>>>beauty banter: YOUR BACK TO WORK BEAUTY INDUCTION

Dear all - For many the idle days of a sweetly sweltering, seemingly endless summer break are slowly drawing a melancholy close. If you too have to bid farewell to the beach, batch or boat then try out the below beauty steps to have yourself a happy Monday.

>>> ****IT'S TIME TO SHINE****

Pop, Fizz, Chink! It is time to celebrate. Weather it has been a good year, bad year or a great year it’s a time to reflect and congratulate yourself that you made it through.

If you plan on bidding adieu to 2014 on a high note, do it in style with your favourite sparkly frock, the highest of high heels and put your best face forward. Inspired by matching everything to the drink de jour (and nuit), shimmering and fizzing Champagne, I’ll be accenting everything from nails to eye lids to cheeks bones with a fun and frivolous flash of glitter. MAC Reflects glitter patted (with some MAC Pro Eye Liner Mixing Medium) swiped across eyes makes peepers party-ready. Over a flawless matte makeup base, highlight powder in the highest sheen (think Ambient Lighting powder byHourglass or classic Soft & Gentle Mineralize Powder by MAC) buffed over cheek bones to temple will ensure your look lights up the room at every turn. With a more matte base and breaking away from matte lips loved throughout the year I’ll be going high gloss on lips with a Revlon Colorburst Lacquer Balm. Don’t forget dip your tips in something outrageously festive – which means more glitter of course! Try a Sally Hansen Colour Frenzy nail lacquer or one of the many sparkly gems from OPI. After frocking up spritz something bubbly and bold on like Versace Bright Crystal or J’Adore by Christian Dior so you can exit the year in scent-sational style. Cheers to you and yours and a Happy New Year!

>>>beauty banter: BEST BEAUTY THINGS OF 2014

LE GLOSSIER has been a little quiet on the beauty front of late, luckily however 2014 most certainly has not. It has been a bright and beautiful year of new brand launches, greater availability, and new gems of gorgeousness, beauty babes have been spoilt smitten with fun new beauty things. Here I round up some personal (but by no means all) highlights of the last twelve months.

>>>the foundation files: YSL PERFECT TOUCH RADIANT BRUSH FOUNDATION

The search for the perfect (aka “holy grail”) foundation that offers complexion perfection is one that many image invested (we could also use the term vanity), beauty lovers undertake with great joy and enthusiasm.
If the base is ace then everything else is just embellishment to enhance and extend facial beauty. A beautiful base is one that radiates health, happiness and vitality, or at least alludes to it, and gives you supreme confidence to face the world with your best face forward. 

>>>candy crush: SPRING TIME, SWEET HAPPINESS

They say that pink makes the boys wink, though I am sure that any shade of rosé is guaranteed to set any girly-girls heart a flutter. To celebrate the southern hemispheres most optimistic and hopeful day in the calendar (in my opinion anyway), the first of Spring, I have compiled my pick of the crop of sweet pink spring beauty treats.

>>>beauty banter: THE ULTIMATE REGIME FOR ULTRA GREAT SKIN AND WHY SQUALANE IS AMAZING

To state the very obvious, all beauty products are made of ingredients. Some of us aren't phased by what's inside the jar and others, fairly enough, like their lotions and potions all lovely and natural and plant based thank-you very much. Personally, I am most motivated by the results a product yields than anything else, however I do like a blend of natural and pharmaceutical ingredients to achieve these results with appreciation that the power of nature can be driven to deliver by science.

>>>beauty banter: HOW TO STOP UNDER-EYE SMUDGE

For the French it is considered insouciantly chic and subtly sexy but accidental bedroom eyes (i.e. – black smudges underneath your eyes)  can be really make or break your satisfaction with your daily face. The good news is, is that there is a very quick and simple solution to smudgy eye soot.