This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

...miraculously NOT on holiday.

It's a sad, sad week when not one of us is drinking Champagne for breakfast, living out of a suitcase or on a constant mission to find the next Instagram-worthy beach shot. Fear not though Blog Buds, I can guarantee that our passports won't be loitering in the drawer for long, our travel toes are already itching and we're very much in planning mode for our upcoming overseas jaunts - watch this space...

In the meantime, I've been making the most of being back home for a bit, enjoying summer and catching up with friends. In glass half full mode, and chanelling that well-worn saying "a change is as good as a break", I guess if you're coming back from a long trip then staying at home is effectively a holiday (just with less bikinis and more spreadsheets). Convinced? Yeah, me neither?! I have been doing my damndest to cram the last seven days with as much lovely stuff as possible though, so here's a quick round-up of all that's new and fabulous in Mouseland. This week the Mice have mostly been...

Turning a whiter shade of pale now that I've finally caught on to the pale nail trend. The London Mice who are much cooler and more fashion forward than their HK sister, blogged about Tippex talons this time last year. Twelve months on, and I'm just about playing catch up.

When it comes to nail colours, given the fact that I work in a more corporate environment than the London Mice, I tend to stick to deep reds and pretty neutrals. Post my last couple of holdays though, with hands a little more tanned than usual, I thought I'd give white nails a try... I've braved them in the office over the last few weeks, and so far no outraged comments about their inappropriateness, so I'm going to take that as tacit approval.

I started with low cost, fairly safe, white-toned beiges and pinks courtesy of Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine nail polish. I opted for Rosehip (pinky white) and Almond (beigey white) which are a bargainous £3.99 each and last on my paperthin nails for a good three or four days with minimal chippage.

And then, sold on whiting-out, I graduated to blinding white - we're talking full-on tippex-esque nails here - with Chanel's Eastern Light.

All three colours are fairly tricky to apply and pretty prone to streaking but with careful loading of the brush and three coats I tend to manage to make them look passable. If anyone else is as backward in adopting trends as I am, I'd highly recommend all three products for clean, modern, summery nails.

Having serious concerns that I'll turn into the old woman who lived in her shoes after previewing the brand new Charlotte Olympia Fall collection at the Hong Kong Landmark store last night.  

The Shanghai Express collection will hit stores in a couple of months time but is currently available for pre-order. With Ming vase inspired platforms, panda flats (the perfect Eastern take on the much-loved Kittys) and Dollys with tasselled backs, each and every pair are kitschy fabulous and I want them all! Here's a little look at the range...

I also got a sneaky peek at the 9 till 5 Collection Lookbook and have my name down for a pair of Natalie's... Well, it's wrong not to bag a pair of your namesake shoes isn't it?! If you haven't heard about this new range yet, let me fill you in... Due to drop in stores in Hong Kong in late August, the 9 till 5 collection is designed to offer shoes that can be worn all day, every day.

Charlotte Olympia fans (let's call up Olympians) will know that her platforms can reach a neck-breakingly awesome 6.5 inch height, which is fine for taxi to curb nights out, but not so great for trotting around the office. Step up the 9 till 5s which sit at a much more manageable 4 inches and come complete with a pair of matching stockings and a super-cute briefcase-inspired shoebox designed to sit professionally under your desk. Keep your eyes peeled for well-heeled girls everywhere spinning Charlotte's web in an office near you very soon...

Getting flicky with it following my acquisition of the full-sized Benefit They're Real! Push-Up Eyeliner. I blogged a couple of weeks ago about trying out the sample of this brand new Benefit liner and summed up by saying it was good but not game changing. Well, after picking up the full-sized version in duty free last week, I've sort of changed my mind. Where the sample size has a squeezy tube which makes dispensing the correct amount of product tricky, the full-sized version has a twist base which means that as long as you'e restrained in your twisting, you get a perfect amount of liner. Having a full-sized pen to hold also makes applying a precise line much easier. The result is a much finer, tighter line than I can usually achieve with a brush and a gel liner.

