Newness, Updates and Opinions

Ok first up: Double Cleanse will hit all other Pixi retailers this week, including Cult Beauty and Look Fantastic. It landed on ASOS today. Whoohooo! The two products that make up Pestle & Mortar's Erase and Renew Cleansing Set will soon be available individually and in 100ml sizes. Whoohoo again for cleansing on the double! Available here at the mo: www.pestleandmortar.com/erase-renew The White Company have released a line of skincare developed by Brandon from Deciem.

Personally I don’t know what he was thinking (surely he has enough going on?) but my cynical head thinks that The White Company saw ££ signs and decided to cash in. Don’t get me wrong. I love a lot of The White Company’s products. They do the best square pillowcases, a banging selection of candles and rock a nice line of grey woollen garments. I shop there a lot. And while the new products seem perfectly nice enough, what sent me over the edge is the descriptions page on their website.
They say it’s ‘advanced-skincare’ (it’s not) and ‘There’s really nothing like it today’ (there is).
If I was The White Company, I’d have taken the opportunity to make some gorgeous dressing-table-big-fat-pots of really luxurious body creams in really heavy-duty-substantial-glass packaging that would have fitted more with their branding. Alas no.

If you want to buy your skincare where you buy your towels and pillowcases, crack on. If you have zero skin concerns you’ll be fine. I’ll be walking past the skincare shelf to hit up the aforementioned candles and bedding.
The White Company/Skincare

Beauty Pie is another brand I am asked about a lot. I love Marcia Kilgore. I really really do. She’s a massive industry icon and is the brilliant name behind Bliss, Soap & Glory, FitFlop and Soaper Duper. She’s a genius. I saw her talk at a conference years ago and came away completely inspired.
However; I can’t see this working. I sincerely 100% hope it does and wish her nothing but a flying success, but I have a number of qualms. Firstly, I read an interview with Marcia where she said she was ‘liberating’ women from high-end cosmetics. Unfortunately you have to feel trapped to want to be liberated, and I don’t know a woman that doesn’t enjoy the supremely satisfying clunk-click of a beautifully packaged lipstick a la Armani, Tom Ford, Chanel or Dior. It’s not jail, it’s heaven.
Secondly, I think given the choice, a lot of women would plump for one Dior over three or even four Beauty Pie lipsticks. They’re not the same thing. They may say the formula is the same, I disagree, but the packaging is flimsy and insubstantial, and if you want women to buy into makeup, you will need to provide a feel-good factor. So thirdly, if your feel-good factor is that you’re saving them money, then you’re playing in the ‘mass’ category, and your competition is Rimmel, Bourjois, L’Oreal et al, and they’ve been at it for years and have a ton of resources behind them. So while I absolutely hope it is a success, and continue to applaud her from the sidelines, I’ll be watching this one hoping to be proved wrong.
www.beautypie.com

And finally, a few words on my reticence towards blogging of late. I had some comments across my social media channels recently from women who were not happy that I had the audacity to call out Violet Grey, Biologique Recherche etc for poor service/customer experience. Words such as ‘disappointed’ and phrases such as ‘you should be ashamed’ were used. Apparently as Violet Grey was run by a woman my support of her should be unquestioning, and Biologique Recherche were completely misunderstood and I got it all wrong. I also (allegedly) have a problem with Into the Gloss because I reviewed their products in a less than ‘they are the second coming of Jesus’ light. For the record I bloody love ITG.

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