Tag: Harrods

Tuesday 19 October 2010     Leave A Comment

Tonight! Harrods in 3D for Breast Cancer Awareness

It’s surely a given that nothing takes away from the ordeal a woman with cancer has to go through, every day.   Yet it always comes up that there are points at which the spray of a pretty scent or the swipe of a lipstick brightens things up really rather a lot.   That’s just one of the reasons why charities spearheaded by the beauty industry are a mighty good thing.

Tonight, Elizabeth Hurley, one of Estée Lauder’s longest standing faces will be lighting Harrods pink.  On behalf of the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, spearheaded by the Estée Lauder group of companies.  And I’m looking forward to it.  She has just tweeted that she’ll be ‘setting off pink rockets and releasing loads of pink balloons’.  Not to mention this little beauty: ‘It’s in 3D and you get pink glasses.’  What?!

And I know one thing, my beautiful aunt, Jacomin will be chuckling, somewhere up there, secateurs in hand, pruning a bush of heavenly pink roses.   Well, that’s how I’ll be picturing her tonight.

Here are a few brilliant things Breast Cancer Awareness has achieved for breast cancer:

. By October, together with its retail partners, the BCA Campaign will have raised they say, more than $45 million since 1993 for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

. In October 2009 this research foundation awarded nearly $28.5 million to 173 scientists across the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.

. Since the Global Landmark Illumination Initiative to light up landmarks in capital cities around the world began in 2000, the rosy pink glow has beamed at more than 200 worldwide.  Why do it?  ‘[…] to help raise awareness,’ says Evelyn Lauder, ‘by the flip of a switch.’

. The Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign will have distributed more than 110 million pink ribbons worldwide from its start in 1992 to today.

Here are a few fabulous things you can buy yourself or a friend to support Breast Cancer Awareness this month.  Most are available at the counter, not on line, while stocks last so hurry!

Aveda Hand Relief; Clinique Great Lips, Great Cause (a key ring strung with three mini-lip glosses); Bobbi Brown Pink Shimmer Brick Compact; Darphin Intral Soothing Cream; Donna Karan Cashmere Mist; Jo Malone Red Roses Cologne; Elemis Sparkling Beauty Collection (for Breast Cancer Care)…

Here’s a link to Elizabeth Hurley at the New York Stock Exchange last week – lighting it up pink.

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Monday 18 October 2010     1 Comment

Fetishistic? Mmm. Collectible? Sure. Dior’s hot new make-up compact is here

There’s something way more compelling to a compact than make-up.  ‘Compacts are fetishistic,’ says the architectural designer, Tom Bartlett.   Phoo-er.  Women love them – especially if they’re shiny, glamorous – and elusive.  ‘If women know Chanel or Dior are bringing out a limited edition compact, they want it,’ Harrods’, Marigay McKee, Fashion & Beauty Director at Harrods once told me.

Where good looks and rarity lie, you can guarantee there’s a collector lurking.   And of make-up palettes there are plenty.  There are collectors clubs both in the US and here, and they run conventions where enthusiasts gather to share compact devotion.  Oh yes.

Feel like dabbling?  ‘The unusual designs, like the hand or roulette wheel compacts, fetch the highest prices,’ says Linda Bee, who sells antique compacts at Grays in the Mews Antique Market in London (020 7629 5921).  These designs date back to the thirties and forties when whimsical compacts inspired by Elsa Schapirelli and the Surrealists were popular.   Seek out her collection if you’re passing, it’s extensive.

The first compacts were used in the seventeenth century to hold beauty patches – a face saver for women with smallpox scars.  Yet they didn’t catch on until the 1920s when wearing make-up became acceptable after years of Victorian disapproval.  They were small, and contained dry, pressed powder tablets or godets.  They were often decorated with Pierot, ‘a fashionable motif at that time,’ says Bee.

In the thirties the Art Deco style rubbed off and in the forties Surrealism, with hands, hats and birds (Dali once designed a bird compact).  The fifties were about glamour and rhinestones as well as whimsy with fob watches, fans, books, pianos and telephones.

This little treasure from Dior harps back to a time where women were proud to powder their nose in public.  A time where all a woman needed to take with her to a dance was her minaudière – a small compact complete with powder, rouge, lipstick, writing tablet and cigarette holder.   Oh to be a Downton Abbey heroine.

Dior‘s Minaudière isn’t really designed to take out, but is a rather adorable palette to have.  It contains three eye shadows and two lip glosses.  There are two colour-ways, Grey Golds, pictured here, which comes with two smoky grey shadows plus one highlight colour and two glosses, sheer, gold and plum.  The other is Pink Golds – I haven’t seen it but guess it’s a softer, pinkish version.

One for the make-up collector’s treasure cabinet.

£59 Selfridges from 18th October; nationwide from 1st November

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Friday 24 September 2010     Leave A Comment

November’s British Beauty Stars, Japanese Vogue

The following news stories were published in the November issue of Vogue Nippon.

Here is a version of the text in English:

Organic Glam: The new organic fragrance collection from The Organic Pharmacy

Until now, organic perfume has had a reputation for being unsophisticated.  It lacked the refined quality and complexity of traditional scent.  It also tended not to last well on the skin.  A number of innovative organic perfumes, including The Organic Pharmacy’s Organic Glam are shifting the status quo, albeit slowly.  Organic Glam took three years to get right.

‘Creating a fragrance is complex,’ says founder, Margo Marrone.  ‘Creating a natural fragrance is even more complicated.  Fragrance testing went on for two and a half years, with hundreds of versions going back and forth.  It was the tiny tweaks that made a difference to the end result,’ she says.