As I said before, once you've applied the liner, it's pretty much there until you remove it and in fact, lots of eye make-up removers aren't even up to the job of shifting this stuff. Great when you want eyeliner that goes the distance, not so great when you're trying to avoid the panda look the next day. To combat this issue, Benefit has formulated a product specifically deisgned to remove the They're Real! liner and masacara - the aptly named, They're Real! Remover... While I haven't tried it, reviews are good, but the £14.50 a tube pricetag is fairly punchy. My top tip is to use Boots No7 Beautiful Skin Eye Make-up Remover which gets rid of every last scrap of black in just a single swipe and comes in at just £8.50 (as far as I'm concerned this is a total dupe of the £21 a bottle, Lancome Bi-Facil Make-up Remover too).

And that's all for another week! I don't know about you, but...

 

This weekend I'm thinking that if a little of what you fancy does you good, then surely a LOT of what you fancy is going to make you awesome...

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

x

 

The Mice

This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

…BACK TOGETHER!

Yup, this week all three of us Mice have been hanging out at Mice Towers, London, drinking too much Hendricks and generally being very squealy and squeaky (we tend to revert to a sister language spoken at a speed and pitch that only dogs can hear and no one who isn’t a Robbo can properly understand…)

When we’re all in the same city we try to squeeze in as much fun as the week can hold and this week has been no exception. When we haven’t been sobbing in a corner over the football (less said about that, the better), this week the Mice have mostly been…

Munching our way through a seriously mind-blowing eight course menu at the Clove Club. The London Mice checked out the Clove Club a few weeks ago for cocktails and gave it a big thumbs up. I’ve read a myriad of glowing reviews about the restaurant and have been dying to try it, so this week we finally bagged ourselves a booking, spent the day eating minimally in preparation, and moseyed along to Hoxton with rumbling tummies and very high expectations.

We started the evening with a glass of Champagne in the bar where we chatted about our days and swooned over the beautiful jugs of flowers sitting on the bar next to copper coktail shakers.

We then moved through to the dining room where we were greeted by a chorus of “Hi” from the chefs and kitchen staff slaving away in the open plan kitchen. The dining room is minimally decorated with lots of white and scrubbed wood but the effect is homey and laidback rather than stark. The kitchen, a hive of activity, gives the room buzz and a dash of colour courtesy of the turquoise splashback tiles. 

The menu is fixed and comprised of a set of three small starters served together to kick things off, followed by a procession of three bigger main courses and topped-off with two desserts and petit fours. There’s an optional charcuterie plate (which we went for) and an optional main course (which we also went for) and we got a bonus main course to boot (fatty Mice). That’s an awful lot of food for three girls, but we gobbled up each and every morsel with gusto. The optional charcuterie was a dish of pale buttery Saddleback which had us oohing and ahhing and fighting over the last slither.

Each of the three starters was beautifully put together and so incredibly good that we’d have happily had full-sized portions of each. We particularly loved the buttermilk fried chicken and pine salt – three grown-up chicken nuggets served atop a bed of pine needles. And how beautiful are the sheep’s milk yoghurt and pea tarts?

Too good to eat? Nope, we inhaled them and they were ridiculously delicious. The Asparagus, black sesame and gouchuchang was also simple but sensational.

Next up an earthy Jersey Royal soup holding aloft a perfectly poached Gull’s egg sprinkled with Montgomery cheddar and a scattering of truffle. Silence descended on the table as we slurped up every last drop of this dish.

Then our bonus course of tissue-thin slices of cucumber cloaking a bed of crab. Swiftly followed by a second stellar fish dish – salmon with courgette and basil spiked with Indian spiced butter.   

We then came ashore for the meat courses. First up, 30-day, dry-aged Challans duck breast served with green-topped baked carrots and a yolk-sized cake of carrot puree, and then juicy, minty Tamworth pork chop with a salty anchovy kiss.

Staggering onto the dessert leg of the meal, we were all wowed by the Amalfi lemonade and Sarawak pepper ice-cream which fizzed and sparkled like an actual glass of the most deliciously refreshing lemonade you’ve ever drunk.

The second dessert was probably our least favourite – baked loquat kernel custard with almonds – a perfectly silky custard but with a fairly powerful flavour, we commented that it was a bit like Amaretto crème caramel.

Lastly the Petit Fours including a handwrapped Clove Club Chocolate bar with coffee and almond-biscuit ganache and what looked like three cough pastilles… We were reliably informed by our lovely waiter that these were Dr Henderson’s Bonbons – sugar shells filled with a concoction of fernet branca and crème de menthe. We were told to put a bonbon on our tongue and wait… as the sugar shell melts, the liquid centre is released giving a burst of minty freshness to end the meal (and the fernet branca apparently aids digestion meaning all that overindulgence is countered…ish!).

We all agreed that it was one of the very best and most inventive meals we’ve ever eaten and left merrily reliving it all course by course clutching another chocolate bar each to be wolfed down with a coffee the next morning at our desks while dreaming of going back for round two!

The set menu that we ate was £55 per head

The Clove Club

380 Old Street 

+44 (0)207 729 6496

Channelling our inner Audrey and trying out the latest liner promising Hepburn-esque feline flicks. 

When I’m back in London one of my key shopping pitstops is Boots. Hong Kong has a ridiculous dearth of budget beauty products so it’s dizzyingly exciting to be faced with shelves and shelves of shampoos, nail varnishes and moisturisers. On an initial case-out of what’s new and notable, I picked up a couple of Barry M Gelly nail varnishes (great colour range, nice high shine finish and good, non-chippage), some still yet to be trialled Fake Bake tanner and the latest Benefit base – the Big Easy (a sort of cross between a foundation and a BB Cream – velvety finish, great coverage - I’m loving it). While I was at the Benefit counter, I spied an advert for the soon to be released They’re RealPush-up Liner – little sister to the bestselling They’re Real Mascara. I’m a huge fan of the mascara and buy it in bulk whenever I pass through duty-free. I’ve heard whispers that latest addition to the range is phenomenal, so I was pretty happy when I got a free sample of the eyeliner when I bought my Big Easy.

They’re Real Push-up Liner is a gel formula eyeliner but rather than coming in a pot and requiring a thin brush and a steady hand to apply it, this liner is in pen-form with a flexible silicon nozzle applicator. The claim is that the liner delivers the perfect cat-eye and manages to get right into the base of your lashes. The sample tube is pretty teeny and while the full-size version has a twist-base dispenser, the trial-size requires you to squeeze the tube to dispense the product instead. I think this may mean that I squeezed out too much product, as I found the blob of liner on the applicator far too much and ended up having to use the back of my hand as a palette… The liner goes on smoothly and the angled tip of the pen is great for good flick action. Staying-power is incredible, my liner lasted all day throughout hot commutes, a full day in the office and a night out. In fact, despite some serious scrubbing that evening, I still had my cat-eye when I woke up the next morning…

Overall verdict, the new liner’s good and I will definitely try the full-sized version when its out (on 27th June) but it’s not as make-up game-changing for me as the mascara.

Listening to Lana on a loop checking out the brand new album from LDR, Ultraviolence. But, despite the loop listening, we’re not convinced.

Maybe we were expecting too much, maybe we just need to give it a little more time to grow on us, but it just hasn’t grabbed us like 'Born to Die'.

When 'West Coast' was released we were seriously excited for the new album to drop, but having given it a few listens, it’s really just that track and a couple of others that grab us while the rest of the album seems to merge into a bit of a breathy, dreamy blur. We don’t hate it, we’re just not sure that we love it. The reviews have been pretty good generally and it’s apparently charting very well so maybe it’s just us…

And that’s it for another week blog buds! We’re off for a weekend of sistertime (which is a bit like hammertime but less hammery, more gin-fuelled and much, much more awesome…). Wherever you are, whatever you’re up to...

Lots of love

The Mice
x

3BM Eyebrow Essentials...

We like big brows and we cannot lie...

Which you probably know by now if you stop by the blog from time to time. We've written pretty extensively about our quest for Cara D-esque bushy brows. Some overzealous tweezer action as teenagers has left all three of us a little brow-lite which we're seriously regretting as we pore over shot after shot of Cara's bounteous brows. Luckily we girls have an artillery of make-up available to us to help us fake eyebrow perfection and over the last couple of years we've steadily worked our way through that artillery, slowly but surely sorting the wheat from the chaff. Because we believe that everyone should have the chance to get as near as possible to Delevingne brow Nirvana, here's our round-up of the very best in brow enhancement...

Shu Uemura Slant Tweezers

£20.00

Let's start at the very beginning (what a very good place to start)... While tweezing may be the source of all our brow woe, we still acknowledge that a good pair of tweezers are essential for reaching eyebrow Utopia. While big is undoubtedly beautiful, no one wants a Gallagher unibrow or out of control wild beast brows. 

These Shu Uemura tweezers are the ultimate weapon in stray destruction. Easy to grip with a slanted tip that allows pro-like precision, they may be a little pricey but we've had ours for a decade and they're still going strong. Good brows grow from a good base so while we never tweeze above our arches, we make sure that we neaten up below our brows every few weeks in a brightly lit bathroom so that we have a sound foundation to start our make-up routine...

MAC Eye Brow Pencil in Lingering
£13.00

Our first stop in the eyebrow quest was unsurprisingly finding the perfect eyebrow pencil. We've trialled everything from pharmacy basics to high end luxe; we've consulted friends, magazines and make-up artists; and after months and months of trying and testing, we're delighted to announce a winner... MAC's retractable eye brow pencils. Our shade of choice is lingering but there's a myriad of colours to suit every colouring. The slim tip allows precision and there's no sharpening necessary, a mere twist of the base reveals a fresh new block of pencil. Unlike other pencils we've tried, this lasts all day (and night) through rain, 90% humidity and even dips in the sea. If we had to collate a dessert island make-up bag, this baby would be in our top five essentials.

MAC 204 Lash Brush
£9.00


Our third brow saviour is another tool - the lash brush (and yet another MAC life saver). This is your route to your best brows ever at every step of the way. Use it pre-pluck to style your brows in the right direction, use it pre-pencil to bush your brows up and out and finally, use to post-pencil to blend and fix your crowning glories in place. Top tip: if you're browing on a budget, you can do the exact same job with an old mascara brush.  

Benefit Cosmetics Gimme Brow

£17.50

Lat but not least, if you're serious about your brows, you need to know about this hot off the press volumising gel. We snapped this bad boy up on our Sephora sweep in New York earlier this year, and boy are we glad that we did - this is a total game changer. Gimme Brow is a tinted gel that contains hair-like fibres which means that with just a couple of swipes you get the thickest, lushest most beautiful brows. Cara D eat your heart out!

Eye Make-Up Essentials

If eyes are the windows to the soul, we say make damn sure that they're well dressed.

And in that respect, how lucky are we, as girls, that bigger, more beautiful eyes are just a smudge of liner and a swipe of mascara away? As much as we wholeheartedly support the no make-up selfie and everything that it stands for, we generally don't even pop to the shops without a little eye definition (or at the very least a pair of dark glasses to cover our lack of mascaraed lashes).

So, what are our secret weapons for prettier peepers? Given our collective hardcore addictions to anything and everything beauty-related, it's fair to say we've worked our way through a veritable cosmetics' hall of products... So, here are our current make-up bag fixtures which we've neatly divided by our top three eye looks...

The Smoky Eye

An absolute classic, the smoky eye is our night-out stalwart. We've trialled liners, shadows and mascaras galore and boiled it down to three must-have smoky essentials.

Benefit Cosmetics They're Real Mascara
£19.50

On our list of dessert island beauty must-haves, mascara ranks pretty highly. So let's just say we take our mascaras very seriously. Benefit's cheekily titled 'They're Real', has had our mascara crown for well over a year now (and coming from three fickle beauty hounds that's quite an honour). The rubber brush gets each and every lash (including those tricky inner corner ones) and a couple of coats genuinely gives you falsie-esque length and volume that lasts all day.

MAC Mineralize Eye Shadow in Gilt by Association
£17.00

These eyeshadows are a bit of an obsession, we have not one, not two but three (aside from this gold/black Gilt by Association, we also have the green/back Smutty Green and the purple/black Young Punk). Applied lightly they're actually great for daytime, but layered up or applied with a damp brush they give an intense metallic eye which blends and smokes to sultry perfection. 

Charlotte Tilbury Rock 'N' Kohl in Bedroom Black
£19.00


We blogged about our Charlotte Tilbury make-up haul back in December and we can confirm that our love for all things Tilbury has only intensified since then! These Rock 'N' Kohl liners are absolute God sends. They go on smoothly, set to budge-proof within 30 seconds of application and stay looking flawless until you finally decide to take them off. We're head over heels and can't rave about them enough.  

The Beach Goddess Eye
As spring yawns and stretches and threatens to wake-up summer at any second, we're getting in some early practice and refining our sunny, shimmery warm weather beauty looks. Here's our edit of the only four products you'll need   to pack in your beach bag this summer.

Bourjois Contour Clubbing Waterproof Eyeliner in Golden Dress
£4.99

This was an airport impulse purchase a few months ago but has now risen to summer essential status. Bourjois' pretty bronzy gold liner looks fab with a tan and particularly great with blue eyes - perfect for drawing around the lash line. Bonus points for being splash and sweat-proof.

Nars Cream Eyeshadow in Savage
£18.00

Cream eyeshadows are your best friend as the temperature rises and this one's the absolute star of our make-up bags. Nars' cream shadows tend to crease if you use them alone but add a base (if you need suggestions on that front, we have you covered with this post) and you've got the recipe for long lasting, shimmery lids that'll take you through from sunrise to long past sunset.

D.J.V. Beautenizer Fiberwig Mascara
£18.00

Fiberwig is extra-long lash extensions in a tube. You need a few layers to get maximum length but this is pretty life-changing stuff! Our only complaint would be that used alone, it can leave lashes looking a little spidery and sparse so for maximum flutterage we like to layer it over another mascara (it's great over They're Real). 

Bobbi Brown Chocolate Shimmer Ink
£17.50

Bobbi Brown's gel liners are total 3BM essentials. We all have several pots of this wonder liner knocking around in our make-up bags. They're long-lasting, deliver a kick-ass cat's eye and come in a myriad of colours. Chocolate shimmer ink is a rick brown shot through with subtle gold glimmer - the perfect partner to a gilded lid.

The Bombshell Eye

Who doesn't aspire to be a bombshell of the Bardot variety? The sort of girl who looks beyond bewitching in an 'Oh, I just woke up like this' way. While we're working on that, here are three helping hands to give you at least a gleam of the Bardot glam.

Maybelline Volum' Express Magnum Superfilm
£5.99


We snapped this bad boy up on a mad dash to the chemists after forgetting to pack our make-up bag one morning. We weren't expecting much but wow, is this proof that you don't have to spend big bucks to get some serious bang. This little yellow tube delivers glossy, full black lashes with no flaking or smudging. An excellent stand-in for other much more expensive brands (we may still prefer our They're Real, but this ranks higher than other more expensive similar products - MAC False Lashes and Dior Show spring to mind).

Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Palette in Dolce Vita
£38.00

Yet more Charlotte Tilbury love! The Dolce Vita palette is sheer perfection. The warm browns and bronzes make blue eyes pop and the texture of the shadows is buttery and super-blendable. Keep it light for a louche, low-key look or add intensity and sparkle with the delicious glittery chocolate shade.

