What would Elle do..?

I’ve become obsessed with…..a pair of jeans.  Elle Macpherson’s jeans to be exact.  They are by the super cool Isabel Marant of high top fame and they are seriously cool.

Alas, £300 I have not.  So with my creative head on I looked at the ways I could re-create for a fraction of the price.

So my battle with bleach began…….

What you need: A bottle or two of thick bleach, dark jeans, large elastic bands, bucket, marigolds and patience!

Step 1.  Dampen jeans

Step 2: Wring out and tie the elastic bands around the jeans.  There is no right or wrong way to do this, put as many or as little as you want on.  The rule goes, the more bands you have on the more dark patches you will have.

Step 4.  Pour bleach in the bucket with two parts of water.

Step 5. Lower jeans into the bucket and try to place a heavy object on top to keep jeans submerged.

Step 6.  Check on them after the first half an hour and then after every hour, I left mine overnight to really saturate but it depends on what finish you want.

Step 7. Rinse and pop in the washing machine as normal.

Et voila….

The Light Brigade

The forecast for spring’s skin is glowing!  Forget worrying about pesky lines and wrinkles.  The secret to youthful, radiant skin? Luminosity.  And the good news is, it’s never been easier and more effortless to achieve.  Glossip Girl rounds up the latest crop of beauty innovations and tricks that are set to get you alight.

Let’s face it most of us need a helping hand when it comes to a flawless complexion and more often than not it comes down to how you fake it.  With a little help from some savvy experts and some ultra savvy products, here’s GG’s guide on how to get radiant skin that seems lit from within.

Designed by Daisy Owen

GOOD IN BED

I’m not talking bedroom antics but one of the most important parts of your skin’s day.  Research shows that the skin starts repairing from 10pm so it pays to invest in the right night care and what better time to let your skin do all the work while you don’t have to.  YSL’s new Forever Youth Liberator Night Cream £54 uses Glycans – molecules that help communication between the layers of the skin, switching on the all important collagen production.  With age, this ‘communication’ can break down and glycans stop being as effective.  YSL have harnessed a complex that once the cream is absorbed into the skin, switches ageing glycans back on, restoring communication, essential to youthful looking skin.  The result?  Skin has never looked so rested.

Set to get your skin glowing overnight is tanning guru James Read’s new Sleep Mask Tan £25.  Jammed packed with skincare essentials, hyaluronic acid to plump and aloe to soothe, not only is skin left seriously soft but with a subtle golden glow.

GLOW-GETTER

Nothing wakes the skin more than prepping with a little massage.  With a 6am call time, Make-up Masetro Val Garland made sure each model face was gently massaged at Preen before applying a base. ‘Luminous skin is all in the preparation. I always like to begin by massaging the skin with moisturiser to stimulate the blood circulation – it really wakes up your skin and gives you the healthiest of glows.’

Give dull, post-winter skin a daily boost with the nifty Nip + Fab Glycolic Fix Exfoliating Wipes £12.99, which evenly smooth out skin without aggravating.  Then top up moisture levels with (the amazing) Prevage Anti-ageing & Intensive Repair Daily Serum £160, it instantly gets to work, leaving your skin super smoothed, radiant and plumped.

Invest in new make-up must haves.  For a second skin, we adore Garnier’s Miracle Skin Perfector Anti-age BB Cream £8.50 which gives a fresh-faced, illuminated finish.  Need more coverage?  The incredibly light-weight Darphin Melaperfect Anti-Dark Spots Correcting Foundation £25 works to cover and correct pigmentation and leaves you with the most flawless looking skin for a good eight hours.

GO FAUX

Don’t go deep and dark just yet, this spring heralds super luxe sheer tinted tans.  St Tropez Global Skin Finishing Expert Nichola Joss gave exposed limbs at Roksanda Ilincic a wakeup call with a light apricot tan.  Using a mitt Joss gilded legs with a mixture of St Tropez Rose and Gold Illuminators £12.26 layered with a touch of St Tropez Shimmer Stick for a beautiful fresh spring sheen.

Get Firm Fast

Body alert! The countdown to the bikini season is on.  Make sure you’re ready to peel off the layers with Glossip Girl’s pick of the best pre-summer body perfectors.

Photographer: Elizabeth Gibson, Styling: Me, Hair& Make-Up: Kenny Leung, Nails: Jenni Draper

Got 1 month?

Be dynamic!  Many a beauty editor’s secret, Reformer Pilates is THE workout to do for a leaner, trimer, stronger body in only a short time.  The hour long sessions on a reformer machine work against a resistance to scuplt, tone and trim the muscles.  Ten Pilates Trainer Andrew Mayers at the St James Studio recommends up to 2 sessions a week for a month to see a real change. www.tenpilates.com

Got 2 weeks?

Try a sculpting treatment.  Doctors are raving about the new Tripolar Slimming System, a non invasive, no-downtime, pain-free radio frequency system that through heat, shrinks fat cells, increases your metabolism and smoothes out cellulite – sounds too good to be true?  ‘It really does work.’ says Esther Fieldgrass founder of EF Medispa  ‘Expect to see up to two inches lost after two weeks.’  EF Medispa from £250 per session.

Got 3 days?

We don’t believe in faddy detox’s but if you’re up against clock, the delicious NOSH 3 day Juice Fast really does seem to do something.  Founder, Geeta explains ‘your metabolic rate goes up and it digests food faster and eliminates waste quicker, my clients can loose up to five pounds in only a few days.’  From £85.94 noshdetox.com

Got 1 day?

Go pro with a faux and get a salon spray tan.  ‘Nothing looks more natural and more flawless than a professional job.’ says Celebrity tanner James Read.  ‘ For extra beach body confidence ask your tanner to subtly define and add contours down the sides of your torso, your legs and tops of your arms, this gives the illusion of a sleeker frame.’

Got 1 hour?

Time poor?  A believable bronze can hide a multitude of flaws and the new generation of instant tanners are quick, easy and failsafe.  ‘The fact is, skin looks better when it’s darker,’ says A list tanner Jules Hepstionall.  You can’t go wrong with St Tropez’s Instant Glow Mousse £15.39.  Pro tip: Elongate your limbs by applying a highlighter down your shins and the sides of your arms .

Model Moment: Cara Delevingne

Recently named Model of The Year and landing her first Vogue cover it’s safe to say that Cara Delevingne is serious hot property right now and this season at London Fashion Week, A/W 13 has certainly been ‘Cara’d’.

Designed by Daisy Owen
Images [Style.com]

 Opening Topshop Unique and closing Mulberry and fitting in Burberry, Sister by Sibling, Issa London, Rhianna for River Island and Matthew Williamson to name a few.  Cara is certainly pounding the catwalk with ferocity and with one day left of LFW she’ll be hot footing it over to Milan this week then on to Paris.

We ❤ you Cara!

Follow me on Twitter and Vine @daniellef0x for more LFW backstage reporting

Backstage Beauty

It happens just twice a year, where the beauty pack fresh off the plane from New York Fashion Week pound the pavements of their native London in search of new season trends.

But backstage is not where the glamour is.  For a start it’s seriously hot, packed with photographers, editors, moody assistants clad in black all jostling to listen to the make-up artist or session stylist heading the show.  For me, alongside my Beauty Editor colleagues I am there to gather information on the look, inspirations and which latest model and products are being used.

Nothing is more exciting than a gorgeous look that we can translate for our readers.  Don’t get me wrong, something a bit out there and wacky is appreciated and each season the same culprits do like to make a serious statement, *cough* Vivienne Westwood.  But in reality it’s those wearable looks that make us instantly try to replicate at home that night.

The Big Cheese

Saying that, Topshop’s Unique show today had me re-think my blue shadow phobia.  Super cool make-up artist Hannah Murray along with L’Oreal Professional cutie Antony Turner, created a Kate Moss esque cool Brit Rock Girl with attitude, trust me you will want to emulate her.

Hair was given lots of volume with a weightless finish.  ‘It’s cloud hair which I back-brushed at the crown to create a 70s slept in beehive,’ said Turner.  Hair was complimented a tough Brit Pop Eye created by Hannah Murray, which had been layered on top of a metallic sheer wash of colour and built up by a punchy blue all over and inside the socket.  Hannah did let slip that the original look had a red lip but after the models were dressed it looked a touch too hard.

The Blue Hue

And the finished look sported by model du jour Cara D….

Cara Delevingne for Topshop Unique

Beauty….In Love

The countdown to V Day is on!  Make sure you’re dropping the hints or treating yourself to a treat or two this Thursday.

Everywhere seems to go a little loco when it comes to Valentine’s day with most shops launching a plethora of pink treats and V-day inspired trinkets.

When it comes to beauty, brands compete to launch the perfect Valentine indulgence, making it seriously impossible for hopeless boyfriends to navigate their way through a department store minefield.

So to keep it simple and effortless here are my picks of V Day treats that should be at the top of your shopping list…..

Designed by Daisy Owen

Jo Malone Red Rose Cologne £76

Says exactly what it does on the bottle

Lancome Blush in Love £34

Gives the prettiest of flushes

Fortnum & Mason Soap Hat Box £8

Too pretty to use..almost

OPI Romeo & Joliet £11

The perfect burgundy nail

The Body Shop Love Gloss £10

Pucker up for some serious smooching

The Very Slow Girl’s Guide to Running a Marathon Part 2

It’s certainly no easy feat this Marathon lark.  I’m in the midst of the first few weeks of training and it’s beginning to dawn on me how tough this challenge will be.

