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
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
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...
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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...