Tag: Lancome

Perfume Pretenders

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My twenty year old daughter had some friends round and one of them walked into our house on a cloud of what of what I assumed was Chanel’s CoCo Mademoiselle. I have a love-hate relationship with this particular fragrance. I love it on anybody else but it smells slightly sour on me and is guaranteed to give me a migraine. There is a note in many Chanel fragrances that gives me a headache, I can really only wear Chance. My daughter’s friend said no way could she afford Chanel, they are all students, she was wearing Soft Iris by Marks & Spencer.

On my next visit to M & S I found the scent, priced at £10 and sprayed a tiny amount onto my wrist. An hour later it smelled prettier on me than Madomoiselle and, more importantly, no migraine! I bought a bottle. The range also includes a few other well-known perfume “dupes”. Pink Pepper is apparently a dead-ringer for Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, a wildly popular and very sweet perfume . Fresh Mandarin supposedly smells like Caroline Herrera’s Good Girl. The girls in Ms Herrera’s fragrance campaign have to be good while the boys get to be bad, rather unimaginative gender-stereotyping in my opinion but that is beside the point, the CH perfume is lovely and it comes in a high-heeled shoe shaped bottle. There is also a Jo Malone wannabe in the range, Sea Salt and Neroli . M & S sell a pack of all the various testers for £5 which is fantastic value. I think this would make a nice little gift for a teenage girl.

Perfume is one of things that is so easy to get wrong and is is an expensive mistake if you end up with a £75 bottle of something that you no longer like after a couple of days. I have re-sold so many used-twice bottles on eBay over the years. Now I generally buy Chanel body sprays, which are around £30, because they are less strong than even the EDTs and are not headache inducing. They last for ages too as you only need to spray a tiny amount. If I am considering a new fragrance I will usually buy a sample on eBay and wear it for a couple of weeks or so before committing to a fully sized bottle but, most days, I don’t bother with perfume anymore.

While in Marks and Spencer I also bought a small make up bag for my handbag, a bargain at £6, and a delicious bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich!  

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

A Lifetime of Lipsticks

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

Woolworths, Romford 1984 and teenage me is purchasing the best lipstick I will over own. Woolies own Evette brand in the colour “Mulberry Wine”. The perfect pinky brown which stayed on all day. If only I had known that it would be discontinued I would have bought all their stock with my pocket money. In the forty years since then I have been on the hunt for another colour I have liked so much.

It’s odd that I can remember the name of just about every lipstick I have ever owned. The first was Boots No 17 “Twilight Teaser”, a bluesh, iridescent mauve. I’m sure it looked terrible but it was certainly eye-catching. I wore it to a non-uniform day at school and every girl asked me what colour it was, a new experience for me as I definitely wasn’t known for my style. Another Boots No 17 favourite was the safer and very pretty “Poncho Pink”. I also loved the Miss Selfridge “Kiss and Make Up” range and wonder if Charlotte Tilbury took some of her inspiration from their lip-print embossed branding. I wore their “Iron Maiden” and “Copper Knobs” shades” around 1987. 

When I began to have some disposable income I graduated onto the more expensive brands. Estee Lauder “Spiced Cider”, a rust colour, was one I wore for years along with Lancome’s “Brun Nu” and “Rose Nu”. I went to a wedding around 1991 and actually asked one guest which lipstick she was wearing as I liked it so much and thought it may be “The One”. Clinique “Super Nectar”, I bought it the next day and it looked absolutely hideous on me.

I actually still have the lipstick I wore too my 1994 wedding, a rather daring matt red with incredible staying power, Rochas shade 56, it’s pictured below . I experimented with dark, blackberry colours at this time as well although always had to blot them so there was just the feintest stain left. My favourite which I also still have, although it smells a bit dubious after all these years, was Chanel Shade 36. I now buy Clinique’s Almost lipstick in Black Honey which is a very wearable balm-like tint.

Post Pandemic I seem to wear less make up but I don’t generally leave the house without a quick dusting of face-powder, usually Clinique, and a slick of some lip product or other. Loreal’s “Organza” is usually my go-to everyday lipstick or a tinted lip balm from Dr Paw Paw. I also love Estee Lauder’s “Pinkberry” which is the closest I can come to wearing a nude without looking totally washed out.

I never have been able to find a shade as perfect as my Woolies lipstick but perhaps it was just the thrill of being grown up enough to wear make up for the first time. I also hold fond memories of the little tins of four blushers sold by M & S around the same time but I certainly wouldn’t wear them now. Having said that. my make up choices have barely changed in all these years and perhaps it is time to change things up a little bit.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha