This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

Good news! We've made it through our first whole working week of 2015! So let's start by wishing you a very, very...

Despite the fact that it's a sparkly, fresh brand new year, there does seem to have be an awful lot of doom and gloom from everyone everywhere this week. Forlorn-looking Christmas trees sit by dustbins under gloomy grey skies set to a deafening soundtrack of moaning. Moaning about being broke, moaning about dry January already becoming a struggle, moaning about being back in the office, moaning about New Year health kicks, moaning about credit card bills and yes, even moaning about all the moaning. 

Luckily, us Mice have decided that 2015 is the year for positive thinking and seeing the amazing in everything. So, rather than whinging about the less than brilliant bits of January, we thought we'd bring you a dazzling canter through all the glittery highlights of the seven days just gone. This week the Mice have mostly been...

Painting our talons happy with a few coats of bright red Rouge Louboutin nail colour. If you have to spend eight hours a day watching your nails skitter across a keyboard, they may as well make you feel amazing every time that you catch sight of them... And if having your nails painted exactly the same shade of red as the soles of your Louboutins doesn't make you happy then the jaw-droppingly awesome bottle that the nail varnish comes in certainly should. 

Inspired by the 8-inch heeled Christian Louboutin Ballerina Ultimas, the cap of the bottle is a spike/ perfectly weighted brush modelled on a calligraphy pen. 

Joy in a bottle doesn't come cheap at a whopping £36 but we've not only been blown away by the aesthetics of Rouge Louboutin, our usually chip-tastic nails have so far managed a whole week of red glossiness without a chipped edge in sight.

Getting Organised and scribbling all our exciting New Year plans in our box-fresh diaries and brand spanking new calendars. 

We bagged our Smythson 2015 diaries back in November (I opted for this particularly delish berry baby). We were also lucky enough to snaffle a Jasmine Dowling Calendar before they all sold out. But, if you missed out and are on the look out for something to help you remember all the most important 2015 dates, fear notwe've rounded up the best of the rest of the 2015 calendars (and some of them are even already reduced)...

Heidi Nicole Design 2015 A5 Calendar
£16

Les Fleurs Floral Calendar
£21.95 reduced to £15.36

Rob Ryan Lasercut Desk Calendar
£5

Mini Dachshund 2015 Calendar
£12.95 reduced to £9.07

Garance Dore 2015 Beaute Desk Calendar
US$16

Colour Moon 2015 Printable Calendar

£6.79

Snuggling up on the sofa armed with a big mug of tea and a whole stack of great books. Father Christmas must also be a sneaky bookworm because he managed to deliver pretty much every book we've had on our geeky lust list this year. 

We're gradually working our way through them all so watch this space for our verdict once we've devoured each and every one.

And that's that for another week, let's kick it off with a little New Year, new you sage advice...

Happy, happy weekend!

x

The Mice

This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

Folks - summer has FINALLY arrived here in London. We've pretty much had a full week of beautiful weather - blue skies, birds singing and flip flops all round! We're keeping everything crossed that it continues into the weekend when we plan do oh-so-much of this...

In other news HK mouse is away on yet ANOTHER holiday with her boyfriend, Jasper - this time Cambodia for 10 days. Lucky ducky! Watch her Instagram for almost guaranteed daily updates... 

Mini and myself have been powering on as always until Thursday evening struck and I was bought down with a bout of viral laryngitis - boo hoo for me! So i've been resting up and feeling rather sorry for myself - OI i'm allowed, i'm ill!

Bar the above, this week the mice have mostly been...

Spoiling our skin with the new Verbena Collection. Fresh, lemony with a hint of cucumber, cooling and quite simply divine - L'Occitaine couldn't have timed this launch better with the recent scorching weather. 

My favourite has to be the limited edition fragrance (RRP £42, 100ml) - i've used half of the bottle already - it's seriously summer bottled! It's actually rather addictive, mini keeps telling me off for being wasteful as I spray it too often! She's just jealous!

The shower gel (RRP £14, 250ml) is also super spoiling, a real treat after a busy day at work or to freshen you up before a summer's evening out with friends. We also tried the body mist (RRP £12, 50ml) and the ice gel for legs and feet (RRP £20, 50ml) - a big thumbs up all round - we now just need to slow down on how often we're using them to make them last the summer!

Going gaga over Christian Louboutin's signature red nail varnish! Need I go on??? Well, I will regardless! Most of you will by now understand my great obsession with shoes and in particular Louboutin's and that raunchy red sole.

The red hot polish matches the brand's iconic sole to the t and what's more... have you seen the beautiful bottle design? The varnish lid is inspired by the highest stiletto the brand sells, measuring 20.5cm. And apparently, nail varnish is where it all started 20 years when CL was busy designing. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of his assistant's red nail varnish ... so, like you do, he started painting the soles with the colour as an experiment. One hell of an experiment we'd say! 

The range is said to be made up of 30 different hues of which are set to be released in September at £36 a pop. We likey!  

Witnessing a baby boom! Last Saturday, I celebrated my gorgeous friend Gemma's 30th birthday. I arrived at her house for an afternoon of BBQ food and champagne and was greeted by more babies than adults! I hadn't until this moment actually realised how many of my friends were doing the baby thing - i'm clearly not there yet! Here's a snap of me and Raffy (Gem's sweet little boy)...

Anyway this baby boom realisation got me thinking and I just had to share the following with you. Homemade House Illustrations, set up by my old school pal Erin, offers the cutest personalised baby announcement cards for mums and dads. 

So often you receive the same birthday, moving home and well done cards because naturally we all flock to the best designs in the likes of Paperchase or John Lewis. The thing I love about Erin's designs is that they're so different and clever. The baby's building blocks spell out the new bundle's name, the calendar displays the date he/she was born, a clock for the time and scales for the baby's weight. Lovely. Order in batches of 25, 50 and 100...

Well that's it for ANOTHER week! Have a great sunny (finger's crossed) weekend all. 

XOXO until Monday 

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

3BM Beauty: Savvy Shellac...

The London mice have returned and it's officially the worst case of holiday blues we've had in a long time! 

Gone are the days lounging at the yacht club sipping Piper with a permanent back drop of something like this...





And now we're back to this...

The only way to bypass this hideous bump back to reality is to drinks lots of Hendricks and cram as many fun plans in as humanly possible - that's around the jet lag and excruciating work hours of course!

Without bringing back too many sunny memories which will only heighten my darkening depression, I need to let you all in on a beauty revelation we discovered before jetting off!

Preparing for a holiday can be expensive - not only the holiday itself but new bikinis, sun cream, aftersun...and that's not even including hair, waxing and nail appointments for the ultimate prep! 

There is nothing nicer than shiny, chip free bright nails on holiday, however last year I was a victim of constantly melted vanish from the sunshine and vowed to Shellac before flying in future!

With limited cash flow (we were saving for all those rum coconut cocktails we devoured) and little time to waste in a salon, there was only one thing for it...purchase an at home Shellac kit of course! That way we could do them ourselves in the comfort of our own home in PJ's with a glass of wine...perfect!

We opted for the NK1 Starter Kit which comes with the option of 4, 6, 8 or 10 colours. Prices start at £99.95 for the 4 colour set, a bargain when an average Shellac mani pedi comes in at around £50 with a further charge for removal. 

The NK1 kits provide you with everything you need and clear instructions, making the whole process very simple and easy to follow. However if you have any issues Andrea who works at NK1 will gladly assist, she was lots of help when I was putting our order through!

You pick colours from the online guide when you place your order - there are tonnes to choose from but  after much deliberation we opted for: Decadence (a deep red), Fedora (Black), Cream Puff (White for Tipex style nails!), Linette (Coral Red), JuJu Berry (Rich Pink), Violetta (Pretty Lilac pictured below) and Lydia (Neon Pink) and can assure you, we love them all! 

Having done my mani pedi once before holiday and once after, I can safely say I wouldn't ever go back to a salon again. It's so easy to do, once you get the hang of it - really quick and really does last the two weeks promised!

The initial cost may seem hefty at £100, however we would have parted with this by both going to a salon pre-holiday AND the bonus with NK1 sets are that we now have everything we need to do them at our own convenience and for no additional cost...beauty savvy or what?!

Right, now onto the how to details...a few tips to help you achieve the perfect nails....

Firstly make sure your nails are totally clean and there are no traces of varnish, lotion or oil on them as otherwise the varnish won't take.

And secondly, take the time to prep your nails as it's totally worth it for a perfect mani/pedi. Ensure you push your cuticles back, file and buff your nails. A flat, clean nail is what you need to ensure the varnish takes and lasts the 2 weeks as promised!

Other than that it's as straight forward as varnish and set, varnish and set...you get the picture!

A few quick pictures of each step...

Shape, file and buff out any ridges before wiping the nail with the Prep and Shine solution on a lint free pad which is provided... (Wipe each nail twice to ensure they're fully clean and hydrated). 

Apply the base coat and ensure you leave a small gap around the bottom and sides so the varnish doesn't touch the skin or it can't bond and seal properly to the nail. As you paint start from the middle, push down to the base and up to the top finishing by wiping the brush across the tip to enable the seal. 

Set the layer under the UV lamp with the 2 minute timer...

Apply the first coat of colour using the same method as above and set for 2 minutes under the UV lamp. Apply 2-3 layers dependant on the colour density desired! Heating and setting under the lamp after each layer. 

Finally apply the top coat using the same method as before and set for another 2 minutes under the UV lamp.

Put a few drops of prep and shine on a lint free pad (do not use cotton wool as this will leave fibres in your varnish) and wipe each nail. This removes the sticky residue on each nail and leaves you with the amazing shine! 

All done, easy peasyyyyy... and our finished results.... 

3BM's Summer Beauty Buys...

The sun has got his hat on in London this week so I've decided to take full advantage of this fact and plan for a rip roaring summer ahead. Wishful thinking? Maybe... but you've got to have something to keep you going right?! So in the spirit of positive thinking I've pulled together a checklist of the must-have items that will keep you looking sunkissed, healthy and fabulously flawless through the coming summer months... 

• A rich body oil 
• A hard-wearing mascara 
• A nude eyeliner for bigger & brighter eyes
• A bronzing dream cream
• A long-wearing nail varnish 

Now before I get onto my top pick of products mapped to my checklist above, I want to make clear that once you've made your summer essentials list, you must stick by it and commit to it. The boss in me is emerging - beware! The key to perseverance when it comes to upkeep is simple - buy products you love - that way you won't see your beauty regime as a chore but instead a daily delight! Some inspirational shots of spruced up summer beauties who by the looks of things whole-heartedly swear by their little black book of summer prep products... 

Hopefully that little hall of fame has inspired you and not left you reaching for the duvet and chocolate ready from summer hibernation! 

Onto my handpicked items, each of which I consider the best summer prep products out there...

A rich body oil...

Dr Hauschka's Birch Arnica Body Oil - £18.25
Your skin needs moisture and I don't believe there is a product out there that can beat this baby! First up, it smells divine; second, it sinks into your skin quickly; and lastly, it leaves your skin feeling seriously soft, fully nourished and ready for the day ahead. It also activates the skin's metabolism and increases blood circulation so not only does it make you feel amazing but it's good for you too - why thank you Dr Hauschka, you are really spoiling us! 

A hard-wearing mascara...

Chantecaille's Faux Cils Mascara - £35
I personally think that the key to a fresh summer look is a cracking mascara. When you've got a natural tan or even if your glow comes courtesy of a bottle (check out our 3BM Tan Trials post if you need a little help selecting a good fake tan), mascara is pretty much all you need to complete your look. It's therefore worth investing in a hard-wearing product that's going to do the job properly. This Chantecaille beauty does just that. I always struggle to get my lashes to curl up to attention, even with eyelash curlers. The Faux Cils feels silky smooth on but also lengthens and coats each lash evenly so you don't get that dreaded clumpy the clown look - well worth the extra dosh in my opinion.

A nude eyeliner for bigger & brighter eyes...

Benefit's Eye Bright - £15
For winter I like a charcoal grey inner eyeliner but for summer it's skin colour liner all the way. Simply apply to inner and outer corners of the eye and PING your eyes will appear bigger and brighter than ever - longer lasting than a coffee fix that's for sure! Go easy on it mind, you want to keep it subtle not TOWIE-tastic!

A bronzing dream cream...

Dr Hauschka's Translucent Bronze Concentrate - £27.45

The last thing you want to mess around with when it's hot outside is applying layer upon layer of make-up to achieve the ultimate sunkissed look. Instead opt for Dr Hauschka's (yes i'm obsessed with the brand) secret weapon which will give you a healthy golden bronze hue in seconds. Just a couple of pumps mixed in with your daily moisturiser is all you need to give your skin a lightweight even finish. Top tip is to apply and make a cuppa whilst it sets and fully dries then swirl a dash of Nars Laguna bronzer over your forehead, temples and cheeks and you're good to go!

 

 

A long-wearing nail varnish...

Mavala Nail Polish - £4.50
Naked or even worse chipped and peeling nails don't make for sexy summer sandal feet. We want bright, glossy nails to make us bright and glossy people! The brand that does it for me when it comes to nail varnish is Mavala - the colour range is never ending, it's so afordable you can have a bottle of every colour, the varnish is thick and glossy and it's practically unchippable! 

Summer beauty sorted, now all we need is for the sun to stick around...