Charlotte Tilbury Rock 'N' Kohl in Barbarella Brown
£19.00


The more laid-back little sister to Bedroom Black, Rock 'N' Kohl in Barbarella Brown is your perfect everyday liner. For amping up the smoulder, smudge into lashes and draw into the upper and lower waterlines.
  

3BM Beauty: Eye Primers Tried & Tested

It's official I hate my short, stumpy eyelashes! For a good eight months I religiously paid for individual extension to be put on every 4 weeks, but in a bid to save myself from future bald eyelids I decided to give my lashes a break.

I have since conscientiously applied MyLash every evening after hearing glowing reports of how it simply changes your lash life and there is no need for falsies! However with your lash cycle being 16 weeks it is one I MUST be patient with! So far so good...but I will follow up fully with a before and after photo piece!

In the meantime whilst I am patiently growing my lashes like a good little gardener, I get to wear eyeliner again without feeling guilty. With extensions you shouldn't really get them wet so slathering them in makeup remover and wearing lots of eye makeup means your lash lifespan is dramatically reduced! So for the majority of the last year I've had to go a bit more natural with the eye make-up which wasn't an issue when I had long fluttery lashes. However, now that I'm short and stumpy once again, I'm free to go to town!

With that in mind I'm a bit of an eyeliner fiend - I love a precise line framing the eye with a little tick giving the eye a feline slant. However I hate nothing more than an eyelid imprint or an eyeliner that doesn't last the distance, cracking throughout the day.

Through plenty of trial and error, I've come to learn that the key to perfect eye make-up is the perfect primer. I've tried all different liners thinking that's the issue - from budget beauty Rimmel to higher end Bobbi Brown with the end result being that they all print regardless of how good or expensive they are if you don't have the right base.

So I went on my quest to find the best eye primer to prevent that awful  'I did my make up in the dark look'. 

Laura Mercier, £20.50

Both of the other mice herald this as the king of eye primers, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's best to apply this with your tinted moisturiser or foundation and then go and make a coffee / pick the day's outfit as this one needs a few minutes to dry before continuing with your make up routine.

However, the little extra fuss at the start of the day is more than worth it, by cocktail time this beauty had my make-up still firmly in place and looking pretty fresh - a little pricier but worth the price tag (plus the girls tell me a tube lasts forever!)

Rimmel Exaggerate Eye Primer - a snip at £5.99 

Claims to be 18 hour crease and smudge proof...however I found this one a bit hit and miss, if I wear with eyeliner alone, then 12 hours after applying it's still intact, my eyelids look a little shiny but it's not bad. If I use with eyeshadow and liner, there is creasing at the end of the day and the start of a black blur above my eye lid from the liner. Nothing major and definitely better than going au naturel but it isn't hardcore enough for my needs!

Benefit Stay Don't Stray, £20.50

When I tried this one I was convinced it would be a winner - I'm a massive fan of the brand and their You Rebel tinted moisturiser (although it's now discontinued so I've had to move over to the Hello Flawless  moisturiser which I still love!), POREfessional powder and Bad Gal mascara are make-up bag staples. However, by the time I got to the end of a manic day and finally looked in a mirror, my eyeshadow was majorly creased and my liner had rubbed off in places. I was a little disappointed, but I suppose Benefit can't win them all can they?! 

Urban Decay Primer Potion, $24

I liked the way this one goes on completely transparent - a great base and dries almost instantly as it has a mattifying consistency. This one also contains anti ageing ingredients with a guarantee of 24 hours crease free make up plus minimised wrinkles in 8 weeks!

By the end of a long day in the office my make-up hadn't shifted a jot - my eyeliner was as good as new and my eyeshadow was still very much in tact.

Clear winner on all fronts with the added bonus of anti ageing ingredients giving it those extra brownie points!

Here's hoping with a magic potion up my sleeve I can now achieve the perfect long lasting liner everyday...!