Salon Sin Camden: REVIEW!

I've been visiting Jamie, owner of Camden Town's Salon Sin, for many years. I have followed him throughout his career and via several salons. Because, he really is that good. Jamie combines real vision and artistry. He has given me some amazing haircuts over the years and I am so delighted to see he's now got his very own salon.

 

the finished result

 

Salon Sin is very carefully decorated, from the antique till ("120 years old!") at reception, to the vintage furniture (including old cinema seats), the neon sign outside, flashing jukebox, and hand painted walls - painted by Jamie himself. The staff dress as they wish (no uniform or colour coding, so long as they look presentable) so the salon has an easy going feel to it. It's virtually right opposite Camden Town tube station and once you're inside, it reminds you of how Camden used to be and truly embodies the spirit of Camden. It feels very different to the clinical blandness of Rush or Toni & Guy.

 

the stolid Toni & Guy environment, where I do get my colour done...

Salon Sin use Redken hair products and L'Oreal colour, and the staff really care about the individuality of each customer. Take a look at the Facebook page to see examples of their work!

                       Jamie

Jamie hopes to turn Salon Sin into a cluster of salons, with the wall artwork being their calling card. I hugely recommend a visit. New customers get 30% off their first service and 10% off when re-booking.

Blurred lines

Arguably feminism's greatest victory is that it seems so unfashionable and embarrassing to be labelled a feminist. Adverts and pop culture in many ways set the aspirational blueprint, and makeup often becomes a tool by which to embolden the image. In the iconic Robert Palmer video, the women are stoic; their makeup is uniform smokey eyes and red lips. Yet their black turtle necks and guitars subvert the robbing of individuality and give them back their strength. In Robin Thicke's recent Blurred Lines video, the red lipstick remains - but the women are stripped whilst the men are fully suited. Robin Thicke looks a lot older than the models, and very slimy. It is undoubtedly grossly insulting (there is no irony) yet the jaunty lyrics make light of the spectacle. Check out this FT article for an interesting discussion. I've spoken before about how being jokey about being seductive is the new feminism, and the recent furore over Miley Cyrus desperately trying to look appealing is further entrenching this. Apparently red lipstick is the essential ingredient... how sad.

Benefit recently shared their advert for 'They're Real' mascara by trying to translate the objectification. This failed miserably. Ultimately, men and women are completely different and seeing men groping their bulging trousers is usually at best pathetic and creepy... But Benefit slathers on the 'it's a funny joke, lighten up!' patter. However, many wrongs go unchallenged by masquerading as light-hearted jibes. Well, it might all be forgiveable if the jokes were funny?!

Current FAVES

It's been a while since I gathered my favourites together so here is a current selection. I'll hopefully do in-depth swatches and comparison either by video or by blog post - so please feel free to comment with requests if this might be useful.

Firstly, toner!!! I recently booked myself in for a course of Diamond Microdermabrasion and my beautician asked whether I was using toner. I admitted I wasn't and she chastised me, claiming anyone with greasy skin should NEVER skip toner. For years I used Clinique's toner (the purple one) but I had decided toner was a gimmick and eliminated it. But after reading many positive reviews, I decided to buy Boots Botanic Rosewater toner. It smells divine and is so refreshing and uplifting. Best of all, adding toner to my regime seems to have helped my skin texture.

I may have mentioned Murad Oil Control Mattifier before; if not, I should have. It is wonderful for greasy skin and even seems to calm breakouts. It helps foundation stay on longer, too.

Makeup-wise, the crown must go to Guerlain: once again their collection dazzles. The Madame Rougit blusher is superb. It's pigmented, smells beautiful, and applies with a luminosity that only Guerlain have consistently perfected. It is pinker than Rouge G but very much in the same spirit. Their new eyeshadow duos are their best eyeshadow packaging yet - sleek, elegant, compact and sophisticated to the extreme. My favourite is Too Spicey. The brown is a matte, smooth neutral and the orange is surprisingly pigmented. Each duo has a glitter (sorry, "veil") and a solid shade. The glitters remind me of MAC Reflects Glitter (which I adore). Both work very well together and can be very sober or very glittery, depending on preference.

The L'Oreal Super Liner Brow Artist was reviewed with the rest of the collection here, so it comes as little surprise it is in my everyday rotation. Here it is, with my lashes - and no other makeup. It looks very natural and is a must-have for me!

The lashes are 100% real hair Red Cherry #523 (£2.99 from Bright Eyes Beauty) are rightly top-sellers. Incredibly flattering, natural, and easy to apply!

