My Most-Used Skincare Products: 2023

My Most-Used Skincare Products: 2023

In February, it'll be fourteen years since I posted my first blog on this website. Back then, in 2010, the website was called A Model Recommends and each post was a couple of hundred words long, if that. I just wrote exactly what I thought of a product in the...

Why I Don’t Want Invisalign

Why I Don’t Want Invisalign

I have to have Invisalign and to say that I'm not massively keen would be an understatement. I'm viewing it as a necessary evil and in this post I wanted to outline a few things about the whole process that I'm not too enthusiastic about. But first, some backstory: A...

My Ultimate Easy Christmas Gift: 2023

My Ultimate Easy Christmas Gift: 2023

It's the Best Christmas Gift: Books and Chocolate 2023 Edition. I write this post every year and - despite always preparing it at the start of November - it never gets published until a couple of weeks before Christmas. I sort of like it that way - it's my very own...

RUTH CRILLY

Writer, content creator, veteran model and avid tester of beauty products. I’ve been blogging since 2010, giving honest recommendations and writing unbiased reviews about everything from luxury holidays to the best budget foundations. I’m in my forties, have two children and often tell funny stories about my life. You can read more about me on the aptly-named “About Me” page.

The Best New Luxury Mascaras

The Best New Luxury Mascaras

I don't have an amazing track record with mascara-testing. Firstly, I am massively picky when it comes to what I put on my lashes, which means that I hate most mascaras and quickly become disgruntled when I have to test a whole run of them. (I like my mascaras to be...

The Skincare Products I’ll Be Buying Next Spring

The Skincare Products I’ll Be Buying Next Spring

As summer draws to a sultry, overdue end I've been taking stock of the skincare products that have really cut the mustard this year - the ones I now use so regularly they've become an automatic part of my beauty routine. When spring starts (look at me, optimistically...

How (Not) To Catch A Mole

How (Not) To Catch A Mole

There's a mole catcher who's well known around these parts of Somerset and he has the most amazing advert printed on the back of his van. I'd never managed to get a photo of it before, but the other day he happened to be in front of us and so I summoned up all of my...

Foundation Review: Pat McGrath Labs Sublime Perfection

Foundation Review: Pat McGrath Labs Sublime Perfection

I don't think I've ever had so many questions and comments about a foundation as I have about the Pat McGrath Labs Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection. I photographed myself oh-so-casually wearing it on Instagram stories and it has made background appearances in some of my...

Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020

Now That’s What I Call Summer! 2020

We're having another heatwave here in the UK - in September! Honestly, this year must be breaking some kind of hours-of-sunshine record. It feels as though we've had the longest summer in history, starting in March and running all the way through into the autumn -...

5 Beauty Favourites: August 2020

5 Beauty Favourites: August 2020

Do any of you have any huge objections if I widen the scope of my monthly favourites round-ups to include  stuff other than beauty? I feel it would inject some new and welcome joie de vivre into what is an old - yet surprisingly still very popular - format. The only...

Life Update: Hanging On

Life Update: Hanging On

Crikey. If there's anyone else out there who's been trying and failing to do the whole work-life-balance thing over the summer holidays, can they please make themselves known? That's right, hold your hands up high: I need to do a full and accurate head count here. The...

What’s In My Makeup Bag? Summer 2020

What’s In My Makeup Bag? Summer 2020

You might well point out that I'm a bit late to the party with this particular seasonal makeup update, but apparently we're in for a little heatwave next week, here in the UK. So there. I refuse to let go of summer! At any rate, why be so rigid about the seasons? I...

The Perfect Summer-to-Autumn Shadows

The Perfect Summer-to-Autumn Shadows

There's something deeply satisfying about applying a cream eyeshadow with fingertips - it must appeal to the toddler in me. The teeny pots of "paint", the relatively slapdash approach to sticking a finger in and then swiping it across the eyelid... It's makeup that...

My Current Skincare Routine: Damage Control

My Current Skincare Routine: Damage Control

My summer skincare routine is here and it's slightly juicier than usual because a couple of months ago I had to do an almost unprecedented SOS u-turn on my whole beauty routine. I know you're ready to hear about it. We all love a bit of a disaster. Actually it...

5 Beauty Favourites: July 2020

5 Beauty Favourites: July 2020

Fancy a quick blast through the beauty things that have wowed me recently? Well buckle up, team, this is going to be quite the ride! I'm exaggerating, obviously, because it's just a post about beauty favourites so there are never going to be any significant potholes...

Life Update: The Big Tick

Life Update: The Big Tick

I had to pull a whole live tick out of my child's face last week and I'll be having nightmares for months. In fact if you have a phobia of insecty things, or if the idea of minor medical procedures being performed by a non-professional makes you edgy, then it's...