To really get the most of my training I have been upping the ante on my food.  As any exercise bunny will tell you, your training is only as good as the food that you use to fuel it, pre, post and during your workout.

According to realbuzz (an excellent runner’s companion) a diet of pasta alone doesn’t make for balanced nutrition plan.  When it comes to what you put in your body when training for an endurance event, the key to steaming straight through that brick wall is slow-release energy foods.

We’re talking, pre-race pasta and unprocessed porridge, post-workout bananas (the potassium is great for soothing achy limbs) and mid-training Glucose drinks, my saviour when I hit my brick wall 10 miles during a recent half marathon.

Choosing correct dietary choices are the key to maximizing your training, so just use your common sense, opt for the healthier version and don’t be afraid the carb it up!

Pre Workout

In an ideal world, you should eat two hours before exercising to allow for digestion.  So lean meat or fish with a portion of carbs is perfect.  But if you’re like me, time poor and trying to fit running after work then I would grab an energy bar or a banana to give me enough energy to sustain my run about an hour or so before.

During Workout

Flagging mid workout?  Solid food is not going to sit well so try a sports drink or if you’re covering a long distance, a running gel is a great boost.  As a general rule, according to Runners World two gels per hour in a long run of two hours or more should be a real pick me up.

Post Workout

The first 15 minutes after exercise is key so an energy replacement drink is ideal and within two hours, eat some whole-wheat pasta with some low-fat protein and if your workout session has been intense you may need to update your carb load for extra energy.

With 13 weeks to go eeek, if you’re looking to do a good deed today, sponsor me and the charity I am running for Children With Cancer , thank you!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=DanielleFox

Make 2013 A Beautiful Year

This year, instead of putting yourself through the ordeal of making – and promptly breaking your resolutions, opt for something that will make you feel good and look amazing!

So repeat after me, in 2013, I promise to……..

Trim my hair every six or eight weeks

The condition of your hair says a lot about you.  Keep your tresses in tip top condition and avoid unsightly spilt ends at any cost.  Book in for your next appointment while you’re at the hairdressers.

Take my make-up off every night

No excuses!  It takes just 2 minutes to remove your make-up and pollution from the day and it’s seriously worth it!  Your skin starts repairing itself from the day’s stresses from 10pm so it pays to be squeaky clean and make-up free.

Wear an SPF everyday

You’ll thank me for it in 20 years time!  Sun damage is the biggest ageing factor so if you want to remain baby faced and wrinkle free, stay clear of those harmful rays even if it’s a cloudy day.  According to The Skin Cancer Foundation anything with an SPF 30 or above is best.

Clean my Make-Up Brushes every week

You clean your face regularly so why would you use dirty make-up brushes?  If you want to keep your skin clear and spot free wash them in warm soapy water with shampoo to remove any dirt once a week.

Top up my moisture levels

Supple skin needs a moisture boost, especially in the winter. Sounds simple but moisturizing morning and night with creams tailored to your skin type can take your lacklustre skin to dewy, plump heights.

Try something new

Don’t get stuck in a rut. Whether it’s a new lip, a bolder liner or different eye shadow, updating your make-up bag can do wonders to your look and your confidence.  The New Year is the perfect time to do just that.  My New Year make-up trick? Getting to grips with S/S13’s taupe smoky eye.

De-clutter you make-up bag

You say your mascara is coming up to its 2 year birthday? Shame on you!  Make-up, like food has a shelf life.  Look for the open jar symbol with a number at the back or bottom of your products and then start binning.  Trust me, your skin will thank you for it!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Designed by Daisy Owen

Click here for a special treat from Glossip Girl 

Grown Up Glitter

Glitter; the one word that strikes the fear of god in women over the age of 16, until it seems, the Christmas party season.  All too suddenly there seems to be a deluge of super chic women who succumb to sparkle.

Don’t get me wrong, subtly done, it can look great!  Think a mascara topcoat, a flick of liner or a hint of highlighter.  However, all too frequently you see women with a make-up finish that could rival a Strictly Come Dancing finalist.

My advice?  Keep glitter it to the nail.  ‘The latest top coats are the quickest way to refresh polish, gels and to add a festive update to your outfit,’ says A list Session Nail Technician Jenni Draper.

Designed by Glen Wilkins

My favourites?

Orly Flash Glam FX Sashay My Way £10.80

Nails Inc The City Glitter Crackle Top Coat £11

Andrea Fulerton Stripe & Sparkle India £4.99

OPI Skyfall The Man With The Gold Gun Limited Edition 18k Gold Leaf Top Coat £29.98

Andrea Fulerton Stripes & Sparkle Brooke £4.99