAR SCRUB

Best New Haircare Product Mass: BATISTE DRY SHAMPOO XXL VOLUME  (fending off Charles Worthington & John Frieda!)

Best New Everyday Facial Skincare Product Mass: OLAY REGENERIST NIGHT RENEWEL ELIXIR

Best New Skincare Treatment Product Mass:  CARMEX MOISTURE PLUS

Best New Make-up Product Face Mass: BOURJOIS HEALTHY MIX SERUM

Best New Make-up Product Eyes or Lips Mass:  BOURJOIS INTENSE EYESHADOW  (A double whammy for Bourjois)

Best Classic Beauty Product Mass: AUSSIE 3 MINUTE MIRACLE

Best New Men’s Grooming Product:  THE REAL SHAVING COMPANY ADVANCED SPF15 MOISTURISER

The Eco Beauty Award Sponsored by Givaudan:  WELEDA POMEGRANATE FIRMING FACIAL SKINCARE RANGE

Best New Bath & Body Product Prestige: BALANCE ME ROSE OTTO BODY CREAM

Best New Haircare/Styling Product:  KERESTASE ELIXIR ULTIME

Best New Everyday Facial Skincare Product Prestige:  EVE LOM EYE CREAM

Best New Skincare Treatment Prestige:  EVE LOM HYDRATION SERUM  (two in a row for Eve Lom!)

Best New Make-up Product Face Prestige:  CLINIQUE REPAIRWEAR LASER FOCUS ALL-SMOOTH MAKE-UP SPF15

Best New Make-up Product Eyes or Lips Prestige:  ELIZABETH ARDEN 8 HR CREAM

Best New Women’s Fragrance:  MARC JACOBS DAISY EAU SO FRESH EDT

Best New Men’s Fragrance:  HUGO BOSS BOSS ORANGE MAN

Best New Men’s Grooming Product Prestige:  CLARINS MEN SUPER MOISTURE BALM

Best New Brand Prestige:  BLOOM & BLOSSOM

Best British Brand:  MOLTON BROWN

Best New Certified Organic Skincare Product:  NEAL’S YARD REMEDIES BEAUTY SLEEP CONCENTRATE

Best New Self Tan/Sun Care Product:  ST TROPEZ NATURALS SELF TAN LOTION

Best New Hand/Foot/Nail care Product:  L’OCCITANE IMMORTELLE BRIGHTENING HAND CARE SPF 15

The Most Revolutionary Beauty Product of the Last 20 Years… (extraordinary category – can’t imagine it’s an easy one to judge…): LIZ EARLE NATURALLY ACTIVE SKINCARE CLEANSE  & POLISH

(Liz Earle was up against Nars Orgasm Multiple and Bare Minerals Original SPF15 Foundation…  Liz picked the award up herself.)

Shopping lists at the ready, steady go!!

K x

It’s been just under a year since I first saw the bees belonging to the organic beauty store Melvita, having received a suitably intriguing invite though the post. “Congratulations! You are now sponsoring a bee from Melvita’s city beehives” it read, from the inside of an empty honey jar. I was impressed, if somewhat bewildered by the news and went along to see the beehives that, my invite promised, would be producing local Covent Garden honey in no time.

Back then there were just two of them: a mere 50,000 bees in 2 hives perched precariously on a rooftop, with not so much as a little pot of something to their name. Yet fast forward ten months to today’s apiary and things are looking pretty sweet. The hive has become one urban beekeeping’s great success stories: there’s been a sell-out range of honey – “It was unbelievable. Half of them were pre-ordered and sold before they hit the shelves. The rest disappeared within 2 weeks” Melvita’s marketing man Simon told me – and a third hive in the pipeline. The hope this year is that they’ll produce more jars to meet the huge demand. Whether it’s Covent Garden’s hay fever sufferers finding locally produced honey improves their allergy, or the prevailing buzz round the importance of bees, there is, says Simon, a growing awareness of the many health benefits honey products can bring.

And do there should be.  “It’s just amazing. Compared to refined sugar which gives you such a burst of energy, honey is glucose and fructose with other added minerals and pollens, so it’s fundamentally a much slower release.” By drawing the honey off at regular intervals rather than blending all of it together at the end of the season, supermarket style, Melvita ensures their honey reflects seasonal change – to wonderful effect.

Beekeeper Camilla explains: “Bees produce different types of honey according to which plants are flower: apple and pear blossom in spring, right through to chestnut in autumn.”   Preserving such distinctions is tastier, but it also retains more of the health benefits to be derived the trees and flowers round where they live.

These are many, and vary enormously from Lavender’s’ anti-bacterial potency to Thyme’s “amazing skin regenerative benefit” Simon enthuses. Those seeking to reap the full maximum benefits of these should buy the pure thyme honey or lavender honey, also in store. They aren’t made in the UK unfortunately – but the upshot of that is they are both of them entirely organic, a label to which the Covent Garden Honey could never lay claim.