When MAC brought back their Style Black mineralised eyeshadows, I was ecstatic and bought backups of Young Punk and Gilt by Association. But I considered Cinderfella to be dupeable. Well, it actually is pretty original and I decided I did need it afterall. It is incredibly glittery (I am a magpie and addicted to glitter) but still very sultry as well. I find myself reaching for it on nights out.

Finally, after seeing countless positive reviews for Pixiwoo's Real Techniques brushes, I decided to try out the Expert Face Brush. And it does in fact put foundation on very smoothly. I prefer my Louise Young LY34 foundation brush, but this Real Techniques one is so much cheaper that for the price I think it gives it a real challenge.

Honourable mention and potential future fave alert: I have discovered a new skincare brand called Bochery... watch this space...

L'Oreal Super Liner collection REVIEW

L'Oreal have launched 4 products: Super Liner Perfect Slim (£6.99); Super Liner Blackbuster (£6.99); Super Liner GelMatic (£5.99), and Super Liner Brow Artist (£5.49). I have been putting them through my testing regime and I can say that two are heartily recommended and one is actually a new FAVE.

The new fave is L'Oreal's very first brow product, the Super Liner Brow Artist. This pencil is brown (shade 03 Brunette) but thankfully it's not a ridiculously warm reddish brown. It's not quite ashy but it's definitely a flat, neutral brown. I really enjoy using it, and the brush is perfect. Even the waxy side is proving exceptionally useful. It's very cleverly designed and depending on how heavily you swatch it, it'll work for a multitude of hair shades.

The next hugely recommended liner is the GelMatic. It is indeed a hybrid of gel and pencil. It's smooth, long lasting - gives a great retro pencil finish but with all the stubbornness of a gel liner. It does transfer without the use of an eyeshadow primer (I use Urban Decay Primer Potion) but with primer, it is a very good pencil and does feel different to a typical black pencil.

The pen liners look extremely elegant: the TV advert for Blackbuster is excellent, making the most of the chunky black marker pen image to give a graffiti style...

But to me, both the Blackbuster and the Perfect Slim were difficult to get right. For marker pen style liners, my absolute fave is Lancome Art Liner (which I was secretly hoping this would be, but no such luck!) or drugstore-wise, Jordana Fabu Liner works nicely. They have a good black pigment but the trouble with these L'Oreal versions is that it 'bled' into the fine lines around my eyes. It even bled into the fine lines of my hand as you might very slightly see from the swatch...

L-R: GelMatic, Perfect Slim, Brow Artist, Blackbuster

Ultimately, lining brows and eyes is certainly in style. The Brow Artist is fantastic, and makes me wish I hadn't spent so much on high end versions. The GelMatic is great if you are in the market for a long wearing pencil liner (it works very well in the waterline too) but I would personally skip the Blackbuster and the Perfect Slim liners (unless you are very smooth skinned.)


Available nationwide, stockists 0800 030 4032

Boots No.7 Beautifully Matte REVIEW

This foundation deserves a solid 7 out of 10, especially if it is what you are looking for: matte finish and oil free. I tried it because I am an avid fan of Estee Lauder Double Wear [henceforth ELDW] although I have enough backups to last my lifetime, which is just as well as I hear they have reformulated it now - how dare they?! Nowadays my favourite way to apply is to mix ELDW with EL Spotlight, which gives me all the oil controlling benefits but with a dewy finish. But I digress. OK so this Boots Beautifully Matte [henceforth BM] is described by many as similar, but for a reasonable price - around £12. A poor man's DW? Well no, it is better than that. Regardless, I wouldn't buy it.

I would actually say if comparing it to the EL stable, it reminded me more of the creamy and equally as popular and amazing EL Maximum Cover foundation. The BM is a very similar mousse-like texture, a lot more creamy than DW. Those who complained DW was 'paint like' will love the way this blends. The shade I got is the palest, Calico. It starts off almost mauvey grey and very ashy but once it hits the skin it settles nicely. However, I still find EL shades a lot prettier and more uplifting. This makes me look very dull and flat, there is no luminosity whatsoever in terms of the shade itself. However the finish is what you may call luminous. The oil control capability is simply not in the same league as DW. (Note that I do admittedly refer to the original ELDW, which supposedly has now been ousted by a sub standard imposter, so the comparison might be unfair...) BM does not exacerbate my oiliness so in that sense it is triumphant - as many foundations make me super shiny and look hideous after a mere couple of hours. But, it doesn't hold up all day, probably 4 hrs; possibly 6. For the price difference though, I think it is indeed to be applauded. I must criticise it for making pores and dry patches stand out. This is easily rectified with some powder. I used Guerlain's pressed meteorites mattifying and illuminating powder, to give my face life again as well as make my skin look poreless.

