Cosmetics & Beauty News June 2010

Bianca's Beauty Blog giveaway!
www.goodyhair.co.uk has kindly agreed to team up with my little website to give away a box of hair goodies to one of you lovely lot. We have three-step routines for our skin and nails, but not for our hair - until now. If you win, you'll receive one of their Start hairbrushes, one of their Style brushes, and one of their Finish brushes, which offer different tools for everything from detangling to adding shine. Along with that, you'll also receive some pretty hairclips that are perfect for summer. To win, please email soprano[UNDERSCORE]seraph[AT]hotmail[DOT]com with your name, address, and your reason for wanting to fix up your hair for the summer. The deadline for entries is 10am French time on July 10th, with the winner being announced the same day. Good luck :)

Beauty with a conscience
Over time, beauty companies have got more of a conscience, thinking more about the effects of their actions and behaviour on the world around us as well as on our own bodies. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be something that's on the wane: Palmer's (of cocoa butter fame) will be supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month throughout October 2010, reintroducing the pink bottle of cocoa butter to this effect. Their Massage Lotion for Stretch Marks will also be available in a pink bottle for the first time, with 25p from the sale of each of the two bottles going to Breast Cancer Care. Simple is also running the race for life by supporting Macmillan Cancer Support - by going to www.simple.co.uk, you can choose from any of their three packs by selecting the one most appropriate to your skin type. From your £10, a hefty £2 will go directly to charity. There's never been a better excuse to get spending.

Get ready for the launch
Lots of new beauty launches coming soon, so let's start at the top end of retail. Harvey Nichols is now home to Functionalab, which produces science-based beauty supplements such as liquid energy tonics and skin supplements, promoting beauty from the perspective of health. While several of the supplements retail at a wallet-busting £85, there are still plenty of affordable options, such as their £16 Zen, Energy and Beauty Tonics, and their £25 Hair, Skin and Nails Supplement.

Naturally Upper Canada is also coming soon to most major department stores, gift stores, and garden centres. After 40 years of success in the Americas, Asia, and of course Canada itself, it's finally coming here, and with nine unique products, each available in four divine-sounding fragrances (sweet vanilla fig, pressed olive avocado, cranberry moro orange, and warm honey nectar), it's surely set to be a hit in the UK too. It's 97% natural, super-affordable (with prices starting at only £2.50), has a range for babies, and includes everything from lip butter and nappy cream to salt scrubs and massage oils. What's not to like?!

Finally, also coming to the UK is the slightly strangely-named Snap-On-Smile. From the same company that brought us the Lumineers (which I think I may have mentioned before), the Snap-on-Smile is made of very thin but extremely specialised resin that resists staining and can be fitted onto your teeth in only 40 minutes' worth of dentist visits. Non-invasive (no drills or injections, yay!) and affordable, it should offer hope to many...although as the name suggests, they are snap-on only (read: you can't wear them all the time) and in no way pose a real challenge to more permanent solutions. Blast.

Here comes the sun
It's certainly been quite the scorcher lately, so it's important to take care of yourself. Among the many usual suncare brands vying for your attention in pharmacies and supermarkets, many established not-specifically-suncare brands and new ones alike are launching ways to protect yourself in the sun. Korres, for example, is bringing out SPF30 watermelon suncream for your face, as well as sweet orange cream for your face and body in a spray format (SPF25). Yoghurt cooling gel is also on their list to keep you fresh - and not burnt - this summer. Perhaps a bit further down the price ladder is Simple, with their SPF50 lotion for adults, £8 for 150ml, and their SPF30 spray for kids (£8 for 200ml). Cult French brand Melvita, which is now available in the UK, is also bringing out its ProSUN range this summer, which is unsurprisingly all organic and brings you tanning preparation milk, SPF30 suncream, tanning oil, and aftersun, from £16. Finally, there is Apicare, whose 4-in-1 care I trialled before. They are releasing a Manuka honey lip balm which has protection of SPF15. Containing honey, beeswax, and oils of almond, tea tree and sesame, and priced at £5, it's great not just for summer but all year round too.

A whisper on the wind...
The perfume market's gone pretty quiet as summer approaches, but there is one new release at least: Acqua di Gioia by Giorgio Armani. If you have an especially obsessive nose, the iPhone AppStore has also just launched iPerfumer, an app from Givaudan that promises to offer tailored advice on how to choose perfume. You can use it to create a profile, view or shortlist favourites, and have the app make recommendations for you based on what you've already looked at. I'll also soon be publishing a version of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style over at Nieuwe stijloefeningen in a way that's designed to centre wholly on perfumery and olfactory senses (I'll be their first contributor to be writing in English). Watch this space for both!

Tech-tastic
So since we're speaking of apps, it seems like a good time to mention L'Oréal's new one. It offers a store locator and makeup tutorial videos, and uses hair and eye colour to make product recommendations, as well as an interactive barcode scanner which allows you to get tips and advice relating to a specific product while in store. It's free and everything :)
On the weirder side of things, a new website has launched to help you to get the lowdown on all your hair removal needs: the Ministry of Waxing uses digital orangutans as virtual guides to help you around the site, which introduces you to the Ministry's 27 salons in 9 countries and tells you all you need to know about hair removal. So go forth and let the orangutans tell you how to go from muff to buff. Yeppity yep.

Scrub up for summer
Arbonne is hot on the heels of its new cosmetics range with a new strawberry cleansing range - just in time for Wimbledon, too. The body cleanser (£19.50 for nearly 300ml) is packed with good stuff - not just strawberries but also lemon, rose, shea butter, wheat, oat, and vitamins A & E to help keep skin soft. Their two-in-one cleanser/toners (£18.50 each for 118ml; purifying for oily skin and hydrating for normal/dry) are equally innovative and luscious, containing strawberries, witch hazel, mallow, watercress, ivy and rosemary for the oily-skinned, and strawberries, rose, lemon, jojoba oil, shea butter, safflower oil, and vitamins A, C and E.

You can also carry on getting ready for the summer festivals with Johnson's Baby Skincare Wipes - perfect for staying fresh-faced even in the muddiest of conditions, they are espoused by celebrities such as Fearne Cotton and Victoria Beckham. At £2.69 for 64 wipes, they're a bargain too.
Win stuff!
With school and university holidays already starting, and people dreaming of, booking, and jetting off on trips away, most of us are already near-apopleptic with all the lovely excitement. But there's more! Yes, really! As well as entering my giveaway at the top of this entry, you can also have a stab at bidding on a Smashbox makeup set that contains £300 worth of stuff and is signed by Hollywood stars such as Amy Ryan, Gilles Marini and Sherri Shepherd. With proceeds benefiting the Hollywood Arts charity, bidding starts on July 8th and ends on July 10th here. You can also win tickets to see Breakfast at Tiffany's on the big screen on the 6th July by clicking here. Plus, as a bonus, you'll be entered into a prize draw to win the ultimate girls' night in - think hair and beauty products galore!