The British Beauty Blog
by Jane Cunningham since 2008

[purchase] I’ve had to put the brakes on buying Hello Kitty stuff – I’ve been to Hello Kitty World (Sanrio Puroland) in Japan and my house could so easily start to look like an extra wing because I find it so inexplicably irresistible. However, I couldn’t resist a couple of items from the Essence collaboration…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] If you ask me the brand I most associate with bronzer, it’s still Guerlain, who, back in 1984, invented their Terracotta powder inspired by a trip to the heart of the desert. To be fair, that does not sound at all appealing in the way that perhaps a day on the beach in Nice…

Not strictly beauty, but it’s summer and pickings are slim but it looks like Symprove (the gut supplement that I’ve taken for a couple of years) is planning a sale. The brand went to private equity in 2020 after being invented in 2010 by farmer, Barry Smith, who originally created the supplement for his cows!…

[unpaid/affiliate] I’ve always been unsure of ‘flowy’ clothes – I like droopy but flowy is another thing altogether. It’s not the jumper than casually slips off your shoulder or the too big shirt, it’s more slippy and billowy than those things. However, I bought a pair of wide-leg, lightweight fabric trousers from Zara and I…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] I’ve long been a fan of Japanese and Korean sun protection which, a few years ago, was such revelation compared to our home-grown formulas. I guess that because the aesthetic for both countries is to keep their skin from showing any sun whatsoever plus a level of humidity that we rarely encounter, formulas have…

[unpaid/sample] This is Caroline’s 29th beauty kit and as usual, it’s a skin-focussed edit curated to give you glowy and fresh skin. Impressively, everything bar the eye-masks is full size so you’ll have literally months of use from it. Unlike a lot of beauty boxes who clearly bang in whatever they can get their hands…

[unpaid/sample] I’ve never had a matcha latte and honestly don’t understand the obsession with matcha. I only quite recently had a chai latte (loved it!) and even more adventurously (for me) had a rose latte which is seared on my brain as one of the most beautiful things I’ve even drunk in my life. But…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] This curious world of beauty reviewing means that sometimes you have to wait for a problem to occur before you can have anything meaningful to say about a product. I’ve been sitting on this sample (not literally) for months waiting for my sometimes dry and flaky scalp to act up. At last! Who’d have…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] CHANEL No 5 is my favourite fragrance – it’s the perfume Mr BBB brought me back from his holiday just after we started dating (then known as ‘going out together’) and I was so a) surprised and b) impressed that I thought I’d better keep him. L’Eau launched in 2016 but this year has…

[unpaid/sample] I love that Kure Bazaar only issues a couple of new shades per season – I like the confidence of pared back releases and rarely dislike the colours. It’s one of my favourite nail polish brands and nine times out of ten, I’ll be wearing a Kure shade. This season’s shades are Matcha Latte…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] I think I’ve tried a couple of things from Haus Labs before but now I’ve got a very comprehensive view of the collection by Lady Gaga, starting with the Haus Labs Triclone Skin Tech Foundation which is a product that I’ve seen getting raves across the internet for its twenty skin care ingredient line-up.…

[unpaid/sample/ad] Last week I went to the launch of CHANEL Jardin Imaginaire Summer 2024 – a collection created by Ammy Drammeh, Global Make Up Creative Partner whose inspiration is amplified fairy tales – jewel like flowers, colour saturation and harmonious light. It reminded me so much of the work of my favourite hyper-realism photographer and…

I thought I’d leave Friday Treat well alone this week while we all adjust to sweating through the days and instead give you some recommendations for your leisure time. I love a podcast and listen almost daily to something or other. I never listen to anything beauty related because it’s what I’m doing all day…

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] These skin care products have probably had more exposure on my site than any other because I’ve seen with my own eyes how beautifully they can calm and soothe inflamed skin. REN Evercalm Barrier Support is one of my favourite all time skin products for when I feel that my complexion needs to calm…