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A Very Wishful Christmas Wishlist
I hate recommending things I haven’t properly tried. It’s this inflexible position that has made writing a Christmas gift guide extremely difficult this year: there were things I planned to test and hopefully consequently recommend, but after spending all my..
Japan: Drugstore Makeup Haul
I’m not a big drugstore makeup user, for several reasons. First, it requires more time to find the good stuff, as the quality is more uneven than with high-end brands. Second, I like things to be beautiful and maybe a little obscure, so the luxury and niche ..
Japan: High-End Skincare Haul
When I said that I bought an obscene amount of beauty products in Japan, I wasn’t kidding. To be able to do more than just mention everything, I’ve divided my haul into five categories: high-end skincare; high-end makeup; drugstore skincare; drugstore makeup..
Dressing For Long Flights: 6 Rules
I know, what the world needs now is love, sweet love, not another piece on airplane dressing – there have been 347 trillion of them already. Nevertheless, I keep reading them all and what’s worse, I still keep making stupid mistakes. So I thought I might as ..
Travelling to Japan: Skincare Edit
Taking skincare to Japan is very similar to bringing coal to Newcastle – there’s more and better where you’re going. This means that ahead of my 11-day Japan trip*, I’ve been desperately trying to downsize my beauty routine. First, because I want to travel l..
Autumn Fragrance Update: 5 Newbies
The autumn has arrived in Brussels – it was properly chilly yesterday and while I’m very firm in my belief that warm weather is preferable to cold, I do enjoy getting out my more autumnal fragrances. I don’t have much new to report to those who have been rea..
Autumn Is For Big Books: 14 Fat Suggestions
Some people might say I’m not really in tune with nature, but this is, like, wrong. I totally am! My reading list is very much in sync with the weather and seasons. Autumn for example is the time to read big books – tomes on history, ponderous classics, mood..
5 Office Outfits
Last week, The Guardian’s Jess Cartner-Morley wrote a pertinent column about modern power dressing. She made a point about the sheath dress being over and I’m afraid she’s right. Obviously, you can still wear a sheath dress. You are a grown-up woman and can ..
Lipstick Season: 10 Current Favourites
It is a beauty truism that women return to lipsticks in autumn and want to wear deeper colours as the days get colder. And I think it’s generally true, at least for me – but it’s also reinforced by the fact that new lipstick launches tend to take place in Se..
Byredo Unnamed and 10 Violet Fragrances to Try
Violet is one of my favourite perfume notes*, especially if it’s blended with wood, or green notes, or moss, or leather. It is therefore relatively – but not entirely – understandable that I bought Byredo’s unnamed scent pretty much as soon as I tried it. I ..