“This honey we’re incredibly product of but it could never be organic,” says Simon, “because for that you need such a wide area of land. For the organic thyme honey we have to transport the hives to the fields which are monoculture and cover a huge area in France.” It’s hard work, but the result has drawn fans like bees to the proverbial. “People really respect the fact that our founder is a bee keeper himself, I think, and we have such a specialist team.”

So what’s in store for those of us who, like me, think that honey is a dish best served in beauty products? Well, for starters there’s the Apicosma Ultra-Nourishing Body Balm and hand cream. Formulated with over 11% butters and oils, it also boasts a 3-Honey-Complex that is so effective it has a patent pending, having been clinically proven to target the dry skin’s causes  – no mean feat in a world of misleading surveys and false claims. As Simon says, “this is a clinical study. It’s not that ‘80 per cent of people have said it makes them feel better’ in a survey, it’s been proven” – both by Melvita, and by an independent team.

“We’d had honey-based skincare products before of course, so we knew the glucose seals the moisture in the skin. We also knew that it smells nice to use.  But we sort of felt like there were other things in honey we don’t know about yet, and we wanted to go to the next step – so we worked with scientists that had been screening skin exposed to negative influences such as UVA. They were looking at the DNA level to try and assess what was being affected by these factors, and we wondered whether, as they were was able to conclusively prove what happens at a skin level, we could take that technology and apply it to cosmetics.”

The scientists agreed, and began by noting the healing and calming effect acacia honey had when applied to the skin. Melvtia were thrilled – but they wanted something more. “That was something other brands could do. We thought we could go one step better, and see if blending honeys together would be more potent,” says Simon. The result – a triumvirate of thyme, acacia and orange blossom – took even the scientists by surprise. Suddenly the combined effect of these three herbs working together were effecting changes that could never have been by just acacia: “regenerating cells, improving angiogenesis – the circulation of oxygen  - and even thickening the cell walls to they could hold more moisture.”  Now, of course, it’s part of a bestselling range. Yet if you thought that might be the end of it, you’d be seriously mistaking the company that, after all, takes its inspiration from the busiest creature in the animal kingdom.

“There must be other combinations out there that work differently” says Simon, dreamily, “and combinations of other plants too. With this sort of screening technology it doesn’t have to be on honey.”  Indeed, it wasn’t even designed for honey: as Simon pointed out, it was originally used in cancer research to identify what parts of genome are affected by carcinogens and Melvita applied cosmetic research to it. They might be a skincare company, but their principles – and their products – run deep.

Which brings us back to the bees, whose new hive, new white fence and flowers boxes are now gleaming brilliantly in the spring light. It’s difficult to believe this is the same rooftop I saw last year. Yet as I look closer at their honeycombs and the energy and enthusiasm of those making them I realise Melvita’s secret is quite simple: it’s the life of bees. 

Tumbling tresses at Gucci AW12

Did you know that healthy hair should stretch up to 1/3 of it’s own length?

Your hair is actually stronger than a copper wire of the same diameter.

Just like your skin, your hair benefits from the same UV protection – UV exposure can damage the structure of your hair on the exterior and interior cortex of the hair shaft.

If you absolutely refuse to wear a hat this Summer (although why would you when you could be donning a Marc Jacobs, Rochas or a Jil Sander number?) then here are a couple of products to keep your hair happy and healthy.

Trichologist Phillip Kingsley is launching a new Daily Damage Defense spray  that  strengthens damaged hair (with amino acids & Hydrolised Elastin) and also protects it from environmental and UV aggravation. The spray launches in July and will come in at a reasonable £22 for 250ml.

Yet another beauty journalist has told me that her hair has grown inches whilst using Rahua Shampoo.  I’m a huge fan of the natural haircare range (always banging on about it) and if you are not yet a believer, why not try their Voluminous shampoo and conditioner uses natural Lemongrass to create body and bounce without propping it full of “filling” synthetics.  Available from Harrods’ Urban Retreat it’s a treat worth splashing out on, prices start at £26.

Overstyled a bit over the Winter months? Worried that with the onset of warmer, more humid weather your mane is going to get even more lionlike?  Try adding a few drops of John Frieda Perfect Ends Deep Infusion to the tips of your hair before blow drying or heat styling.  It’s actually heat activated so the more you bake it the more it works!  plus it’s a light weight formula that won’t let your hair fall unlike a lot of repair products.

Versace-SS12-hair

Kx

This lady seriously knows her stuff when it comes to colour and uses and an organic hair dye which my hair reacts brilliantly to. All you have to do is go in with a notion of what you want and she can translate that into exactly what your hair needs to get the right look. For me Karine was thinking that beautiful golden blonde Kate Moss has in the recent Mango ads… she definitely did a good job!!

Check out my new ‘do’ below:

I couldn’t recommend her and her team enough and if you’re looking for an update, head over to the salon on Tichfield Street now as there is a offer on for 50% off with selected stylists for 11^th hour bookings from Monday – Friday. All you have to do is call up in the morning and see what they have available before 5pm. It definitely pays to be flexible with you lunch hour!!

For more information, please visit www.karinejackson.co.uk

Karine Jackson
24 Litchfield Street
London
WC2H 9NJ