There are four scents; 85% of ingredients in each are organic.  Citron is the freshest.  Top notes of Sicilian lemon and bergamot give way to Moroccan orange blossom and ylang ylang.  Heart notes of patchouli and neroli give lasting power.  Number two, Jasmine, is steeped in Egyptian jasmine and ylang ylang and conjures up balmy evenings in the Mediterranean.

The third, Oriental Blossom, was compared by one, eminent beauty writer at the launch, with the ultimate oriental classic, Shalimar by Guerlain.  Citrus top notes evaporate to reveal clove and cinnamon, rose and neroli.  Oakmoss, vetiver, pepper, vanilla and ylang ylang give this scent its exotic, lasting quality.  Number four is Oud, which taps into the current trend for using this classic, Middle Eastern perfume ingredient in fragrance.  It’s a warm, woody, sensual scent, which has a surprisingly refreshing quality.  Notes include Moroccan cedarwood, black pepper and cardamom, with vetivert and sensual sandalwood at its heart.

Organic Glam Fragrance Collection, £110 each, theorganicpharmacy.com

Connock London – Kukui Oil Collection

The idea behind Connock London, a new collection of bath and body products, is to focus on using little known, natural ingredients from across the globe.    The first collection is based around Kukui Oil, a skin softening oil used by native Hawaiians for centuries.

‘As a child, we took a family trip to the South Pacific.  My father had been in contact with a small producer of Kukui oil on the Hawaiian island of Oahyu,’ says founder, Amanda Connock.  ‘I went with him to watch the local women shell the Kukui nuts and extract the oil from the kernels,’ she says.

The result twenty years later is the Kukui Oil Collection, which comprises six bath and body products.   These include Soothing Bath Oil (£42.90), which also contains macadamia and tamanu oils and is soothing and nourishing for dry or sensitive skin.  Comforting Body Wash (£22.50) contains aloe vera, vitamin E and a skin smoothing papaya enzyme.  Kukui Oil Soap (£25.55) with shea butter gives a soft, creamy lather.  Wonder Balm combines Kukui oil with monoi, cocoa butter, mango butter and beeswax for an effective, salve for rough, dry skin.   The Candle (£36.80) fills the room with a suitably rich, exotic scent of gardenia and jasmine.

Connock London, from Fortnum & Mason and Harrods.  See beautique.com.

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Tuesday 7 September 2010     1 Comment

Perfume Diaries, No5, soap-on-a-rope and a dress to kill for

I was rocking as I tripped into the new exhibition, The Perfume Diaries at Harrods last Thursday night.  Talk about scene change.  Way In stages thumping, DJ set.  Move to: scent, champagne, canapés and string quartet.  This, ladies and gents was the deliciously sumptuous launch evening for a show worth seeing.

A few petit, highlights were: Feasting my eyes on the divine, Dior dress, which inspired Miss Dior (well, its New Look shape, but I like the idea).  Here it is – desperately beautiful and, incidentally, rather of the moment, with autumn’s New Look revival.

How Chanel No 5’s scent bottles have altered, subtly through the decades.  The original (1921) was a fine, oblong shape with a minute stopper.  To my eye it looks modern – if I were ever to do a scent, I’d probably put it in this.  Click through here to see a few sketches à la Emma (the © is a joke, sort of).

Spotting a rather large soap-on-a-rope.  How 70s.  How, open-neck, medallion-decked Denim man.  At a scent exhibition you ask?  Mmm.  Well.  It’s by Aramis, the first line of beauty products (beyond the Trumper-style grooming booty) for men, launched in the ‘70s – and they also do scent.  And it too, feels new again (style guru, Tom Ford does a soap-on-a-rope).  I like soap-on-a-rope.

But here’s the thing.  This show takes you through the history and evolution of scent, decade by decade, in a really captivating way.  Each decade, encased in its own spacious cubicle, displays a collection of original bottles, documents, recipes, things of interest.  There’s on-screen info, interactive stuff, testers.  It presents scent within its wider cultural and historical context without being sniffy or stuffy or precious.

Honestly, if you’re passing, pop up to the 4th floor, make your way through the Way In funk-meisters and check it out.   It’s free but hurry, it’s only on till October 2nd.

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Thursday 10 June 2010     Leave A Comment

Want to meet the woman behind Touche Eclat?

The genius, make-up artist behind Touche Eclat is about to make a personal appearance.  The place?  Space NK, the one behind Harrods – Hans Place.

Yes, Terry de Gunzburg (so now you know) who has her own line of very exclusive, very exceptional make-up, By Terry will be on hand to give customers individual make-up pep talks.

The date is Thursday 17th June, so I’m telling you early.  I predict well, perhaps not a riot, but surely a jam.

Some of her hit products (those I swear by and are sitting on my dressing table right now, and if my I-Photo wasn’t up the spout I would attach a shot to show you) are:

. Soleil de Rose (£49), a peach tinted lotion, which slathered all over, gives boring, dull looking skin a delicate, golden lift.

. Teint de Rose (£52) – Terry calls it a negligee in a jar, because it gives clean, bare, bedtime skin a soft, pretty, diaphanous, glow – massage in thoroughly on top of or instead of moisturiser.

. Eclat de Teint (£29)– an under-eye illuminating pen with a fat brush, which gives tired, eyes a lift, without looking like you’re wearing a thing.

They’ll charge you a £20 booking fee, but it’s redeemable.  You’ll also get a gift bag, a glass of bubbles and a macaroon (I’ll bet they’ll be La Durée).  Call 020 7581 2518.  But be quick! x

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