Heavenly Kérastase hair treatment

The Kérastase Nutritive Masquintense is currently my favourite hair treatment / conditioner. It smells heavenly - it has a strong perfumy kind of scent, not fruity or sweet. It's also quite thick, as you can see. 

It is described as a "high concentration conditioning treatment for very dry, sensitised hair... intensely nourishes and revitalises." You're supposed to leave it in for five minutes.

Hairdressers tell me that my hair is in good condition and I think it's because I have been using Kérastase products for a few years now. 

What's your must-have hair treatment? 

The tree with a face

On one of our recent trips to the park, we found this tree. Look, it has a face!

Blush collection...

This is probably uninteresting but I thought I would show you my blush collection. I know, I have too many. I actually have more (from Bobbi Brown, NARS, Shu Uemura) in palettes but I didn't include them here.*

MAC mineralize blushes

Other MAC blushes

MAC beauty/highlight powders

MAC mineralize skinfinish powders

 Bobbi Brown blushes

Other blushes (Benefit, Chanel, NARS, Paul and Joe)

* The terrible truth: I forgot - I can't keep track! 

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm going away for a couple of days - I'll tell you about it when I get back! 

Here it is...

... My new blog button! What do you think?

I hope you like the simple design and will put it on your blog! Let me know if you do!

p.s. Thanks exPress-o and The Alternative Wife! 

Chilled and breezy in the bin

Stay dry and odour-free! The DeoDry from The Body Shop is a new deodorant containing volcanic minerals (that absorb moisture) and essential oils (that fight odour-causing bacteria). It does not contain aluminium salts (they block pores) like most anti-perspirants. And it minimises white marks. They sell refills, too!

Doesn't that sound promising? Of course I went out to get one - my first ever deodorant from The Body Shop. I got the blue "chilled and breezy" one. I chose the wrong scent, though. When I sniffed all of them in the shop, I thought this would clash least with perfume, but I don't like the way it smells on my skin. The smell put me off so much that I only tried this once before throwing it out (and before knowing how effective it is). If I can be bothered, I might give the pink one a try. Not that I really want to: I hate testing deodorants!

Whilst you're here, you should read about these sweat sniffers.

"A series of scientific tests and user trials have been carried out to assess how effective DeoDry is. First was the sniff test. This particular experiment involved five trained ‘sweat sniffers’ (yes, they really do exist) who sniffed the armpits of over 40 people, 24 hours after they’d applied DeoDry. And the results were pretty impressive – with significantly less odour and a far lovelier fragrance found on the people wearing Deodry than those without." (click here to continue reading)

How revolting is that? Imagine becoming a sweat sniffer!

Can you recommend a very effective deodorant that does not leave white marks?

To sleep high or low?

At the moment my son (4) has boring Ikea furniture in his room and I want to replace all of that with something fun but practical. We thought he might become more enthusiastic about going to bed if it's somewhere high. And theoretically there would be more space in his room, though this is not such an issue.

I've found some cute arrangements that I really like (more images here).

I'm just not totally convinced yet. Some questions nagging me are: how dangerous is it for sleepy children to walk down those steps at night (to go to the toilet)? And the practicality of changing bedlinen? And don't they ever fall out?!

So what do you say: normal bed or one of these? Did you have something similar as a child? Or if you have children, what's your experience?

What do you think would fit best under the bed space: a desk, a reading area with a sofa (but don't kids read on their beds?) or a wardrobe?

The best: Jemma Kidd's Make-up Masterclass

In my opinion, this is one of the best make-up books out there. It is more interesting than most of Bobbi Brown's books; more colourful, useful and easier to read (no grey text) than Nars' Makeup Your Mind; and the looks are much more achievable and not nearly as complicated as the ones by Rae Morris, Kevyn Aucoin and Scott Barnes.

Jemma Kidd's Make-up Masterclass is packed with beautiful pictures AND useful information. Yes, there is a lot of text! It is a great reference book, something you will want to refer back to again and again. You will learn a lot from this. 

In the first section, Beauty Basics, it gives you tips on skincare, enhancing beauty at all ages, and seasonal make-up. So in spring/summer, put away compact foundations and switch to a tinted moisturiser or a light liquid foundation applied sparingly, use powder mineral foundation if you have oily skin, keep brows in place with hairspray, stick to a neutral eyeshadow with a slight shimmer for daytime, replace black eyeliner with brown (or a bright colour!), use cream blush (looks more natural). Those were some of the tips for a 'light, long-lasting make-up' and there's more: bold colours for eyes, spring pastels, summer nights.

One of the best things about this book is that the step-by-step guides are actually comprehensible. It's also interesting to see different finishes of eyeshadow, for example, side-by-side (sheer, glitter, loose metallic pigment, gloss, frost, matte). And find out what the top ten looks for eyes and lips are. This is all in the section Make-up Masterclass.

The fun part is Get the Look.

Daytime looks: everyday gorgeous (for every skintone: porcelain, fair, olive, deep), daytime glamour, boardroom beauty, corporate to cocktails, blushing bride and yummy mummy.

Night-time looks: after-dark beauty (porcelain, fair, light olive, dark olive, deep), foxy and fabulous, red carpet glamour, dancing queen and big date.

Holiday looks: beach babe, beach to bar, wintry and wonderful, country life and frequent flyer.

What I really like is at the very back of the book. It's called "Jemma's favourite..." for skincare products, body products, make-up and tools, organic brands and products for problem skin. The brilliant thing is, they're not necessarily products from her own line! As I mentioned in my Laura Mercier haul post, the secret brightening powder is one of Jemma's favourites! How many of these products have you tried?