All in all, it's a good solid option but a poor substitute for ELDW and not anywhere near good enough for my exacting standards. Close but no cigar. Well worth a try though. Personally, for me foundation has to be utterly pitch perfect otherwise everything fails, but I can see this working for many and it's certainly a great standby option. Kudos for the pump bottle.

Swatch of calico:

 Blended out:

..Have you tried it? Let me know your thoughts!

Lavender Whipping up a storm

Five years anxious wait and then at last - Lavender Whip is coming back! Hurrah Hooray! But hark - what's this!!! Blood boils, palm sweats, jaw clenches and eyes bulge as we see the first images of a pinkened Lavender Whip... How dare they taunt us so? Don't call it Lavender Whip if it isn't Lavender Whip. Well folks I think the whole thing is a storm in a teacup because in fact the shade really is the same. I would be the first to point out the differences but in truth there is a slight sheerness to the new 2013 version (very slight) but on the lips it's simply the same. It's got a dash of Budding Love (another limited edition fave) in the sense that it is a little less dense and perhaps ok a touch more pink but in reality it does indeed look like a very, very flattering lavender lipstick. I didn't get on with Pink Popcorn (too pink) so this really hasn't fallen into pink territory it is still categorically purple. Let's check out some photos...



I wore the new Lavender Whip on my top lip and the 2008 Lavender Whip on my bottom lip. No perceptible difference to the naked eye. And I swatched Budding Love, Original Lavender Whip and New Lavender Whip in that order (and pictured cased in that order).

 

By the way, NARS Mata Hari in the background - the best blusher to wear with Lavender Whip if you ask me. I do need a good lip pencil for this though, I must look into that -please let me know if you have any ideas?

 
 



I highly recommend Lavender Whip, it is so pretty yet unusual. The texture is great and it lasts fairly well, fading to a lovely innocent cooled down pink. I have ordered MAC Riri Woo so I am excited for that to arrive next! MAC have been rather good lately, except Let's Skate paint pot, which I found abysmal: glitter fallout everywhere and very over-hyped. But Lavender Whip is worth its place as one of the finest MAC lipsticks out there. It's currently available online. [edit/// oops it sold out again] Well you'd better run to a counter... Good luck! I would love this to be made permanent; this and Candy Yum Yum are both truly unique yet very wearable, almost opposite sides of the same coin. I think of this as a stripped down version of Candy Yum Yum as it has the same magenta heart to it.

Forensic Beauty

There has always been something very unsettling about 'eyes are the windows to the soul' and by extension the Disney-esque tendency to link mortal looks with moral virtue. Every time a mugshot of a celebrity or an unexpectedly good looking criminal surfaces, it causes excitement for the implied schism. But truly aren't both traits equally as random and dictated by fate as each other? Looks more so, but even criminals - usually it is their sad circumstance and 'There but for the grace of God...' etc etc. Well Dove are at it again, this quest to convince us that "real beauty" is in all of us (barf) and as their earliest campaign was severely blighted by the 'revelation' that in fact these dogmatically 'real' images were as retouched as the best of them - perhaps they should be applauded for their tenacity. Yes the advertising campaign to supposedly promote us insecure women that we truly are "more beautiful than you think" has struck again. It seems to me in some ways that this patronising tactic actually serves to entrench insecurity and normalise feelings of inadequacy. But maybe I am resisting their liberating, ground-shattering message... Nonetheless: this is an interesting experiment and a good idea. A forensic artist, more accustomed to capturing felons by a skillful recreation of testimony, is appointed to demonstrate the contrast between our own perception of Self, and the Self we project to Others.







Yes, as is inevitable with any self-righteous advert, it is ripe for parody and the second video is brilliant! It is a very true and rather perplexing point: Why is it, that as women we are always worried at some level about our looks - yet men, however gloomy, do truly believe that with the right lighting or circumstance, they could absolutely get that model! Even though men nowadays are more subjected than ever to the pressure of looking good (in addition to having a powerful position in society) there is still a very identifiable difference in the vulnerabilities between the genders. This advert would simply not work if it was aimed at men. I am torn as to whether I think the advert makes a great point (albeit a banal one) or whether it is very old fashioned and insulting to keep stabbing at the idea that as women we should be more resigned and then people will love us for our acceptance.

What do you think??

The strategy used to sell us Beauty seems to rest alternately on empowering women with the promise of instant improvement, or comforting us that we are just splendid the way we are - and that by buying this brand we are proving just that.