Valentine's Day Gift Suggestions: Luxury Beauty, Fragrance & Jewellery Options For Your Loved One!

This guide was meant to be my part 3 in my Luxury Christmas Gift Guide, but alas my scheduling failed and Christmas came and went, so I have adapted it for Valentine’s Day as I thought it a shame to go to waste! Obviously with it being luxury products, I’m not suggesting that you go out and purchase the most expensive gifts for somebody you’ve only just met… unless you’re rolling in the readies and can afford it, in which case go for it! ;-)

Searching for the perfect Valentine’s gift for your loved one can invariably lead to stress, headache, and panic (especially for the unprepared, last minute Larrys)… not to mention extremely painful feet and potential for mild assault from other keen, or spatially unaware shoppers if you’re braving the shops, rather than shopping online. Personally, I try to stick to buying online as much as I can in life, so as to avoid the physically painful part, at least.

Now I know there’s probably loads of Valentine’s guides floating around, but I firmly believe that you can never have too much inspiration if you’re truly stumped for things to buy – especially if you have to buy for somebody who may seemingly have everything, or somebody who appears to want nothing; and so I’ve compiled a couple of guides for you covering a whole host of fabulous looking ‘stuff and things’ in the hope that I can maybe inspire you on the perfect gift to buy for your Valentine.

This guide focuses on luxurious beauty products, fragrancing and sparkly shit (jewellery)… my favourite! It was always going to be seriously difficult to keep the amount of ‘stuff and things’ that I want… errrr I mean that would be lovely for you to purchase for your loved one to so few items – especially because I’m such a magpie who likes lots of things, and so I must add a serious disclaimer that this is by no means a frank, full and complete list of things that I desire. ;-)

So without further ado, here’s a whole heap of fabulousness that I’d personally love to own/receive. I could probably just call all my guides ‘Claire’s Wish Lists’ if I’m honest.

1. Charlotte Tilbury The Glamour Muse and 2. The Rebel Look Gift Boxes £165 each – These complete ‘get the look’ sets are right up my street. I love that you can select a ‘look’ that appeals to your general style, specific outfit, occasion, mood or even knickers (if you so wish) and then be beautifully presented with all the products needed to recreate it. I would probably weep a little with utter joy if any of these were presented to me, at any point, let alone on Valentine’s Day. 

3. Tom Ford Bronzer Brush, £80 – I probably wouldn’t even be able to bring myself to tarnish those perfect white bristles enough to make full use of this with actual, coloured bronzer, and would probably be more likely to be found swiping it across my skin, cooing about how soft it feels instead. Still, it’s a fabulous looking brush and I’m guessing applies bronzer like a dream, for those who are bold enough to use it for the purpose it was made for.

4. Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet in L’Exhubérante, £26 and/or 5. Chanel Le Vernis Nail Lacquer in Pink Tonic 619, £18 – I always think it’s worth spending money where it makes a difference with makeup, and I think lipstick is one of the areas where you get better wear from higher end brands (mostly), and this gorgeous pink- hued Chanel lipstick is no exception. Plus, if you were to team it with with this perfect pink polish, not only would it look great, but it would totally have the wow factor for the recipient, in my opinion.

6. Dior 5 Couleurs Limited Edition Eyeshadow Palette in Golden Shock, £42 – I love pretty much all of the Dior eyeshadow palettes, they always have gorgeous sparkly colours that appeal to my inner (and outer) magpie, but aren’t too in your face shade wise, so are totally wearable at any time of year. This one suits Valentine's Day due to its plummy hues, and is pretty universally wearable due to the muted tones.

7. Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir Cologne 100ml, £82 – This is a heady, but fruity scent which I think suits Valentine’s Day perfectly. If I received this tomorrow, I would be over the moon! Then again, I’d be over the moon just receiving a card this year, probably. ;-)

8. Chanel Coco Mademoiselle, £95.50 – I have had so many compliments when wearing this perfume, literally people stopping me in my tracks and asking what I’m wearing!! I adore it, and I find it to be a fragrance suitable for pretty much any age… plus it’ll look great on the dressing table to boot. ;-)

9. Links of London Effervescence Pearl Necklace £695, currently reduced to £347 – I couldn’t not include this necklace in the guide due to my incredible inability to ignore any innuendo (or inyourendo as my friends and I call it) that presents itself to me. I mean who wouldn’t want the gift of a pearl necklace this Valentine's? Especially a fizzy one; better get that looked at, mate. ;-)

10. Tresor Paris Metric Bangle £197 – This is such an unusual piece due to its shape, which is what caught my eye… after the sparkle of course!! I’m obviously partial to the bling, and this appears to satisfy that criteria. Love it.

Due to yet another scheduling fail (come on, Blogger) I've had to adjust this guide, meaning it's somewhat shorter as I've removed products that are seemingly only available online... and edited links to purchase where you can also visit the shop, as it's now too late to have items posted in time for tomorrow.

Whatever you're doing for Valentine's day, I hope you have a great day. If, like me you're a singleton then do what I'm doing, get yourself out with friends and give Valentine's Day two fingers... until such a day where you're not single, in which case I love you Valentine's Day. :-P x

This post originated at www.thebeautyscoop.co.uk

Harrods Facebook 'Makeover' Competition!

The beauty team at Harrods have created eight fabulous 'key' autumn/winter looks for 2011, using eight of 'the most adored cosmetics collections' including some of my favourite brands such as Chanel, Tom Ford and Burberry.

They're celebrating this by giving away a makeover for one lucky person, and up to five of their friends! To enter you need to visit their Facebook page and 'Like' it. This will give you access to the competition where you can then browse the looks and choose your favourite look (for you and your friends) to enter the competition!

If you win, you will get an in-store makeover for you and your friends... and go home with ALL the products featured in your chosen look!

Competition ends at midnight, on Monday 12th September and the winner will be announced the next day on their Facebook page. Full terms and conditions are available on their Facebook page!

I love a bit of luxury and I bet you all do too, so when I saw this in an email, I just had to let you all know!

Will you be entering? x

Accessorize Lipstick - Shade 7, Velvet Pink!

I got this Accessorize lipstick a little while ago, just before I regained my love of lipsticks and I didn’t really take a huge amount of notice of it until just before I went on holiday, where it actually had a decent amount of outings! Please excuse my silly lips, I still don't know what to do with them/myself when taking these photographs - ha!

The finish is kind of satin-y/frosty which catches the light but doesn’t look overly glossy, and the colour is lovely; it’s kind of a very slightly coral-y pink and depending on how the light catches it, I find it can lean either more towards pink, or coral... both of which look great in my view! It smells of coconut to me, a bit like sun cream to be honest – but not in a bad way, I quite liked it.

 Pinky Coral

 Coral-y Pink

Pink!

It’s not very moisturising and can look a bit, well crap on dry lips but I do still like it on the days where my lips are in better condition. Wear time is actually better than I expected, but not as good as my more expensive lipsticks (my Tom Ford one especially) although saying that, when it does wear off, it seems to do it fairly evenly which is always a bonus!

Pigmentation is fine, it’s not heavily pigmented but you don’t have to layer it on to see the colour either. The photo below shows just a very light sweep of it over my lips whilst I was on holiday (hence the even wonkier lips than usual as I wasn’t expecting it would be used on the blog) which I liked equally as much as the full colour – great for wearing with a heavier eye, which is what I was doing here!!

The lipstick is only £5, and for this price I think it’s actually quite a bargain and would happily buy another if I saw a colour that took my fancy!

Available from Superdrug and Accessorize websites and in store too!